# The Dream Pedlar > writing Indian-inspired fantasy fiction steeped in mysticism and mythology Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### Contact URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/contact/ Last updated: 2023-06-17T23:32:01.000Z > *I'm no longer on social media but you can always email me! I'd love to hear from you. I read and reply to every message I receive.* > *Write to me at* > *anitha @ thedreampedlar dot com* > *or* > *thedreampedlar @ gmail dot com* ![Six numbered mailboxes of different colours set atop a wooden stand](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/05/mathyas-kurmann-fb7yNPbT0l8-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Mathyas Kurmann](https://unsplash.com/@mathyaskurmann?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/fb7yNPbT0l8?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ### Books URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books/ Last updated: 2026-07-17T22:21:04.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/Feature_dollar-gill-0V7_N62zZcU-unsplash.jpg) ## **Books to lose yourself in* **Speculative fiction & poetry* ![Dying Wishes Book Cover](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/2.-Dying-Wishes.jpg) ### **Dying Wishes** When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life. *A contemporary fantasy novel inspired by South Indian folklore* *Finalist for 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Speculative Fiction Category* [✨ Buy Directly From The Author](https://payhip.com/b/powBr) *or* [✨ Buy At Your Favourite Bookstore](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes) > *I loved this book - it is luxuriously written, with fantastic imagination and originality that gives us a chance to get to know and think of Hindu gods in a different way. The book is a dreamy, heartfelt and emotional odyssey. *\~ Customer review on Amazon** > *A modern, corporatized version of the business of death is both blended and contrasted charmingly with South Indian folk tales to set the scene for Ananya/Infinity, our flawed and loveable main character, to go on a journey toward peace and self discovery. *\~ Customer review on Amazon** > *"A wonderful, unusual contemporary fantasy steeped in Hindu mythology" *\~* *Reader review on BookBub** #### Learn more about **Dying Wishes* **Finalist for 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Speculative Fiction Category* ****When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life.** For thirteen years now, I have served as a Harbinger of Death, coaxing dying wishes out of mortals so that the God of Death may grant them **moksha*, liberation from the cycles of birth and death. The man about to die this evening claims he has nothing to offer me. He is dying a content man, a rarity in our world. But when the God of Death arrives to lead his soul away, the man changes his mind about dying and flees, planting on me something that is not quite a dying wish. I only know I cannot trust any God with this secret. And that I'll pay an unbearable price for this concealment. **Set in Burlington, Ontario, this contemporary fantasy novel weaves Hindu mythology and South Indian folklore into a quest for belonging across different worlds – the World of Mortals and the World of Gods, India and Canada, the past and the present, the world outside and the one within.* **It is an offering to lovers of whimsical worlds and heartbreaking prose, and to anyone yearning to simply belong.* ✨ Read my [interview](https://www.kobo.com/kobo-writing-life/blog/rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize-2023-kwl-author-spotlight-on-anitha-krishnan) with Kobo on the nomination! --- ![Erased From Existence Book Cover](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/4.-Erased-from-Existence.png) ### **Erased From Existence** Sometimes oblivion may be the only safe place. After all, to be seen is to be exposed. And some truths are better left hidden. *A paranormal mystery novel brimming with family secrets and sibling rivalry* [✨ Buy Now](https://books2read.com/erased-from-existence) #### Learn more about **Erased From Existence* ****A lavender farm in summer. A fifteen-year-old girl who loves the colours of sunset. A handsome stranger who begs her to run away with him.** ****It could have been a love story. Except, it is not that kind of a story.** When a strange man approaches Rebecca Classion outside her farmhouse in the dead of the night and begs her to not go back inside, she does what any sensible fifteen-year-old would do. She runs straight back into the safety of home and slams the door shut behind her. Only, it turns out to be the worst decision of her life. From that day on, Rebecca Classion fades away. From the memories of all who once knew and loved her. From the perception of everyone she encounters. Not a trace of her persists for more than a fleeting instant. Not her voice. Not a footprint. All she yearns for is to exist again in the world of her loved ones. But oblivion may be the only safe place. After all, to be seen is to be exposed. And some truths are better left hidden. --- ![The Land Of No Reflection Book Cover](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/7.-The-Land-of-No-Reflection.jpg) ### **The Land Of No Reflection** You don’t need eyes, let alone a mirror, to peer into the depths of your own soul. *A gritty fantasy tale inspired by the famous line, "Mirror, Mirror on the wall..."* [✨ Buy Now](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection) #### Learn more about **The Land Of No Reflection* ****You don’t need eyes, let alone a mirror, to peer into the depths of your own soul.** Sight is a privilege denied to everyone by law in the land of Parinara. Every child is blindfolded at birth. Even the dead are buried blindfolded. To see is an unpardonable crime, punishable by death. Yet, fifteen-year-old Viola indulges in a momentary curiosity and violates the law, only to find that the gift of sight comes at an exorbitant price. To look outward, she must first lose sight of what lies inward. But therein lie the secrets that even sightlessness cannot conceal. --- ![In Search Of Leo Book Cover](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/1.-In-Search-Of-Leo.jpg) ### **In Search Of Leo** When you lose someone you love, how far would you go in search of them? And what if the only way you can find them is by first losing yourself along the way? *An exploration of loss and grief through the lens of fantasy fiction* [✨ Buy Now](https://books2read.com/in-search-of-leo/) > *"... if you’re on a journey (like so many of us are) within yourself, and if you want to indulge in a simple story with beauty and soul revelations peeking through every chapter, if you crave vivid and colourful descriptions of the inner and outer world and narratives that make you want to re-read every second sentence because of the sheer exquisite language and thought process that went into writing it, and if you want to just soak in some genuinely good, artful and masterful writing, read this book. It’s delightful." *\~ Customer review on Amazon** #### Learn more about **In Search Of Leo* ****When you lose someone you love, how far would you go in search of them?** ****And what if the only way you can find them is by first losing yourself along the way?** Devastated by grief at the loss of her beloved dog, Leo, Heidi ventures into the woods behind her home, hoping to find him there. She meets strange and eccentric characters along the way, but no one seems inclined to give her a straight answer about Leo’s whereabouts. Frustrated and confused, Heidi begins to wonder if there is more to these characters than meets the eye. The Oldest Witch who lives in a snow bubble of denial. The Omniscient Man who trivializes Heidi’s pain. The lonely woman, Gaia, who is consumed by anger. And many others. As Heidi struggles to make sense of their cryptic responses, she must also navigate her own emotions and face up to the distinct possibility she has been refusing to consider all along. Perhaps Leo is truly gone forever and she may never find him. Drifting from one dreamlike encounter to another, Heidi discovers that the journey through grief, from loss towards acceptance, is a meandering. It unfolds of its own accord, often seemingly without purpose or reason. But can she survive it without first getting hopelessly lost? ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/DreamPedlar_Header_SignUp-1.jpg) ## **Short Stories* ![Tales For Dreamers: Volume 1 Book Cover](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/10.-Tales-for-Dreamers_Vol-1-2.jpg) ### **Tales For Dreamers: Volume 1** A captivating collection of 100 flash fiction tales where the mundane morphs into the magical, the everyday shape-shifts into the exceptional, and the inconceivable becomes the inevitable. [✨ Buy Now](https://books2read.com/tales-for-dreamers-volume-1) #### Learn more about **Tales For Dreamers: Volume 1* ****Welcome to The Dream Pedlar's emporium of delightful dreams and wondrous whimsies, of impossible illusions and fleeting fantasies!** Behold a captivating collection of 100 flash fiction tales where the mundane morphs into the magical, the everyday shape-shifts into the exceptional, and the inconceivable becomes the inevitable. Where witches promise to reveal the secret of happiness and wise old men whisper wisdom and warnings in your ears. Where you summon an angel and the devil appears instead. Where billboards flash messages from the afterlife and Gods mess with the desires of your heart. Where woodland creatures host tea parties and pirates are on a recruitment spree. Where trees lead a secret rebellion and reindeer go on strike. Where the months of the year debate over how many days each of them truly deserves. **Perfect for lovers of fantasy and whimsy, for seekers of the paranormal and the uncanny, this collection of fantasy fiction stories invites you to a hundred different sojourns in wee worlds of whimsy and wonder.* **Even the briefest of wanderings into these tiny tales of speculative fiction will leave the most lasting of impressions, the kind that lingers for a lifetime.* ****Because the magic you seek has also been yearning to reveal itself to you.** --- ![A Benevolent Goddess Book Cover](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/5.-A-Benevolent-Goddess.jpg) ### **A Benevolent Goddess** Countless gods you pray to. Only one answers. It will cost her dearly. *A folklore fantasy tale about a goddess and her dilemma* [✨ Buy Now](https://books2read.com/a-benevolent-goddess/) > *This is such a unique take on a goddess! I loved how the goddess came to be where humans lived, the life she had before and the choice that led her here. Though she may be all-knowing with magic, I imagined her as a young woman who is facing the realities of having left home... I enjoyed this tale and would read it again. \~ *Book Blogger review on Goodreads** #### Learn more about **A Benevolent Goddess* ****Countless gods you pray to. Only one answers. It will cost her dearly.** In a land where gods have long mastered the art of ignoring the prayers of human beings, a new goddess arrives. She desires nothing more than to help those who call out in faith. But every choice, no matter how noble, comes with its own consequences. Even the benevolent goddess will have to pay a steep price if she chooses to follow her heart’s desire. --- ![The Mind Meddler Book Cover](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/6.-The-Mind-Meddler.jpg) ### **The Mind Meddler** All it takes to seal your fate is a single thought. The Mind Meddler will sneak it into your mind when you aren’t looking. *An urban fantasy short story awarded Honourable Mention in Writers Of The Future Contest (Jan-Mar 2022)* [✨ Buy Now](https://books2read.com/themindmeddler/) #### Learn more about **The Mind Meddler* ****All it takes to seal your fate is a single thought. The Mind Meddler will sneak it into your mind when you aren’t looking.** True to his name, the Mind Meddler messes with people’s minds. He plants a single innocuous thought in his victim’s mind, then steps back and watches as it slowly ensnares and destroys them. The ghost-girl has the gift of pure sight. She sees nothing but the truth. The objective, unadulterated truth. Without judgement or deliberation. Thoughts do not trouble her. The Mind Meddler has never met anybody like the ghost-girl in his entire existence. Her uncanny ability is a challenge he cannot resist … **This speculative fiction tale by Anitha Krishnan secured an Honourable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest for the 2nd Quarter (January—March) 2022.* --- ![Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute With God Book Cover](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/8.-Mrs.-D-Souza-s-Dispute-with-God.jpg) ### **Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute With God** How do you seek someone when you don’t even know what they look like? *A contemporary fantasy short story on death* [✨ Buy Now](https://books2read.com/Mrs-DSouzas-Dispute-With-God) > *"A charming tale that offers answers and then poses questions as to what you believe and why. It was a delight to read. Not too long not too short. Perfect." *\~ Reader review on Goodreads and Amazon** #### Learn more about **Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute With God* Two things were annoying Mrs. D’Souza. One, the fact that she was dead. And second, the line of dead folks waiting to meet their Maker was insufferably long and impossibly docile. Restless and teeming with questions, she decides to take matters in her own hands and sets out to find God. Not a big deal, really. Except for one small thing. How do you seek someone when you don’t even know what they look like? --- ![Your Mother's Nightmares Book Cover](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/9.-Your-Mother-s-Nightmares.png) ### **Your Mother's Nightmares: Six Troubling Tales** The worst is not what happens. The worst is what every mother fears *could* happen. *Six deeply unsettling speculative fiction tales on motherhood* [✨ Buy Now](https://books2read.com/your-mothers-nightmares) #### Learn more about **Your Mother's Nightmares: Six Troubling Tales* ****The worst is not what happens.** ****The worst is what every mother fears could happen.** Imagination collides with maternal fear in this bold collection of troubling, twisted tales from a fiction writer who isn’t afraid to plumb the often terrifying emotional depths of the motherhood experience. A party across the street lures a trusting three-year-old into an adventure, but thrusts his mother into a nightmare. A mirror offers the gift of more time, something every parent longs for, but what will it take in return? A mother erases her seven-year-old’s painful memories to leave him with the impression of a perfect childhood. Only, it leads to imperfect consequences. Teeming with the unthinkable, this collection of six never-before-seen short stories tugs at every mother’s helpless heartstrings, coaxes out her deepest and darkest fears for her children, and presents them in the guise of fantasy fiction so that her nightmares won’t come true. The following stories are included in the collection, and each is available for sale independently too: [**The Party across the Street*](https://books2read.com/the-party-across-the-street) [**A Suitable Colour for a Ghost*](https://books2read.com/a-suitable-colour-for-a-ghost) [**Memory Games*](https://books2read.com/memory-games)**\** [**The Goldilocks Zone*](https://books2read.com/the-goldilocks-zone) [**Hide-and-Seek*](https://books2read.com/hide-and-seek-a-short-story)**\*\** [**The Gift of Time*](https://books2read.com/the-gift-of-time) **\*Memory Games secured an Honourable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, July—September 2023 quarter.* **\*\*Hide-and-Seek secured an Honourable Mention in the Spring/Summer 2021 issue of Allegory Magazine, Volume 39/66.* ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/DreamPedlar_Header_SignUp-2.jpg) ## **Poetry* ![Hello, Dreamer! Poems & Dreams Book Cover](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/3.-Hello--Dreamer-.jpg) ### **Hello, Dreamer! Poems & Dreams** Dreams for one, dreams for all, some dreams to last all day, some for when the night falls. *An eclectic collection of 100 short poems* [✨ Buy Now](https://books2read.com/HelloDreamer) #### Learn more about **Hello, Dreamer! Poems & Dreams* **Dreams for one, dreams for all,* **some dreams to last all day,* **some for when the night falls.* Written during my sojourns in Canada and Australia, **Hello, Dreamer!* is an eclectic collection of 100 short poems encompassing musings on the Universe and its mysteries, nature and human life, my secret longings and fears, love and heartbreak, the sun and the moon, the stars and the seas, light and shadow, and joy and nostalgia. Read them all in one sitting. Or read them one a day, savouring each like a tidbit. There's much in here to spark joy and light up your soul. --- ### Welcome to Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/welcome-to-monthly-missives/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T18:38:55.000Z Everything you need to know about your subscription to Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar _This post is for subscribers only._ ### fiction: hide-and-seek URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-hide-and-seek/ Last updated: 2024-11-04T12:05:08.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### fiction: reimagining URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-reimagining/ Last updated: 2022-07-31T16:40:27.000Z Bonus Chapter 7 of A Benevolent Goddess _This post is for subscribers only._ ### fiction: Sara's ruminations URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-saras-ruminations/ Last updated: 2025-02-22T21:28:48.000Z Bonus Scene from 'Erased from Existence' _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Welcome to Tales for Dreamers! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/welcome-to-tales-for-dreamers/ Last updated: 2024-02-22T14:16:07.000Z Everything you need to know about your paid subscription to Tales for Dreamers _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### fiction: the dance of the mad man URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-the-dance-of-the-mad-man/ Last updated: 2023-01-17T17:02:45.000Z Bonus chapter from 'In Search of Leo' _This post is for subscribers only._ ### bonus scenes from published works URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/bonus-scenes-from-published-works/ Last updated: 2026-07-18T01:38:53.000Z Thank you for signing up to my newsletter, *Monthly Missives from the Dream Pedlar*! And a big welcome to you! If you came here after reading one of my books, here is where you will find scenes and chapters that appeared in the original manuscript but didn't make it to the final published copy, or pieces that were written later so you could delve a little more into the lives of the characters you've spent an entire book-journey with. > \* \* \* *Bonus Scene from* [*Erased from Existence*](https://books2read.com/erased-from-existence) [fiction: Sara’s ruminationsBonus Scene from ‘Erased from Existence’![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/Untitled-design.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-saras-ruminations/) > \* \* \* *Bonus Scene from* [*A Benevolent Goddess*](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess) [fiction: reimaginingBonus Chapter 7 of A Benevolent Goddess![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/Untitled-design.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-reimagining/) > \* \* \* *Bonus Scene from* [*In Search of Leo*](https://books2read.com/In-search-of-leo/) [fiction: the dance of the mad manBonus chapter from ‘In Search of Leo’![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/ISOL_Facebook_Cover_Photo.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-the-dance-of-the-mad-man/) > \* \* \* Bonus Short Story from [*The Folly Of Memory*](https://books2read.com/the-folly-of-memory)*, Book One of The Separation Of Souls Saga* [A Passage For Departing SoulsA Bonus Short Story in The Separation Of Souls Saga![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-bd3fb6a7-cea3-4134-8bc8-f2a2bafb2005.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/Book-Cover-1-1ccbbf16-810e-405a-bdab-08877abe86e9.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-passage-for-departing-souls/) > \* \* \* ### Monthly Missives URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter/ Last updated: 2026-07-18T23:22:16.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/5.-Monthly-Missives_debby-hudson-DR31squbFoA-unsplash-2.jpg) ## **Life, Unadulterated* **Delightful musings on writing, reading and living the creative life* I frequently write about the books I read and the role they play in shaping my life as a writer, reader, and mother. Sign up to become a member — it's free! — if you'd like to share your thoughts via comments on these posts. > When you sign up, you get two free short stories, written by me, in ebook format, for your reading pleasure! *A Benevolent Goddess*, and *Hide-And-Seek*! [Sign up to become a member!](#/portal/signup/free) I used to send a newsletter, *Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar*, on the last Sunday of every month, with heartfelt updates on my writing life, book recommendations, short fiction and/or poems, and occasional surprises! I have temporarily paused it since June 2026 in response to this wonderful life and its demands. If/When I resume it, you'll be the first to know! If you're curious, past newsletters can be found [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/monthly-missives/)! > # ### About URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/about/ Last updated: 2025-07-22T16:40:44.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/1.-About-Me_johannes-plenio-DKix6Un55mw-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Johannes Plenio](https://unsplash.com/@jplenio?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/black-sailing-boat-digital-wallpaper-DKix6Un55mw?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Hello, Dreamer! Welcome to The Dream Pedlar's emporium of delightful dreams and wondrous whimsies, of impossible illusions and fleeting fantasies! I'm very pleased your meanderings led you here. I'm Anitha Krishnan, a speculative fiction author and an award-winning poet. I write contemporary, new adult fantasy with a dash of mysticism and soul-searching. Deities and dreams, loss and longing, grief and gallantry, hiraeth and heartbreak, all make frequent appearances in my stories and poems. My contemporary fantasy novel, [*Dying Wishes*](https://thedreampedlar.com/dying-wishes/), was a finalist for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in the Speculative Fiction category! Woohoo! I have lived in and left pieces of my heart in many places across the world including Singapore, Australia, Canada, and most of all in my birthplace, India. I presently live in Burlington, Ontario with my husband (who goes by KrA on this site) and our much cherished child, D, who is growing up at a reckless pace. My days are filled with juggling writing and parenting. I've spent years wondering if balance and contentment were something I dared to desire in my life, so consistently elusive they had proven to be. In fact, for the first three and a half decades of my life, I bumbled along with little clue as to what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be and believing happiness lay in being someone else and somewhere else, doing something else. Then D came along and gave me the burning desire to be the kind of person who is true to herself and sets out to achieve the dreams she dares to dream. And so it happened that after decades of nursing a desire to write for a living and not once believing I could, I wrote and published my first book during the first eighteen months of D's life. Since then I have published many books and have written several other works that are on their way to publication. You can find all my published works [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/books/). --- ***About Monthly Missives*** If you'd like to stay in touch, you can subscribe to my free monthly newsletter, [*Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar*](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter/), which I send on the last Sunday of every month, with heartfelt updates on my writing life, book recommendations, short fiction and/or poems, and occasional surprises! Subscription is free — you can also choose a paid subscription to support my work — and you will be the first to know whenever new and surprising delights turn up in my emporium. [Sign up for Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar!](#/portal/signup) --- In addition to writing books, I explore writing and storytelling in different formats. ***Tales For Dreamers*** Every Friday morning (at 9 AM Eastern Time), I post a new and original short fantasy tale on the website. I've been writing these [*Tales for Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/) for more than a decade now and there's a collection of more than 150 such tales on the website, all of which you can start to read right away! ***Tales For Dreamers (in story-song format)*** Every Friday evening (at 8 PM Eastern Time), I publish one of my Tales For Dreamers stories mixed with music to create an immersive story-song over on my [*YouTube*](https://www.youtube.com/@thedreampedlar) channel! All these spaces are meant to serve as realms of calmness, curiosity and deep contemplation. Quiet pauses in the midst of the busy*ness* of life. --- Thank you for visiting. Now that you are here, I hope you will stay. Stay for a while. Or stay for a little longer. Long enough to lose yourself in a dream. \~ Anitha Krishnan Burlington, Ontario July 2025 ### Tales for Dreamers URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/ Last updated: 2026-07-18T23:21:49.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/09/4.-Welcome-to-Tales-for-Dreamers_johannes-plenio-MkT00LsYxyg-unsplash.jpg) ## **Tales For Dreamers* **An image + A story = A wee world of whimsy and wonder* Many years ago when I began my foray into the world of fiction, I started by writing flash fiction inspired by images of seemingly ordinary-looking places or scenes. It so happens that magic lurks safely in the places where we don't think to look for it. The stories themselves are short, 10 lines or so. Enough to drum up a delightful dream. Or weave a wondrous whimsy. Imagine an impossible illusion. Or a fleeting fantasy. The occasional nightmare too. Mostly fiction. Sometimes real. But you’ll never be able to tell the difference. All in good fun! There's a collection of more than 150 such [*Tales For Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) on the website, all of which you can start to read right away! I've also published some of these *Tales For Dreamers* stories mixed with music to create immersive story-songs over on my [*YouTube*](https://www.youtube.com/@thedreampedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com) channel! All these spaces are meant to serve as realms of calmness, curiosity and deep contemplation. Quiet pauses in the midst of the busy*ness* of life. > # ### Data & Privacy URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/privacy/ Last updated: 2023-11-04T22:56:08.000Z # Privacy Policy Last updated: November 04, 2023 This Privacy Policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of Your information when You use the Service and tells You about Your privacy rights and how the law protects You. We use Your Personal data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, You agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy has been created with the help of the [Privacy Policy Generator](https://www.privacypolicies.com/privacy-policy-generator/). ## Interpretation and Definitions ### Interpretation The words of which the initial letter is capitalized have meanings defined under the following conditions. The following definitions shall have the same meaning regardless of whether they appear in singular or in plural. ### Definitions For the purposes of this Privacy Policy: - **Account** means a unique account created for You to access our Service or parts of our Service. - **Affiliate** means an entity that controls, is controlled by or is under common control with a party, where "control" means ownership of 50% or more of the shares, equity interest or other securities entitled to vote for election of directors or other managing authority. - **Company** (referred to as either "the Company", "We", "Us" or "Our" in this Agreement) refers to The Dream Pedlar. - **Cookies** are small files that are placed on Your computer, mobile device or any other device by a website, containing the details of Your browsing history on that website among its many uses. - **Country** refers to: Ontario, Canada - **Device** means any device that can access the Service such as a computer, a cellphone or a digital tablet. - **Personal Data** is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual. - **Service** refers to the Website. - **Service Provider** means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Company. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by the Company to facilitate the Service, to provide the Service on behalf of the Company, to perform services related to the Service or to assist the Company in analyzing how the Service is used. - **Usage Data** refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit). - **Website** refers to The Dream Pedlar, accessible from [https://thedreampedlar.com](https://thedreampedlar.com/) - **You** means the individual accessing or using the Service, or the company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable. ## Collecting and Using Your Personal Data ### Types of Data Collected #### Personal Data While using Our Service, We may ask You to provide Us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify You. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to: - Email address - First name and last name - Usage Data #### Usage Data Usage Data is collected automatically when using the Service. Usage Data may include information such as Your Device's Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that You visit, the time and date of Your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data. When You access the Service by or through a mobile device, We may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device You use, Your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of Your mobile device, Your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser You use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data. We may also collect information that Your browser sends whenever You visit our Service or when You access the Service by or through a mobile device. #### Tracking Technologies and Cookies We use Cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on Our Service and store certain information. Tracking technologies used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze Our Service. The technologies We use may include: - **Cookies or Browser Cookies.** A cookie is a small file placed on Your Device. You can instruct Your browser to refuse all Cookies or to indicate when a Cookie is being sent. However, if You do not accept Cookies, You may not be able to use some parts of our Service. 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We use both Session and Persistent Cookies for the purposes set out below: - **Necessary / Essential Cookies** Type: Session Cookies; Administered by: Us; Purpose: These Cookies are essential to provide You with services available through the Website and to enable You to use some of its features. They help to authenticate users and prevent fraudulent use of user accounts. Without these Cookies, the services that You have asked for cannot be provided, and We only use these Cookies to provide You with those services. - **Cookies Policy / Notice Acceptance Cookies** Type: Persistent Cookies; Administered by: Us; Purpose: These Cookies identify if users have accepted the use of cookies on the Website. - **Functionality Cookies** Type: Persistent Cookies; Administered by: Us; Purpose: These Cookies allow us to remember choices You make when You use the Website, such as remembering your login details or language preference. The purpose of these Cookies is to provide You with a more personal experience and to avoid You having to re-enter your preferences every time You use the Website. For more information about the cookies we use and your choices regarding cookies, please visit our Cookies Policy or the Cookies section of our Privacy Policy. ### Use of Your Personal Data The Company may use Personal Data for the following purposes: - **To provide and maintain our Service**, including to monitor the usage of our Service. - **To manage Your Account:** to manage Your registration as a user of the Service. The Personal Data You provide can give You access to different functionalities of the Service that are available to You as a registered user. - **For the performance of a contract:** the development, compliance and undertaking of the purchase contract for the products, items or services You have purchased or of any other contract with Us through the Service. - **To contact You:** To contact You by email, telephone calls, SMS, or other equivalent forms of electronic communication, such as a mobile application's push notifications regarding updates or informative communications related to the functionalities, products or contracted services, including the security updates, when necessary or reasonable for their implementation. - **To provide You** with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless You have opted not to receive such information. - **To manage Your requests:** To attend and manage Your requests to Us. - **For business transfers:** We may use Your information to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Data held by Us about our Service users is among the assets transferred. - **For other purposes**: We may use Your information for other purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Service, products, services, marketing and your experience. We may share Your personal information in the following situations: - **With Service Providers:** We may share Your personal information with Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, to contact You. - **For business transfers:** We may share or transfer Your personal information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of Company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of Our business to another company. - **With Affiliates:** We may share Your information with Our affiliates, in which case we will require those affiliates to honor this Privacy Policy. Affiliates include Our parent company and any other subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that We control or that are under common control with Us. - **With business partners:** We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotions. - **With other users:** when You share personal information or otherwise interact in the public areas with other users, such information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly distributed outside. - **With Your consent**: We may disclose Your personal information for any other purpose with Your consent. ### Retention of Your Personal Data The Company will retain Your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use Your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies. The Company will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of Our Service, or We are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods. ### Transfer of Your Personal Data Your information, including Personal Data, is processed at the Company's operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located. It means that this information may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of Your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from Your jurisdiction. Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by Your submission of such information represents Your agreement to that transfer. The Company will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that Your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of Your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of Your data and other personal information. ### Delete Your Personal Data You have the right to delete or request that We assist in deleting the Personal Data that We have collected about You. Our Service may give You the ability to delete certain information about You from within the Service. You may update, amend, or delete Your information at any time by signing in to Your Account, if you have one, and visiting the account settings section that allows you to manage Your personal information. You may also contact Us to request access to, correct, or delete any personal information that You have provided to Us. Please note, however, that We may need to retain certain information when we have a legal obligation or lawful basis to do so. ### Disclosure of Your Personal Data #### Business Transactions If the Company is involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, Your Personal Data may be transferred. We will provide notice before Your Personal Data is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy. #### Law enforcement Under certain circumstances, the Company may be required to disclose Your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency). #### Other legal requirements The Company may disclose Your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: - Comply with a legal obligation - Protect and defend the rights or property of the Company - Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service - Protect the personal safety of Users of the Service or the public - Protect against legal liability ### Security of Your Personal Data The security of Your Personal Data is important to Us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While We strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect Your Personal Data, We cannot guarantee its absolute security. ## Children's Privacy Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 13\. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13\. If You are a parent or guardian and You are aware that Your child has provided Us with Personal Data, please contact Us. If We become aware that We have collected Personal Data from anyone under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, We take steps to remove that information from Our servers. If We need to rely on consent as a legal basis for processing Your information and Your country requires consent from a parent, We may require Your parent's consent before We collect and use that information. ## Links to Other Websites Our Service may contain links to other websites that are not operated by Us. If You click on a third party link, You will be directed to that third party's site. We strongly advise You to review the Privacy Policy of every site You visit. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services. ## Changes to this Privacy Policy We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify You of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. We will let You know via email and/or a prominent notice on Our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the "Last updated" date at the top of this Privacy Policy. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page. ## Contact Us This website is owned and operated by Anitha Krishnan, sole proprietor and owner of Dream Pedlar Books, an unincorporated indie publishing entity. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, You can contact us: - By email: anitha@thedreampedlar.com ### About You URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/about-you/ Last updated: 2024-09-10T22:59:44.000Z ![an ink quill with blue feather resting atop a sheaf of handwritten papers](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/09/9.-About-You_mrika-selimi-1ZO0QLfGe0g-unsplash-1.jpg) Photo by [Mrika Selimi](https://unsplash.com/@mrika?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-blue-feather-quill-sitting-on-top-of-an-open-book-6oQczCqp85w?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Most authors talk about who they are and what they write. Few talk about who they write for. So these lines are *for you* and *about you*, dear reader! > I write for the quiet rebels. We fit well into most systems, or at least appear to. We have the degrees and the designations to show for it. But there’s a desperate longing in our souls for something more beautiful, something more meaningful, something that reminds us how sacred and ephemeral our lives are, far too fleeting to be squandered without intention, without purpose. We’re not the loud ones. We’re not the ones with hair dyed pink or tattoos curling around our biceps and up our necks or wisps of weed smoke drifting past our lips like lost slivers of our souls. But we’ve imagined ourselves in those garbs, maybe even tried them on briefly. We often wished we had the bravado to express our angst so unabashedly, even secretly admired those who did. Yet, something always held us back. Kept us from going too far. Something that knew these expressions, loud and defiant, wouldn’t have soothed our restless souls. Something that rose quietly but determinedly from a secret place deep within us, leaned over and whispered with great compassion, with unflinching sovereignty, > “Turning inwards is your true act of rebellion.” Our souls are intimate with darkness and despair, having spent several long nights searching for the truth. Our hearts emerge full of understanding and compassion, for our own rebellions and those of others. Our minds turn towards stillness, bearing witness to the madness and beauty that coexist in this world and in ourselves. We seek stories that wrap themselves snug around our souls. We turn to stories that make us think and feel deeply. Above all, we want our stories to reassure us that this world, this life, despite its merciless vagaries, is still full of beauty and magic. If this is you, then know that you're the one I write for. ### A Benevolent Goddess URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-benevolent-goddess/ Last updated: 2025-02-25T17:24:21.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/5.-A-Benevolent-Goddess.jpg) ### [A Benevolent Goddess](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess) **Countless gods you pray to. Only one answers. It will cost her dearly.** In a land where gods have long mastered the art of ignoring the prayers of human beings, a new goddess arrives. She desires nothing more than to help those who call out in faith. But every choice, no matter how noble, comes with its own consequences. Even the benevolent goddess will have to pay a steep price if she chooses to follow her heart’s desire. [Get 'A Benevolent Goddess' at your favourite bookstore!](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess) ### Reviews from Delighted Readers > *This is such a unique take on a goddess! I loved how the goddess came to be where humans lived, the life she had before and the choice that led her here. Though she may be all-knowing with magic, I imagined her as a young woman who is facing the realities of having left home. There are moments of joy, wonder and striving to love for a big cause to help humans, but there are also human feelings of being lonely, disappointed and shocked. The addition of the final chapter in the updated version offers hope and empowerment to the goddess. I enjoyed this tale and would read it again. \~ Kriti, Armed With A Book, on* [*Goodreads*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60739090-a-benevolent-goddess#CommunityReviews) ### Dying Wishes URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/dying-wishes/ Last updated: 2025-08-15T14:03:31.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/2.-Dying-Wishes.jpg) ### [Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes) *Finalist for 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Speculative Fiction Category* **When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life.** For thirteen years now, I have served as a Harbinger of Death, coaxing dying wishes out of mortals so that the God of Death may grant them *moksha*, liberation from the cycles of birth and death. The man about to die this evening claims he has nothing to offer me. He is dying a content man, a rarity in our world. But when the God of Death arrives to lead his soul away, the man changes his mind about dying and flees, planting on me something that is not quite a dying wish. I only know I cannot trust any God with this secret. And that I'll pay an unbearable price for this concealment. *Set in Burlington, Ontario, this contemporary fantasy novel weaves Hindu mythology and South Indian folklore into a quest for belonging across different worlds – the World of Mortals and the World of Gods, India and Canada, the past and the present, the world outside and the one within.* *It is an offering to lovers of whimsical worlds and heartbreaking prose, and to anyone yearning to simply belong.* [Get 'Dying Wishes' at your favourite bookstore!](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes) --- ### Reviews from Delighted Readers > *I loved this book - it is luxuriously written, with fantastic imagination and originality that gives us a chance to get to know and think of Hindu gods in a different way. The book is a dreamy, heartfelt and emotional odyssey. \~ Customer review on Amazon* > *A modern, corporatized version of the business of death is both blended and contrasted charmingly with South Indian folk tales to set the scene for Ananya/Infinity, our flawed and loveable main character, to go on a journey toward peace and self discovery. \~ Customer review on Amazon* --- **Read the author's interview with Kobo!** [Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2023: KWL Author Spotlight on Anitha Krishnan - Kobo Writing LifeAnitha Krishnan on her expansive novel featuring “whimsical worlds and heartbreaking prose,” Dying Wishes, shortlisted for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life. For thirteen years now, I have served as a Harbinger of Death, \[…\]![](https://i0.wp.com/kobowritinglife.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/KWL-Favicon-White-1.png?fit=192%2C192&ssl=1)Kobo Writing Lifekobowritinglife](https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/06/08/rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize-2023-kwl-author-spotlight-on-anitha-krishnan/?ref=thedreampedlar.com) ### Erased From Existence URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/erased-from-existence/ Last updated: 2025-08-15T14:47:41.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/4.-Erased-from-Existence.png) ### [Erased from Existence](https://books2read.com/erased-from-existence) **A lavender farm in summer. A fifteen-year-old girl who loves the colours of sunset. A handsome stranger who begs her to run away with him.** **It could have been a love story. Except, it is not that kind of a story.** When a strange man approaches Rebecca Classion outside her farmhouse in the dead of the night and begs her to not go back inside, she does what any sensible fifteen-year-old would do. She runs straight back into the safety of home and slams the door shut behind her. Only, it turns out to be the worst decision of her life. From that day on, Rebecca Classion fades away. From the memories of all who once knew and loved her. From the perception of everyone she encounters. Not a trace of her persists for more than a fleeting instant. Not her voice. Not a footprint. All she yearns for is to exist again in the world of her loved ones. But oblivion may be the only safe place. After all, to be seen is to be exposed. And some truths are better left hidden. [Get 'Erased From Existence' at your favourite bookstore!](https://books2read.com/erased-from-existence) ### The Land Of No Reflection URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-land-of-no-reflection/ Last updated: 2025-02-25T17:26:38.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/7.-The-Land-of-No-Reflection.jpg) ### [The Land of No Reflection](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection) **You don’t need eyes, let alone a mirror, to peer into the depths of your own soul.** Sight is a privilege denied to everyone by law in the land of Parinara. Every child is blindfolded at birth. Even the dead are buried blindfolded. To see is an unpardonable crime, punishable by death. Yet, fifteen-year-old Viola indulges in a momentary curiosity and violates the law, only to find that the gift of sight comes at an exorbitant price. To look outward, she must first lose sight of what lies inward. But therein lie the secrets that even sightlessness cannot conceal. [Get 'The Land Of No Reflection' at your favourite bookstore!](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection) ### In Search Of Leo URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/in-search-of-leo/ Last updated: 2025-08-15T16:09:11.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/08/1.-In-Search-Of-Leo-1.jpg) ### [In Search of Leo](https://books2read.com/In-search-of-leo/) **When you lose someone you love, how far would you go in search of them?** **And what if the only way you can find them is by first losing yourself along the way?** Devastated by grief at the loss of her beloved dog, Leo, Heidi ventures into the woods behind her home, hoping to find him there. She meets strange and eccentric characters along the way, but no one seems inclined to give her a straight answer about Leo’s whereabouts. Frustrated and confused, Heidi begins to wonder if there is more to these characters than meets the eye. The Oldest Witch who lives in a snow bubble of denial. The Omniscient Man who trivializes Heidi’s pain. The lonely woman, Gaia, who is consumed by anger. And many others. As Heidi struggles to make sense of their cryptic responses, she must also navigate her own emotions and face up to the distinct possibility she has been refusing to consider all along. Perhaps Leo is truly gone forever and she may never find him. Drifting from one dreamlike encounter to another, Heidi discovers that the journey through grief, from loss towards acceptance, is a meandering. It unfolds of its own accord, often seemingly without purpose or reason. But can she survive it without first getting hopelessly lost? [Get 'In Search Of Leo' at your favourite bookstore!](https://books2read.com/In-search-of-leo/) --- ### Reviews from Delighted Readers > *... if you’re on a journey (like so many of us are) within yourself, and if you want to indulge in a simple story with beauty and soul revelations peeking through every chapter, if you crave vivid and colourful descriptions of the inner and outer world and narratives that make you want to re-read every second sentence because of the sheer exquisite language and thought process that went into writing it, and if you want to just soak in some genuinely good, artful and masterful writing, read this book. It’s delightful. \~ Customer review on Amazon* ### The Mind Meddler URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-mind-meddler/ Last updated: 2025-02-25T17:34:30.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/6.-The-Mind-Meddler.jpg) ### [The Mind Meddler](https://books2read.com/TheMindMeddler) **All it takes to seal your fate is a single thought. The Mind Meddler will sneak it into your mind when you aren’t looking.** True to his name, the Mind Meddler messes with people’s minds. He plants a single innocuous thought in his victim’s mind, then steps back and watches as it slowly ensnares and destroys them. The ghost-girl has the gift of pure sight. She sees nothing but the truth. The objective, unadulterated truth. Without judgement or deliberation. Thoughts do not trouble her. The Mind Meddler has never met anybody like the ghost-girl in his entire existence. Her uncanny ability is a challenge he cannot resist … *This speculative fiction tale secured an Honourable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest for the 2nd Quarter (January—March) 2022.* [Get 'The Mind Meddler' at your favourite bookstore!](https://books2read.com/TheMindMeddler) ## Posts ### the story of a book left unread URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-story-of-a-book-left-unread/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T00:23:17.000Z After having abandoned [*The Folly Of Memory*](https://books2read.com/the-folly-of-memory), *Book One of The Separation Of Souls Saga* to languish in oblivion before, during and after its launch in mid-July, the break that I took from writing and indie publishing fiction has stoked my creative spirit once more. Edits on Book 1.5 in the series were long done. All that remains is to proofread and publish it. I've written 80% of Book 2\. I was on a roll, writing it, a few months ago. And then I came to know how it ends, and that totally killed my desire to write it. But I want to write. I want to write without worrying about the marketing and sales aspects of it. Not writing is akin to not breathing for me. Can't do that for too long. So I've gone back to reading *The Folly Of Memory* in an attempt to get back into the world of the story. And I'm loving it. I know, I know. I wrote it. But ask any writer, and they'd tell you that re-reading their work sometimes makes them cringe. It does that to me all the time. Self-doubt and harsh self-criticism, my forever companions. But this time, I'm actually enjoying the story very much. I've been reading it on my Kobo, which helps to keep the reader's hat on and not let the writer's and editor's voices creep in. And I'm reading for story. Not to seek out errors in order to correct them. (Well, I did spot one and corrected it, but isn't that amazing? That there was just one error!) Anyhoo, in order to keep from straying away from reading this tale, I decided to allot time for the reading of other books on weekends only. Come Friday night, I set aside my work and delve into a weekend of reading for leisure and entertainment. Which is how I read the latest [Inspector Persis Wadia](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-edge-of-darkness-by-vaseem-khan/) mystery novel last weekend. I'm beginning to find that reading a book over a couple of days, spending several hours a day in a book, is a much more delightful activity than letting the book unfold over several days, with me reading a few pages at a time, while spending the bulk of my time getting lost in the hallways of the Internet, which offers several avenues to stray on. I remember even back when I used to write fiction in the mornings after D had left for school, I'd resume reading a novel at lunchtime. And that would pretty much make it impossible for me to get back to my own manuscript after that for the rest of the day. So I'm thinking this ritual of reading in this immersive fashion over the weekends will serve me well when I go back to writing Book 2. --- For this weekend, I had initially set aside a book titled [*The Instrument Must Not Matter*](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/246940606-the-instrument-must-not-matter) by Christine Fischer Guy. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/08/The-Instrument-Must-Not-Matter.jpeg) I learnt of this book from the local library which had scheduled an author event for Guy to talk about her book. I had signed up to go but withdrew at the last minute for it having been a very long day and I could barely keep my eyes open. But I was determined to read the book at some point. A story featuring a gifted pianist, and set in the world of music — what more could one ask for? But when I cracked open the pages on Friday evening, I didn't expect to be woefully triggered a few pages into the story. The protagonist is a gifted, passionate pianist. Naturally, she's a character who lives and breathes music, who has a transcendental relationship with music. She can sight-read at a glance and play a piece without referring to the sheet after that. Normally, I'd find this kind of gift of talent and passion for excellence in anyone, even a fictional character, very motivating and relatable. But ever since becoming a mother, I've had to put in a lot of inner work to ensure that I do not impose any demands of perfection on my own child in any of his undertakings. I don't always succeed — having grown up in a culture demanding high performance and perfection, both academically and otherwise, from a very young age — and those slip-ups, even if only few and far apart, remain my greatest regret when it comes to parenting D. Still, I abide by my own rules and values at least 90% of the time, and I have worked hard to create an environment in which I encourage him to try, even if he performs poorly at first, and to keep at it, so that he himself can see the difference when his outcomes switch from poor to good to amazing, no matter how long it takes. When D was five years old, we bought him a small 32-key mini piano, having grown sick of the plethora of toys in stores. D took to it instantly, trying out all the different keys with a child's curiosity and innate sense of exploration. Shortly after, we signed him up for piano lessons. He hated them! For a handful of months, he went to a class to learn the traditional way. Coming home to practise scales to perfection drove him to tears. He much preferred to let his fingers run over the keyboard, making tunes and listening to them, communicating silently with the music he was making. His teacher asked me if he practises at home, and I happily said, "Yeah, he does the scales for a bit and after that he likes to explore and plays freely." To which the teacher replied, "This is like people wanting to play Tchaikovsky before they've even learnt anything about the piano." His remark felt like a slap to the face. Naturally, that was D's last class with that particular teacher. Thankfully, D was only about five years old then, and didn't absorb the callous words of that teacher. More than a year later, the mother of a child who came for tennis lessons at the same time as D, told me about *Hemispheres Music Studio* and their play-based method of learning. D went for an intro lesson there. And he loved it! It's been great for him these past few years. The nature of the program is such that it allows him to develop a deeper relationship with the piano and its keys, so he's not merely trying to reproduce music from a sheet on to the keys, but he's developing an understanding for the way the music moves. So much so that he has composed a few melodies of his own already, confident with the way he's been able to engage with the instrument and build a relationship with it. He's now working on intentionally developing a sense of musicality. I recall when I took vocal lessons in Carnatic music as a young child — a rite of passage for any child in a Tamil Brahmin household — I was pitch-perfect. I was great at hitting the notes perfectly. But I didn't know a thing about musicality until I was well in my late teens. And my understanding of musicality came from unexpected sources — Western pop and Indipop music! Or maybe I just needed the sensitivity of an adolescent to appreciate musicality better and in more depth than I could as a child. Of course there were children who seemed to have an innate talent for such things, or a talent nurtured by constant exposure to music having grown up in a household where one or both parents are musicians. My family appreciated music, and everyone went for lessons in their time, but they were not professional musicians in any way. > *All this to say, that often it takes a long time of doing something and trying it repeatedly to become good at it.* > *'Dare to be bad' is a catchphrase that author Dean Wesley Smith often uses.* This is something I've been reminding D and myself too. When we try something new, we don't have to get it right the first time. It may take 5, 10, 50, 100 or how many ever tries to become good at it. But we seem to put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get things right early on, be it math or music or anything else. Into all our endeavours, there seeps this great sense of urgency to become proficient at the thing we're doing. No wonder we give up so easily and so quickly. > *If we can be comfortable with being bad — or better still, if we can refrain from judging our efforts as good or bad solely based on the outcomes — we'd find ourselves sticking with the activity for the long term and naturally growing in skill, as a result.* But stories — books and movies — do a poor job of presenting this struggle, simply because of time constraints. > *Instead, they tend to romanticize the frustrations and disappointments with dramatic background scores, and eventual success is almost always a given. The journey in real life feels very pale and tedious in comparison.* Which is why I reacted with unexpected (but not surprising in hindsight) panic after reading the first few pages of *The Instrument Must Not Matter*. > # The writing is gorgeous, as you'll see from the excerpts below. The passages stoked in me that desire for greatness, that passion for excellence that drove me for much of my life, and continues to do so ... except I don't want that desire to erupt out of me like molten lava and burn and drown my child in the process. > *D's ambition is like a slow fire that burns for a very long time. It persists, without becoming overzealous, without demanding quick results.* > *Mine is the flame full of sparks and angry hisses and crackles. It wants every move to be perfect, every act of labour to yield a delicious fruit.* > *Where D's fire offers warmth, mine threatens to scorch and char, to burn and devour.* It's only age that has tempered my passion somewhat. Yet, it's the same passion to do the right thing for D that keeps my other passion for greatness, both in me and him and everyone who saunters into my orbit, in check, keeps me from drowning him in the flash flood of my expectations and unfulfilled ambitions, and helps me make peace with the messy journey of trying and failing often and maybe succeeding somewhat that is inevitable no matter what we choose to do. Which means I have to do everything I can to keep that desire for greatness from storming out of me and scorching D in any way at all. The novel begins like this — > Only Debussy can ferret out the truth of a piano, so she starts with the majestic opening bars of "Sunken Cathedral" on this Steinway Model D. Same as Glenn Gould's favourite practice piano, leagues beyond her piano at home but not quite equal to the school's best, and slightly smaller than the grands she's known. It might work in her uncle's condo, but she wants to stay here a little longer. An ancient sense resonates here. This storied space, filled with so many thrilling instruments, is imbued with energy that feels like love. > "Can I try the one she was playing?" Lila tips her head toward the other pianist in the Steinway basement. She's the source of the arresting magenta and silver notes Lila heard as she arrived; the opening movement of Beethoven's final sonata, played with infinite tenderness by someone with serious talent. Someone whose work she feels she should know but doesn't recognize. > \~ An excerpt from *The Instrument Must Not Matter* by Christine Fischer Guy > # > ... but nothing touches the piano Sofia chose. It pulls her back into its gravity. If she can't have it, she must have a little more Debussy from it before she goes. > She hears the swirling water as the cathedral begins to move in its watery grave, then the small whirlpools of water at the highest peaks to lead to surface breaks, the sluicing of seawater from the towers, the impossible rise of the structure from the waves. In the notes, she finds the wet glitter of stone in the sunlight and the reflection of the cathedral's aqueous twin, the thrill of its rise and dramatic decline toward its inevitable retreat, the unbroken pattern of rise and fall until it sinks for the last time. > She returns to the room as though washed up on the beach. > ... > It's a vehicle of wonder that belongs to a different plane of existence and much more work remains: Debussy's telling of the Breton myth needs to permeate every note. As the morning fog dissipates, the submerged cathedral of Y's will rise from the sea. The bells will play. The majestic organ chords will carry across the waves. She longs to find a place for herself inside it. No one wants brittle perfection, Professor Vrubel says, they want mastery with glimmers of personal truth. This instrument can take her there. > \~ An excerpt from *The Instrument Must Not Matter* by Christine Fischer Guy > # Even copying out those words took my breath away. How gorgeous the descriptions are! How much my heart yearns for beauty like that! Oh, but I should not forget that I have no right to demand that someone else, let alone little D, fulfil my desire of unparalleled beauty for me. It's not his ambition for him to bear. And this is why I'm not reading this story right now. I fear I'd drown in a world where nothing matters more than a deep desire to touch the indescribable truth that works of great art make us encounter. And when I'd surface, the real world would obviously disappoint me with its plainness and pettiness, no doubt holding a mirror to my perceptions of my own self and my life. That's a hole I can't afford to sink into now, not now when darling D is only 10 years old and exploring and loving his endeavours, growing at his pace, no matter however long it takes. Not now, when I often battle questions of *'Am I doing enough?'* or *'Am I doing the right thing?'* especially when it comes to parenting. ![sheet music on a piano](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/08/bruno-croci-5EaSpNNJwYQ-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Bruno Croci](https://unsplash.com/@crocidb?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/an-open-book-with-sheet-music-on-it-5EaSpNNJwYQ?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- We also tend to forget that not all efforts have to be directed at achieving excellence. What's wrong in simply wanting to play the piano as a means to de-stress at the end of a long day of school or work? What's wrong in choosing to play for personal joy and leisure rather than for mastery or greatness? Is one kind of pursuit any less worthwhile than the other? Culture would claim it is so, but the truth is a different beast. The truth is that the fantasy of an artist's life is often nothing like its complicated and messy reality. And I worry that reading *The Instrument Must Not Matter* will drag me back into that fantasy. And all the work that I've done over the years to separate illusion from reality, especially when it comes to parenting, will unravel swiftly. A book that opened my eyes to this truth is *And Then We Grew Up* by Rachel Friedman. [And Then We Grew Up by Rachel FriedmanI had now been on this earth long enough to realize that if I was to sacrifice other parts of my life to writing, it guaranteed nothing other than the sacrifice. \~ And Then We Grew Up by Rachel Friedman![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-7fe1656a-c000-46f0-a6c4-95a662ae958f.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/48.-suzanne-d-williams-VMKBFR6r_jg-unsplash-86fb96e8-6951-42cc-ad2a-01f3b950578f.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-and-then-we-grew-up-by-rachel-friedman/) I loved it so much I bought a copy for myself. > I think a lot of ambition is, at its heart, about control. We convince ourselves that with enough ambition we can master money, success, clutter, time, parenting, mind-set—our entire world. And then our fantasy of our life will finally match its reality. (The flip side of ambition fuelled by control is that whenever we fall short of our own expectations, we believe the fault is entirely ours. That we must simply *try harder*.) > ... > We love the image of the writer/painter/musician startled awake by the muse at 3 A.M. She grabs the notebook by her bed and scribbles furiously, committing her inspired vision to paper before it flees her brain. She loses track of time, is impervious to thirst or hunger. Eventually she notices the sun has risen. She hears people walking to work below her window. And once in a while, this scenario does happen. But mostly the words do not burst forth in a feverish dream state, so you wake up when your alarm goes off and start writing anyway. Or you go to work and write at night, or on the weekends when the kids are napping, or for an hour a day at lunch. > \~ *And Then We Grew Up*, by Rachel Friedman > # Book blogger, Kriti, over at *Armed With A Book*, writes about a similar experience with another book. The book she refers to is *I Just Wish I Had A Bigger Kitchen and other lies I think will make me happy* by social media influencer, Kate Strickler. I had read this book a few months ago and loved it! [books you may love: I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen by Kate StricklerReflections on a book that delves into life, love, motherhood, friendships, worries about money, time and control... offering all the love and validation we all so desperately seek... and need.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-da7d502e-fe9c-4d18-90a9-ccaf85d9abdd.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/Feature_clay-banks-j1XuL3mwi8U-unsplash-a5cc249e-a14e-4a2a-9ad4-1d96bbb1bf2d.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/i-just-wish-i-had-a-bigger-kitchen-by-kate-strickler/) Kriti writes over on her [blog](https://armedwithabook.com/the-ritual-effect-after-thoughts/) — > When I have already intentionally stepped away from social media, it felt jarring to re-enter that lens through someone else’s narrative. Even if they’re critiquing it. I have worked hard to quiet that frequency and I do not want to reintroduce it recreationally. > *\~ Kriti,* [*Armed With A Book*](https://armedwithabook.com/the-ritual-effect-after-thoughts/) This is exactly how I too feel. Funnily enough, when I read her post, my first thought was — *Oh, but the book has very little to do with social media and has so much more to offer.* My second thought was — *I understand exactly how she feels, because I feel the same way too about* The Instrument Must Not Matter*. I know that the story is likely so much more than the greatness of a virtuoso pianist, but it's not a territory I can wade into again carelessly when I've had to work so hard to tune down those judgemental voices in my head that keep clamouring for more from me and the ones I love.* This is yet another reason why I think the journey of a book from a writer's imagination to a reader's hands is so far beyond the control of the marketing and publicity gimmicks we hope will bridge this gap. I am certain I will return to this book when I'm in a different season of life. Until then, here's to enjoying the daily joys of this simple life, as yet unblemished by the siren calls of what the world deems important but we don't value as much. ### books you may love: The Edge of Darkness by Vaseem Khan URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-edge-of-darkness-by-vaseem-khan/ Last updated: 2026-08-27T19:45:32.000Z I've loved Vaseem Khan's *Malabar House* series ever since I came to know of it, a few years ago now. I was eagerly awaiting my copy of Book #6 — The Edge Of Darkness — to pick up from the library and spent a lovely summer weekend reading yet another interesting murder mystery set in the background of post-independence India. With one huge twist. Persis Wadia, the main protagonist, is no longer in Mumbai. She has been transferred to Nagaland, along with her boss, Roshan Seth. I can't remember if the end of Book 5 hinted at this change of scenery. Nevertheless, the new setting made for a very interesting and informative read. How delightful it was to learn a little of the history of this northeastern state of India through the lens of this historical fiction, locked-room murder mystery! ![Hardback copy of The Edge Of Darkness by Vaseem Khan featuring a burning house](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/08/The-Edge-Of-Darkness.jpeg) Before reading this book, I had absolutely no idea (and I admit this ashamedly) that Nagaland had sought to exist as an independent entity and many of its people were hoping to achieve this end as India fought for freedom from British rule. The roles of America and China in keeping this insurgency alive came as an eye-opener too! It reminded me that the gamble that governments play with people's lives is not a new thing. Such callousness by the powers-that-be has existed since time immemorial. Which makes me wonder — as I consider Quebec and Alberta in the context of Canada — if it is really possible to maintain an individual identity while remaining part of a whole? I ask this question not only in terms of nations and their constituent provinces/states but also as individuals functioning with the systems of families and broader communities. > How much of myself do I have to give up or conceal in order to conform? How much of my individuality will my group/family/community tolerate? Is it even just on my part to expect anything more than acceptance and tolerance on their part? I digress. But that is the remarkable beauty of a book that makes you think about it and the questions it raises in the reader long after the story has come to an end. As always, I can express my admiration for the writer and this book only by means of a handful of excerpts. > 'Why didn't you leave in 1947? Go back to England?' > 'This is my home. I came out here in '31, the year after I graduated from the University of Manchester. I fell in love with the country. Frankly, I can't imagine going back to England. I have no one left there. No one alive, at any rate.' > Persis had heard similar sentiments. Brits who couldn't stomach the thought of returning to the Old Country, with its depressing climate and even more depressing financial prospects. > \~ An excerpt from *The Edge Of Darkness* by Vaseem Khan This is perhaps the same thing that immigrants feel too. Once settled in a new country, having fallen in love with the place and accustomed to life there, it'd be hard for ~~them~~ us to imagine going back to the land we left behind. Sometimes, there really is no going back. > The events of the evening swirled around her thoughts. She wondered, briefly, if she had become inured to horror. By the cases she had worked, the parade of the dead. A man had had his head removed from his body. In any other context, it was a vision of the macabre that would linger, not merely for the duration of an investigation, but long into the future. > But she wasn't just anyone. She was a police officer. A woman who had looked into the abyss, time and again. She had lost her mother aged seven. Death had come calling early and left its mark. The killing of Mohan Sinha — in a manner that, on the face of it, seemed impossible — was no more than a thrown gauntlet. > She recalled, now, her *second* meeting with the man. A humid evening out on the hotel's rear veranda. Venturing there, she had found the politician sitting in a cane chair, smoking a cigarette. Unusually, he was alone. For a moment, neither had said a thing. > Singha had looked at her, then looked back out into the night. 'It's human nature to romanticize that which we don't understand. Out there is a wilderness, a way of life completely alien to people like you and me. City dwellers. Children of a civilized world. What do you think they make of *us*?' > She had no idea how to respond to this. A full moon shone luminously in the sky above. A night bird exploded in the treetops below. > 'We arrive out here,' Sinha continued, 'intent on showing the Naga how the world works, how it *should* work. And pretty soon we encounter the brute realities of the very nature we believe makes them children to us. They hate us. Not because we seek to suppress them, but because they can no more understand us than we them. Our only meeting point is death.' > \~ An excerpt from *The Edge Of Darkness* by Vaseem Khan > # > The doctor had slipped into a posture of frightened mournfulness. She wanted to tell him that the dead were not to be feared. The dead could be grieved, pitied, even envied, but never feared. For in the act of dying they lost power over the living, save the power accorded them by those they left behind. For many years Persis had allowed her dead mother to exert such a power over her. But with the first murder that had fallen into her path, and the warrant that she had accepted for bringing justice to the soul of that mortal flesh, she had realized that she must learn to let go. It was the only way to prevent the darkness grinding your soul to dust. > \~ An excerpt from *The Edge Of Darkness* by Vaseem Khan You can tell I'm especially fascinated with any contemplation on death by any of the characters! One of the things I love about Khan's writings is the way he's able to present many different points of view convincingly through the different characters. To such an extent that I came to empathize with them all! > He sighed. 'I suppose it is difficult for someone from a city as cosmopolitan as Bombay to understand. But the Naga have a distinct identity. India will swallow us, change us, until we become unrecognizable to ourselves.' > She bristled at his words, at the implied insult to the city of her birth. He realized his misstep. 'I have offended you. That was not my intent. But you, like Mohan Sinha, represent the Centre. You could not possibly understand our struggle.' > 'Do you condemn the insurrection?' > He offered her a bloodless smile in reply. 'That is a very clumsy question and you do not strike me as a clumsy woman. For the record, I condemn all violence in this conflict — on both sides. Off the record: I may not approve of Baba Dao's methods, but he's fighting our fight.' > 'By killing innocents.' > 'There are no innocents in war, Inspector. Have you any idea what is happening out in the hills? The reports are suppressed. But word gets back to us. Shroff's soldiers have killed innocents. Torture is commonplace. Is it any surprise that the insurgents respond in kind?' Smoke rose around the mans's hooded features. > 'Do you know who he is? Baba Dao?' > "No. And if I did, I would not tell you.' > 'Delhi has labelled him a terrorist. If they find him, they'll make an example of him.' > 'Death comes to us all. What better way to die than fighting for your homeland? We Naga have a saying: "a small bird can give birth to an eagle". The hills are small, but in Baba Dao we have given birth to an eagle.' > 'Why are you so convinced that being part of India will be detrimental to the Naga?' > 'If history has taught us anything it is that whenever a dominant culture imposes its will on a smaller populace, it is the latter that is inevitably destroyed. Annihilation by assimilation, that is the choice we face.' > \~ An excerpt from *The Edge Of Darkness* by Vaseem Khan > # > It dawned on her that the Naga had probably saved her life. At the last instant, he had thrown himself at her, bearing her out of the way of the worst of the rock fall and taking the brunt of it upon himself. > What nameless instinct had made him do that? For a complete stranger? > The same instinct, perhaps, that propelled her own search for truth, that made humans better versions of themselves. > \~ An excerpt from *The Edge Of Darkness* by Vaseem Khan > # And one of my favourite passages of all comes towards the end of the book. > What was life anyway but a series of events over which you had only the illusion of control? A rollercoaster ride with no one at the controls, doomed to cycle around endlessly, clinging grimly on until the inevitable crash. In the end it simply boiled down to this: *what could she live with in the pursuit of her own happiness?* > \~ An excerpt from *The Edge Of Darkness* by Vaseem Khan > # In the Acknowledgements, Khan states: *"As a novelist I consider it my job to entertain and inform, striking a balance between truth and fiction. I hope I have managed that."* As far as I am concerned, he has accomplished both with excellence in this book, and in all the earlier books too. The only trouble is that now I have to wait for the next instalment of the series! ### did I do the right thing? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/did-i-do-the-right-thing/ Last updated: 2026-08-21T14:06:58.000Z Perhaps it's just me, but this is question I ask of myself when it comes to the aspects of my life that are most important to me — parenting and writing. > *Did I do the right thing?* But who can really answer that question? Sometimes there's a tendency to judge the quality of our decisions and choices based on the outcomes and consequences we face. Annie Duke calls this 'resulting', and I was pretty sure I had written about it at length at some point here on the blog. Looks like I haven't. Essentially, it means judging the quality of a decision based on its outcome rather than considering how good the decision-making process was. When I first read about it, it helped me change my self-talk when thinking about my past choices and their outcomes. Today was another heavy (not for me) decision-making day. Which is why I'm back at the library now after ages — the Central Branch of the beloved Burlington Public Library — for a few moments of quiet contemplation and writing. Little D had signed up to attend a basketball open run this evening at a local club. But in the afternoon, he said that he didn't really want to go. He revealed that he had agreed to sign up because we (KrA and I) had been very persuasive when the opportunity had presented itself and he had felt that he couldn't say No. In fact, he recalled that he had first refused when we had asked him, and it was only after our ~~encouragement~~ persuasion that he had agreed to go. But, he reiterated, he didn't really want to go. In the course of the conversation, we learnt more about this situation. All of last year, D had been eager to try out for Rep teams this summer. He went to one tryout in June but didn't make it. He has two more tryout sessions in the coming weeks. But somehow along the way, D has come to feel that he doesn't want to play competitive basketball. He's happy playing the sport for fun. In fact, he went to summer camp this year and discovered that he enjoys playing a wide range of sports. These past few weeks he's been at home, having decided to spend the last six weeks of summer at home and with us. And we've spent most mornings playing a wide variety of games ranging from ultimate (apparently that's what frisbee is called!) to badminton to tennis to basketball. Beach tennis is another of his favourites! He goes once a week for basketball training, which also he enjoys. He's been playing some form of basketball or the other — House League, 3v3, training — for the past few years. When we asked him if he'd like to go for training twice a week, he was pretty clear that he didn't want to. *Once a week is good*, he said. He said that he intends to attend the basketball rep tryouts that he signed up for and that he will indeed put forth his best attempts. But, he didn't want to go for an additional open run today. My first instinct as a parent was to somehow persuade him to go. He signed up for something, so he ought to show up, isn't it? Follow through, and all that? But the child has so much clarity of thought, how the hell dare I instil doubt and FOMO in him? When KrA got off the call he was on and joined our discussion, we were clearly at a loss. At one point he suggested that D ought to go to the session, but that if he feels tired he can sit out. I pointed out that when we don't allow D to make a contrarian decision here in the safety of home, how can we expect him to make the choice to sit out when the other children are still playing? Would he feel comfortable making a contrarian choice then in the presence of teammates and coaches? In the end, we decided that we wanted to honour D's thought process and his decision. D chose to not go. He then went off to play the piano, while KrA headed back down to the basement to resume work. I sat at the table for a while, feeling annoyed. I then ran down to KrA and said, "Now I'm feeling angry. And I think I ought to make him go." To which KrA replied, "But you were right. There's no point dragging him there and making him do something when his heart/mind is not in it." That was all the reassurance I needed. We spent the rest of the evening continuing to play LEGO — D's building a huge railway network — then D went up to do Math with KrA, and I came here to the library to think and write. --- Late last year, I decided I wanted to resume learning French. I was so motivated, that I completed an entire Beginner/Intermediate self-study course on YouTube! I signed up to do an online course over the winter session, January—May. It was every Saturday morning for 3 hours. Three or four sessions in, I decided I didn't care about learning French anymore. I wrote to the instructor making up some excuse about conflicting work hours and bailed. I was so clear about my decision that I've never once regretted it. I even realized that the only reason I had signed up for a Saturday morning class was to have something to do other than wake up early and not know where I'm going with my life. --- Earlier this year, I decided to step back from writing fiction. More importantly, I decided to stop publishing my monthly newsletter, 50 editions of which I had published non-stop over the past 4+ years. Over the past few months, I've come to understand the nuances of this decision much better. I wasn't able to handle both writing and marketing at the same time. I don't subscribe to a lot of the expert advice that is given out there, exhorting authors to do so much in the name of promotion. All I wanted to do was write fiction and, hopefully, find a few interested readers, instead of trying to turn myself and my writing into some kind of brand and follow all that North American capitalist scheme that wants to turn everything it touches into gold but ends up killing the very thing instead. Now I know what I will do differently in my writing and publishing career. I'll save those insights for an [*annual reflections*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/annual-reflections/) post later this year. Does that make my earlier decision to quit writing *'wrong'*? No way! Because the clarity of thought I've gained from making that decision to quit and taking a break from marketing my fiction and writing that monthly newsletter is priceless. --- We're making a short trip to India later this year for KrA's cousin's wedding. We'll be in Ranchi for all of 6 days. We arrive on a Saturday morning after a 24-hour journey comprising two flights and a layover, and we leave that Thursday afternoon. Saturday is a relatively quiet day. The other days are full of events. We decided to not make a detour to Chennai during this trip to meet my parents. There were several reasons for that. We're travelling in the midst of D's school year. In fact, he has end-term exams the very week we return. So it felt unwise to take more days off than necessary. Also, it's monsoon season in Chennai at the time, and we didn't want to get stuck in the rains. We began toying with the idea of asking my parents to come up to Ranchi for the duration of the wedding. Everyone seemed OK with the idea. The groom's parents — KrA's uncle and aunt — even called my parents to invite them for the wedding. But the more KrA and I have been thinking about it, the more the logistics of such an undertaking seem beyond our means. My parents are aged. Mom turns 75 later this year, and Dad is 82\. Fortunately, they're both in good health. But mobility is a real concern. They can't climb up and down steps without support. Under such circumstances, when I'd be already pressed for time and energy, I'd be lying if I said that I could look after my parents during those five days. I've told them that we'll make another trip to Chennai sometime next year with the sole purpose of spending time with them, rather than trying to add more logistics and responsibilities to an already hectic trip. Is it the right choice? I don't know. My parents want to see D, and they find it unbearable that we'd come all the way to India and not take an additional 2-hour flight from Ranchi to Chennai to go see them. That would mean taking two weeks off of school, I said to Mom. "That's alright. We can manage," was her standard response. This was also her response to the question of whether they can travel to Ranchi. "We can stay put in the hotel when you're busy and meet you when you're not." It's tricky to make these choices, especially for someone like me who has a strong sense of responsibility towards everyone. I want to do right by everyone. But choices in life are not like that. They're not straightforward and clear. They don't guarantee that everyone will be happy with it. And even after we make a choice, something can happen that will make us question our decision in hindsight. But here's the thing. > *When we make a choice based on the information and understanding and capabilities we have in a given moment, it's rather illogical to come back to judge this choice from the frame of reference of hindsight.* > *That's like trying to evaluate an essay written in English based on how proficient the writer is in French!* > *Two completely different parameters. Two completely different frames of reference.* --- I think it's hard for us human beings to accept that the life we live is not only a consequence of the choices we make. There are factors far beyond our control that play a huge role in how our lives turn out. To resist this fact is to be at war with life all the time. The ~~only option~~ wise course of action is to make peace with the choices we make, no matter how imperfect or sub-optimal. *Is this the right thing to do?* I hear you ask. Well, who can really answer that? Not even Time. --- *(Edited to add the next morning)* Last night at bedtime, poor D asked me if he had made the right choice by not going to the open runs. I asked him what he thought about it. And out tumbled the entire story. How he had been feeling bad about not having been selected in the June tryouts. How he had convinced himself after that that he was not a 'competitive' player and that he didn't really want to go for Rep basketball. How he had chosen to let go of a dream because the rejection hurt too much. Poor child! To see him go through this utterly human experience of trying and failing and feeling discouraged requires a courageous heart. I recently learnt that feeling regret is not responsibility. Taking action is. While we've often applied this in the realm of mistakes — we make amends; for instance, if we said something hurtful we apologize and take some action, like helping fix whatever we broke, or drawing a Sorry card — it hasn't occurred to me until lately to apply this to the realm of fearful choices. In terms of *'taking action'* this time, instead of wallowing in regret, I suggested to D that he could perhaps go for training this Saturday to have one round of doing the drills and playing with children his age in a team. He jumped at the opportunity enthusiastically. D said this has been a learning experience for him. It has been for me too. I was so impressed that D could tell that we were not *'forcing'* him to go earlier, but that we were trying to encourage him to not avoid an experience out of fear. Well, at the risk of 'resulting', I can say that not forcing D to go to the open run was indeed the 'right' choice! 😅 It gave him the opportunity to unearth what exactly was going on and to attend to it in a less fearful way and with greater acceptance than he was able to before. Parenting has taught me far more about life and myself than anything else ever has. As I say to D several times a day, *"Thank you, D, for coming into my life."* ### books you may love: The Lost City of The Monkey God by Douglas Preston URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-lost-city-of-the-monkey-god-by-douglas-preston/ Last updated: 2026-08-05T01:24:59.000Z I have an inexplicable fear of snakes. There is a term for it. *Ophidiophobia*. I just looked it up. It's one of the reasons — perhaps a really big factor — I've never gone camping. Well, camping wasn't even a thing that featured in my middle-class upbringing in India as a child of the 80s. I had the luxury of going on hikes because I spent several years of my childhood living at the foot of Yeoor Hills in Thane, in an apartment complex facing Upvan Lake. Back then, it was an idyllic settlement, far from the hustle and bustle of the city, quite literally in the lap of nature. It was only after coming to North America did I find out how much camping was a part of life and childhood here. I mean, if we're beset with comforts and conveniences all the time, no doubt we'd find a certain appeal in occasionally living rough, with only the bare necessities for survival, perhaps to get away from the noise of everyday urban or suburban life, perhaps to spend some time in awe of nature, perhaps to come back with a little more appreciation and gratitude for the ease of everyday life we're blessed with here. The only ones who can appreciate living without electricity and water for a couple of days and find it to be an adventure are those who're blessed with an abundance of it otherwise and can make a deliberate choice to go without it for a while. Anyhoo, I digress. Coming back to snakes. When I visualize myself lying on a camp-bed at nighttime, I can't help but also visualize snakes slithering around the campsite, getting into my bed, or hiding in my boots. I'm sure there are precautions campers take for these very possibilities. I'm also certain I wouldn't be able to sleep even a wink under such circumstances. So when the first chapter of the book, [*The Lost City Of The Monkey God*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40873920-the-lost-city-of-the-monkey-god), by Douglas Preston, contained a visceral description of a venomous snake, I read, enthralled. > As for the hazards we would face in the jungle, venomous snakes were at the top of the list. The fer-de-lance, he said, is known in these parts as the *barba amarilla* ("yellow beard"). Herpetologists consider it the ultimate pit viper. It kills more people in the New World than any other snake. It comes out at night and is attracted to people and activity. It is aggressive, irritable, and fast. Its fangs have been observed to squirt venom for more than six feet, and they can penetrate even the thickest leather boot. Sometimes it will strike and then pursue and strike again. It often leaps upward as it strikes, hitting above the knee. The venom is deadly; if it doesn't kill you outright through a brain hemorrhage, it may very well kill you later through sepsis. If you survive, the limb that was struck often has to be amputated, due to the necrotizing nature of the poison. > \~ An excerpt from *The Lost City Of The Monkey God* by Douglas Preston ![ebook version of The Lost City Of The Monkey God by Douglas Preston](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/08/Book-Cover.jpeg) Preston's book details his adventures as part of a group of explorers and scientists that goes to Honduras to explore an area in a thick jungle that they suspect is the site of the legendary and mythical White City. It was a thrilling read, to say the least. The author interweaves facts and events and presents all the different people involved and their roles and experiences with great storytelling ability. One such person who played an important role in facilitating the expedition was Bruce Heinicke, described by Preston in the book as a > fixer, gold prospector, former drug smuggler for the Colombian cartel, and archaeological looter, who was instrumental in helping find the lost city. For much of my life, I had a particular way of living. Every time I came across anyone who didn't follow that way of living, I'd judge them to be wrong or misguided somehow. It's only in the last decade or so did I begin to realize that we all live our lives guided by our own perceptions and biases. Understanding this has made me much more curious and accommodating of different points of view, to the extent that I can sit in a group of people and think, *"He is right"*, but *"So is she"*, and *"They too are right."* Because we all are doing the best we can based on how we view this world, each of our perspectives conditioned by our the unique combination of the circumstances of our upbringing, the culture of our times, the books we read, the people we meet, the times we live in, and so on and so on. No wonder the following exchange between the author and Heinicke stuck with me. > I asked Bruce about his relationship with Steve Elkins and how their partnership worked. > "Lemme tell you a story. I was in a restaurant and some guys were mouthing off. I could see trouble coming. So I put a gun at this guy's head and said, 'Get the fuck out of here or you'll see all your fucking brains all over the fucking wall behind you.' That's the way I get things done. You gotta be that way down here. *Don't fuck with that gringo, he will fucking kill you.* When you're dealing with people like that, they got no respect for anybody, human life's not important, so you have to treat them that way or you will get walked all over. Steve thinks everybody is his friend. He wants to be their friend. And he doesn't understand that some people, they're just looking for a chance to rob you and maybe kill you. Steve trusts everybody and down here you just can't." > \~ An excerpt from *The Lost City Of The Monkey God* by Douglas Preston I am like Steve. Guess I need someone like Heinicke to be by my side in order to navigate this world. As always, here are some excerpts from the book that spoke to me deeply. > # > As we thundered through the gap, a feeling of melancholy settled over me at leaving the valley. It was on longer a terra incognito. T1 had finally joined the rest of the world in having been discovered, explored, mapped, measured, trod upon, and photographed — a forgotten place no more. Thrilled as I was to have been a member of this first lucky few, I had the sense that our exploration had diminished it, stripping it of its secrets. Soon, the clear-cut mountainsides came into view, along with ubiquitous plumes of smoke, farmstead with glittering tin roofs, trails, road, and pastures dotted with cattle. We had returned to "civilization." > \~ An excerpt from *The Lost City Of The Monkey God* by Douglas Preston > # > In Maya culture, the holy lords had a responsibility to keep the cosmos in order and appease the gods through ceremonies and rituals. The commoners were willing to support this privileged class as long as they kept up their end of the bargain with effective rituals. But after 650, deforestation, erosion, and soil exhaustion began reducing crop yields. The working classes, the farmers and monument builders, may have suffered increasing hunger and disease, even as the rulers hogged an ever-larger share of resources. The society was heading for a crisis. > Diamond writes: "We have to wonder why the kings and nobles failed to recognize and solve these seemingly obvious problems undermining their society. Their attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each other, and extracting enough food from the peasants to support all those activities." (If this sounds familiar, I would note that archaeology is thick with cautionary tales that speak directly to the twenty-first century.) > Other archaeologists say this conclusion is too simple, and that the holy lords did indeed see things were going awry. They tried to solve these problems with solutions that had worked in centuries past: increased building projects (a jobs program) and more raiding (resource acquisition), both of which involved moving workers from outlying farms into the city. But this time the old solutions failed. The ill-advised building projects speeded up the deforestation that was already reducing rainfall, and it accelerated soil loss, erosion, and the silting of precious farmland and rivers. > \~ An excerpt from *The Lost City Of The Monkey God* by Douglas Preston > # > We have few accounts giving the native point of view of these pandemics. One of the most moving is a rare contemporary eyewitness description, called the *Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel*, which recalls the two worlds, before and after contact. It was written by an Indian in the Yucatec Mayan language: > There was then no sickness; they had no aching bones; they had then no high fever; they had then no smallpox; no stomach pains; no consumption... At that time people stood erect. But then the *teules* \[foreigners\] arrived and everything fell apart. They brought fear, and they came to wither the flowers. > \~ An excerpt from *The Lost City Of The Monkey God* by Douglas Preston > # > Dressed in a guayabera shirt and a Panama hat, Hernández was not a tall man; he had a friendly, boyish face, and carried himself without any of the stiffness or pomp one might expect from the country's leader. Indeed, I had noticed that when people entered the T1 valley, a place so completely cut off from the world, distinctions and hierarchical divisions seemed to fall away. > \~ An excerpt from *The Lost City Of The Monkey God* by Douglas Preston > # Below is an excerpt that I was hesitant to share at first. Read on, and you'll see why. > The genes that resist disease can only spread in a population through the pitiless lottery of natural selection. People with weaker immune systems (children especially) must die, while the stronger live, in order for a population to gain widespread resistance. A staggering amount of suffering and death over thousands of years went into building European (and African and Asian) resistance to crowd diseases. One biologist told me that what probably saved many indigenous Indian cultures from complete extinction were the mass rapes of native women by European men; many of the babies from those rapes inherited European genetic resistance to disease. (The scientist, after telling me this horrifying theory, said, "For God's sake don't attach my name to that idea.") > \~ An excerpt from *The Lost City Of The Monkey God* by Douglas Preston I too was shocked at first after reading this passage. I didn't want to acknowledge the possibility of truth that these lines contain — because to accept that would mean to condone the brutalities inflicted upon the native people, isn't it? Which is why I admire Preston's bravery (audacity?) to include this passage in the book. And I also understand why the unnamed scientist preferred to remain anonymous. But to accept that a brutal incident made one stronger is not equivalent to condoning that event or wishing it upon someone else to bolster their strength and courage. For instance, Britain's colonial rule over India brought forth several heroes who went on to play a crucial part in overthrowing the Brits and establishing independence. Does that mean colonialism can be condoned? Of course not. Holding contradictory truths in the same space is hard. Mind-boggling even. But if that's reality, then accepting it without condoning the cruelty and horror, and without trying to shoot the messenger, seems like a reasonable thing to do. To his credit, Preston goes on to write: > The Spanish, English, and others contributed mightily to the death toll through cruelty, slavery, rape, abuse, starvation, war, and genocide. Europeans killed many native people directly without the assistance of disease. In some instances, they intentionally used disease as a biological weapon by, for example, giving Indians smallpox-infected blankets. And millions more Indians died of disease who might have survived, had European brutality not left them weakened and susceptible. > \~ An excerpt from *The Lost City Of The Monkey God* by Douglas Preston > # In the end, Preston leaves us with a universal truth. > No civilization has survived forever. All move toward dissolution, one after the other, like waves of the sea falling upon the shore. None, including ours, is exempt from the universal fate. > \~ An excerpt from *The Lost City Of The Monkey God* by Douglas Preston > # This book was rich with facts of history, archaeology, and medical science, all presented in a very engrossing and thought-provoking way. If Preston were to narrate these tales around a campfire, I'd gladly be sitting there and taking it all in. Except, I don't go camping, remember?! The one time I saw a snake and did not scream my head off in terror was when we were walking through a trail at Rattlesnake Point. D was about 3 years old then. I spotted a small garter snake off the side of the trail. It lay completely still. I pointed it out to D with surprising calm. We walked past it. It didn't even twitch. Later, we circled back to the same spot to determine if the snake was dead or had been playing dead. It was gone! Clearly the wee little one had pulled a prank on us. Last year, D and his friends found a snake in the woods behind his school. He said to me that he had held the snake in his hands and was comfortable doing so. That day, I felt supremely happy and thankful for not having passed on my fear of snakes to D. He claims he'll keep a pet snake when he grows up. I said to him that in that case, when I come to visit him, I won't stay with him. Instead I'll find accommodation nearby and he can come to visit me there. He was very accepting of that idea. My mommy-heart broke a little inside at the thought that my 10-year-old is comfortable with the thought of being an adult and living away from me. I suppose that's something to feel good about, that he's already heading towards his independence. I've come to accept that I'm not a physically adventurous person. There was a time when I went zip lining and even dreamed of skydiving; now I no longer intend to subject my body to those thrills. Isn't it wonderful, then, that we have writers like Douglas Preston who bring the adventures into my life by writing so eloquently about them? ### books you may love: Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/monstrilio-by-gerardo-samano-cordova/ Last updated: 2026-07-30T18:37:07.000Z I was reading a book recommended by an author whose writings I mostly enjoy. It was a struggle. All the tropes were there. An independent, fierce heroine with a murderous past that she doesn't try to hide. A woman who stands her ground when men in uniform try to make her cower. A spree of savage murders in an isolated locale that she is called to investigate. This is exactly the kind of story I'd have loved to read in my 20s. The 30-something-heroine solving mysteries, fighting the bad guys, restoring justice to this world, would have been a role model to look up to, to aspire to becoming, for my 20-year-old self, the way Nancy Drew was the kind of teenager my ten-year-old self wanted to become when she grew up. But now these books come across as rather frivolous. Quite shallow, in fact. A fantasy tossed out there for readers to indulge in for a wee while. A form of escapism. Except, my time is precious enough that I don't look to read for escapism. I love reading stories that inadvertently validate the depth of my feelings as a human being, as a woman, as a mother, as an ordinary person continuing to make her way through this ordinary world. Which is what [*Monstrilio*](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62888191-monstrilio) by Mexican author, Gerardo Sámano Córdova, did. ![ebook cover of Monstrilio featuring a little monster against a black background filled with colourful geometric shapes](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/07/Monstrilio.jpeg) Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova It's classified as a literary horror novel, but that's like calling a dog an animal. Doesn't fully describe the being in question. Monstrilio begins with the death of a 10-year-old boy whose parents are grieving in their own distinct ways. The child's death was imminent — he was born with only one lung, that too underdeveloped, so he wasn't even expected to live for a decade. Wanting a keepsake of her son, the mother — Magos — cuts out a piece of his lung, the organ that failed him in the end, and carries it with her in a jar when she returns from New York to her mother's home in Mexico. There, she feeds the lung chicken soup, and a creature comes to life. A creature with fangs and an arm-tail. She tries to keep it a secret, but of course that unravels as the monster grows bigger and begins to dart about the house. Whenever one of her loved ones finds out about the monster, they tell her to kill it at first, only to get sucked deeper and deeper into her attempts at raising the creature as though it were her dead son, Santiago, come back to life. The story unfolds in four chronological parts, each narrated by a different character. First we hear from Magos, the grieving mother. Then it's Lena, a dear friend of Magos who's also in love with her. Then we hear from Joseph, Santiago's father, who has now divorced his wife and is moving on with his life in New York but remains a strong presence in the life of their monster-child, M. Finally, we hear from M, now an adolescent, figuring out dating and sex, all while trying to keep his insatiable primal hunger for raw meat under control. I kept turning the pages, wanting to find out what happens next. But it is also a poignant tale of grief and madness, of the inevitable sorrows of being a parent, of being a human being, and the infinite ways to cope with this enormous task of being alive and sane in this world. As always, my words fall way short of explaining how beautiful this story is — which is why I never call these reflections 'reviews', because (i) who am I to proclaim judgement on how *good* or *bad* a work of art is, who am I to assess another's creative expression of their soul? and (ii) trying to dissect a story is like trying to name the unnameable Tao. It's the mystery that speaks to us all without needing to be labelled or examined or explained. So here are some excerpts instead for you to make up your own mind about this amazing story. I have a feeling I'm going to go back and read it all over again. > She wants to learn one last secret from her son. What part of a person's body is inextricably themselves? Not hair, though many people keep lockets of hair. Hair is too public and not a secret. His finger or his toe, these she knows well, how thin and long his fingers are, like her husband's, and how small and pudgy his toes, like hers. His tongue quick and wispy. His heart, a quiet, solitary heart engaged to her and her husband. > It has to be his lung. Her son, Santiago, has only one lung. This is it, this lung, the core of his Santiagoness. She loves and hates this lung, a mystery to her, a tiny lung that carried her son way past his expected life span. She wants to thank it, and also spit on it for not having carried him further. Mainly, she wants to see the lung and hold it. > Excavating one's child isn't a difficult task, if determined. > \~ An excerpt from *Monstrilio* by Gerardo Sámano Córdova > # > Once, Santiago told me we couldn't know where electrons existed exactly, that we could only guess, a cloud of probability, and wasn't that fascinating because we were also made of electrons and maybe if he tried hard enough, he could be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, like electrons did? I told him to try. He shut his eyes and held his breath and said he couldn't do it yet. He said he needed to die first and then he would be jumping to another position, jumping, jumping, jumping, never to be reached but always present in a hazy cloud. > \~ An excerpt from *Monstrilio* by Gerardo Sámano Córdova > # > "It got scary for a while," he said. "After you left and Uncle came to look after me, I suddenly couldn't feel anything anymore. When my mother died, Uncle absorbed all the grief and accumulated it inside his body so none of it reached me. That's why he's so gnarled and bent at odd angles. After Santiago, I expected to gnarl too. I wanted my grief, but instead I was left with a horrible nothingness, and I got really scared. But then I realized fear was a thing I could feel, and I clung to it. I was afraid of my loneliness. I was afraid I would never have anyone to love again. I blamed you for it. For leaving. I was angry. Furious. And then I had two emotions. Fear and anger. The anger helped me wake up in the mornings and eat and clean the house and wash myself. The anger even distracted me long enough that I would forget my loneliness, and sometimes, in short bursts, I even felt cheerful." > \~ An excerpt from *Monstrilio* by Gerardo Sámano Córdova Oh, how these lines spoke to me! I know all too well how anger can serve as a useful distraction, especially when I am in the throes of anxiety or helplessness. How deliciously righteous it feels! As though I'm setting right some grave injustice that had been hurled upon me. And if the people around me are washed up in the lava of my anger, so be it. > # > I was tempted to pray for her, but God is a scumbag; he wouldn't answer any prayers of mine. I wished instead, like one wishes on a birthday candle or a star. > \~ An excerpt from *Monstrilio* by Gerardo Sámano Córdova > # > The monster stared at me and growled. Magos held it closer and kissed its head. > My mother thought I was a monster and didn't love me because of it. This thing, an actual fucking monster, was loved. > \~ An excerpt from *Monstrilio* by Gerardo Sámano Córdova > # > "Monstrilio?" > "I can't keep calling it Lung." > She was right; we don't go around calling people Ovum. > \~ An excerpt from *Monstrilio* by Gerardo Sámano Córdova > # > "Isn't this marvellous?" Peter said, gaping all around. One of the things I loved most about him was how he used words like *marvellous* earnestly, so committed to their meaning that any hint of affect dissipated and the words lingered full and sweet. > \~ An excerpt from *Monstrilio* by Gerardo Sámano Córdova > # > "How do you make sure people don't stop liking you?" > "I don't know. I guess you can't be absolutely sure. But I suppose if you like them and are kind to them and don't hurt them, there's no reason why they should stop liking you." > "Not eating them. For example?" > Though M's tone was flat, his eyes glimmered. It was a joke. I laughed. He scratched at his thin stubble of fur, a spot in the shape of a pumpkin on his forehead. M turned back toward the restaurant and walked right through a crowd of tourists like it was his street. > \~ An excerpt from *Monstrilio* by Gerardo Sámano Córdova > # The excerpt below is one I love deeply. Magos does what every mother really wants to do when their child is bullied but often doesn't because of society, rules of civilization, blah, blah, blah ... > Do you remember the zoo, Santiago? You were eight or nine. Mami and Papi took you. Your first time. Zoológico de Chapultepec. Mami's cousin and her children came too. Two were teenagers, and a third was a boy around your age. You saw a hippopotamus and a giraffe. Papi got you ice cream. The older cousins teased the youngest one. Told him they were going to feed him to the wolf. Then they ignored him. They ignored you too. The youngest one waited behind to walk alongside you. You matched his pace. You thought that made you friends. But with everyone else far ahead, he smooshed your ice cream on your chest and ran. Left you dripping. He went right up to his siblings. They laughed. Called you a sissy. Papi ran to you. Kissed your head. Made sure you were okay. You couldn't speak, you were so angry. So angry you worried your lung would conk out, but it didn't. Papi got napkins to clean you up. Mami looked at the broken cone on the floor, snapped right up, and walked over to your cousins. Papi whispered, Magos. He knew what was coming. Mami knocked the youngest kid's cone to the floor. One swoop. The boy froze, then cried. Mami's cousin screamed at her. Mami pretended to have no idea what she was talking about. Mami's cousin screamed at Papi too. Told him his wife was insane. Kids are clumsy, Papi said and smiled like Mami. The cousin looked at you. At your T-shirt drenched in strawberry ice cream. Let's go! She snapped her fingers and dragged her three children out of the zoo. Papi held your hand. Mami held his. > I often steal this memory from you, Santiago. Right before I go to sleep. > \~ An excerpt from *Monstrilio* by Gerardo Sámano Córdova > # > I fall asleep on the couch. When I wake up, Mami is sleeping on one side of me, Papi on the other. The couch is not that big, but the three of us fit. Papi's hair falls on my face. It tickles, but I don't brush it away. If I move, our breathing might unsync. And it's easier in unison. Like Mami and Papi are breathing for me. My stomach growls. I put my hands over it. I don't want them to wake up. Not yet. But then Mami's stomach growls too. And Papi's. I laugh and sneak away. > Outside, I light my last cigarette. Very human of me. Très M. I puff out the smoke. Watch it swirl into nothing. > \~ An excerpt from *Monstrilio* by Gerardo Sámano Córdova > # *Monstrilio* was such a gem of a book. Reading it has given me the gift of acceptance as to how fiercely and deeply I love D, and how I've ceased caring for civil niceties and hypocrisies when it comes to standing by him and supporting and encouraging him. And I'm deeply grateful to Gerardo Sámano Córdova for normalizing this raw maternal fierceness in this story! ### shape-shifting memories, and a fierce but gentle love URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/shape-shifting-memories-and-a-fierce-but-gentle-love/ Last updated: 2026-07-19T11:13:28.000Z News of Gary Sobers' passing away caused an old memory to resurface. For long, I had a memory of my mother telling me that Dad used to have a cricket bat autographed by Gary Sobers, which he then passed on to his nephew (a paternal cousin of mine, who sadly died in his 40s), much to my mother's consternation. After reading the news about Sobers' passing away and watching his six 6es in a single over, a black-and-white clip over on YouTube, I called my parents. Turns out that Dad, captain of the cricket team at his university and later a regular player at a local club, did indeed have a cricket bat that he had passed on to my cousin. But there was another bat, this one that Sobers had used to play, that belonged to the club/university — Dad couldn't remember which — and which he and his teammates took turns to bat with. My mind went blank, having been shown *'the folly of memory'*. Did you know I have a newly released [metaphysical fantasy book](https://books2read.com/the-folly-of-memory) by that name? > What is memory, if not the stories we keep telling ourselves about past experiences, stories that morph and shape-shift the way the voice in our head decides? Dad, a cricket aficionado, also remembered watching Sobers playing at the stadium in Chennai on three different occasions. ![silhouette of young boys holding up a cricket bat against an orange sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/07/vicky-adams-gywHscPZwMM-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [vicky adams](https://unsplash.com/@vickyadams%5F007?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/silhouette-of-people-standing-on-grass-field-during-sunset-gywHscPZwMM?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) I had another memory — not completely unfounded this time, thank Heavens — of Dad listening to cricket match commentaries on the radio. Yes, I passed my early childhood in an era where a television was not a common fixture in every home, and even when it became so in my teens, there was only a national TV channel at first — *Doordarshan* — which certainly didn't run 24/7\. That means there were certain programmes we'd look forward to with much eagerness and delight — *Detective Byomkesh Bakshi* on Wednesday evenings, *Mahabharata* on Sunday mornings, *Alif Laila* — an adaptation of *One Thousand and One Nights*. The concept of binge-watching hadn't even taken hold in anybody's imagination back then. Anyhoo, I digress. But perhaps the older we grow, the more things happen that cause old memories to resurface — an unexpected reconnection with a long-ago friend/acquaintance, news of someone known or of a near and dear one passing away, youngsters grown up ... And through all of this, I sometimes feel like a quiet, little child, simply sitting and observing life unfold of its own accord. There's not really much for me to do on occasions such as these, except to witness and accompany, and that alone can matter. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. Nothing to be fixed or tweaked there. --- I wrote about [*Atmosphere*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220817728-atmosphere) by Taylor Jenkins Reid a few days ago. But there are still so many passages from that book that stayed with me that I wish to record them here. Joan's and Vanessa's love story is a story of an extraordinarily beautiful connection between two human beings. It's hard to dissect why — and I believe that the unnameable mystery is what lends it magic and beauty, and so I steer clear of trying to rationalize or explain it. But, I wonder if it's to do with the nature of sapphic romance. Love between two women has its own gentleness and sensuality, as well as its own cruelty and callousness. I'm reminded of [*Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/215020997-bury-our-bones-in-the-midnight-soil) by V. E. Schwab, a dark fantasy novel featuring relationships between lesbian vampires across different time periods and countries. That was another book filled with exquisite lines and breathtaking passages, and I somehow let it all slip away without trapping some of those shimmering words over here in this little corner of the Internet. But back to *Atmosphere* now, and here are a few more excerpts to add to the [delights](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-everlasting-delights-of-reading-amazing-books/) that I shared previously. > Vanessa looked back up at the sky. "I can still see it — Hercules. Now that you've pointed it out, I can see it so clearly. And then just beyond it is Ursa Major and then Ursa Minor, with Polaris." > Joan nodded. "That's what made me fall in love with astronomy as a kid," she said. "That the night sky is a map, and once you know how to read it, it will always be there. You'll never be lost." > Vanessa smiled at her. And it made something in Joan want to keep talking. "I've always felt like, when I look at the stars, I am reminded that I am never alone," she said. > "Really?" Vanessa said. "How?" > "Well, we are the stars," Joan said. "And the stars are us. Every atom in our bodies was once out there. Was once a part of them. To look at the night sky is to look at parts of who you once were, who you may one day be." As she said it, Joan could tell how lonely it must sound. To find companionship with the stars. But what she meant was bigger than that. > Being human was such a lonely endeavour. We alone have consciousness; we are the only intelligent life force that we know of in the galaxy. We have no one but one another. Joan was always moved by the fact that everything — all matter on Earth and beyond, up past the atmosphere, going as far as the edges of the universe, as it expands farther and farther away from us — is made from the same elements. We are made of the same things as the stars and the planets. Remembering that connection brought Joan comfort. It also brought her some sense of responsibility. And what was kinship but that? Comfort and responsibility. "It sounds stupid, I know," she said. > "No," Vanessa said. "It doesn't. It's fascinating. I love hearing why you became an astronomer. I don't know if I have that clarity." > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # > "... If you find a way to make yourself absolutely terrified, there's no room for any other feeling." > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # > "Well, my parents are Protestant. They believe that God made the world in six days. Eve came from Adam. The Earth is six thousand years old." > "But that doesn't work for you." > Joan shook her head. "The Earth is at least four and a half billion years old. We know that, objectively. So I had to start asking myself different questions." > "Because science and God don't mix?" > Joan sat up. "No, no, no. Not at all. I don't feel that way at all." > "But why not? Why, when they tell you that God created man out of thin air and then you learn about evolution, why does the whole thing not crumble for you?" > "Because there are so many ways to define God and there's still so much unknown about the universe. I could never say that science has obliterated the possibility of God. Certainly I don't see that happening in my lifetime. And I think something would be lost, if it did. Or maybe I should say that I hope that if it did happen, it would only be because something even more incredible was discovered." > Vanessa smiled. "You're so passionate about the subject of God," she said. " I had no idea." > "I'm passionate about the Milky Way," Joan said. "And I think God's in it." > "I'm listening ..." > Joan looked at her askance. "You really want to hear all of this?" > "Yes, I'm fascinated," Vanessa said. > "Really?" > "Desperately. I want to hear it all." > Joan beamed and tried to hold back her smile. In all of her time spent watching others, she hadn't picked up on this part of falling in love, that someone could look at you as if you were the very centre of everything. And even though you knew better, you'd allow yourself a moment to believe you were worthy of being revolved around, too. > "Okay," Joan started. "Well, the larger questions we ask when we talk about God seem to be 'Why are we here?' And 'Is there an order to all of it? Is someone or something in charge?' But the thing is, science is largely about figuring out answers to those very questions." > "Science is about figuring out the meaning of life?" > "Science is about figuring out the order to the universe. Yes." > "Okay..." > "The theory of general relativity explain the rules of the physical world at large scales, the world we can see with our eyes. Quantum mechanics explains the subatomic world, like electricity and light." > "Gravity and electromagnetism — I'm with you." > "You combine them with the two other forces we know of in the universe, the strong force and the weak force —" > "I'm familiar." > "Well, okay then: that's already a pretty significant order to the universe right there! Everything that we know of since the Big Bang is ruled by those four forces. We are all connected by these four rules. That's the beginning, at least, of learning how we are here. Now, we still need a unifying theory — our understanding of the laws of gravity and quantum physics are not currently compatible." > "It's a big caveat." > "But the unifying theory *does* exist. It must. We just haven't figured it out yet. And I think the pursuit of finding one law to explain the universe is, yes, science, but it's also the pursuit of God." > "Not the God that most people are talking about," Vanessa said. > Joan considered this. "The Jewish philosopher Spinoza said that God did not necessarily make the universe, but that God *is* the universe. The unfolding of the universe is God in action. Which would mean science and math are a part of God." > "And we are a part of God because we are a part of the universe," Vanessa said. > "Or better yet, we *are* the universe. I would go so far as to say that as human beings, we are less of a *who* and more of a *when*. We are a *moment in time* — when all of our cells have come together in this body. But our atoms were many things before, and they will be many things after. The air I'm breathing is the same air your ancestors breathed. Even what is in my body right now — the cells, the air, the bacteria — it's not only mine. It is a point of connection with every other living thing, made up by the same kinds of particles, ruled by the same physical laws. > "When you die, someone will bury you or turn your body into ashes. Eventually, you will return to the Earth. You are already a part of the Earth. What better reason do we have to take care of this Earth and everything on it than the knowledge that we are of one another?" > Joan thought about this so often that it startled her now to realize she'd never put it into words before. What a thrill it was, to say it all. > "The trees need our breath, and our breath needs the trees," she continued. "As scientists we call that symbiosis, and it is a consequence of evolution. But the natural consequences of our connections to each other — that's God, to me. I believe in it because I can see it with my own eyes. I know it exists. But I also believe in it because I want to believe in it. I want to spend my energy thinking not of how my actions might be frowned upon by a man in the sky, but how my actions affect every living and non-living thing around me. Life is God. My life is tied to yours, and to everyone's on this planet. How does that not instantly make us more in debt to one another? And also offer us the comfort that we are not alone?" > Vanessa smiled at her. "Is there more?" > Joan bit her lip. "I don't know. No?" > "You know," Vanessa said, "when you're flying a plane, you can't see people on the ground. All you can see are the towns they live in and the neighbourhoods they fall asleep in. From up there, everyone is so alike, they have so much in common, and they can't see it. But I can, when I'm up there." > "That's exactly it! We *are* each other. I guess I'm too blown away by it all — too moved by it — to not feel a sense of awe that other people feel in a church." > Vanessa looked at her. "Someday, I want to take you flying over the Rockies early in the morning, when the sun is rising over the mountains and it hits the ridge just right and ... it reminds me of the light coming through the stained-glass windows at the church my mother took me to every Sunday. And I just know you're going to say, 'That's God.'" > "I *am* going to say, 'That's God'! Not just because it's beautiful, but because sunrise over the mountains is part of the universe itself. Everything, all of us, is God." > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid. > # Wow! I've read these passages countless times by now. It's a lesson in physics and religion and God and mysticism, all rolled into one, and delivered in the most profound and impactful way — by means of storytelling. I feel so much gratitude to Taylor right now, and I'm so much in awe of her for writing these lines. To me, this connection between an author and a reader, this is also God. This is also time travel and mind travel — words written by one person at some point in time in a certain frame of mind, read by another at a future point in time in their own frame of mind, words that touch the heart and whisper to the soul, that we're all connected, we're all one ... if this isn't magic, then what possibly is? > # > It was very hard, Joan had learned these past few months, not to scream at someone sometimes. One moment you were vibrating with excitement, but quickly all that same energy could be funnelled into fear or anger. She'd never lived this much on the edges of her own emotions, and it was exhausting. > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # > She wanted to say, *I don't think humans are meant to be up here. And I'm worried I've spent my entire life hoping for something it turns out I can't stand. And I don't know who I might be anymore if I don't want to do this ever again.* > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # > "I was circling two hundred miles above the Earth, and all I wanted was to get home and see you. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I don't care how big or small this world is, that you are the centre of mine? Do you understand that, to someone, you are everything that matters on this entire planet?" > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid I feel this way about D. I've felt this strongly since the day he was born. Sometimes I worry if it sets unrealistic expectations for him, me being so present and attentive and interested in everything he says and does. But over the years I've come to see that having a place of safety and stability, where he knows he matters beyond all measure, helps him be very accommodating and tolerant of the outside world and its many mischiefs. So thank you, Taylor, for these words that give someone like me the courage to own my convictions. > # > Joan did not say that she had just taken in her niece and was now, effectively, a single parent who couldn't leave the planet for long stretches. She said the other thing, the one that was more relevant, and possibly even more true. > "I belong on the ground," Joan said. "I have learned that I am supposed to have both feet on Earth and look up at the stars. Not the other way around." > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid These lines too have made me see that I want to write not to make money but for the sheer love and delight of it. It's not selfish to want to do so. In fact, this stance is what helps me write more and share my words with the world. Maybe no one else will read my attempts here, and now I've come to see that that's perfectly fine. I write for my own self too — and that matters. It makes me a better human being, a better mother, a better partner. It makes me be kinder and more compassionate towards myself. Isn't that an immense gift in itself? > # > Wasn't that the story of so many of the gods up there among the stars? She'd been looking at them her whole life and had never really listened, never learned from their stories. They were always punished for their hubris. > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # > "... You get up there and then for one reason or another, you realize you want to come home." > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # These were all the excerpts I had bookmarked as I was reading the book. I feel so glad that I've managed to compile them all here, in this post and in the [previous](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-everlasting-delights-of-reading-amazing-books/) one. *Atmosphere* is truly a special book. And I feel so lucky to have come across it and to have read it and enjoyed it and be touched by it so deeply and immensely. ### the everlasting delights of reading amazing books URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-everlasting-delights-of-reading-amazing-books/ Last updated: 2026-07-17T18:36:13.000Z My thoughts have been all over the place these past few days, and it has been a little difficult to sit down and weave them all together in a coherent post. But I've read a number of outstandingly amazing books recently, and I couldn't bear to not capture those experiences. I read an Elly Griffiths novel after a long time. [*Bleeding Heart Yard*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60980164-bleeding-heart-yard) features Detective Inspector Harbinder Kaur, a British woman of Punjabi origin. Kaur's voice is distinct, she has a wry sense of humour, she's not afraid to call a spade a spade, and she also comes across as genuinely compassionate to her subordinates and colleagues. ![hardback copy of Bleeding Heart Yard by Elly Griffiths](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/07/1.-BHY.jpeg) Kaur is investigating a death at a school reunion at which one of her subordinates is also in attendance. There are two crimes unraveling here — one that happened more than two decades ago, and the other in the present day. *Bleeding Heart Yard* differs from other Kaur novels in the sense that there are multiple points of view, which presented a different reading experience in that we get to see what other characters think of Kaur. It also made me look forward to and enjoy even more the chapters presented from Kaur's perspective. > 'Chris Foster?' says Harbinder, more for form's sake than anything. > 'That's right.' > He's very friendly, waving them to the sofas, offering tea or cold drinks. They both ask for water. Harbinder is pretty sure that this is just so that they can say that Chris Foster waited on them. Fame is an awfully infantilizing thing, she thinks. Chris Foster is just an ordinary man, fortyish, a witness to a crime. Yet just because he's an average guitar player with an above-average voice, two adult police professionals are slightly breathless after two minutes in his presence. > \~ An excerpt from *Bleeding Heart Yard* by Elly Griffiths > # > '... But, about a year ago, they must have got in contact again. Maybe at one of those bloody reunions. I've never known a school have so many reunions. In Italy, you leave school, that's it. Over. But in England, it seems, you keep reliving your schooldays for ever.' > \~ An excerpt from *Bleeding Heart Yard* by Elly Griffiths These lines are spoken by the widow of the murder victim in the story. I love these lines because they completely capture my own sentiment about past friendships. Many of my batch mates from university days take great pleasure and pride in staying in touch with each other, whereas for the past (more than) two decades, I've wanted nothing but to leave those days behind and move on with my life. But truthfully, for the first few years after graduating, I couldn't seem to move forward. I missed college days as though I were missing a phantom limb. Once I got past that stage, I didn't want to look back again. It was hard enough getting away from a place I loved with all my heart, and once I was able to move on, I couldn't bear going back to drown in that nostalgia all over again. --- In our bedtime reading of the *Wings Of Fire* series by Tui T. Sutherland, D and I finished Book #10 - [*Darkness Of Dragons*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33198183-darkness-of-dragons). This marks the end of the Jade Mountain Prophecy series of books (#6—10), and I needed to take a couple of nights off after that to feel the grief of Darkstalker's and Qibli's story coming to an end. ![ebook cover of Darkness Of Dragons, Book #10 of Wings Of Fire, featuring a sand-coloured dragon](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/07/2.-DoD.jpeg) Told from the point of view of Qibli, the courageous SandWing dragon who's had a loveless childhood but found much love and affection under the wing of Thorn, now Queen of the SandWings, this book presents an immensely satisfying conclusion to the Jade Mountain Prophecy arc. Towards the end of the book, Darkstalker tempts Qibli by offering to make him an animus. Qibli has always longed to have the power to magic to wield, trusting that he'd do so only for the greater good. But he is smart enough to understand that Darkstalker's offerings don't come with no strings attached. At one point, Darkstalker suggests that he and Qibli could be friends, with Qibli reigning him in every time he's tempted to misuse his powers of magic. > "The fact that you can't be good on your own," said Qibli. "That's part of the problem. You shouldn't need a dragon on your shoulder telling you that killing all the IceWings is wrong, or that taking over your father's mind was an awful thing to do." > \~ An excerpt from *Darkness Of Dragons, Book #10, Wings Of Fire*, by Tui T. Sutherland > # > "You didn't lose your soul because magic ate it away slowly," Qibli said. "You lost it because you chose to do terrible things, over and over again. Each terrible thing, each murder, added to this mountain." He tapped the white sand side. "That's not the magic's fault. That's *you*. That's who *you* chose to be." > \~ An excerpt from *Darkness Of Dragons, Book #10, Wings Of Fire*, by Tui T. Sutherland > # > Moon shook her head. "The future of Pyrrhia is not your own personal scroll, waiting for you to write it, Darkstalker. The only future you control is yours. And you have not brought happiness to the dragon tribes. We don't want that future you see if we have to travel your dark path to get there." > \~ An excerpt from *Darkness Of Dragons, Book #10, Wings Of Fire*, by Tui T. Sutherland Starting with a birthday gift of four of the graphic novels of the series from a dear friend, D has built up his collection of *Wings Of Fire* books. ![a collection of Wings Of Fire novels and graphic novels atop a table](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/07/3.-WOF.jpeg) D's Wings Of Fire collection! --- And now a book I picked up on a whim because of its premise — featuring the first women scientists to join NASA's space shuttle programme. But [*Atmosphere*](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/220817728-atmosphere) by Taylor Jenkins Reid is so much more! It's a love story. It's a story of friendship and survival in a competitive environment. It's a story of motherhood and parenting and choosing to do what's right even when it is really, really hard. There were so many lines and passages that made me want to re-read them until I was sure that my subconscious had deeply and thoroughly absorbed the messages and meanings in those words. It is a thing of sheer beauty, this book. What a blessing that we live in a time where we get to read a book like *Atmosphere*! ![ebook cover of Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid featuring a woman wearing sunglasses reflecting a rocket](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/07/4.-Atmosphere.jpeg) Here are a few excerpts to delight in. > Astronomy was history. Because space was time. And that was the thing she loved most about the universe itself. When you look at the red star Antares in the southern sky, you are looking over thirty-three hundred trillion miles away. But you are also looking more than five hundred and fifty years *into the past*. Antares is so far away that its light takes five hundred and fifty years to reach your eye on Earth. Five hundred and fifty light-years away. So when you look out at the sky, the farther you can see, the further back you are looking in time. The space between you and the star is *time*. > And yet, most of the stars have been there for so long, burning so bright, that every human generation could have looked up and seen them. When you gaze up at the sky and you see Antares, with its reddish hue, in the middle of the constellation Scorpius, you are looking at the same star the Babylonians catalogued as early as 1100 B.C.E. > To look up at the nighttime sky is to become a part of a long line of people throughout human history who looked above at that same set of stars. It is to witness time unfolding. > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # > Joan's bright, sharp brain—her most beautiful muscle—turned to mush from too little sleep. Sometimes, unsure what else to do, Joan would take Frances out of the apartment, stare up at the night sky, and talk to her about the phases of the moon. Frances often cooed then. It was probably just the cool night air, but Joan also suspected that Frances was starting to focus, perhaps even taking in Joan's finger, bright against a dark sky. *Maybe this was what she could be to Frances. Maybe this was their language.* > But that clarity was fleeting. The rest of the time, caring for Frances felt like trudging through mud up to the knees. > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # > People say opposites attract, but Joan had found this to almost never be true. People just couldn't see the ways they were drawn to exactly who they feared—or hoped—they might be. > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # > It was late January, and they had been together for almost six months, but Joan didn't want to mention it. She didn't want to feel like she was counting the days, even though she was. And she didn't want to feel like this could ever end, even though she understood that some love affairs did. Or, rather, that all of them did, eventually. Just the act of falling in love was to agree to a broken heart. > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # > Joan felt, so acutely, that the incurable problem with life was that nothing was ever in balance. That she could not have toddler Frances and fifth-grade Frances at the same time. She could not meet adult Frances and have a moment to hold baby Frances all at once. You could not have a little of everything you wanted. > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # > "Choices like this are dictated by what is best for the mission, not the individual. And if you're asking my advice, I think that's where you sometimes go wrong. You're not smarter or harder working than anyone here. Yes, you're brilliant and driven, but you're surrounded by people who are just as brilliant and just as driven. You're not better than anyone on this crew. You cannot be. And you cannot *want* to be. If you are, you won't be prepared to do the hard stuff, if you're too worried about whether you're winning some imaginary race. It's about the collective, not the individual." > \~ An excerpt from *Atmosphere* by Taylor Jenkins Reid > # And I have to include a few lines from the Acknowledgements section! > Reid writes: For the past few years, I've been joking with my family that I should dedicate this book to "artistic license". It was incredibly challenging to get close to historically accurate in order to create Joan and Vanessa's world. So much of my growth as a writer was in accepting that my work cannot and will never be flawless. I am flawed; my scope of understanding the world is limited. And thus, so is this book. But, with any luck, within the flaws there is something that can mean something to somebody. > # I cried while reading the last few pages of this book. I cried after this book ended, because I felt lost without the company of the strong characters in the story. Joan. Vanessa. Donna. Lydia. Griff. Hank. And then *Darkness Of Dragons* came to an end at around the same time, and I felt the grief of that too. The greatest joy is that there are always more books to read, more characters to fall in love with, and more stories to find comfort and courage in. ### The Folly Of Memory is published! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-folly-of-memory-is-published/ Last updated: 2026-07-16T23:29:19.000Z **It's live!** **My latest novel, *The Folly Of Memory*, has gone live on all the bookstores!** ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/07/Book-1---The-Folly-Of-Memory---Small-Size-1.jpg) #### **The Folly Of Memory* The Organization for the Cleansing and Resurrection of Earth (OCRE) has arrived. Its soldiers have Awakened. Flawless beings who wield the extraordinary power of their minds, unfettered by fear, doubt, or weakness. They’re on a mission to cast out frail and defective human beings, and elevate the rest of humanity towards its utmost divine potential. There’s only one problem: Rolam, the OCRE’s newly Awakened soldier. Something is wrong with him. He’s not perfect. He errs. He stumbles. He doubts. While his fellow soldiers move with assurance, Rolam is haunted by the faint, persistent drag of something amiss within him. In the OCRE, imperfection is a scourge. It must be purged. Every mistake erodes the pristine core that sustains the OCRE’s mission of transcendence. But the harder Rolam chases that ideal of infallibility, the more he falters. Each misstep thrusts him ever closer to obliteration. Can a hopelessly flawed soldier survive the OCRE’s ruthless regime of perfection? Or will he ultimately fall apart? **The Folly of Memory* **is a bold and immersive metaphysical fantasy novel about identity, belonging, and the perilous cost of jettisoning who you are to become who the world thinks you should be.* ****Book One of The Separation of Souls Saga.** [Start reading today!](https://books2read.com/the-folly-of-memory) Here's an early review from an ARC reader over on Goodreads! > *"A very interesting read about some people who are supposed to be prefect but one is not perfect and makes mistakes. I found my heart going to him as he tries to be the prefect soldier he should be."* --- It feels like only yesterday that I was drawing up a marketing plan for the release of this series. Well, that was close to the beginning of this year. And the first six months of the year have unfolded in completely unexpected ways! From planning to launch a series, I've thrown in the towel and said I'm taking a break from writing and indie publishing fiction, January to June have unfolded in ways I certainly didn't foresee standing on the threshold of 2026! Months ago, I had set up *The Folly Of Memory* for release on all the bookstores. I had even signed up for ARC readers over on *Hidden Gems*, paying a non-refundable deposit of $20, so I let that run its course. A glowing 5-star review from an ARC reader over on Goodreads on the day of book launch is the most progress I've made in my indie career so far. And that is always something to celebrate! 🙌🏼 ### the sound of connection URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-sound-of-connection/ Last updated: 2026-07-04T22:44:02.000Z A month ago, a bunch of young Indian men moved into the townhouse across from ours. We didn't know what to expect but at first glance they appeared to be a hugely welcome change from the previous family that was renting that unit — a father who was a drug addict, a son the same age as D and who we thought would be a very good friend but turned out to be a bully instead, and the mother who was pregnant when they moved in. Throughout the week, the house is quiet. The three Indian boys who live there go about their days quietly, heading out to work, stepping out into the yard for an occasional smoke, etc. On weekends, the place transforms into a lively hub. Their friends — more young Indian men — come from wherever they come on Friday evening/Saturday morning. They all get together and pack coolers and beach umbrellas and cricket bats into the boots of their cars, their laughter and conversations replete with the *ma-behen gaalis* (swear words) that young Indian men can't seem to converse without. It took them two hours this morning to finish their prep and set out to wherever they've planned to spend their day. Oh, what joy it brings to my heart to hear their laughter and indecipherable conversations. I can only hear the sounds but can't tell the words apart except for the swear words, haha. I write often about how lonely I feel here in Canada. Even when I go to hang out with a group of friends, it doesn't assuage that loneliness. There are a couple of school mums I love and who are close friends to me; but other than them, it's mostly small talk with the others. I've always thought that having a large group of friends is what I need. But after a couple of hours spent in a group, I'm usually dying to head back home for some peace and quiet. In fact, it takes my brain several hours to calm down from the din of hanging out in a group. But the slightly distant melody of my neighbours' connection with each other has turned out to be the balm I had been seeking. This realization hit me this morning, and I said to KrA, "It's not that *I* want to talk to a lot of people. But I just love hearing the sound of joyful camaraderie around me. Even better that it's in Hindi!" It also helps that I don't know these people, so there's none of that FOMO that usually rears its head when we see, whether in pictures or in real life, a group of our friends hanging out without us. --- When I was growing up in India, I spent part of my childhood, from when I was 6 years old until I turned 13, in a gated colony in Thane in front of Upvan Lake at the base of Yeoor Hills. That colony was reserved for employees of Voltas and their families. It was an idyllic place to grow up in, barring the constant dramas surrounding friendships that's bound to happen when a large group of children of different ages and temperaments are thrown together. Two of the six buildings in that colony were reserved for use by young men — bachelors, as they were called, being unmarried — and there was also one woman among them. I still remember her name — Parul — and her birthdate — 6 November, exactly two weeks before mine. She was really cool and friendly and very approachable. Quite like an elder sister I didn't have. I have an older cousin sister whom I adore and am a big fan of to this date! Anyhoo, the reason I mention those bachelors living in the vicinity of my brief childhood home is that a few months before we were scheduled to move out of Thane and to Baroda, I had a huge crush on one of those young unmarried men. Sanjay Gupta. Funny, how one still remembers these details. And it's a common enough name that I can mention it here without worrying about inadvertently identifying anyone in particular. He was such a decent man. Looking back now, I can see how easy it was for him to take advantage of me, and he didn't. A few months ago, I was texting a dear friend and bringer-of-all-good-things-into-my-life, H, about D's first crush and how it all went down at school. In that context, I wrote to her: *"And since when did 9-year-olds start having crushes? I had my first crush at the age of 12, I think. Head over heels with a man twice my age! He was so nice about it, though. I remember my mum being stark raving mad about it though."* In her reply to me, dear H wrote: *"Oh yeah — one more thing! I want to hear that story of your first crush one day! How absolutely badass were you, that it was a man!!!"* I was stunned. I had never looked at my crush that way. All I remember about it is the shame of it all. But my exchange with H got me thinking more about that episode, and I remember how having that crush also brought me closer to another girl of my age, Pallavi — we used to go from being best friends to being sworn enemies and back to being best friends again, in that way that adolescent friendships constantly oscillate and dangerously veer off the rails at breakneck speed. I wrote back to H: *"And just like that, in one fell swoop, you erased 34 years of shame for me! Your words are golden, dear H! Thank you!* *Looking back now, I can see why I was attracted to him. He was such a steady, good guy. ... This man was such a dignified contrast to the chaos my home was. And was so nice about my crush too. He could say, "No, this is not appropriate" so kindly."* --- Coming back to the young Indian men who are my nameless neighbours now, hearing the melody of their camaraderie in the absence of having a large group of friends myself is like listening to a piece of classical piano without actually having to practise the scales and eventually learning to play the notes myself. And that's alright if I'm deriving delight vicariously. In some areas of my life I'm active; in some others, I'm passive. And that's quite alright. The funny thing is my neighbours have absolutely no idea how much their mere presence has been filling my life with joy and delight. Sometimes, I catch myself wishing this would last forever. And the wise self part of me hugs my wishing self and says, "You are here now. This is here now. And that is all that matters now." ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/07/wilsan-u-aiUIs74ejx8-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [wilsan u](https://unsplash.com/@wilsanphotography?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/gold-buddha-sitting-statue-aiUIs74ejx8?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ### understanding the nature of attachment URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/understanding-the-nature-of-attachment/ Last updated: 2026-07-03T22:02:51.000Z Yesterday morning, I woke up at 5:55 AM. It's the earliest I've woken up in the past few months. Most often we're in bed until 7 AM or even later, as there's no more rush to prep for school in the mornings. When I found myself awake earlier than usual, I decided to head to Paletta. I hadn't been there in a while. D, who usually sleeps in these days, called out to me just before I was about to leave from home. I asked him to reach out to KrA and I set off. It was a gorgeous morning by the lakeside. Not a soul was about. I watched a red-breasted Merganser protect her little ones from a Canada goose that suddenly decided to feel territorial. I watched two squirrels work in harmony, which was a rare sight since I've mostly seen them on solo trips; if there's two of them, it's usually with one chasing the other. It was only after a solid hour had gone by, as more people began to turn up at Paletta, did I decide to come back home. It was such a delightful experience that when my eyes opened a little after 6 AM this morning, I thought it would be a great idea to go back to Paletta again. Only, my knees and feet hurt from swimming laps yesterday, and I wanted to sleep some more. I got up and went around the bed when D stirred. I sat next to him, waiting for him to go back to sleep. But he woke up. Opened his eyes, looked at me, and asked, "Mom, why are you sitting there?" "I was planning to go to Paletta," I said, and in the next moment I snuggled up next to him. "But I'm actually quite tired, so I'm not sure now." We spent the next hour in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, then chatting a little, until it was finally time for D to get up and get ready to go to summer camp. For a while there was this undercurrent of dissatisfaction, of wrongness, a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that I ought to have pushed myself to go to Paletta for a morning hour of quiet rejuvenation before getting on with the day. There was a moment when I was chatting with D and a sudden feeling of FOMO surged within me. *Think how beautiful it must be by the lakeside right now?* I shushed that voice by replying mentally — *See how beautiful it is to have a relaxed chat with D right now!* The voice didn't shut up, but I was able to ignore it for more confidently for the rest of the day. --- I've done this for a long time. Find something beautiful/helpful, and try to recreate it over and over again, thinking that predictable pattern would soothe my anxieties and bring me the joy and contentment I badly seek. After all, doesn't our culture applaud those with the discipline to write for three hours every morning? Doesn't society look up to those who follow a strict daily routine or regimen in the pursuit of some lofty goal, be it in the field of sports or arts or music? For years, I've tried to make myself do at least one thing dedicatedly with discipline and regularity. I'd put up monthly calendar spreads to give myself gold stars for maintaining a streak of whatever it is that I was doing. I'd take on challenges of the form of *30 days of journaling* or *15 days of practising gratitude* and so on. Every single time, I failed to maintain the streak. I remember signing up for even 7-day meditation challenges on Insight Timer, but I'd miss Day 3 or 4, and then I'd spend additional time on Day 5 or 6 playing catch-up. --- The Universe has been sending me the same message over and over again. It is only now that I can finally receive it humbly and let go of aspirations to be otherwise. I'm not a creature of routine. Every day I wake up with a different energy, the night having passed differently, sometimes replete with sweet dreams but more often filled with nightmares, my worries of the day manifesting as bad dreams. D's moods are different each morning. He used to be very excited about starting the day. These past few months, things have been changing. Disagreements with someone who used to be a close friend at school have been weighing heavily on the child's mind. With bedtimes now filled with our reading of the Wings Of Fire series, it's usually in the quiet of the early mornings that D likes to talk about those conflicts. I feel blessed that I too can slow down and be with him as he navigates these natural challenges of growing up. > *There is no time to rush.* Tara Brach once shared how a new mother, who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, understood the importance of being present with her newborn child instead of rushing through the chores of the day. > *There is no time to rush.* These words have stayed with me ever since I heard them. I often forget to abide by these words, but by jettisoning the unrealistic expectations I had been placing on myself and on life and on the people in my life, I'm able to follow this more and more. > *There is no time to rush.* Instead, I am consistently working on being aware and present in each moment, responding to D and KrA with kindness and compassion, and trusting that what I do in each moment with awareness and consciousness is enough. When I release attachment to routine and schedules, I can attend to each moment fully as it arises. Then it won't really matter whether a future moment resembles a past moment or not. > *May this be a day* > *when open hands and open hearts* > *lead the way to unmapped territory,* > *for where else can we discover* > *what we don't yet know?* > An excerpt from *How We Unburden* by [Danna Faulds](http://dannafaulds.com/#) ### What do we really want? Will we ever know? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-do-we-really-want-will-we-ever-know/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T17:54:47.000Z > *What do I really want?* I've been grappling with this question since time immemorial, but more so in the past few months, as if obtaining the answer to this question will solve several of life's heartaches for me. Ever since I decided to step back from indie publishing and trying to sell my books of fiction, I've been happily adrift. I've been exploring other avenues, which I don't wish to discuss yet, but I've also noticed the same sense of urgency catch up with me now, the one that plagued much of my writing life. --- For instance, I don't know how much work is enough in a day. I don't know how long it will take to see results — in the inescapable sense of income — from my endeavours. I don't know if I'm doing enough or too much. Should I push myself to do more? Or should I rest more? But when I do, there's always that annoying guilt that courses through my chest when I spend an afternoon in the sun or take a walk to Paletta. --- Sometimes I think I don't desire money enough. I've often worked for little pay, then quit my job when I got a significant pay raise. Do I have a healthy relationship with money? I don't know. My needs are few. But I also love having the sense of freedom and security that comes from earning your livelihood and seeing an inflow of money into your bank account. --- Sometimes I think I'd love to travel all around the world. See and touch and smell and taste every corner of this planet. At other times, I am content with a Sunday morning bike ride to Spencer Smith Park and back. I delight in being able to go to Paletta lakefront without much effort. I've travelled to a few places, but enough to understand that people are internally the same everywhere — and I too am who I am wherever I go —, that buildings and structures and food don't really enthral me, and that as much as I love natural beauty, I can appreciate it only to the extent that I am at ease inside with myself. I also no longer feel at ease in crowded airports and in airplanes served by disgruntled stewards and hostesses. Yet, when I hear of others travelling, it kindles a desire within me to ***do something with my life***. To get out there and see more of the world before I leave it eventually. --- I love stability, but not the monotony that predictability brings with it. I'm often anxious about the future, but I thrive in uncertainty. That is when I become the most creative and bold. I love pockets of solitude and quiet meditation, but I find myself terribly lonely here in Canada, so far away from my parents in India. I long for connection, but I don't miss the judgements and taunts that come from being too close to someone. --- My biggest fear is that I'll reach the end of my life and look back and worry that I didn't ***make the most of it***. Although, how does one really tell what constitutes a fully lived life? Is it the career we've built? Or the family we've created? Our contributions to the community or world at large? Fame? Success? Wealth? Legacy? Are these merely definitions that the world has thrust upon us? There are more than 8 billion people in the world. Do they all share the same aspirations? --- My first choice of career was nunhood. When I was 15, I remember declaring to my parents that I'd like to become a nun. I don't recall how my father responded to that statement, but my mother was quick to shut it down. She was also quick to shut down my later fantasies of becoming an architect or a doctor, claiming that I didn't have the patience for one or the support of a family business for the other. I don't blame her for her choices. But I definitely want to adopt a different approach when it comes to D. And I'm finding that these past few months, I've been increasingly impatient with my little child. A lot of this is again stemming from future anxieties about what kind of a world he'd have to grow up to find employment in, whether or not I am doing enough to equip him with the skills he'd need to navigate life as an adult ... and so on and so forth ... I'm anxious and I want to fix things for him — for me, in fact — despite knowing that there's no fixing, that there's only presence and how we respond to the situation in front of us. --- Sometimes I'm a fatalist, convinced that life will unfold of its own accord, whether I do something or not. At other times, I feel that I ought to be doing something to shape my life in a form I desire. Not doing anything to corral it into a desirable form feels careless and downright irresponsible. Not even having a vision for how I'd like life to unfold feels like I'm squandering some great opportunity and I don't even realize it! For how could I possibly take this sacred essence of life for granted and not make something of it? And yet, how could one possibly take this sacred essence of life and make something else out of it? --- I've tried looking for what could possibly be my dharma. My purpose. What I've been sent to do on earth. Was it to write and touch people's hearts? Well, if no one's reading my works, how could I possibly achieve that? Isn't writing merely an indulgent hobby then? Was it to live harmoniously with D and KrA? If that is all there is to it, why do I feel terribly anxious that I don't have a 9-to-5 job or some way to contribute monetarily to the household? And if I don't have to contribute monetarily, am I being irresponsible? --- I've been following the NBA trade deals going on. It's a sport. It's entertainment. It's business. I get that. Yet, these deals feel both callous and commodifying. In watching the ongoing FIFA games, and earlier while watching the NBA playoffs, I couldn't rejoice for the winning team without feeling sad for the one that loses. Why does one person or team have to be the loser for another to be the winner? I don't understand how businesses lay off people, as if with little thought to the extent to which lives, not merely livelihoods, would be impacted. Or is this the normal way for the world to operate and I'm the only soft-hearted fool wanting everyone to be happy and sharing in the gains equitably? --- I deeply cherish kindness, both in myself and in others. But, I worry, is it really enough? In being kind and accommodating, am I setting a wrong example? Am I letting others take me for granted? Where do I draw the boundaries? --- My mind is always rife with conflicting thoughts and desires. Which is probably a huge reason why I love the Inspector Rutledge mysteries written by Charles Todd, as I've mentioned several times on this blog. Ian Rutledge has a constant mental companion. A subordinate he was forced to kill in the war, Hamish MacLeod, has taken up residence in Rutledge's head and talks to him quite often. Sometimes discussing the case with him, sometimes cautioning him to watch out for danger, but always a constant reminder that Rutledge was the one to have delivered his subordinate and friend the fatal blow. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/07/Charles-Todd.jpg) I recently finished reading *The Black Ascot* and *A Fatal Lie*. Both are set in the aftermath of World War I. As with every other Charles Todd book, these ones too are filled with riveting mysteries, richly detailed descriptions of people and places, and take us on a rewarding reading experience. I have been reading the books out of order, so I am quite tempted to pick up the first book in the series and make my way from there. --- But before I go, I feel like I should answer this question "What do I really want?" You see, I know what I want ... but I'm afraid to admit it to myself lest it should feel too shallow or inadequate. All I really want is to be happy. All I really want is to grow spiritually. All I really want is to be feel content, and attend to whatever the day demands of me with great presence, kindness and compassion. All I really want is to be a source of great comfort and joy and acceptance to D and KrA. And, I also want to be content with these choices. I don't want to keep drowning in the doubts that keep rising in my mind. I don't want to listen to the voice that sometimes says *this is a beautiful choice indeed* and at other times tells me that *I'm aiming too low* and that *I should do something more, something better, something grander* and that *I should make something of this one, wild precious life of mine.* I think I just have to stop listening to that voice. ### on books, basketball and on being a rebel as a parent URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/on-books-basketball-and-on-being-a-rebel-as-a-parent/ Last updated: 2026-06-28T23:45:56.000Z *How has life been ever since I quit writing and indie publishing fiction?* you ask. *Excellent!* I reply. There's none of the anxiety that writing fiction for money had filled my life with for years. Moreover, the lessons I've learnt from those experiences are standing me in good stead now as I pursue a new path for knowledge, for gaining in skills, and for the joy of learning and experimenting, and not solely for proving my worth to myself or to anyone else in the form of wealth, fame or popularity. I still have a book that's coming out next month! [*The Folly Of Memory*](https://books2read.com/the-folly-of-memory) — an immersive metaphysical fantasy novel, the writing of which turned me inside out and compelled me to separate the joys of writing from the necessity of earning a livelihood. I'm still curious to see how the market receives it. But, I digress. I have been reading a number of amazing books recently, and many have touched me so much that I wish to record them somewhere on the Internet. Besides, life has also been frolicking and cavorting, which is almost always the most compelling reason to come back to presence and stories and to this blog. --- The first big event was D turning 10 this month. Something about the double-digits that marks a clear break away from the single digits that will never be used to mark his age again tugs at the heartstrings. I remember feeling similarly when we stopped referring to his age in months and resorted to marking it in years instead. A dear friend of mine gifted D a selection of books from the much beloved *Wings Of Fire* series, the graphic novels. D bought the remaining to complete the collection to date. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/06/1.-Wings-Of-Fire-Graphic-Novels.jpeg) Wings Of Fire Graphic Novels collection The last I had written about our ongoing reading of this series was when we finished reading Book #7, [*Winter Turning*](https://thedreampedlar.com/dragons-tana-french-and-basketball/), the chapter book version. Since then, we've read Book #8, *Escaping Peril*, Book #9, *Talons Of Power*, and are now in the thick of reading #10, *Darkness Of Dragons*. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/06/5.-WOF-Collage.jpg) Wings of Fire novels 8, 9 and 10 *Escaping Peril* was a difficult book to read for me. Peril is completely obsessed with Clay and appears to be a dragon who's unable to think for herself, because her worldview has been thoroughly warped by Scarlet, the erstwhile Queen of the SkyWings. Reading the book from Peril's point of view, with her constant self-doubt and worries about what would Clay think about this or that made me very uncomfortable. But that is probably what Sutherland set out to do, and does it brilliantly. Because Peril *is* that kind of character. And, to be fair, we're given adequate warning of it in Book #6, in which Moon the mind-reading NightWing often discovers that Peril's mind is very messy and complicated and difficult to read. Funnily, I love how Peril's character turns out to be in the subsequent books. More sure and confident of herself, providing unexpected comic relief on occasion, and definitely having grown from a dragonet needing validation and approval all the time to becoming more comfortable in her own skin. *Talons Of Power* was another amazing read, this one from Turtle's point of view. A SeaWing animus dragon, he hides himself from DarkStalker, an ancient dragon who's been mind-conversing with Moon since Book #6 and rises from under the earth at the end of Book #8. Many dragonets are taken with DarkStalker who tries to present himself as a charming ally rather than the mad, animus magic-wielding monster history has painted him to be. Turtle, having used his own magic to render himself invisible to DarkStalker and immune to the latter's magic, is the only one who sees through the dragon's evil intentions and has to be the one to do something to stop the ancient dragon. The only trouble is Turtle has kept it a secret from everyone that he's an animus dragon and can wield magic. How that secret unravels and how Turtle deals with it is fascinating. In this excerpt, Turtle has informed his sister Anemone and a RainWing friend who's blind, Tamarin, about the return of DarkStalker. They still don't know that Turtle is an animus. > Like Tamarin's eyes. *I could fix them. I could do it right now... I could enchant that bandage so when she takes it off, she could see for the first time in her life.* That was the kind of thing he wished he was free to do, and it felt awful to have to stop himself. > But he still figured it was a lot easier to be a secret animus than to be an animus everyone knew about. > "I wouldn't want to be an animus," Tamarin said. She paused at a spot where the tunnel branched into three directions. "I don't know how anyone could stay a good dragon with all that power." > "What if they only used it for good things?" Turtle asked, a little stung. > "But who gets to decide what's a good thing?" Tamarin asked. "Dragons would always be asking for spells, or telling you your choices are wrong. And I think sometimes it's hard to tell what's good and what's just easy." > Turtle gave her a puzzled look. "Aren't those the same? What's wrong with trying to make life easier?" > "It depends," Tamarin said. "For instance, an animus dragon might think, *I'll make all our medicinal herbs appear magically in the healers' treehouse, so we never have to go looking for them again.* That seems obviously good, right? But then we'd stop learning how to look for them, and we'd stop experimenting with new ones to see how those might help dragons in different ways. We'd stop thinking about it at all, because everything would be too easy. Don't we lose something when everything is done for us?" > *\~ An excerpt from Talons Of Power, Book #9 in Wings Of Fire series* I'm simply amazed at how Sutherland manages to keep so many story threads connected and weaves many past storylines seamlessly into tales about all these new characters. --- The other thing about D growing older is the expansion of the life experiences he faces, which calls on me to be more stable and grounded as I help him navigate them. He wanted to dip his toes into competitive sports and decided to attend the tryouts for rep basketball. Even though I love basketball and played it for a few years at university, old insecurities were triggered as I took little D to the tryouts. Before we went, though, we had decided that our *Success POV* this time was going to be to show up and do our best. We had decided that whether he gets selected or not is not going to be a success criterion this time, as this was the first time ever that he was heading to a tryout. He didn't get selected this time, but it was such an eye-opening experience for him that his game on Day 2 of the tryouts was a huge step above how he played on Day 1, when he was nervous and unsure of what to expect. So this was a huge step forward in his journey. Something strange happened, which makes me feel grateful that he wasn't selected to this particular team. On the second day of the tryouts, one of the coaches saw D coming in to the registration desk and said, completely out of the blue, "Jeez! Where's the confidence, man? Did your parents have to pull your teeth to bring you here?" As always, I was too stunned by those unexpected words to say or do anything in response. It was only after a few moments did I understand how judgemental and demeaning those words were. D is naturally a quiet kid. He's not one of the gregarious ones that N. America seems to love. But if a coach can't understand that a new player might be nervous before a tryout, well ... is that the coach I want teaching my child? My answer is a definite No! I wonder if people in the sports world here in North America know where to draw the line between competition and aggression. I read this in a book somewhere, and I'm glad I found an online resource to back up this claim, but did you know that Norway doesn't permit competitive sports until the age of 13? And it's the nation that wins the most medals in international sporting events! [Norway Bans Youth Championships Before Age 13\. They Also Win the MostNorway just topped the Milano Cortina 2026 medal table with 18 golds and 41 total medals. The United States finished second with 12 golds and 33 total. Impressive showing for Team USA. Historic, actually. A record number of Winter Olympic golds. But here’s the number that should make every youth sports director in Amer![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/flamingo-fav-trans-3733b288-4e6c-47d4-b3a9-84d4fc9ebc24.png)Signature LockerChad Henry![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/Norway_Bans_Youth_Championships_Before_Age_13._They_Also_Win_the_Most_Medals-829cd07a-063e-4f5e-b668-5760cd23bcd7.png)](https://signaturelocker.com/blogs/program-directors-playbook/norway-bans-youth-championships-before-age-13-they-also-win-the-most-medals?srsltid=AfmBOooJwOOoYrovhws-DjfkEpvNDyj-1EC8R0Tjx8HfrKbu-6aroHCo) So here's me being a rebel mom. I'd much rather D have time to practise the piano, go skiing in the winter, go for a fun swim over the weekend, have time to enjoy bike rides in the summer, have a lot of time to read books ... instead of spending 4 days a week training for rep basketball and both days of the weekend playing games during the season. But ultimately, the choice is up to D. Whatever he decides, I'll support him through that. Yet, it was D who took the news of his non-selection in his stride. And it was I who went through an entire gamut of emotions, worrying that my own fears about this would spill over and affect my ability to help D cope. I'm getting better at this, though. When D was younger, I was very enmeshed with him. His pain would ratchet my anxiety up to unimaginable levels. Now that he's older and I've had sufficient time to come to terms with the fact that his life will unfold in its own ways, that it's not a hapless infant that will have to face the challenges of life but a 10-year-old, a 15-year-old, and the future adult version of him that will meet life's experiences as they come his way. It's easier to return to that trust and faith these days than it had been when D was much, much younger. And that comes as a relief. To be able to meet life's moments without being beset with anxieties of the future all the time is a welcome change. Which makes our nightly bedtime routine of reading the *Wings Of Fire* series together all the more magical. I thought my days of reading to D had long gotten over. It's so much fun at this stage of his life to be able to read with him and question and digress into discussions about why a particular character did something or made a certain choice. Books and stories make a huge difference in our lives, and I'm extremely glad that D takes after me in being such an avid reader. --- Another interesting book I read was *The Man Made Of Smoke* by Alex North. It's about a serial child kidnapper and killer, one that our protagonist encountered as a young boy, and now again as an adult perhaps it is the same villain who has resurfaced. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/06/6.-The-Man-Made-Of-Smoke.jpeg) For a serial killer story, the book had many thoughtful and poignant lines, many of which I re-read several times. I had dogeared several pages, then forgot to photograph them before returning the book to the library. I managed to save one passage though. > "Do you think you were abducted from the bar?" John says. > Field nods cautiously. > "I left my drink inside when I went out to smoke," he says. "Someone could have spiked it then. I don't remember much after that." > "Why did you leave your drink?" > "You don't worry about it as a guy, do you? The place wasn't all that busy, and I had a table out of the way round a corner that I wanted to keep. I didn't want to talk to anyone there." > There's a helpless expression on his face. > "I just wanted to sit with my phone. That was all I *ever* did. Catch up on the news a bit; read a few updates on social media. Maybe play a few games of chess if I couldn't get reception." > He spreads his hands, the question clear. > *Is that too much to ask?* > The answer, John thinks, is that it shouldn't be, but that's not the way things work. If you let your guard down once, the chances are that you'll be okay. But if you do it a hundred times, the odds are going to catch up with you eventually. Which to his mind is more than enough reason to keep your guard up the whole time. > \~ An excerpt from *The Man Made Of Smoke* by Alex North --- Another amazing book I read was *Ghost-Eye* by Amitav Ghosh. Wow! I have no idea how to begin describing this book. It delves into the theme of reincarnation, and somehow also blends local folklore and deities and superstitions and environmental crisis into the mix, and unfolds across North America in the present day and India, specifically Kolkatta, in the 1970s! What a delight it was to spend a good amount of time in that era! And Ghosh has described the fish dishes in such fine detail that I'm now hankering to try some fish. Me — a born vegetarian! And I want to try a Bengali fish dish! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/06/7.-Ghost-Eye.jpeg) Many parts of this book resonated with me deeply, often for vastly different reasons! For instance, the passage below helped me make peace with my own lifelong disinterest in the kitchen, which caused much conflict with my mother-in-law. But in the last few years, cooking has become an activity that I turn to with much affection and joy. The Instant Pot made that happen! 🤷🏽‍♀️ > This too was a point of contention between Shoma and her older sister. My mother took great pride in her cooking and thought it shocking that her sister showed so little interest in her kitchen. 'What is there in life that is as important as food?' Ma liked to say. 'Food is the foundation of life itself; it's what makes everything else possible. But someone who lives in their head, like Shoma does, can never understand that food is what connects us with reality.' > Often when Shoma came over to our house for a meal my mother would tease her by asking if she knew what kind of fish she had been served. And if Shoma got it wrong, which she invariably did, my mother would huff triumphantly. 'You call yourself a Bengali but you can't even tell the difference between putti and pabda! Chhi!' > These barbs would miss their mark because Shoma was not at all ashamed of her culinary shortcomings; on the contrary she took pride in having liberated herself from the drudgery of the kitchen—an idea that would have been incomprehensible to my mother, who never felt more free than when she was cooking. > \~ An excerpt from *Ghost-Eye* by Amitav Ghosh This passage helped me release all the shame I had held on to for several years owing to my culinary shortcomings. Unlike Shoma, I hadn't been able to ignore my mother-in-law's barbs for a long time because I was so desperate for her affection and acceptance. Well, that was several years ago. I'm now old enough to understand that I can't expect to receive from others what I'm unwilling to give myself and especially when others don't know how to give it as well. Now, I'm in a better place of understanding and acceptance and it makes for a happy balance. And here's another excerpt that doesn't need a context to explain the sentiment expressed in it. > Tipu snorted exasperatedly. 'Jeez, Pops, you really don't get it, do you? Do you think these abilities come from the brain? If so, you're wrong—that's not it at all. They come from inside you, from your body, from your senses. That's why these guys who think machine intelligence can replace human thinking are so mistaken. AI just mimics the brain, and that's not where we get our forebodings and premonitions and all the other things we humans can feel—the stuff that gives us goosebumps and makes the backs of our neck prickle ... All of that comes from the body, the flesh, everything that gives us our humanity. The brain only gets in the way. That's probably why Dev chose to be illiterate—his relationship with his nat is more important to him than anything he could learn from books.' > \~ An excerpt from *Ghost-Eye* by Amitav Ghosh And here's an excerpt with a folklore and an understanding of what it means to be disenchanted as an adult and lose that naïve faith we may have had as children. > The legend that Shoma had chosen for me is, at its core, the story of a profiteering merchant called Chand who finds himself locked in an epic struggle with Manasa Devi, the goddess of snakes. The goddess reveals herself to Chand, expecting to claim him as her devotee, but the merchant refuses to submit, thereby inviting her wrath, and so she punishes him with plagues of snakes, droughts, storms and other calamities until he is forced to flee overseas. She then turns her wrath upon his son, Lakhindar, and sends her kala naag, the great king cobra, to kill him. Lakhindar dies but is brought back to the world by his devoted wife, Behula, who travels to the underworld, like a Bengali Demeter, and prevails on Manasa Devi to have pity on him and on her. > Only when I started writing the proposal did I realize how deeply the legend was implanted in my mind. When I was a child episodes from the story were often narrated to my sisters and me on those dark Calcutta nights by Shoma and my mother and many others. The story's characters peopled my dreamworld; they were the equivalent of the superhero, werewolves and vampires on which the children of today are weaned. Like these other fantastic beings, the characters of the legend turned the world into a place where anything was possible and nothing was beyond imagining. > Of course, my childhood was long behind me by the time I decided to make the legend the subject of my research. Not only was I an adult, but I was also a deeply disenchanted one, and I took comfort in a certain kind of dogmatic materialism, especially the belief that nothing existed that could not be verified by empirical methods. > So, just as Shoma had suggested, I treated the texts as storehouses of data, as elements of a superstructure that mechanically reflected the underlying realities of the Asiatic mode of production. This was a comfortable approach because it stripped the story of any element of mystery and made it conform to the expectations of an academic system that was premised on making everything in the world predictable and subject to control. > And as Shoma had foreseen, it worked. One day I found myself opening with trembling hands something that was new to my experience: a letter of acceptance. > To say that I was overjoyed would be an understatement. I could not believe my good fortune! The first thing I did after putting the letter down was go to a public call office to phone Shoma. 'You were right!' I said. 'I've been accepted, and it's all because you chose that legend for me!' > 'No, no, Dinu!' she protested. 'Trust me: it's not we who choose the myths that guide our lives; it's they who choose us. But once you've been chosen, beware, because they'll always be with you.' > \~ An excerpt from *Ghost-Eye* by Amitav Ghosh These lines reminded me of my own faith and awe in the stories of the Gods of my childhood. I held unshakeable faith in the deities I grew up worshipping, until one day I stopped. I remember thinking that I didn't wish to pass on my faith to D blindly; I wanted him to be able to choose for himself. I also remember feeling strange at the realization that all the prayers I had learnt were in pursuit of some material gratification — first rank, wealth, job, successful visa applications ... whereas what I really wish I had asked for was happiness and contentment despite how life turns out. Anyhoo, *Ghost-Eye* was an absolutely delightful book to read! I'm also surprised that I haven't read any other works by Ghosh, so looks like I'd have to do something about that pretty soon. --- June was memorable for yet another event this year. We attended the Senegal vs Iraq game of the FIFA World Cup in Toronto! Back in 2022, we were watching the previous World Cup on TV just as this part of the world was returning to some semblance of normalcy after the pandemic. When Canada was announced as one of the co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup, I remember messaging several of my friends and beseeching them to plan to make a trip here so we could watch a game together. None of that materialized but a year ago, KrA dove into the multi-step process of securing tickets. It was quite a fun experience, and we got to see Senegal score 5 goals! But above all I loved being in a train and then in a stadium filled with people who families originated from Iraq and Senegal. Something like that is possible only in Canada! I love this place! And I love Burlington! Where else can I spend a Sunday morning in summer on a bike ride with KrA and D to the shores of Lake Ontario, then come back and pluck mulberries from roadside trees for a juicy snack to sate our thirst? ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/06/8.-Bike-ride.jpeg) ### D turns 10! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/d-turns-10/ Last updated: 2026-06-20T00:30:05.000Z D turns 10 tomorrow. I can't believe it's been a decade since he came into this world, a wee little bundle of gentle joy. To say that it has been a journey is an understatement. It fails to capture just how much being a parent compels us to look straight into the eye of all the falsehoods we had been believing in and letting ~~guide~~ run our lives, forces us to make a decision to show up again and again, every single day, with all our frailties and all our human limitations, with our boundless desires and ambitions for ourselves and our loved ones, and the crushing knowledge that they may or may not come true despite our best intentions and efforts, and teaches us to hold the wildly contrasting aspects of life with a kind of compassion and courage we didn't know we could summon from within us. Ten years ago, I embarked upon the journey of conscious parenting, keenly aware of the ways my ego could impose itself on my child's life. Today, through all my attempts and many failures and many successes of being a conscious parent, I find I'm a little wiser and more accepting of life as it unfolds for me, for KrA and for D. Because, you see, \~ despite my best intentions, I have no way of ensuring that D would make 'wise' choices in his life. \~ despite all the times I've shown great patience and attempted to preserve his sense of agency, there's no way to guarantee that he wouldn't jettison his free will to, say, fit in or be accepted or to not stand out too much and draw attention to himself or for any other impulsive youthful reason that may make sense to him at that point in time. \~ despite giving him my full support and confidence, there is simply no way for me to ensure that he'd never suffer from self-doubt or self-loathing or prejudice and bias towards himself or anyone else. And that's OK. --- For the first time in all these years that D has been in my life, I'm able to accept that his life will unfold in unexpected ways, and that's OK. Until now, I thought that I had to do certain things to ensure D would have a good future. And that a less-than-stellar future for him would obviously imply some massive failing on my part in his childhood. If you think about it, when we're constantly bombarded with messages such as — kids are anxious these days because they are addicted to their screens and do not get enough outdoor time or time in nature or they don't get to run wild and free alongside other kids in their early days — then we begin to believe that the converse must be true. That if I strictly monitor screen time and schedule many playdates and outdoor time and time in nature, then my child would not become a victim of the anxiety epidemic that has supposedly gripped the current generation. That if he does become anxious in the coming years, then it must mean that I did not do my part to ensure that he has enough playdates, outdoor time, time in nature, screen-free time, etc. etc. For the first time in all these years that D has been in my life, I'm able to accept that I can do all these things and more for D and he could still become glued to the screen the instant he leaves home for university or choose to spend his evenings in front of the TV as an adult instead of stepping out for a walk in nature. And that's OK. --- For the first time in all these years that D has been in my life, I'm able to accept that breaking generational trauma is not meant to happen within a single generation. Every generation of parents has its own defining characteristics. The current generation of parents of young kids has been taking great pride in doing the inner work to heal the wounded inner child and not pass on generational trauma to our children. This work is insanely difficult. And I think, in some misguided way, it makes us feel superior to our parents' and grandparents' generations who were guided by the spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child culture. But the longer I am a parent, the humbler I'm compelled to be. I have so many resources at my fingertips to consult or turn to every time I worry about something. Imagine having to parent without access to resources on the Internet, without Dr. Google, without WhatsApp chats and FaceTime calls with faraway relatives. No parent is perfect. No child, no human being, can be truly trauma-free. Even if the parents were to somehow miraculously achieve the impossible feat of raising trauma-free children, the outside world is waiting to unleash its barrage of cultural myths and biases. There's no escaping it. And that's OK. --- How little influence I truly have on D's life. Yet, I will continue to do my best for him as a parent because that is something worth doing. Not in the hopes of any favourable future outcome, but because in this present moment, my life and the people in it are sacred and worthy of my attention, presence and affection. And, I've also come to trust that life presents us with situations for our growth and evolution. Most often, there is nothing to be fixed. I'm only called to witness and accompany D's journey for as long as he allows me the privilege to. These past few months have already given me a glimpse of what lies in store. An unrequited crush, a friendship falling apart, not getting a preferred choice in a selection ... the usual heartaches of life. Alongside the joys of accomplishment, the struggle of endeavour and the delight of achieving something at the end of it, the simple beauty of relaxing and recharging on a day off or on a weekend ... the simple delights of life. In D's journey, I can't ease his pain. Nor can I determine his boundaries for him. I can't determine what upsets him or what he finds offensive or what holds his interest or what makes him turn away from someone or towards another. What I can do is be a willing listener when he wishes to share something, accept his predicaments and feelings without judgement, and merely rejoice in this gift of time with him that I've been given. To be with a kind, loving child such as D is truly a blessing. A privilege. Even if on some days I feel too tired to jump into the waves with him and splash about, I can still sit by the shore and watch him play and delight in his happiness. And trust that that's OK too. --- Happy birthday, darling D! You are truly a miracle. I'm so grateful you are in my life. 🥳 🎉 ### summer of '26 URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/summer-of-26/ Last updated: 2026-06-09T22:51:10.000Z School's out for D. Summer holidays have officially begun! In the past, this transition has almost always been a moment of panic and grief for me. Without the community support and childcare that school provides, I'd find myself overwhelmed by the mere thought of spending three months caring for little D, ensuring he's well-fed and well-rested and well-socialized and well-parented and having a perfect summer break, the thing that great childhood memories are made of, while also somehow trying to do my "work" and not picking a fight with KrA instead and tending (but often failing to tend) to my needs. Needless to say, it was a recipe for disaster. I felt crushed. I'd snap and yell and shame, and then fall into a spiral of guilt and regret at not being a *better* mother and partner, at finding it so hard to be a *better* human being. Perhaps it's because D has grown to become more independent off late, or perhaps I've finally understood what it means to not fight and resist life but to accept what it sends my way ... I've finally understood there is no such thing as an ideal routine or a perfect life. I can't control my child's future any more than I can determine when it should rain and when the sun ought to shine. Sure, as a parent, I influence him heavily. But so do his school and friends and the books he reads and the games he plays and all the other people he meets, everyone from so many different walks of life, with their own baggages and their own ways of approaching life. When D was younger, I'd worry that every wrong thing that I said or did, or every *right* thing I left unsaid or not done, would go on to harm him in the future. Now I see that no matter what movies and books tell us, it's not one particular decision or set of circumstances that completely changes the trajectory of a person's life. Life flows in its own way, and we can do no more than respond to the best of our ability at that point in time. So this summer, I'm looking forward to taking it one day at a time, enjoying the moments I get with D, spending more time being active with KrA and D, while also honouring the times I need to rest and recharge. There's no ideal scenario to get to. No perfect destination to get to. No dream life to create. What's here is what's here. This is it. This is the moment we get. Sometimes it's sad. Sometimes boring. Sometimes fun and exciting. Mostly ordinary. In all of this, I want to hold myself, KrA and D in great compassion and tenderness, accepting all our foibles and limitations and the joy that arises when we're not trying to make ourselves and our lives perfect. ### May Meanderings: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2026-may-meanderings/ Last updated: 2026-05-31T07:00:07.000Z The sun is shining and the skies are a clear blue once again in this part of the world. Leaves are bursting forth on trees with such joyful abandon that the sight of them makes me slow down and indulge in their beauty every time I turn into a residential street. To top it all, this is the 50th edition of Monthly Missives! And also the last one for the time being, I must mention right away. Rip the band-aid and all that. As of last month, I was only thinking of taking a step back from writing fiction but intended to keep writing these missives. But I suppose the writing was already on the wall and it took me a few more days to see and come to terms with it. 💡 I've made the decision to pause **Monthly Missives*, and I don't know when (or even if) I'll resume it. So for one last time, dear Dreamer, grab a cuppa and let's see where this month's missive takes us. --- ## *Life, Unadulterated* Truth be told I've been struggling to write this missive. First I thought perhaps it'd be nice to reminisce about my foray into writing fiction and poetry several years ago, because as we near the end of something, it's only natural to look back and remember how it all began. But nostalgia has been the one thing that had kept me from calling it quits sooner than now, and I don't think it has served me well. In fact, 2026 has so far been a year in which I picked up hobbies and interests from the past only to ditch them very quickly. It was a no-brainer to understand that I'm no longer the person I once was. Things that had interested me in the past, when I was younger and child-free, no longer hold the same appeal. In fact, for someone who could barely stay still, I've become rather domestic in these past few months, choosing to spend my time at home rather than outdoors. That was largely owing to a debilitating foot pain that kept me from heading out on the long walks I used to enjoy. Anyhoo, I still remember the times when 'home' used to feel like a prison. Unless I was outside, visiting a place or doing something outdoors or meeting someone or just breathing in the vast expanse of space around me, I'd feel very claustrophobic within the four walls of any house or apartment I lived in. Now? I'm a homebody. Like little D, I too prefer to have at least one day of the weekend to indulge in R&R, meaning 'rest' and 'relaxation'. I never thought I'd ever be able to spend time doing 'nothing', but these days I surprise myself with my ability to look out of the window — at the blue sky or at the incessant stream of traffic — without stirring for long stretches of time. Not necessarily thinking of anything in particular, but just taking a pause from meeting the demands of the day. Which reminds me of those famous lines from W. H. Davies's poem, *Leisure*: > *What is this life if, full of care,* > *We have no time to stand and stare.* ![view from a window overlooking green trees](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/rob-wingate-Fd9tUmRBJzk-unsplash.jpg) view from a window | Photo by [Rob Wingate](https://unsplash.com/@robwingate?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/window-curtain-open-wide-Fd9tUmRBJzk?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) So I often sit by the window, just breathing and looking outside. Watching the wind worry the treetops, the squirrels occasionally resting flat on their bellies on the fence, all that water that tumbles from the skies in a thunderstorm. What a relief it is to be able to sit and admire these displays of nature without mentally naming and describing them, without automatically beginning to think of ways to capture these glimpses of beauty in writing! Now that I've stopped writing, my mind feels a lot quieter. I don't know if that's merely a relationship of correlation and not necessarily causation, but it's a welcome respite. > *It's as if I have nothing more to prove to anybody, including myself. And this, I've come to see, is in fact a very freeing, delightful state of being.* --- There's a quote by Osho on the wall above my desk. > *A man who is happy is not searching for meaning. \~ Osho* As much as I've loved Osho's teachings ever since I came across them in my early twenties, this particular line has always triggered me. Because, how could one possibly live without purpose or passion? Without a reason for waking up in the morning and looking forward to the day ahead? Without putting one's time on earth to good use or aiming to spend it in a meaningful way? But in all these years of writing and indie publishing fiction and being a parent, I've also come to see another truth: *Everything has a season.* Every passion, every relationship, every point of view ... it all changes with time as we grow and evolve through the experiences of life, and as the people around us, the world around us continues to shape-shift. And in a world where even seasons can't be relied on to show up in the same fashion year after year, it's folly to expect any kind of sameness from ourselves in all our outward manifestations. The more I observe the world, the more I find how fragile and fleeting everything is. Yet, we hold on to everything — friends we have outgrown or who may have outgrown us, passions and interests we no longer care about, places, communities and routines that keep us entrapped rather than serve to liberate us — because who would we be without these narrative constructs we've built our lives and identities around? So it's only now that I understand that Osho's statement is pretty much the answer to every question of existential angst I've had since I first began to think along those lines more than two decades ago. Everything else — purpose, meaning, passion — was simply an exercise in seeking validation and applause from others or even approval from my own self. Nothing wrong with that, of course, as long as I can be honest with myself as to what I'm really hankering after. ![splashes of colour on paper](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/dragos-gontariu-54VAb3f1z6w-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Dragos Gontariu](https://unsplash.com/@dragos126?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/flat-lay-photography-of-paintings-54VAb3f1z6w?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) So this is what I'm really quitting, dear Dreamer. Writing to prove a point. Writing for the sake of infusing my life with some semblance of significance or meaning. Writing for the sake of fulfilling an egoistic need for fame and approval or even in an attempt to be of service to others. Because creativity doesn't need a reason to exist. It doesn't have to fulfil a worldly desire or take on an acceptable material form to justify its existence. It can simply be, like a boulder in a stream, constantly kissed by all that water flowing over it, concealed at times, revealing glimpses of itself at others, and shining like a polished gemstone in the sunlight. --- ## *Tales For Dreamers* This is a little tale I wrote more than a decade ago. We stopped at a little stream on the way to Milford Sound in New Zealand; it was one of the most magical places I had been to in my life until then. Tranquil. Soothing. Healing. I hope you too find this tale dreamy and serene. [tales for dreamers: reflectionsMirror, mirror on the earth, if I were to peer into your depths, what will you show me in return? Something that lurks between death and birth?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-467b9feccbe0d278bd918d989b50c1b956a730dc2dbc7cf4b650840f031a326d.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/27.-reflections-9c0049ead916ea42a39c581630e9237e383ff01efe096c2ce9d9b6c87da398cb.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-reflections/) --- ## *Books You May Love* Reading has once again become a source of unconditional joy for me. First there was *Play The Game*, a middle-grade basketball-themed trilogy featuring an Indian character in North America, by Amar Shah. I enjoyed this series of books very much and was very glad when even D tore through them with much delight. I've also been continuing to read the *Wings Of Fire* series by Tui T. Sutherland, each book from the point of view of a character we'd have come across in passing in one of the previous books. Quite like how Tana French's *Dublin Murder Square Mysteries* progressed from one book to the next. Speaking of French, I read the latest in her Cal Hooper series, *The Keeper*. It was such a powerful tale, and I now sorely miss the fictional Irish village of Ardnakelty the series is set in. ![a collage of books I read this month](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/Books-you-may-Love_May-2026.jpg) Books you may love - May 2026 collection There was also a book set in Pakistan that was refreshingly different from my usual reading fare — *This Is Where The Serpent Lives* by Daniyal Mueenuddin. And how could I not mention *The Glowing Hours* by Leila Siddiqui, which reconstructs that fateful summer that Mary and Percy Shelley spend in Switzerland in the company of Lord Byron, the summer in which Mary found the inspiration for *Frankenstein*. Except, this book is written from the point of view of their housemaid, who's the granddaughter of a Nawab of Lucknow in India and falls into hardship when she sets sail to England in search of her brother! I've always wondered why historical fiction set in Europe, or at least the UK, in the 1800s and early 1900s rarely feature Indian characters, considering that India was under British rule at the time. Siddiqui's wildly imaginative twist came as a delightful exception! I've been blogging about all these books, interspersing my admiration for these stories with reflections on life. [reflections this month - The Dream Pedlarwriting fantasy fiction steeped in mysticism and soul-searching![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-467b9feccbe0d278bd918d989b50c1b956a730dc2dbc7cf4b650840f031a326d.ico)The Dream Pedlar![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/Header_v2-1-e78b3b36ce3699ae7d9b6fbd4420ab5b17fda796cd1fb9e16d91c75468408681.png)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/reflections-this-month/) --- Well, that brings us to the end of the 50th edition of Monthly Missives, dear Dreamer! Thank you for staying with me for this wonderful ride. I hope these monthly notes have helped you in some way. Of course, goodbye doesn't mean we can't stay in touch. I will still post the occasional blog whenever inspiration strikes. You can comment on my posts (including this one) or email me (hit reply to this missive), and I'll be sure to respond. I'm looking forward to June. D turns 10 years old! As always, I had been letting nostalgia inadvertently get in the way of wholeheartedly embracing the fact that my child is growing up and changing with each moment. So here's to making changes on that front by no longer clinging to what once was, no longer fretting over what is yet to come and, instead, choosing to inhabit this present moment fully and thoroughly. With much love and best wishes, \~ Anitha ### books you may love: dragons, Tana French, and basketball URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/dragons-tana-french-and-basketball/ Last updated: 2026-05-24T12:42:08.000Z It's been a wet, cool May so far this year, quite reminiscent of the month KrA and I encountered when we first set foot in Canada exactly 12 years ago. It was mid-May, and about 4 °C in the morning. In the years that followed, the month of May was mostly hot and humid. Until this year, that is. Two sweltering hot days this month, and it's back to being cold and rainy. I'm not complaining. The weather is what it is. Unpredictable. Moody. I've gotten better at adapting to its whims and adjusting my plans accordingly. The desire to write has also been dwindling for me. I find much more solace in silence than in words these days, so it's begun to feel like a chore to get myself to come to the laptop and type words like these. But, I didn't want to stop without making at least a brief mention of the books I've read lately, especially with one being the end of a trilogy that I enjoyed. So, here we go! --- ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/1.-Winter-Turning.jpeg) Winter Turning by Tui T. Sutherland I've been continuing to read the *Wings Of Fire* series to D. We recently finished reading Book #7, *Winter Turning*, which follows an IceWing named Winter who finds out in the previous book that his brother, long believed to be dead, is alive and a prisoner of Scarlet, former Queen of the SkyWings. This book is from the perspective of Winter, and features Moon, Qibli and Kinkajou, as they help him look for his brother. The IceWings are a very competitive clan. From birth, the dragonets are ranked from levels one to seven, based on their abilities and achievement. Winter often finds himself pitted against his sister and brother, a competition and comparison that's cruelly stoked by their parents and the broader culture of the IceWings. The friendship and cooperation that the other dragons exhibit rattle him terribly. He's always at war between his inner self, that believes in kindness and compassion, versus the self that's been nurtured to think competitively and outperform and outshine other dragons. It's funny that we've been reading this book at the time of watching the NBA Playoffs. The players are so aggressive on court, willing to push and shove each other in the name of the game. Is it humanly possible for them to exhibit kindness and cooperation in other aspects of life? When the very essence of competing is to ensure that you do better than your opponent, or at the very least you try to keep your opponent from outshining you, how far would you go to achieve that? In a game like tennis or cricket, one could still argue that winning largely depends on how well you play. But the NBA has become such a physical game it now seems to be less about skillful play and more about who can be more physically intimidating or flop and foul-bait enough to get to the free throw line. Still makes for entertaining viewing at times, but the dopamine hits of near-constant scoring have gotten to be too much for me. So even though the Western Conference and Eastern Conference teams are playing their finals now, my enthusiasm to watch these games has also declined, although I may make an exception for Game 4 between Spurs and Thunder tonight. 😉 Anyhoo, I digress. As with all other books in the *Wings Of Fires* series, *Winter Turning* too was full of plot twists and turns and exquisite writing and storytelling. D recently said that he wished he could go back and read the series from the beginning as though he were reading it for the first time with no inkling of how the plots would unfold. I can empathize with him. He has read the books and the graphic novel versions countless times. This is my first time reading these tales and they make for such engrossing, intelligent reading. Sutherland is a genius, to say the least! --- ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/2.-The-Keeper.jpeg) The Keeper by Tana French Whenever there's a new Tana French book, life needs to be shoved out of the way to make space and time for the sheer beauty that French's writing is. *The Keeper* is the third book in the Cal Hooper series (trilogy, perhaps?), featuring an ex-police detective from Chicago who has moved to rural Ireland, to a village named Ardnakelty. The trilogy progresses with Hooper being a total noob to the ways of rural Irish life in the first book to becoming thoroughly entrenched in it by the end of the third. What I really loved about *The Keeper* were the long conversations the characters have with each other. Something unhurried about these pages and pages of dialogues revealing and also concealing the characters' motives ... it was like stepping into a neighbourhood pub myself and having long conversations about life and love and everything under the sun with people you've known and who've known you for a lifetime. I had dog-eared several pages from which to share excerpts with you, but the aforementioned lack of enthusiasm to do any writing keeps me from putting in that effort. Nevertheless, here's one passage that ought to be shared. It'd be criminal to not do so. You'll know why when you read it. > *Mart, who's trundling alternate wheelbarrow-loads of split wood to his back door and to Cal's red Pajero, wolf-whistles at him. "Wouldja look at them muscles," he says admiringly. "D'you remember the state of you, when you first got here? A belly on you like Santy, you had, and I could tell by your face you were riddled with the cholesterol. That's what the food in America does to a man. Over here you wouldn't be allowed to sell it as food, most of it; you'd have to label it 'industrial by-product, not for human consumption.' And now look at you. Giving Jean-Claude Van Damme a run for his money."* > *\~ An excerpt from The Keeper by Tana French* High time someone said this truth out loud. I go to the mall, there's no meal for less than 15 bucks, and the quantity is enough to feed three people! When we know that junk food and processed foods are so harmful to human health, why are they still made available so easily? Unsurprisingly, the answer is always money. A small bunch of people are making shitloads of money by selling poison to the general public in the name of food, making technology available that converts them into addicts with mushy brains, and then washing their hands off of any responsibility when it comes to the widespread consequences on physical, mental and environmental health of these products and services. I was pleasantly surprised when the UK made it illegal to sell tobacco to those born in or after 2008\. Sure, their reasons may not have been entirely altruistic — keep the pressure off NHS — still it seems to be a move in the right direction. It's all very well for the manufacturers of these products and services to say that the choice is entirely upon individuals whether or not to eat junk food, whether or not to be on social media. But how is a human being supposed to be strong enough to make choices that are often counterculture and still remain sane? The debate is endless, because these industries offer so much employment and other benefits — connectivity, affordable food to stave off hunger, etc. — that to eliminate them would have other harmful consequences. Well, I suppose we can only make the choices we can, given our life circumstances and our mental fortitude ... and even those are not entirely of our own making, despite what modern-day gurus would like to claim. All this to say that I absolutely enjoyed *The Keeper* and I felt sad to bid goodbye to Ardnakelty. I can't wait to see what Tana French writes next. --- ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/3.-Time-To-Win.jpeg) Time To Win by Amar Shah I made a very conscious effort to read *Time To Win*, Book #3 in the *Play The Game* series, a basketball-themed middle-grade trilogy featuring an Indian-origin protagonist in North America, by Amar Shah. I was terrified of leaving it unread, having done something similar with Christopher Pike's *Thirst* series. After devouring five books in the series, I didn't get to Book #6 in a long time and now I've forgotten too much of the story thread to pick up the last book without reading the first five again. I didn't want *Play The Game* to suffer the same fate at my hands, so I made sure to read a few pages every day. And what a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy it turned out to be! Raam is now part of his school's basketball team, but his challenges have only just begun. Learning to play with his erstwhile nemesis entails an arc of its own, and we're treated to this story lavishly, with its usual dose of Indian colours and songs and *joie de vivre*, thanks to his mom's Bollywood dance studio. D picked up the first book last week and tore through all three books in the series before I did. There's much to love in this book — the changing nature of friendships, the desire to succeed, the lure of ambition, the fear of disappointing others — all these themes are simply so relatable and tug at the heartstrings. --- Well, I'm glad I was finally able to put down my thoughts on these three gems I read recently. I don't know how often I'll come back to post here over the next few weeks or months. I'll be sending out this month's missive next Sunday, and after that I'd like to take a pause from writing. I'd like to step away from this field to see what else could fill my life. Clearing out the old to make way for the new. Perhaps live less in my head and more in the world outside, enjoying the pleasures of summer. Let's see where life takes me henceforth. ### believing in cheesy motivational quotes once again URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/believing-in-cheesy-motivational-quotes-once-again/ Last updated: 2026-05-12T01:48:06.000Z D and I were watching the Spurs vs Timberwolves Game 4 last evening, so we got to see the moment when Wemby elbowed Naz Reid on his neck and was ejected from the game. As I was checking the news this morning to see if there was any update on the NBA League's pending decision on whether or not to impose additional penalties and/or fines on Wemby, I came across an article about Reid's post-game media interview. When asked about the incident, Reid is said to have [responded](https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/naz-reid-on-getting-elbowed-by-victor-wembanyama/ar-AA22USJN?gemSnapshotKey=GMB0ACEEE4-snapshot-3&apiversion=v2&domshim=1&noservercache=1&noservertelemetry=1&batchservertelemetry=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1) with the words: > *Pain is weakness leaving the body.* A quick Google search will tell you that the origins of this phrase lie in the US Marine Corps, but that's beside the point. A month or so ago, upon hearing a phrase like the above, I'd have argued that it's plain foolishness to ignore pain and push through. What if that dogged persistence ends up being an act of foolhardiness rather than one of braveness? Then, I sometimes see D playing basketball through the pain of a scraped knee or a twisted ankle, and remember my own days of youth — Gosh! Putting it that way makes me sound far older than I truly am, trust me! — especially at university, when I'd play basketball all evening or run for five miles, then come back, have dinner, and stay up to study and finish assignments and such. Exhaustion wasn't a word in my vocabulary back then. The optimism of youth is infectious. It's a blessing to be in its vicinity. To be touched by it. To be swept up by its breezy potency. I don't know when I lost that zest for life and fell upon every ache and pain as an excuse to stay closed and hidden, wrapped up in a cocoon, too tired and hurting and raw and vulnerable from the scrapes and gashes one inevitably endures in daily encounters with the world. But something has begun to shift of late. What it is, I don't know. Perhaps it is the warm sunshine that has begun to spill on our heads or the sight of newborn green leaves. Perhaps it is the relentless passage of time, the truth of it bearing down upon me in full force what with D set to turn 10 years old in exactly 40 days from now. Or perhaps this kind of wisdom only comes as we age, as we begin to lose all that we once took for granted — youth, physical vitality, lifelong friendships, even courage — and begin to cherish whatever comes our way. My mother would say that the planets have shifted at last, like clouds parting to make way for the rays of the sun. Mine is a family of astrologers, so I'm prone to believe that explanation. But, perhaps I've also had enough of living a scared, small existence, confined by fears conjured up by my imagination, and am determined not to waste a single more moment of life in despair and despondency, in negative thought spirals and doomsday scenarios. --- ![man diving from a clifftop into a water body at sunset](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/josiah-gardner-Tb9FJ4Znz-U-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Josiah Gardner](https://unsplash.com/@josiahgardner?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/person-diving-from-cliff-to-body-of-water-during-sunset-Tb9FJ4Znz-U?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) I asked the Internet questions such as "how to accept my life without complaints" and came across a Reddit thread in which someone had shared how they had embarked on a 30-day journey of self-improvement. The challenge is to catch oneself in the process of complaining and replace those thoughts or words with a more problem-solving approach. This is not toxic positivity. For instance, if it's grey and rainy outside and the weather is dragging our mood down, we'd mainly complain, "Gosh! It's so gloomy outside." The trick is to complete that sentence so that it's no longer a mere moan of a victim but a more empowering, solution-oriented statement. For instance, "Gosh! It's so gloomy outside. My mind feels weighed down. What are some things I could do to cheer up? Listen to music? Clean my closet? Write in my journal." For each day that we give in to complaining or moaning, we add a day to the total number of days we'll remain committed to not complaining. I started this exercise on Saturday, which went really well, only for Sunday to overcompensate with a lot more negativity that I thought would surface on a Mother's Day made ultra special with much love by D. But today is a day of reset, and I can already see the world around me getting brighter when I can stay in the present moment, and adopt a problem-solving approach every time I find myself facing any issue, be it real or imaginary. --- Game 4 of the play-offs between Knicks and 76ers didn't air on Sportsnet, and neither D nor I have the heart to watch the highlights on YouTube. We don't have the heart to see the 76ers facing defeat at the hands of the Knicks, especially after the 76ers played so gallantly against the higher-seeded Boston Celtics in the earlier playoff round to make it this far. The 76ers played Game 4 in their home court in Philadelphia, but the stadium was apparently bursting with Knicks fans. So much so that the 76ers felt as though they were playing at Madison Square Garden (the Knicks's home court). I've been looking up post-media interviews of Tyrese Maxey, and this is what he had to [say](https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/tyrese-maxey-reveals-impact-knicks-025307400.html) about the complete lack of fan support for his team. *“It absolutely sucks, if I’m being honest. It just sucks. That’s really all I can say about it, man. It’s hard. It’s definitely difficult. It’s only one way to put a stop to it, and it’s that we have to go out there and win these games.”* The maturity of these words and of Maxey's understanding is incredible! He doesn't blame the lack of fan support for their loss. Instead, he understands that that reason they lack fan support in the first place is because they haven't been performing as well as an audience shelling out upwards of $500 per ticket would expect. The ability to take responsibility for not drawing a supportive crowd, rather than blame the lack of support for their playoff losses, is rare. Or maybe it's not rare but it's a quality that I had certainly not been able to muster for a very long time. ![idols of four children with shaved heads depicting see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, and stay serene](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/shanthi-raja-DhiWTDYUWWA-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Shanthi Raja](https://unsplash.com/@shanthiraja?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/3-boys-in-blue-and-black-shirts-DhiWTDYUWWA?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) It's only in the past few days that I've been determined to live my life more intentionally, spend time with D in ways that are joyful, encouraging and supportive. And in order to be able to do that, it was obvious that I needed to feel joyful and secure within myself. Strangely, setting aside the ambition to earn a living by writing books has helped unravel all that was tightly wound up inside me. I had so many anxieties around writing and self-publishing as a business and it took up so much of my mental and emotional energy to combat those fears and keep doing the work that it left me with very little courage and willpower to face other aspects of life with curiosity, trust and open-heartedness. I didn't even realize this fully until several days after I had made the decision to quit writing for money and shared it privately with close friends at first, then announced it in my latest monthly newsletter. Now that I've delinked writing and earning a livelihood, my life has begun to turn around. My daily activities are filled with more joy. I can read without that underlying fear that I may never be able to write like so-and-so author did. I can write blog posts like these without berating myself for not using my time more wisely to write fiction instead. And, I've also been able to look back at all the mistakes I've made in this journey and, instead of shaking my head at myself, I can look at the past and glean valuable insights and learnings that I've begun to apply in my current journey. To not have been able to do this for years had been so limiting, I realize only now. But this newfound self of mine doesn't believe in regrets. No complaints, remember? So here's to looking ahead to good times. In celebration of this transition, I'll leave you with some motivational quotes. > *Turn your wounds into wisdom.* > *\~ Oprah Winfrey* > *Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.* > *\~ Mary Tyler Moore* > *Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.* > *\~ Helen Keller* > *There is no coming to consciousness without pain.* > *\~ Carl Jung* > *Pain is the portal to consciousness.* > *\~ Dr. Shefali Tsabary* > *The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.* > *\~ Lord Byron* > *Life is short. You have to be able to laugh at our pain or we never move on.* > *\~ Jeff Ross* > *It's not who's the best - it's who can take the most pain.* > *\~ Steve Prefontaine* > *I think that any time of great pain is a time of transformation, a fertile time to plant new seeds.* > *\~ Debbie Ford* ### books you may love: The Glowing Hours by Leila Siddiqui URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-glowing-hours-by-leila-siddiqui/ Last updated: 2026-05-09T23:37:36.000Z I must tell you two very disparate things before I can talk about this book. - The first thing is this — when reading historical fiction set in the UK and Europe, I've often wondered why Indian characters are rarely featured. After all, India was under British rule for much of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Several years ago, [*The Art of Inheriting Secrets*](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-art-of-hiraeth/) by Barbara O'Neal came as a wonderful and surprising exception to that norm. So much so that it has stayed on my mind all this while. But I've come across very little since. - The second thing is this — I can't believe I don't have a record of this on my website, but many moons ago I read a book titled [*Mary, or The Birth of Frankenstein*](https://www.anne-eekhout.com/international-editions/) by Dutch writer Anne Eekhout and translated by Laura Watkinson. A historical fiction novel, it unfolds during that fateful summer that Mary and Percy Shelley spend in Geneva in the company of Lord Byron and John Polidori. It is believed (or historically proven) that this summer was when the idea to pen the story of Frankenstein took seed in Mary's mind. Now, put these two things together, and you have the madly delicious awesomeness that is *The Glowing Hours* by Leila Siddiqui. ![hardback copy of The Glowing Hours by Leila Siddiqui](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/The-Glowing-Hours.jpeg) It's 1815, and Mehrunissa Begum, daughter of Sadaatunissa Begum, herself the daughter of the Nawab of Lucknow, descendant of Khwaja Mu'in al-Din Chishti, is aboard a ship destined for London. She was born to an English father and an Indian mother, and has a brother named James. Her father took fair-skinned James when he was only a boy and left for England ages ago, leaving behind dark-skinned Mehr and her mother. When her mother dies, Mehr is tasked with finding James and handing him their mother's will. Only, when Mehr arrives in England, James is nowhere to be found. Instead, a woman named Miss Christy offers Mehr boarding in a home for solitary Indian women, abandoned by their English employers when their services as *aayahs* (nannies) were no longer needed. It takes Mehr a few weeks to come to terms with her difficult situation. She doesn't have money to return to India, so she'd have to look for work in England. As a housemaid, at best. Mehr ends up in the house of Percy and Mary Shelley, and travels with them to Geneva in the summer of 1816 where she encounters Lord Byron and John Polidori, both of whom are intrigued by this Indian woman. The story unfolds in this setting and we see each character and their quirks and obsessions from Mehr's perspective. To top it all, everyone is haunted by their own kinds of monsters. Mary sees the ghost of her mother. Percy sees his children from his previous marriage, which hasn't yet been annulled. Polidori is haunted by two former patients of his. Byron cavorts with a strange, seemingly lifeless spectral avatar of his lover, Lady Caroline Lamb. As the blurb says ... > *Almost immediately, Mehr notices strange, ghostly events at the villa. The walls breathe, portraits shift, and phantoms appear like unbidden guests who refuse to leave. The weather is fierce and foreboding, showing no signs of softening its relentless pall. And as Mary Shelley begins work on what will become her earth-shattering literary phenomenon, Mehr finds herself trapped in the villa as the rest of its inhabitants descend into madness.* --- I have been thinking a lot lately about why I write and why I read. This definitely has something to do with my [recent](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2026-april-a-ha/) decision to stop writing for the sake of earning a livelihood and to write for the simple joy of it. The instant I decided to do that, I was able to go back to reading books without feeling guilty or overwhelmed or having that constant nagging feeling that I need to somehow figure out how the author wrote such a beautiful piece. For a long time, I've believed that I write because I have something to say and that I want people to read it. > *Now I've come to see that I write not to be seen or heard, but for the clarity of thought that comes with writing.* > *And when I want to be seen or heard, it is not writing, but reading, that I turn to.* This may sound antithetical at first. But think about it for a moment. > *Don't we feel* [*seen*](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-impact-and-importance-of-representation/) *when a character like us appears on the screen or in the pages of a book we read?* > *Don't we feel vindicated when someone says or writes something that feels as though they had peeked into our minds and plucked out the thoughts that constantly haunt us but that we were too afraid to say aloud?* ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/janko-ferlic-sfL_QOnmy00-unsplash.jpg) Why do we read and write? | Photo by [🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič](https://unsplash.com/@itfeelslikefilm?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/photo-of-library-with-turned-on-lights-sfL%5FQOnmy00?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) I'm currently reading Alain De Botton's *The Consolations Of Philosophy*, and I will write at length about it in a separate post. But here are a couple of lines I read in the first chapter itself, which made me feel as though De Botton had held up a mirror to my psyche. > *I sought the approval of figures of authority and after encounters with them, worried at length whether they had thought me acceptable. When passing through customs or driving alongside police cars, I harboured a confused wish for the uniformed officials to think well of me.* > *\~ Alain de Botton, The Consolations Of Philosophy* I do this all the time, and I've always been deeply ashamed of my innate tendency to behave thus. But to see these lines in a book, to know of another human being who behaves likewise, made me feel seen and accepted in a way that had never happened before. When I send out my *Monthly Missives*, people write back to me because they see themselves in my words. They share similar experiences or doubts and feelings. It is as if my words have somehow given them the permission to feel what they feel and to be OK with it. > *But when I write and expose my inner world, it's not with a desire to be seen by others but with a more subconscious desire to be seen by myself, to know myself better, to understand myself a little more than before.* It's a subtle difference, but one that explains why people of colour can easily read and enjoy the works of white authors featuring predominantly white characters — they may not necessarily feel seen or heard in an individual way, but they can still recognize in the story the overarching theme of the colonial and post-colonial times they may have grown up in or lived through. It's also a huge reason why the reverse doesn't necessarily hold true. It takes real effort on the part of, say, white people to read books by non-white authors. There's very little to relate to, especially if they've grown up in relative isolation from other cultures. This is a conundrum that's best appreciated by the people of the global majority because our life experiences are entirely coloured by this context. It's a global world with global connectivity, yet some of us can still choose the books we wish to read or the movies we want to see and set aside those we don't much care for. Whereas others are constantly and overwhelmingly aware of the effects of colonialism on their lives. --- Anyhow, I've digressed tremendously. Or perhaps I've not. Because when I read about how Mehrunissa Begum, daughter of Sadaatunissa Begum, herself the daughter of the nawab of Lucknow, a princess in her own right, resented having to work as a housemaid, I felt seen in my own struggles to get through household chores, especially after having grown up in India where maids took care of the dusting and the cleaning, and all I had to do was study hard and work hard, both of which I dutifully did. It's taken me years to adopt a stance of dignity towards all kinds of labour, and draw my own boundaries around what kind of chores I'd do and how frequently and which ones I don't have the bandwidth for. So now I enjoy cooking for my family, and I've decided not to spend time and effort on gardening. It's time and attention I'd have otherwise spent on D, and that is far more important to me in this season of my life. I make do by seeking delight in my indoor plants, frequent purchases of floral arrangements, and hanging baskets for the spring and summer. Mehr's story was utterly fascinating, and I'm so glad I came across this gem of a book in my local library. What a blessing it is to lead a life filled with the joys of reading and writing! ### books you may love: Take The Shot (Play The Game Book #2) by Amar Shah URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/take-the-shot-play-the-game-book-2-by-amar-shah/ Last updated: 2026-05-08T22:53:03.000Z After thoroughly enjoying the [first book](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-hoop-con-play-the-game-book-1-by-amar-shah/) in the series, copies of which I bought for D's friend as well as for D, I turned to the library to request the second and third books in the series. Not for any reason other than the fact that I'm waiting for D to actually read Book 1 before I thrust the subsequent books upon him. The lovely child has a funny way with recommendations. Sometimes they motivate him. At other times he chooses to ignore them. His mind has its own beautiful way of working, and who am I to interfere with that?! Anyhoo, I tore through this book over two days, reading while D was at school, when I ought to have been working. So engrossing it was! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/Take-The-Shot.jpeg) Take The Shot (Play The Game Book #2) by Amar Shah Our protagonist, Raam, returns to Orlando after a summer break with his cousin in California, his passion and motivation to play basketball having come back in full force. Only, grade six begins with an unexpected disaster. His arch nemesis, Payton, who had humiliated Raam by posterizing over him at the Hoop Con earlier that summer, has now joined Raam's school. To make things worse, Raam's bosom buddy, Cake (Chirag), is more interested in developing his social media profile and takes to following Payton like an eager pup, leaving Raam friendless and confused. We also get a glimpse into some family drama with Raam's mother now running a dance studio and finding herself up against some glitzy competition within her community. Throw in the possible return of a long-lost love interest, and an unexpected family crisis, and our boy is tugged in all directions with everything that could possibly go wrong in his life falling apart. --- I was depressed when the book ended — nothing at all to do with the story, which was an even more exciting development over the first book in the series — but because the strong presence of Raam's grandparents in his life sent me back to the old anxieties of D's own grandparents being sorely absent from his. One of my biggest worries about living in Canada is not having a network of family and friends to count on in times of need or even otherwise on a regular basis. And that's not for lack of trying. I have met many people through my time at MBA school, freelance work, as an indie author, playdates at the park, D's preschool and, later, school, conversations with neighbours and as a regular patron of the local library. Two things have stood out to me through the course of the past decade and meeting so many people from different walks of life. - ***Relationships are fluid.*** That's the nature of relationships. They're fluid. They're fleeting. Ephemeral, to say the least. People come and go. We've had so many lovely neighbours move in and out in these past several years. I've written about this [here](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/a-season-of-endings/?ref=thedreampedlar.com) and [here](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/a-season-of-endings/?ref=thedreampedlar.com). Friendships themselves change in dynamics as interests and activities change, as life circumstances alter, and cause us to outgrow old relationships and forge new ones. There's a lovely lady (also named D! but let's call her Di) who lives right across the road from us. She's a soul-sister. From the instant we met, we forged a very special bond and took every opportunity we could to get together with our children. She went back to a full-time job about a year ago. I've seen her all of 3 or 4 times in that period. Our children go to different schools and have probably forgotten all about each other's existence. D has enjoyed a great friendship with another child in his class, E. Their family is also from India, so we've have opportunities over the past couple of years to get to know each other fairly well. Over the past few months, D has begun distancing himself from E. Some mean words were said, and my child was brave enough to call E out on them. Sometimes other children say mean things and while D stands up for himself, help from E is rarely forthcoming. These experiences have led D to forge other friendships and, even more importantly, take to pursuing his interests even if it means doing so alone. This is a skill I never learnt and struggle with even to this day – the art of enjoying one's own company. The art of choosing solitude over discouraging companionship. ![rear black-and-white image of two children walking on a dirt lane through the woods](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/annie-spratt-gq5PECP8pHE-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Annie Spratt](https://unsplash.com/@anniespratt?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/grayscale-photography-of-kids-walking-on-road-gq5PECP8pHE?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) - ***Help always comes, even if from unexpected quarters.*** One of the reasons we feel the need to surround ourselves with people, to immerse ourselves in a community, so to speak, is to have the solace of knowing that if we needed help on any occasion, there are people we could turn to in an emergency or a crisis. But what if the person listed as your emergency contact is out of town on the day you need them? What if they are unwell? Or unreachable for some reason? Is the solution to have 10 names on your list of emergency contacts? Well! Good Luck, because keeping one close friend is hard enough, considering the amount of time, attention and affection it takes to cultivate a close relationship, let alone 10! What I've noticed in the times I've needed help is that help has always come. Not necessarily from known faces, but often from strangers. Not necessarily from close friends, but often from that mom I may have walked past in the school hallway with just a smile and a hello, acknowledging that our children are in the same class but not having anything in common beyond that. I love Mister Rogers' words: *Look for the helpers.* It's actually something his mom used to tell him. “*When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”* I've added my own embellishment to that line: *Look for the helpers. Be a helper too.* I've been holding on to these words more and more often these days, feeling quite like the little boy, Fred, who saw scary things in the news. I'm also making it a point to remember that every time trouble has come, we've either found a solution or found help. I believe strongly in this, and this belief keeps from needing to interact with people with some ulterior motive in mind. I can simply be a source of pleasantness and joy in any interaction with another person instead of wondering whether or not my investment of time and effort in cultivating this particular relationship will serve me in good stead in the future. --- Well, that was quite a roundabout way of saying that *Take The Shot* stirred some very emotional heartstrings in me, so much so that for an entire day after reading it, I missed home and family far too much to be functional. That almost put me off from reading the third book in the series, *Time To Win*. But I'm not going to make the mistake I made with the *Thirst* series by Christopher Pike. My dear friend, Helen, recommended these books to me. I tore through Books 1—5, and my dear friend gifted me a paperback copy of *Thirst No. 6*! That's the book I haven't read to date. I read the other books more than three years ago. You can read about my musings on [*Thirst No. 1*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/), [*Thirst No. 2*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-no-2-by-christopher-pike/), and more on the [*Thirst*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-more-on-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/) series as a whole. I recently borrowed the first book from the library, hoping to go through the entire series once again to refresh my memory, so that I could finally enjoy the gift my friend gave me. I wasn't able to get into it; too many other real-life things were demanding my attention and left me unable to enjoy the story. I suppose the season for it is not now and will come later. ![open book held by an unseen person against autumn-themed pillows](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/clay-banks-w_qTfiPbjbg-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Clay Banks](https://unsplash.com/@claybanks?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/person-reading-book-on-brown-and-beige-textile-w%5FqTfiPbjbg?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) But having had that experience, I don't wish to leave the *Play The Game* series unfinished. It's next on my to-read list, when the characters and their stories are still fresh in my head and heart, and I look forward to reading it. By the way, I had no idea that you could see alligators crossing the road in Orlando?! Raam and his father encounter one such reptile while on a drive through the heart of the city. How exciting?! Or terrifying?! 😂 --- Meanwhile, we've been highly engrossed in the NBA Playoffs. Rooting for the Philadelphia 76ers today against the NY Knicks. But if it will be 76ers versus Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, my heart will break for whoever loses. Right now, D is listening to the Pistons' players introduction song — *The Final Countdown* by Europe! An old-time favourite. Only a few minutes before Game 3 begins. Go 76ers, go! ### books you may love: This Is Where The Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/this-is-where-the-serpent-lives-by-daniyal-mueenuddin/ Last updated: 2026-05-06T14:27:07.000Z A few weeks ago, I took a wonderful opportunity to check off an item on my bucket list! Watch a movie in a theatre all by myself! One of D's classmates' mom, R, who's also my friend irrespective of whether or not our children play with each other (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't) was my inspiration for this bold step. A few months ago she was telling me how she set out to watch a movie by herself one Saturday afternoon, taking time for herself away from home while her husband and her son figured out what to do at home. She went to watch Wuthering Heights. The movie I wanted to watch was Dhurandhar 2\. I had watched Part 1 when it came on Netflix a few months ago and had absolutely loved it. So much so that as soon as the movie ended, I went right back to the beginning and watched it once again. When news came that Part 2 wouldn't stream on Netflix, I knew I didn't want that to be a reason for missing it. So I told KrA that I wanted to go watch it in the theatres, and he was game to hang out with D that afternoon. And that is how I came to watching a movie in a theatre all by myself. Dhurandhar 2 at the SilverCity Brant Cinemas theatre! It was a 4-hour movie, which warranted an intermission, which is very unusual for movie theatres in Canada. I also chose to order a small popcorn and drink combo (iced tea without ice is my favourite!) and ended up eating only half of the bag of popcorn. Perhaps, sharing a medium-sized bag with KrA normally makes me eat in a hurry, out of fear that KrA would end up eating far more than his fair share?! Haha! Dhurandhar is primarily set in Pakistan, where an Indian spy infiltrates a local gang with an immense political stronghold in an attempt to thwart attempts of acts of terrorism on India. The world is not oblivious to the fact that there's been a long-standing history of conflict between India and Pakistan, one that spills over to the holy cricket ground. But living in Canada, as I do now, I've encountered many Pakistanis in various professions — my family doctor is one, and I trust her with my life and that of my family — who are just as human as we are. Kind, helpful, compassionate, doing what they can to help. Here, somewhat removed from the conflicts on the India-Pakistan border, it's easier to see each other as human beings, doing our best to make our way through this world in this lifetime. Shortly after I watched Dhurandhar, I came across the book, *This Is Where The Serpent Lives*, by Daniyal Mueenuddin in the library. ![Hardback Copy of This Is Where The Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin featuring a man resting surrounded by small groups of people in conversation](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/Book-Cover_TIWTSL.jpeg) > The blurb goes like this: > *Moving from Pakistan’s dazzling chaotic cities to its lawless feudal countryside, This Is Where the Serpent Lives powerfully evokes contemporary feudal Pakistan, following the destinies of a dozen unforgettable characters whose lives are linked through violence and tragedy, triumph, and love.* > *Orphaned as a little boy and fending for himself in the city streets, Yazid rises to a place of responsibility and respect in the Lahore household of Colonel Atar, a powerful industrialist and politician, only to find that position threatened by conflicting loyalties and misplaced trust.* > *Born on Colonel Atar’s country estate to a poor gardener, Saqib is entrusted with the management of a pioneering business, but he overreaches and finds himself an outlaw, confronting the violence of the corrupt Punjab Police.* > *The colonel’s son competes with his cherished brother for the love of a woman and discovers that her choice colors his life with unexpected darkness as well as light.* The book begins with Yazid's story who is abandoned by his parents in a busy marketplace. He's taken in by a stall owner who makes *naans* and *parathas* and engages Yazid in his trade. We see Yazid's interactions with boys from richer families who go to a private school nearby. They gather to play carrom, a tabletop game in which players flick a striker to sink wooden discs into corner pockets. From there on, the story follows Yazid's journey into the upper echelons of society, his first crush on the sister of one of the boys he plays with, and the realization that he'd never be accepted as one of them. Yazid's story leads us to another tale of a young Pakistani man, who has returned to his village after having spent several years abroad in educational pursuits. He now needs to manage his ancestral land, which is repeatedly vandalized by an unfriendly faction. Desperate, he sends for some goons from Lahore to teach the vandals a lesson, and ends up finding the goons to be more trouble than they're worth. The story then jumps to this man's cousin, Hisham, and his exploits in Pakistan and abroad. I forget many of the names now, having returned the book to the library, but I remember being deeply touched by the details that brought all these characters to life. Some of the *sahibs* trust their servants blindly. Some servants rejoice in serving their masters. Others face the temptation of stealing from them, just enough to elevate their own station in life without significantly hurting their master's finances. These day-to-day dilemmas of each character rendered the contradictions of my own inner world so much more acceptable. I loved reading about the simplicity of village life, the labours of farm life, and the constant desire for wealth even when it's obvious that the wealthy themselves go about their lives feeling hollow and shallow within. And it's all portrayed with much wit, humour and charm! ![a farmer in his fields during the golden hour](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/huzaifa-waheed-cWr9DucW88o-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Huzaifa Waheed](https://unsplash.com/@zefiwaheed?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-in-white-dress-standing-on-green-grass-field-during-daytime-cWr9DucW88o?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) > *The principle of using household servants in an executive capacity had been established, strangely enough, by Colonel Atar. Colonel Sahib was old school, meaning he was trained at Dehradun and the Indian Military Academy before Partition, and had absorbed deep in his fibres a respect for British tradition and manners that could still be seen in his upright posture and choleric bearing, his bristling moustache, the silver on his dining table, his fondness for dogs, his shooting and riding, his khakis and tweeds, his accent, and, most significantly, his views of the role and bearing proper to the lower classes.* > *Plainly Colonel Sahib could not be considered a man of revolutionary principles, and it had therefore been a remarkable day when he took his chauffeur, Bayazid, into his confidence and even into his heart, an organ not notable for its warmth. Perhaps it was his age — the Colonel Sahib was in his graying fifties when Yazid joined his service, as a shaggy genial youth — and perhaps also that Colonel Atar had already then begun to consider himself a man of a previous era, and therefore ripe to assume various eccentricities, including dispensing with niceties of class when it amused him to.* > *The long-retired colonel began to use Yazid not just as a personal servant, but as a source of information and even advice regarding his businesses, peppering him with questions about the goings-on at Ranmal Mohra and among his factory managers, during their long drives on the old Grand Trunk Road between Lahore and Islamabad, where the colonel intermittently served in government or played an intemperate part in the opposition. Yazid was not a tattletale, took no pleasure in exposing wrongdoing, believed in service and loyalty, and had no ambition to be anything other than a driver. These qualities, which his astute master conceded, gave his words weight.* > *It was in this context and with this precedent that Hisham — meaning Shahnaz, really — resolved to put Saqib in charge of the new enterprise, reasoning that Yazid would supervise and Saqib provide the energy. Though he was only twenty-one at the time, and looked even younger with his wisp of a moustache and cheeks that barely needed shaving, Saqib undoubtedly had the presence and initiative and intelligence to make a go of it.* > *"Are you sure? He's smart enough, but isn't he a bit green?" said Shahnaz to Hisham as they sat over toast and marmalade in the dining room at Ranmal Mohra. She had already made up her mind, and now was pretending reluctance as a way of bringing Hisham on board, these almost necessary subterfuges of a wife who for years had been playing three-dimensional chess with her hapless mate quite without his knowledge.* > *Poor Hisham, as she regarded him at such junctures, could be obtuse. "Perhaps you're right. He's just a kid, and he has no idea of business. Plus, I hate to lose such a good valet."* > *"Valet? Saqib? Pffh." Shahnaz was elaborately buttering her toast, which she regarded as an art, one that she absorbed as a diplomat brat among the Europeans. "You're not just wasting him packing your suits and making your drinks the way you like them — you'll even be wasting him on your vegetable startup. I still say that boy should be sent to university, if only he knew English. Not that he doesn't, by the way, but I doubt his spelling."* > *"I suppose he learned it by watching our lips," said Hisham. "Like some super-intelligent dog."* > *"Dog! You're worse than your Colonel Sahib."* > *\~ An utterly delightful excerpt from This Is Where The Serpent Lives* --- One of the criticisms of this book that I've seen on Goodreads is that readers find this to be not a novel but a series of loosely interconnected tales focusing on different characters. That may be so, but in the course of reading the novel, I found it to be a realistic progression, with the story being told from the perspective of one character and then another, unfurling as time and events do. Stories written by western authors often tend to offer closure, coming back full circle at the end and leaving no loose ends. Everything is neatly explained and tied up and presented like a gift wrapped in sparkly paper and a ribbon with an exquisite bow. There's a sense of completion. But stories written by Asian authors often leave a lot to the imagination, allowing minor plot points to remain unresolved on paper. I find those are the stories that linger in the mind long after I've finished reading a book. It's not about a neat conclusion or a tidy resolution. It's about the unfolding of the character's story, their life, which continues long after we've turned the last page. ### books you may love: The Hoop Con (Play The Game Book #1) by Amar Shah URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-hoop-con-play-the-game-book-1-by-amar-shah/ Last updated: 2026-05-06T00:21:17.000Z Little D's school celebrates Grandparents & Special Friends Day every year in spring. Parents aren't allowed to attend the special events on this day, which include a special assembly and a lovely ritual in which the grandparents/special friends join the children in their classrooms for some fun learning, and then take the children out for lunch afterwards. Even though D has never had a grandparent/special friend join him at school on these occasions, every year I've taken D out for lunch, sometimes along with one of his friends. Once D went out for lunch with a friend and his dad. Fun times! This year, D and one of his close friends in the other Grade 4 class (also D, haha, but let's call him DL for the sake of distinction) didn't have any special friends coming over. That child's mum suggested we could turn up as Special Friends for each other's children. DL's grandparents were in Canada last year and he missed their presence sorely on the occasion of Grandparents Day this year. So I thought it would be nice to take a little gift for him this year. DL and D are both basketball enthusiasts. So I was looking for basketball-themed books for DL. That's when I came across Amar Shah's trilogy, *Play The Game*, featuring an Indian-origin boy, Raam Patel, growing up in the US, fanatic about basketball, and looking to make it into his middle-school team the following year. [*The Hoop Con*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63899023-the-hoop-con) is the first book in the series. ![paperback copy of The Hoop Con by Amar Shah featuring an Indian boy and girl with basketballs on a court surrounded by palm trees](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/The-Hoop-Con.jpeg) The Hoop Con by Amar Shah In this one, we meet Raam (I suspect this is an anagram of the author's first name!) and his neighbour and best friend, Cake (Chirag), and their shared dreams of making it to the middle school basketball team. They encounter a pair of playground bullies, the Moores twins, often. The greatest disaster is when Raam manages to get into the *The Hoop Con*, a week-long basketball camp were his favourite player, Aaron Hardaway Jr. of Orlando Magic, is set to make an appearance. Only, Raam is humiliated on the court by another player, Payton, in front of Aaron, and runs away from the scene. Raam spends the rest of the summer in California with his cousin who, along with her friends, restores his self-belief and confidence in himself and his game. The book is full of references to basketball, of course, and to the life of Indian-origin families in North America — two themes close to my heart, and who knew they'd make such a powerful combination! Reading this book reminded me of Tanuja Desai Hidier's *Born Confused*, the first ever YA book to become wildly popular on the theme of the *American Born Confused Desi*. You can see where that title came from. While Hidier's exquisite way with words sets her book apart from many others on the same theme, *The Hoop Con* is written in simpler language but the story is relentlessly gripping and all the basketball references make it super relatable to any fan of the sport. On one occasion, Raam's father forces him to go to a Spelling Bee contest practice at the local temple instead of permitting him to go to a basketball camp. Raam is unable to spell the word *'ubiquitous'*, a word the girl sitting next to him spells correctly. Raam huffs and is convinced she wouldn't be able to spell Giannis Antetokounmpo! ![close-up image of a basketball about to go into a hoop against a blurred background of greenery](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/05/tom-briskey-HM3WZ4B1gvM-unsplash-1.jpg) Photo by [Tom Briskey](https://unsplash.com/@tombriskey?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-basketball-on-basketball-hoop-HM3WZ4B1gvM?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) D and I have been following the regular season of NBA this year, and religiously following the play-offs now. These are the weeks of heartbreak, when the teams and players we love exit the series. I was sad when Orlando Magic exited. They fought hard but in the end, the Detroit Pistons were the stronger team. And of course, the Raptors' exit was heartbreaking too, given their comeback from 3—1 to take the series all the way into Game 7\. But I also thought that having come that far was a mark of progress and something to be celebrated, a sentiment that was expressed by their coach, Darko Rajakovic, in the post-exit interview. The Boston Celtics were my favourite team during the regular season, but somehow they couldn't sustain that excellent performance in the playoffs despite a 3—1 lead. Which makes me wonder about that element of unknown that seems to show up in every game. For the most part, each of these players are more or less equally talented and eager to win. What, then, decides how a team performs in a game? What decides whether a shot goes in or not? What decides whether a block attempt turns out to be a brilliant one or results in a foul? There are so many factors outside of the control of each individual player and team. Yet, whenever there's a loss, the media is quick to dismiss all the progress made by the team up until that moment of exit. By that measure, only the team that wins the NBA championship can be said to have had a successful season. What a terrible way to decide what matters and what doesn't! No wonder with so much money riding on the outcomes of these games that we see less sportsmanlike conduct and more dirty play. For instance, what was up with Mikal Bridges ramming into Joel Embiid's mid-section last night with the latter having recently returned from an appendectomy conducted four weeks ago? Are we willing to gravely injure and maim to win? Are competitive sports a socially and financially acceptable form of war, where teams battle it out, almost on the verge of killing one another? When I see some of the fights that break out, I can't help thinking that if it were any two ordinary people involved in such a brawl, they'd be thrown into jail in less than a heartbeat. Luckily for me, *The Hoop Con* was a thoroughly delightful read that restored my faith in the simplicity and innocence of playing a sport to grow in skill and ability, for the physical exercise, and for the sheer joy of it. I've already read the second book in the series and can't wait to write about it! ### April A-ha: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2026-april-a-ha/ Last updated: 2026-04-26T07:00:17.000Z Monthly Missives turns 4 years old this month! 🥳 I can't, for the life of me, remember what prompted me to start sending out these heartfelt notes in the first place. Perhaps it was all the publishing industry pundits harping on and on about the merits of having a mailing list of subscribers to tout your wares to (and that's something I totally suck at, I must admit). But as I look back now, I feel very grateful that over these past few years, you've given me the privilege of consciously marking the relentless passage of time through these monthly e-letters. Being able to write to you with clockwork regularity, especially when most everything else seems to be constantly falling apart, remains a true privilege and a blessing. I can only hope that these missives have given you as well much joy and comfort, helped you feel seen and heard, and nudged you to tend to yourself and your precious life with a little more compassion and kindness. --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* Reminiscing about the beginning of *Monthly Missives* sent me down memory lane, so I've plucked one of the very first tales I wrote upon my arrival in Canada more than a decade ago to share with you today. [tales for dreamers: of talking sculptures and telling fortunesWhen you go in search of a sibyl and have to contend with a talking sculpture instead, you reckon he’ll tell you what your future holds?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-77.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/30.-of-talking-sculptures-and-telling-fortunes-2.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-of-talking-sculptures-and-telling-fortunes/) --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* You may have noticed that I conveniently skipped the ***'On Writing'*** section I usually begin this missive with, giving you a behind-the-scenes update on my writing life. That's because I haven't written a single word of fiction this month! I made a very deliberate decision not to write much this month for reasons I shall lay out in great detail now. So grab a cuppa, if you haven't yet already, and read on! --- Almost half a lifetime ago, a friend of mine turned 25 years old. (The operative word here is 'almost'.) When I called to wish him, he began telling me about how he had spent that morning taking stock of his life thus far. He had spent a quarter of a century on earth, after all. His words startled me. Because I had never thought to look back on my life to see how far I had come. I had always been forward-looking, excited about all the possibilities that lay in front of me. But when I too turned 25 towards the end of that very year, I felt compelled to take stock of my own life as my friend had done. But where his assessment of his life had been largely favourable, my view of the time I had spent on earth was rather dismal! Objectively we had the same accomplishments — graduates at the top of our classes from a very reputed university, high-paying gigs in the corporate world — but while those achievements appeared meaningful to him, I was quick to dismiss them as inconsequential. Because at that point in life, I was feeling very lost and disoriented. It was a very *'Is this all there is to life?'* moment. That was a pivotal moment for me. About a year after that moment of reckoning, I turned to writing as a profession for the first time. That was 20 years ago! I began with content writing and copywriting at the time, which eventually led me to the very exciting world of commodities journalism, where I thrived for a number of years, until I moved on to writing and indie publishing fiction. --- ![paved road unfurling towards distant mountains under a blue sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/04/daniel-cartin-LgHNehAIcOs-unsplash.jpg) What lies ahead? Let's find out. | Photo by [Daniel Cartin](https://unsplash.com/@danielcv%5F93?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/empty-paved-road-near-mountains-during-daytime-LgHNehAIcOs?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) Now, once again, I find myself back in that mode of introspection and taking stock, as *Monthly Missives* turns 4, as my first novel (but second published work), [*Dying Wishes*](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/)*,* an award-nominated, Indian-inspired fantasy tale, quietly slipped past its 5-year-anniversary last month, and as I realize that it was exactly 10 years ago when I was pregnant with D that I started outlining what went on to became my first long*ish* published work, [*In Search Of Leo*](https://books2read.com/in-search-of-leo/), a contemporary fantasy novella. I'm a little stunned at the realization that for the past two decades, writing in some form or the other has been the way I've tried to earn a living, very successfully at times, and with little success on several other occasions. But this time, the question nagging me is not *'Is this all there is to life?'* Instead, the question that has been haunting me is this: *'Who am I, if not a writer?'* Fortunately, instead of being filled with dread like my 25-year-old-self was, this time around this existential question comes bearing a sense of great exhilaration and possibility. If I can cast aside the garb of writer that I had donned for the past two decades, who knows how life would unfold? --- Up until a year ago, I was terrified of acknowledging the fact that my indie publishing journey was, very frankly, a commercial failure. I thought that if only I could work harder and faster, spend more hours writing and publishing, and put in more effort towards marketing and promotional activities, the tide would turn. It hasn't. *Did I do enough?* I hope I did. *Could I have done more? Or something different to engineer a better outcome?* I don't know. I'll never have the answer to that. *Am I ready to move on?* Absolutely! And honestly, that's the only answer that matters. *Move on to what?* I don't know yet. But I'm excited to explore and find out. --- ![a string of seven leaves of different colours from green to yellow, orange and red](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/04/chris-lawton-5IHz5WhosQE-unsplash.jpg) colours of change | Photo by [Chris Lawton](https://unsplash.com/@chrislawton?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/assorted-color-lear-hanging-decor-5IHz5WhosQE?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) *So, does this mean the end of Monthly Missives?* I hear you ask. Of course not! I still have an upcoming book series to keep tooting my own horn about, don't I? 🤭 💡 If you haven't pre-ordered it yet, [**The Folly Of Memory*](https://books2read.com/the-folly-of-memory) beckons you! Which also makes this revelation of my stepping back from writing full-time a completely ill-timed marketing move. But hey, I did say I suck at self-promotion, didn't I? It also doesn't mean the absolute end of writing for me. I have *The Separation Of Souls Saga* to finish, and I certainly don't plan to pull a George R. R. Martin on this one, what with Book 2 more than 80% done. I don't like loose ends and unfinished business. Which would probably make me a terrible criminal, because I'd keep going back to the scene of crime to make sure I haven't left any inadvertent clues behind! But it certainly means no longer looking towards writing fiction as a means of livelihood. And that comes as a great relief, because saying that out loud (even if it's only the laptop keys clacking noisily in this case) frees me up to move on. --- ### *Books You May Love* Reading, like writing, has also been sparse this month. What I've kept up with is reading the *Wings Of Fire* series to little D. We've finished reading Book 6, *Moon Rising*, which marks the beginning of the *Jade Mountain Academy* series, featuring a different set of dragons than the ones Books 1—5 were focused on. Sutherland is such an excellent writer and storyteller. I loved the Dragonets of Prophecy (featured in Books 1—5) so much that I wasn't sure I'd find this new set of dragons and their stories as interesting. But wow! Sutherland's creativity knows no bounds. [books you may love: Moon Rising (Wings Of Fire Book #6) by Tui T. SutherlandImportant life lessons gleaned from a children’s fantasy fiction book![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-78.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/jillian-amatt-artistic-voyages-KWOpQBgswWQ-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/moon-rising-wings-of-fire-book-6-by-tui-t-sutherland/) --- Somehow, we find ourselves at the end of yet another missive, dear Dreamer! Next month's letter will be edition #50! For the first time in a long time, I'm able to stand on the precipice of the unknown and look ahead not with dread and terror but with excitement and curiosity. It's a great place to be in, especially in these times of chaos and uncertainty. Because, as I had told myself 20 years ago only to forget about it in the interim, ***uncertainty means possibility***! If you too are standing on the cusp of a life transition, I hope you're also able to let go of what no longer serves you and figure out what helps you move forward. > *When we're no longer attached to what was, or to our ideas of what could have been, we have nothing left to lose. Only then can we make plenty of room for what really is and what could now possibly be.* Until next month then! \~ Anitha --- > *Hope isn’t a plan and nostalgia is not a strategy. \~ Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada* ### books you may love: Moon Rising (Wings Of Fire Book #6) by Tui T. Sutherland URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/moon-rising-wings-of-fire-book-6-by-tui-t-sutherland/ Last updated: 2026-04-09T09:38:07.000Z I started reading the Wings Of Fire series after my little one, D, asked me to read it aloud to him, having already read many of the books and the graphic novels countless times by himself. This was sometime last fall, I reckon. By that time, it had been several months since I had read to D at bedtime. What had once been an unmissable routine had long slipped away into whatever fogs of time childhood habits and routines seem to disappear into. Delighted to have these moments of connection with him once again, I started with the first book in the series — *The Dragonet Prophecy.* It's a series of five dragons who are being reared in a secret underground cave to fulfil a prophecy of bringing an ongoing war between the SandWing Queen sisters to an end. The series is full of alliances between different dragon tribes, political intrigue, and cunning dragons caught up in their own distorted visions of grandeur and glory (although the two RainWing dragons who go by these names are among the good ones). And in their midst are these set of five dragons — innocent, naïve, courageous, and with a great sense of loyalty towards each other despite the endless differences in opinion they have. Books # 1—5 focus on each of these five dragons, one at a time, and it wouldn't be revealing a spoiler to say that Book #5 ends with them setting up Jade Mountain Academy, a school for dragonets. Book #6 focuses on Moonwatcher, or Moon, a Nightwing whose mother hatches her in secret in the rainforest under two full moons, which gives her prophetic and mind-reading abilities. Moon is the first Nightwing in a century or more to have these gifts. Her mother instructs Moon to keep her gifts a secret, worried that the young dragon might invite a lot of trouble if others came to know of her secret abilities. ![hardback copy of Moon Rising by Tui T. Sutherland featuring a dark dragon against the backdrop of a green forest](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/04/Moon-Rising.jpeg) Moon Rising, Book #6 of Wings Of Fire Moon's story begins with her mother dropping her off at Jade Mountain Academy, where she meets a whole host of other dragons, several of whom we've met in earlier books in the series, as well as a bunch of new characters who're thrown into the mix. One of the most amazing features of this book in particular is that because Moon can read minds, the chapters are peppered with the thoughts of the dragons she interacts with. Sutherland does it so skilfully it doesn't feel like a drag but adds so much more depth and layer to their conversations and interactions. What I love most about this series is how conflicted many of the characters are and how determined the protagonists are to do the right thing. Sure, pick any book on writing, and they'd inevitably portray inner and outer conflicts as the hallmarks of any good character. There's just something about the way Sutherland infuses the dragons with these utterly human traits that make these books such amazing reads. --- Since the instant Moon was born, her mother has drilled into her the message, *Stay secret. Stay hidden. Stay safe.* This was meant both physically and metaphorically, because Moon was hatched in the rainforest in secret, so that she could hatch under moonlight at a time where the Nightwings were living on a volcano. The story begins with Moon's mother, Secretkeeper, dropping her daughter off at Jade Mountain Academy. They're standing at a little distance away from the entrance to the school and observing the other dragons coming. A bunch of SeaWings arrive, and Moon recognizes them from all the scrolls she has studied to prepare for school. She informs her mother who the SeaWings are. > *"Remember not to show off," her mother said. "I mean, thank you for telling me, but the other dragons might not like you if you always know all the answers."* > *Moon stared down at her claws. It was pretty clear from Secretkeeper's thoughts that her mother was a lot more worried about whether other dragons would like Moon than she was about whether Moon would like them. That, in fact, didn't seem to be among her concerns at all.* > *\~ An* excerpt *from Moon Rising* --- ![full moon in the night sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/04/david-young-nEjddfZT6kw-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [David Young](https://unsplash.com/@david%5Fyoung?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-full-moon-is-seen-in-the-night-sky-nEjddfZT6kw?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) Moon sees the SeaWing queen worried about dropping off one of her daughters, Anemone, at school. > *Moon felt her own wings dropping. Why didn't Secretkeeper want to keep her close like that? Why wasn't* she *getting a speech about coming home the moment she got lonely?* > *Was it because her mother thought she was cursed? Maybe Secretkeer really wanted to keep Moon as far away from her as possible. Her thoughts never quite said that, but she'd learned to block some of them over the last four years ... and she did worry all the time about Moon's mind reading.* > *Moon wasn't sure she wanted to be normal if it meant grumping around thinking only her own thoughts and mostly all about herself, the way most NightWings did. But her mother seemed very sure that she'd be happier that way. Maybe acting normal was something she could learn here.* > *\~ An excerpt from Moon Rising* --- Another passage that stood out to me for entirely different reasons was this one, which comes towards the end of the book. A dragon named Darkstalker confides in Moon information about a talisman to which he has transferred all his power. > *As with all animus-touched objects, it can be used by any dragon who comes across it,* Darkstalker said. *You simply writing your command — for instance, "Give this necklace the power to make me invisible when I wear it." Or "Enchant this mirror to spy on whichever dragons I choose." You must be as specific as possible, or the magic is liable to go awry and reinterpret your request in some odd way.* Doesn't that sound like AI? Haha! --- Towards the end of the book, Moon is comforting her friend, Sora. > *"And then everyone was looking at me," Sora whispered. "Everyone was thinking about me and how awful I am and how much they hate me. They could see right through me. I know they could."* > *"No, Sora," Moon said, "they weren't, truly. Dragons think mostly about themselves. Everyone is so worried about what other dragons think of them, they hardly stop to decide what they think of everyone else. Believe me, no one is thinking about you as much as you think they are."* > *She'd finally realized how reassuring that was. All her self-doubt and nerves and feeling like an outsider — once she paid attention to what she could hear around her, it turned out those were the things that made her the most normal. It turned out that was how* everyone *felt. "And certainly no one is thinking about you as much as* you *are thinking about you.* > *\~ An excerpt from Moon Rising* --- ![a black dragon with white outlines against a red background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/04/pragati-choudhari-A5iQJHtOLdM-unsplash.jpg) [Illustration](https://unsplash.com/illustrations/a-black-dragon-with-wings-spread-on-red-background-A5iQJHtOLdM?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) by [Pragati Choudhari](https://unsplash.com/@pragatichoudhari/illustrations?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/illustrations?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) At one point, Moon gives Sunny a demonstration of her abilities by reading Sunny's mind. > *"But mostly," Moon hurried on, "you're thinking about the school and wondering if it's already failed. You're thinking about giving up and sending everyone home, because it's only the first week and all these terrible things have happened. You're wondering if bringing peace to all the tribes is too hard, and if you're not the right dragon for the job."* > *"Wow," Sunny said faintly.* > *"But you are," Moon blurted. "You can't give up. Of course it's hard; the whole point is that you're trying to fix something that's nearly impossible to fix. But if no one ever even tries, then it will always be terrible. You and Clay and the others ... dragons believe in you. You have to take that gift and do something with it, not run away from it."* > *...* > *"Was that a prophecy?" Sunny said hopefully. "Did you see us changing the world? Like, five eggs to hatch on brightest night, five dragons born to teach history and art and get everyone to calm down and be nice to each other?"* > *Moon laughed. "When the school has lasted twenty years, the tribes will be at peace?" She shook her head. "No, it's not a prophecy. It's just faith."* > *Sunny nodded. "I know all about that."* And if we make our own destiny, that's what I want mine to be*, she thought.* > *\~ An excerpt from Moon Rising* --- These words especially have stayed with me. I'm coming to realize that off late I've been finding myself entangled in a lot of ***inner conflict*** and, I came across this term only recently, ***moral injury***. That merits an entire post in itself, but Sutherland's words have come at the right time as I hold the entire gamut of conflicts that I feel — about writing and publishing, on God and faith, on AI, on my utter insignificance in the midst of all that's going on in the world, but also the unquestionably important role I play as the mother of my child. > *I think I've been seeking an optimal balance of work, parenting, creativity, and spirituality in the mistaken belief that such a well-defined balance exists.* > *It's as JD Krishnamurti says. I am utterly alone. There's no one to tell me if I'm doing the right thing, especially if I define 'right' in terms of favourable results and outcomes, whether short-term or long-term.* > *What if I had the courage to let go of these conditions and see what happens when I go with the flow?* For instance, when D is around, I prefer to devote my time and attention to him to the extent my physical and mental capabilities allow. But there's always this nagging voice in my head that I ought to be working instead. What if I can hold that conflict in me, understanding that that voice that's pressuring me to be 'productive' is not my own but that of culture and society? Trusting that in that moment I am the best judge of how I spend my time? And if I choose to spend my time with my child, it's not with the expectation of some future reward (he'll grow up to be an emotional well-adjusted human being, or that he'll have a great relationship with me) but for the satisfaction that I did the best I could with the responsibility I was entrusted with? > *What if we could approach our days and tasks like this?* > *Not questioning whether they are worth doing or not, because often that question implies a desire for a guaranteed outcome.* > *But trusting that the best use of our time is to approach the task in front of us to the best of our ability.* > *And remembering that the outcomes are not in our control anyway.* --- If this piece resonated with you, sign up for my monthly newsletter on writing, reading, parenting and living the creative life. Sign-up is by invitation only for the time being; please hit the button below to write to me to subscribe. [Sign up for Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar!](mailto:thedreampedlar@gmail.com?subject=I'd%20like%20to%20subscribe%20to%20Monthly%20Missives%20from%20The%20Dream%20Pedlar&body=Hi%20Anitha%2C%0D%0A%0D%0AI%20read%20and%20enjoyed%20your%20post%20'books%20your%20may%20love%3A%20Moon%20Rising%20%28Wings%20Of%20Fire%20Book%20%236%29%20by%20Tui%20T.%20Sutherland%2C%20and%20would%20love%20to%20sign%20up%20to%20your%20monthly%20newsletter.%20Thank%20you.%0D%0A%0D%0ACheers!) ### March Melodies: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2026-march-melodies/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T07:00:32.000Z It's still cool for the most part here in Burlington, Ontario, where I live, but the abundance of sunshine and the lingering evening light offer the promise of warmer, sunnier days not too far away. (Not-s0-) Little D has a copy of the latest *Wings of Fire* book in his hands, *The Hybrid Prince*, so I've been given this rare gift of time on a Monday evening after school to write to you. This missive comes bearing news about pre-orders for my upcoming fantasy novel, *The Folly Of Memory*, as well as the gift of reading in the form of a number of free books of mine across several promotions for a limited time. So grab a cuppa, and read on! --- ### *On Writing* ![ebook cover for The Folly Of Memory by Anitha Krishnan featuring a golden hourglass and an ornate border against a black background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/Book-1---The-Folly-Of-Memory---eBook-Interior-Cover.jpg) The Folly Of Memory | Book One of The Separation Of Souls Saga 💡 **This expansive metaphysical fantasy novel releases on 16 July!* **Pre-order from your favourite ebook retailer* [**now*](https://books2read.com/the-folly-of-memory)**!* #### The Folly Of Memory The Organization for the Cleansing and Resurrection of Earth (OCRE) has arrived. Its soldiers have Awakened. Flawless beings who wield the extraordinary power of their minds, unfettered by fear, doubt, or weakness. They’re on a mission to cast out frail and defective human beings, and elevate the rest of humanity towards its utmost divine potential. There’s only one problem: Rolam, the OCRE’s newly Awakened soldier. Something is wrong with him. He’s not perfect. He errs. He stumbles. He doubts. While his fellow soldiers move with assurance, Rolam is haunted by the faint, persistent drag of something amiss within him. In the OCRE, imperfection is a scourge. It must be purged. Every mistake erodes the pristine core that sustains the OCRE’s mission of transcendence. But the harder Rolam chases that ideal of infallibility, the more he falters. Each misstep thrusts him ever closer to obliteration. Can a hopelessly flawed soldier survive the OCRE’s ruthless regime of perfection? Or will he ultimately fall apart? ***The Folly of Memory** *is a bold and immersive metaphysical fantasy novel about identity, belonging, and the perilous cost of jettisoning who you are to become who the world thinks you should be.* ****Book One of The Separation of Souls Saga.** ****Releasing on 16 July!** [Pre-order The Folly Of Memory!](https://books2read.com/the-folly-of-memory) --- ### *More Books To Read* A number of my books are available for free until mid-April as part of several ongoing promotions over on BookFunnel. My short stories, ***The Mind Meddler***, and ***Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God***, can be found in the [*Free Fiction To Explore*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/explorenewworlds/3ovgbr6clq) promotion. ***Hide-and-Seek***, and ***A Benevolent Goddess***, are part of the [*Small Books, Big Thoughts*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/personal-growth/n3024v47po) campaign. ***Memory Games*** is in the [*Science Fantasy*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/sciencefantasy2/himtcgibex) collection. And finally, my paranormal mystery novel, ***Erased From Existence***, is still up for grabs in the [*Rabid Indie Fantasy Fan Reading Challenge*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/riff-starter-pack/xwkv1ey7m1). Phew! I didn't realize I'd end up with so many campaigns running all at once, but hey, there's a first time for everything, and I'm not complaining. So take a look, and I'd love to hear from you when you've read these stories. --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* This month's pick for flash fiction is a tale I wrote in the depths of a winter five years ago. It's funny and devious, so I wanted to share this now even though winter appears to be on its way out. But fingers crossed, because who knows what surprises lie in store for April?! [tales for dreamers: the right hand for a lost gloveA lost glove is looking for just the right hand. Say what? Yours might be the perfect fit. But you won’t know until you try it on.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-74.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/19.-the-right-hand-for-a-lost-glove.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-right-hand-for-a-lost-glove/) --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* We went to Cancún for a week over March break with family friends. As lovely as that sounds, it was a trip marked by so many unprecedented occurrences I'd forever remember it for the many life lessons it dished out. Up until a few days before we were scheduled to fly out, we were on the verge of cancelling the trip. News about El Mencho's death had just broken out, and we were quite terrified of traveling with our child to a place of likely unrest, even though Cancún is on the opposite end of the map from Jalisco where the military operation was carried out. I had never known travel anxiety in my life until then. It's insane how being a parent can significantly alter a person's risk appetite. It helped that we were travelling with friends — having good company was an effective distraction from all my worries. Our first day at the resort entailed a lot of time spent in water — at the beach, at a swimming pool, and another water play area. Bliss! At 2 a.m., the vomiting began. Little D came down with some gastro bug in the middle of the night, and the next day he was in hospital with an IV drip inserted in his arm, feeding him essential electrolytes to bring him back from dehydration. Yet, the very next afternoon he felt brave enough to venture out once again for short periods of time. After that, I fell ill. The day after, it was D's friend who was bed-bound. And on the last night, KrA (my husband) decided it was his turn. We've never had so much illness on a trip before. But the more insane bit was that despite this forced downtime, we still managed to find significant pockets of time to enjoy the beach and even head out on a day-trip to Chichén Itzá and for a swim in a cenote! ![collage of 4 images featuring beaches, Cenote, and Chichén Itzá from a trip to Cancun](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/Trip-To-Cancun.jpg) Memories to cherish This experience got me thinking about how much we try to optimize our lives on a daily basis. This tendency is amplified when it comes to travel, because when you only have 7 days in a place you're visiting, who wants to spend 3 days in bed?! But things like weather, illness, traffic, delays, local unrest are just so utterly out of our control. Yet, in those days of forced downtime, it was just so nice to sit in the balcony and watch the waves, and listen to the soothing sounds of their repetitive, relentless motion. It was such a relief to not have places to be, appointments to keep, or road trips to set out on. D and I read a lot of books, watched a number of basketball games, and I even found a new TV channel that I love — Stingray CMusic! — I could watch it all day but it is sadly not available in Canada. > *The more I live, the more I see how little we really need to be happy in our lives.* On an interstate bus ride, we passed a handful of tiny villages that seemed like they were in the middle of nowhere. Little shacks with bright-coloured walls that served as houses, a woman walking with a small bag filled with carrots, tomatoes and other vegetables — perhaps enough to cook that day's lunch and dinner — an old, toothless man sitting on a boulder by the roadside, watching the cars and buses go by. It might as well have been a scene from an Indian village or town. How simple! How beautifully ordinary! > *I don't know where humanity as a whole is heading ... but in our relentless quest for the extraordinary, we've somehow cheapened the ordinary.* > *It's as if it's no longer enough to simply breathe, but somehow we feel pressured to make every moment count, forgetting that without breath, we wouldn't even exist.* But how easy it is to forget this simple truth in the mad busyness of everyday life! --- Your turn now. Have you ever had a vacation or any other experience that turned out completely different than expected and changed your outlook towards life? Write to me and let me know! --- ### *Books You May Love* I've read an interesting collection of books this month. ![collection of 4 books of fiction I read this month](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/Books-you-may-love---March-2026.jpg) books you may love - March 2026 First, D and I finished reading Book 5 in the *Wings of Fire* series. *The Brightest Night* marks the end of the story of the five little dragonets who are destined to end an ongoing war between three Sandwing sisters who are vying for the throne. The series continues in Book 6, *Moon Rising*, and is set in the Jade Mountain Academy that the dragonets of destiny establish in the end of Book 5\. Such an excellent and engrossing series of books! Other reads included *The Aayakudi Murders* by Indra Soundar Rajan. This was an English translation of a pulp fiction mystery novel originally written in Tamil, my mother tongue. It's set in rural Tamil Nadu and is a murder mystery coupled with supernatural elements and tons of rural superstition. *Reckless Girls* by Rachel Hawkins is a thriller set in a remote island in the Pacific Ocean and features a bunch of six young men and women, purportedly on a two-week adventure. They inevitably get entangled in each others' past secrets. The book is very atmospheric and has an uneasy undercurrent throughout. I also found the ending very satisfying, which has become a rare find of late. And of course, I turned to an old-time favourite, Charles Todd. *A Hanging At Dawn* is a prequel novella featuring the backstory of a beloved character, Simon Brandon, who is a prominent secondary character in the Bess Crawford mystery novels set in and around the time of WW1\. This novella is set in India and entails a Maharani and a murder, and is full of unexpected twists and turns. > *In an attempt at being more discerning and intentional in my reading habits, I've taken to writing about the books I read shortly after finishing them instead of jumping to the next book to fill the void.* > *Not every book elicits a heartfelt response from me, but many do.* [*Here*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/books-you-may-love-march-2026/) *is this month's collection.* --- Well, it's time to bid goodbye once again, dear Dreamer! *Monthly Missives* will turn 4 years old next month! The passage of time always fills me with bewilderment. It's one the greatest blessings of my life to have this privilege of writing to you on the last Sunday of every month. I hope you derive as much, or more, pleasure in reading these missives as I find in writing them. Much love, Anitha --- > *Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. \~ Robert Louis Stevenson* --- [Love what you read? Support my work by buying any book I've written.](https://payhip.com/dreampedlarbooks) ### books you may love: A Hanging At Dawn by Charles Todd URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-hanging-at-dawn-by-charles-todd/ Last updated: 2026-03-20T17:07:51.000Z Long-time readers of this blog know how much I love reading Charles Todd's books — their Inspector Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford series — set in and around the times of WWI. I don't know what it is about those books that make for such excellent reading. The strong characters displayed by the protagonists is definitely a huge factor. I suppose it's because it's so hard to find such characters in real life anymore that finding them in fiction makes them a rare jewel. Simon Brandon is a character who works closely with Bess's father, Colonel Crawford, and features prominently in many of the Bess Crawford books, turning up as an unexpected saviour or being the one Bess turns to in times of trouble. *A Hanging At Dawn* is a prequel novella featuring Simon as a young and highly underaged recruit in the army. He lost his parents when he was really young and was sent to live with his strict maternal grandfather who withheld his love, leading him to run away from home at the first opportunity. Simon's seniors approach Melinda Crawford for her opinion, and she manoeuvres to have Simon be put under the supervision of her cousin, Colonel Crawford (Bess's father), who's stationed in India. And thus the story begins. --- ![hardback copy of A Hanging At Dawn by Charles Todd featuring a lakeside single-storeyed stone structure topped with an Indian minaret ](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/IMG_1498.jpeg) A Hanging at Dawn by Charles Todd It's such a sweet little story, one that's thoroughly enjoyed if you've read several Bess Crawford novels and loved them. Brandon is implicated in a theft of money and jewels from the retinue of the Maharani's daughter. The Crawford family leaves no stone unturned in getting him freed. This small novella is packed full of action and twists and turns, and gives us a glimpse of the young boy Simon was before he became the quiet, dashing young man who features in many of the Bess Crawford novels later on. --- Here's an excerpt, an early assessment of Simon by Melinda Crawford. > *There was nothing personal in his coolness. Simply stated, it was suppressed anger that drove him. Clearly his grandfather had killed any outward display of emotions. And Simon had learned one lesson very well — that feelings were an easy way inside one's armour, a chink that invited unexpected attacks. And so he had hidden any of his so deep that no chinks appeared on the surface. Only the anger showed through.* > *\~ An excerpt from A Hanging At Dawn* --- The excerpt below takes place after Simon's arrest by an official of the Prince (the man to whom the Maharani's daughter is wedded) and is from when Colonel Crawford is getting a measure of the situation from a Lieutenant on the scene. > *"Where is Simon?"* > *He took a long breath. "We haven't been able to see him. Not since he was led away. I'm told the Prince was furious—he's a jealous man, apparently. Well, she's quite pretty, of course, and from what I've gathered here and there, she's given him no reason for doubting her. It's odd, you know. He's a Prince—he has everything a man could possibly want. A lovely wife, a son, a daughter." He gestured around him. " All this—power and money and position—yet he's doubtful of himself. I don't understand it."* > *Richard said, "Not too surprising. He's been told all his life, from the moment he was born, that he was the centre of the universe. Perhaps he's learned the truth."* > *'Well, no. He was the second son, I'm told. His elder brother died of cholera when he was five or six."* > *"All the more reason to feel he wasn't born to rule."* > *\~ An excerpt from A Hanging At Dawn* --- A simple story. It's amazing how these prequel stories make the characters more alive, more real to fans of these stories. Fans of this series have long rooted for Simon and Bess to end up together in marital bliss. No wonder we're all eagerly waiting for the next book in the Bess Crawford series to be published! ### books you may love: The Aayakudi Murders by Indra Soundar Rajan URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-aayakudi-murders-by-indra-soundar-rajan/ Last updated: 2026-03-17T13:50:19.000Z A while ago, there was a collection of books featured on StoryBundle under the title 'In Translation'. Essentially, these were books originally written in another language and translated into English. [*The Aayakudi Murders*](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/51040221-the-aayakudi-murders) by Indian Tamil pulp fiction author, Indra Soundar Rajan, caught my attention. For those who don't know, Tamil is my mother tongue. My parents hail from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, but I was born in Thane, near Mumbai (or Bombay as it was known back then), where my parents had moved for my Dad's job. I grew up speaking Tamil at home, but I never learnt to read and write it. I can decipher some letters of the alphabet and put them together painstakingly to figure out individual words, but that's the extent of my literacy when it comes to Tamil. But the instant I saw a title of a work of fiction originally in Tamil, I wanted to read it. So I went and bought the entire bundle. Last week we were in Cancun and little D was the first of the three of us to come down with a stomach bug, followed by me, and finally KrA on the last day of our stay there. That gave me plenty of time to read *The Aayakudi Murders*. ![Book cover of The Aayakudi Murders by Indra Soundar Rajan featuring a young man and a woman and a police inspector](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/Book-Cover.jpg) The book cover is very typical for a South Indian story. It looks like a movie poster, doesn't it? The story is told from the point of view of a journalist, Rajendran, who receives a tip about a ghost committing murders in the village of Aayakudi. He goes there to investigate and gets entangled in the mystery, which only gets spookier and seemingly more paranormal. Add to it village superstitions, beliefs in sorcery and spirit possessions, and a mystery that is full of twists and turns! All this makes for an excellent read. But what I enjoyed even more were the Tamil words that were scattered throughout the story. Words like *thambi* (meaning brother, used to address a young man), *vannakkam* (meaning namaste), and the quintessential *Aiyaiyoo* (the equivalent of Oh-Oh)! All the colloquialisms and slangs were simply a delight to read. In one instance, the mother of an unmarried girl is attempting to convince her to get married to her maternal uncle. (This is a very common practice in villages and in fact, both my mother's elder sister and my maternal grandmother married their own maternal uncles. This has led to me having cousins who are also my uncles and so on!) Unfortunately, the maternal uncle in the story is a crook and the girl is reluctant to marry him. In an attempt at persuasion, her mother says, > *"... The saying goes that one simple girl can achieve with patience what a thousand geniuses cannot. You will make him an even better person."* > *"No, ma. I'm not some social worker; it's not my job to reform anyone. I'm just an ordinary girl."* > *"Look here, if you do anything to put this wedding at risk, neither you nor me will ever see your father in good health again!"* > *"You've used that same threat to talk me into agreeing to so many things!"* > *'Well, add this to the list."* Anyone who has grown up in a Tamilian household, or even in an Indian household in general, in the 80s and 90s would find much hilarity in this. Threats that any disobedience on our part would endanger our parents' health were used liberally and rarely failed to work in our parents' favour! It just never occurred to me to question the lack of logic in those admonitions! --- The setting of the book in a remote Tamil village sent me down memory lane. One of the things I miss greatly about being in South India are its vast temples with their open courtyards and majestic, intricately designed *gopurams*, the towers that adorn the tops of the temple. It is said that one glance at a *gopuram* can wash all your sins away. ![a gopuram or the ornate top tower of a Hindu temple surrounded by palm trees under a blue sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/satish-dharmavarapu-sBmi8LF_3xQ-unsplash.jpg) a gopuram | Photo by [Satish Dharmavarapu](https://unsplash.com/@satishdharmavarapu?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/elaborate-hindu-temple-tower-amidst-lush-greenery-sBmi8LF%5F3xQ?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) But it is the spaciousness of the temple courtyards that brings me immense relief. Of course, on a day of festivity, crowds throng the place, but on other ordinary days, the vast premises on which one can walk barefoot provide an area of comfort and an energy of reassurance that I'd find my courage to walk through life and all that it brings. Faith was an unquestioning presence in my life throughout my childhood. We went to temples. My mother, especially, would step into any place of worship, be it a church or a dargah (a shrine built over the grave of a Sufi saint). Even now my parents' excursions entail trips to temples in Tamil Nadu. ![silhouette of a Shivling and a trishul (trident) against a backdrop of distant mountains](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/naman-sood-LIW4MVKIy6k-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Naman Sood](https://unsplash.com/@pahadonkamauji?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/silhouette-of-man-standing-on-top-of-mountain-during-daytime-LIW4MVKIy6k?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) I myself had a huge wobble this past decade. Shortly after D was born, I began to question everything I had learnt about God and faith until then. Over time, I've come to realize that there were two things I didn't like about worshipping God — apart from the crowds and noisy chants in temples. The first was the way prayers constantly entailed asking for money, health, good academic results, or any such particular outcome. The second was the realization that the very devotee who would have prostrated humbly at the feet of God would then turn around and snap at another human being as though the latter were beneath him. I simply couldn't reconcile the fact that someone who believed in a higher unseen authority could possibly treat a fellow human being despicably. Now, I've become more comfortable about keeping my faith as a private matter. I don't feel the need to participate in group worship on festive occasions; my relationship to God doesn't change with the time of the day or the season of the year. What I ask God the most for is courage to face situations calmly and with great compassion. I ask God for the strength to not fall apart when life feels difficult. When my mind begins to spiral into anxiety, I chant mantras to bring me back to a place of mental safety and emotional stability. It's also the Serenity prayer that resonates deeply with me now. > *Dear God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.* --- I love writing about Gods and deities. [***A Benevolent Goddess***](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-benevolent-goddess/) is available for all subscribers to my monthly newsletter. [***Blue-Skinned Mystics***](https://thedreampedlar.com/blue-skinned-mystics/) is another novella that is available for purchase. For now, it's only on Amazon. It'll soon be available on all other retailer platforms. And then there is my expansive novel, [***Dying Wishes***](https://thedreampedlar.com/dying-wishes/), Finalist for the *2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize* in the *Speculative Fiction* category. --- Well, who knew that reading a pulp fiction book originally written in my mother tongue would send me down memory lane thus! But that is the power of books and stories, isn't it? They make us think deeply about our lives, reflect on the choices we make, and show us a different perspective. What a blessing it is to lead a life of writing and reading! I wish you too, dear Reader, many joyous days spent doing the things you love that encourage you to become a kinder and more empathetic human being. --- If you love what you read, consider staying in touch by signing up for my newsletter, *Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar*. It arrives in your inbox on the last Sunday of every month, bearing musings on writing, reading and living the creative life. [Subscribe to Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar](#/portal/signup/free) ### journeying towards radical acceptance and kindness URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/journeying-towards-radical-acceptance-and-kindness/ Last updated: 2026-03-15T23:03:59.000Z One of the greatest influences in my life as a parent has been Dr. Shefali, conscious parenting advocate and wisdom teacher. She was the one who taught me that parenting a child is primarily about raising our own selves, about understanding and challenging the misbeliefs and myths we've brought into about ourselves and the world around us, and about looking at how our own egoistic tendencies and behaviours creep in and influence our connection with our children. These are lessons to be learnt over a lifetime. At each stage of D's life, there's an old insecurity that bursts forth anew from me, an old way of seeing the world that I didn't even know existed and now demands to be changed, a strange new fear that appears to have been unearthed anew whereas it had been lurking beneath the surface for the longest time. It's the work of a lifetime to understand these happenings within us and develop ways to cope with them. --- One of my favourite nuggets of wisdom that I've gleaned from reading/listening to Dr. Shefali over several years is this — the understanding that the greatest gift I can give D is complete, unconditional acceptance of him. I heard Dr. Shefali explain this in a podcast, and I attempt to paraphrase her words here. > *When we meet someone who accepts us unconditionally, we have an immense feeling of relief. A great sense of liberation that we can now drop our mask, we no longer need to keep up pretences, and that we can simply be who we are.* > *Our children deserve this from us, Dr. Shefali says. Home ought to be a place they come back to in order to find solace and relief, free of judgement, and full of acceptance, no matter what transpires with them in the world outside.* I think about these lines often. Every morning when I set an intention for how I'd like to show up throughout the day, it's kindness that comes foremost to my mind. Deep, unconditional kindness towards D and KrA, and also towards myself. Which means accepting all their and my flaws and mistakes without blaming and shaming, without even necessarily seeking to change. For instance, accepting the mess and clutter in our home as is, and either cleaning them up if we're able to, or accepting that we'd simply have to do it another time when we have more energy and time. Understanding that everyone has a different way of navigating life and that no one way is necessarily better or worse than the other. Essentially, everyone is really doing the best they can. --- ![two plushies holding a heart sign](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/michael-blake-EvVkg1H_Nvk-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Michael Blake](https://unsplash.com/@cybermikeb?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/two-plush-toast-characters-with-a-heart-and-rose-EvVkg1H%5FNvk?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) This is easier said than done, though. It's something I've struggled with these past few months, especially when it comes to the choices that D makes in certain situations in which I'd have made a different choice. For instance, just this morning D and I went on a planned shopping spree. Shortly after making the purchases, D started to plan what he'd like to purchase next. In the past, I've often reacted by preaching to him about being content with what he has, about staying in the present moment and enjoying the goodness that exists in it. Take another instance. Last week, we were away for a bit. Since the beginning of the year, D could talk about nothing but the vacation. And when we were on vacation last week, he began talking about what he'd like to do when we returned home. I used to worry a lot about this, his tendency to look ahead towards the future. But that worry was always compounded by thoughts such as, *What have I done to contribute to this? Have I made him like this? Aren't children supposed to be living in the present moment?* So the problem was not so much about his looking ahead to the future, but more about me thinking that *that* was a wrong thing to do and worrying that I had screwed up in my parenting somehow. I revisited Dr. Shefali's words on acceptance last week. So this morning when D began talking about what else he'd like to purchase when he's saved up enough — he spent all his savings this morning — I replied matter-of-factly, "Sure, we can always save up for that." He made some calculations as to how many weeks it would take him to save up the amount he had in mind, and what he'd like to purchase in which order of priority. And then he moved on from that topic. Perhaps my child does sometimes like to think ahead and plan and prepare for what's to come instead of entirely throwing caution to the wind. I've definitely seen him do that when it comes to tackling homework. I do that too. Plan for the future. The near future, at least. Often to the extent that I obsess over it. But he doesn't. It's a simple process of planning and preparation for him. One that I don't need to interfere with. One that he doesn't need me to judge him for. --- Sometimes we think we need to preach to children, or even to our spouses and other people, on how to live, how to be, how to exist. But those are just our opinions, our ways of navigating life, and not necessarily theirs. I've always wanted KrA to throw out the junk mail as soon as he's gone through them, but they'd often remain on the countertop. I was quick to declare him as lazy because he wouldn't clear the clutter immediately. Once he explained to me that he leaves them on the countertop so that I too would have a chance of looking through them to see if anything was of interest to me. As someone who values agency significantly, how could I possibly argue with that? ![a little child hunched over a wooden deck and drawing heart shapes with chalk](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/andrey-k-jGT-DAc4r4o-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Andrey K](https://unsplash.com/@anamnesis33?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-person-on-a-deck-jGT-DAc4r4o?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- I am the kind of person who wakes up early to catch the sun rise. When I wake up at 3 a.m., I look out of the window to see the stars in the night sky. D doesn't share my enthusiasm for natural beauty. It doesn't move him as much as it does me. I used to worry about that too. That somehow I've not done enough to install a love of nature in my child. But that's not true. If I think about it, I can tell that I've put in concerted effort to make sure D had plenty of outdoor time everyday when he was younger. Now that he's older, given a chance he'd much rather stay at home reading a book, which is also a perfectly valid way of enjoying his day. I think for the first time in my life I'm having to reckon with the fact that my child is a very different person than I am, that he is a very different person than the ego fantasy in my head tells me he ought to be. And his way of navigating his day is completely valid. I am now learning to accept that, and not make it all about me or my parenting abilities or any lack thereof. --- Acceptance is an unfamiliar place for me, I've come to realize. I've faced life with a lot of resistance. Not liking the circumstances of my life or the people in it, and often becoming paralyzed into inaction because my mind couldn't think of anything other than how much I disliked and didn't agree with what was going on. Now that I'm beginning to get a taste of how things are when I let circumstances and other people be, the relief is huge and palpable. There are still instances when I want to grip things tight. When I want someone to behave a certain way, the way I'd behave with them for instance, and they don't. I've always been quick to make it about me — I must have done something wrong — rather than understand that it was never about me in the first place. Everyone behaves in ways that are dictated by their natural instincts and tendencies. We can either accept it or walk away from it, especially if it causes us harm. > *But let's not misinterpret our dislike for/disagreement with something as being harmed by it.* When I disagree with D and KrA about the choices they make, the only thing that's actually being harmed is my ego when I don't accept their choices wholeheartedly. Of course there are boundaries. If D were to choose to not do his homework, I wouldn't agree with that. He certainly has the agency to decide which of his assignments he'd like to tackle first, but not doing his work is not an option. It's something he understands the importance of too. How doing our work and taking responsibility for our choices helps us grow. ![heart-shaped candle surrounded by flowers and autumn leaves](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/kasem-sleem-y5Sq1DWe574-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Kasem Sleem](https://unsplash.com/@kasem%5Fsl38?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/heart-shaped-candle-with-flowers-and-autumn-leaves-y5Sq1DWe574?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) It's a small shift in perspective, but one that helps me remember that I'm not in control, and that I don't need to be in control. I can let life run its course, and it won't harm me. In fact, going with the flow of life only makes me stronger inwardly. I love being a place of calm and acceptance, both for myself and for whoever comes into my orbit. When things don't go my way, it doesn't mean that I did something wrong. It only means I'm human, and that my life is unfolding exactly as it is meant to, with all its ups and downs and unexpected meanderings. Call it fate, call it karma, call it whatever you want. At the end of the day, it feels quite liberating to not have to hold myself responsible for everything that doesn't go my way. And I'd take that feeling of relief, peace and contentment over everything else any day. --- What about you? Where, in your life, do you wish things were different? And why? Could it possibly be resistance to the as-is*ness* of life? --- [Sign up to Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar](#/portal/signup/free) ### Gifting the joy of reading in March-April URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/gifting-the-joy-of-reading-in-march-april/ Last updated: 2026-03-15T04:20:13.000Z Several of my books feature in several promotions over on BookFunnel from mid-March to mid-April and are free to grab. Here's a quick post with links to all of the promotions and the books featured therein. Happy reading! - [**FREE Fiction to Explore**](https://books.bookfunnel.com/explorenewworlds/3ovgbr6clq) Features books across several genres including general fiction, literary fiction, mystery & suspense, sci-fi & fantasy Includes my short stories — ***Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute With God***, and ***The Mind Meddler***. Runs from 11 March to 11 April. Check it out [here](https://books.bookfunnel.com/explorenewworlds/3ovgbr6clq)! [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/Feature.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/explorenewworlds/3ovgbr6clq) --- - [**Small Books, Big Thoughts**](https://books.bookfunnel.com/personal-growth/n3024v47po) Features books across general fiction/literary fiction, non-fiction/self-help, and non-fiction/spirituality Includes my short stories — ***A Benevolent Goddess***, and ***Hide-and-Seek*** Runs from 15 March to 15 April Check it out [here](https://books.bookfunnel.com/personal-growth/n3024v47po)! [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/Feature---Small-Books--Big-Thoughts.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/personal-growth/n3024v47po) --- - [**Science Fantasy**](https://books.bookfunnel.com/sciencefantasy2/himtcgibex) Features books across the science fantasy genre, a mix of science and fantasy, with technology and magic blending together. Includes my short story — ***Memory Games*** Runs from 21 March to 21 April Check it out [here](https://books.bookfunnel.com/sciencefantasy2/himtcgibex)! --- - [**Rabid Indie Fantasy Fan Reading Challenge 2026**](https://books.bookfunnel.com/riff-starter-pack/xwkv1ey7m1) Features a few speculative fiction books. Includes my paranormal fantasy novel — ***Erased From Existence*** Ongoing until 15 November Check it out [here](https://books.bookfunnel.com/riff-starter-pack/xwkv1ey7m1)! [![Poster featuring a logo with a dragon perched on a pile of books and a text asking readers to join the Rabid Indie Fantasy Fan reading challenge](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/01/riff-2026-banner-black-quote-riff-resize-1.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/riff-starter-pack/xwkv1ey7m1) Fall headlong into a new fantasy world! ### Smashwords Read an Ebook Week Sale URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/smashwords-read-an-ebook-week-sale/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T16:04:26.000Z All my titles on Smashwords are anywhere between 50% and 100% off. So some titles are free! Some titles, especially ones that I rarely ever discount, are 50% off. Some really good buys at this time would be - [Dying Wishes](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1540362) (~~$5.99~~ $2.99) - [The Land of No Reflection](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1466789) (~~$4.99~~ $1.24) - [Tales For Dreamers: Volume I](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1732340) (~~$3.99~~ $1.99) - [Your Mother's Nightmares: Six Troubling Tales](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1554291) (~~$6.99~~ $1.74) The sale is on from March 1—7, so grab these interesting reads while you can! Happy reading! 📚 ### books you may love: Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/reckless-girls-by-rachel-hawkins/ Last updated: 2026-03-02T16:15:59.000Z It's been a helluva week. It's been a helluva few months, in fact. To say that 2026 began on a dismal note and has so far devolved into something far worse, specifically mental health-wise, is an understatement. In the same breath, it must also be said that books have been a saviour. A lifeline I hold on to desperately to see me through the madness of chaos and uncertainty. I don't think even the pandemic was quite so stressful. Or was it? And I've simply forgotten how bad it was because it's now so far behind in the past? But more on that later. --- The book that saved me this week was [*Reckless Girls*](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/57693168-reckless-girls) by Rachel Hawkins. ![Hardcover format of Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins featuring pink tropical flowers and a palm frond against a bright yellow background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/IMG_1483.jpeg) Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins I had borrowed it from the library a few weeks ago, and it sat on my bedside table, patiently awaiting its turn. I didn't open it until a couple of days ago, and I tore through it and savoured it at the same time, so riveting it was. Lux is a young woman who lives in Hawaii with her boyfriend, Nico, who comes from a rich family but choses to live in relative squalor instead, working at the marina. Lux herself works as a cleaner in a hotel, a job she's fired from in the very first chapter. Lux and Nico had had plans to sail around the world in Nico's boat, which is sadly in dire need of repairs. Enter Amma and Brittany, two friends who are looking to hire Nico to take them to a remote island in the Pacific called Meroe Island for a two-week visit. The place has a grim historical background, serving as an air base during WWII, and home to a shipwreck that saw the surviving crew turn to cannibalism in the end. (Turns out, [Meroe Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meroe%5FIsland) is a real place of India in the Bay of Bengal.) Once there, the foursome encounters another couple — Jake and Eliza — and the six of them quickly bond and hang out and explore the island together. What do you get when you put six hot young men and women together in a remote island, completely off the grid? Add in a healthy dose of secrets from the past that each one of them is saddled with, and you get a suspenseful romp in a beautiful locale teeming with a sense of 'something terrible is about to happen but we don't know yet what it is and who'll be the first victim'. --- There's something to be said about reading a story set in a warm tropical locale while it's —15 degree Celsius outside. My head had been grey with fearful thoughts of an upcoming trip for much of these past couple of months, and reading this book — although it was a suspense and meant to evoke a sense of dread, which it does, unforgivingly — there was a constant picture of blue skies and sunshine and a whiff of saltwater in my head. Such an immersive read it was! Hawkins provides such sharp insights into her characters it was breathtaking. > *Eliza is almost seventeen when it all comes crashing down.* > *Before that night in April, her life hadn't exactly been charmed. There was never enough money, her dad split before she even really knew him, and she and Mum had moved* so *many times. They'd lived in big cities like London and Manchester, and tiny villages with names that sound like something out of a storybook—but, for Eliza, they were still just a series of council flats and shitty schools.* > *She's glided by, Eliza has, because she's pretty, because she's quick, because she worked out that thing, *that secret, that takes most people ages to learn — no one really wants you to be yourself. They only want themselves reflected back at them.** > *Eliza is very good at doing that.* > *So while she never has the nicest clothes or the hottest brands, she always has friends, always finds herself at the centre of things, and that's where she likes to be, where she feels the most in control.* > *\~ An excerpt from Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins* And here's the character, Eliza, presented from the point of view of the main protagonist of the book, Lux. > *Eliza who, for whatever reason, I still want to please.* > *That's her superpower. She presents you with a version of yourself that you could be, if you were just brave enough to try.* > *\~ An excerpt from Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins* I know someone like that. Someone who makes me want to do all I can to help her whenever she reaches out, because there's something about her that makes me want to do my best, be my best, be like her sometimes, walking through this world with confidence and poise, with tremendous self-assurance and a certainty that people will do her bidding. She only has to ask. --- *Reckless Girls* saved me at a time when I was drowning in anxiety. I have travel plans coming up, but the news — even though largely unrelated (yet) to my destination — has sent me reeling. These past couple of months haven't been my best. I've spiralled into anxiety every weekend when I haven't been able to work to keep fearful thoughts at bay. I feel tremendous guilt at spiralling in front of little D. It's also recently come to light that my Vitamin D levels are far below threshold, so I'm glad there's something I can do to remedy these constant dips into dark madness. But there are two things I need to give up — following the news, and my morning cuppa. While the news settles like sediment in the depths of my subconscious, each new snippet of doom and devastation adding to that murky layer, caffeine has been whipping up that layer like a tornado. Was it always like this? I don't know. But it has become like this now. Which means I'm more determined than ever to give up drinking coffee. It's been on my mind for a while now. There was a time when I had gotten addicted to *Earth's Own Barista Edition* to make my cup of coffee. So much so that whenever it ran out in the stores, we'd go hunting for it everywhere. We've even ordered a pack of dozen cartons from Amazon a couple of times. I managed to cure that addiction when we went on a 5-week trip to the UK and India in the summer of 2024\. I was still drinking coffee, but without access to Barista Edition. When I came back, I didn't go back to it. We have a short trip coming up, and I wonder if that will cure me of my addiction to caffeine. That would be a blessing. I haven't had travel anxiety in the past. I love to travel, and I always complain that we don't do as much of it as we'd like to. Budget, and time away from work and school are very real constraints. But something about how the media portrays the state of the world has ratcheted up the volume and intensity of fears and worries swirling around in my anxious mind. Every place feels scary. Every moment feels as though things could go horribly wrong. I've been practising many self-regulation tools. Deep breathings. Meditations. Journaling. CBT. Listening to talks by [Tara Brach](https://www.tarabrach.com), one of the most compassionate meditation and wisdom teachers of our times. Still, not enough. Well, let me rephrase that. Enough to get by on most days, which is a huge success in itself in times like these. --- ![a child's hand spreading random colours on a white sheet of paper](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/dragos-gontariu-54VAb3f1z6w-unsplash.jpg) Meanderings of The Creative Mind | Photo by [Dragos Gontariu](https://unsplash.com/@dragos126?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/flat-lay-photography-of-paintings-54VAb3f1z6w?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) Last week I spent an entire day debating whether to use Crimson Text or Crimson Pro as the font in the print edition of my forthcoming metaphysical fantasy novel, *The Folly Of Memory*, Book 1 of *The Separation Of Souls Saga*. And then I berated myself for having spent so much time over such a seemingly 'trivial' decision. KrA was telling me yesterday that these are parts of the creative process and that they'd take as long as they would. > *He said that software developers spend far more time debating their choices for the name of a variable than on writing the actual code itself. The variable name needs to be concise and convey precisely what the variable does.* He usually has a calm, rational head. Which is why, even now as my anxiety is screaming at me to cancel all travel plans, I'm going to go with his assessment of the situation. I know my tendency in these situations — if something goes wrong, even the slightest thing, I'd look to blame him for choosing to go on this trip. So here's a promise I make to myself. No shaming and blaming. We'll face whatever comes, knowing that we made the best choice given the circumstances. I will not give into the temptation of resulting — determining the quality of a decision based on the quality of the outcome. Hindsight can be a poor teacher when used wrongly. Using hindsight to evaluate past choices is like appearing for a test with questions on subject matters that were never taught (out of syllabus), then sitting down to learn those topics and evaluating our performance against the backdrop of this new knowledge. What is it about living in this world that makes us want to optimize every moment of our lives, every decision we make? That's such a tall order and quite frankly, a very debilitating one too. --- In conclusion, I will leave you with something that lifted my spirits. A friend who's turning 50 today, sent me a picture of a paperback copy of a long-ago book of poems of mine that she had purchased from Amazon! [![ebook cover of Hello, Dreamer! Poems & Dreams by Anitha Krishnan featuring silhouette of a winged fairy against a bright full moon and a sprinkle of stars](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/03/Hello--Dreamer-1.jpg)](https://books2read.com/HelloDreamer) Hello, Dreamer! Poems & Dreams This book is a collection of 100 short poems and verses I wrote as part of a #100dayproject back in the day when I was on social media and enjoying the connection with friends, before it became a place exploding with ads and news and comparison and envy. You couldn't be yourself anymore, you had to become what the algorithm thinks is worthy. Which is probably why that line in *Reckless Girls* resonated with me so much. > *... that secret, that takes most people ages to learn — no one really wants you to be yourself. They only want themselves reflected back at them.* > *\~ An excerpt from Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins* I remember telling my friend that I wrote these poems when I was a different person, someone who had a greater zest for life and much more confidence to face all that life brings than the current version of me possesses. I was so touched by my friend's gesture that I came back home and riffled through the pages of my own copy. Here are a couple of my favourite verses. > ***Day 12 — Responsibility Of A Star*** > *Mine is not to be the lone star.* > *Mine is not to shine the brightest of them all.* > *Mine,* > *like that of a million others,* > *is to play my part really well* > *in keeping the blackness* > *pinned to the skies above after nightfall.* > # > ***Day 63 — Borrowed Light*** > *In this search of stillness,* > *I yearn to be like the sun, unwavering,* > *unmoved by the turmoil of the planets around him.* > *But in truth I am like the moon,* > *the restless shape-shifter, truth-obscurer,* > *protector of lovers and thieves and cowards.* > *How can I be like the sun* > *when even my light is not my own?* Funnily enough, KrA gave me an answer to this conundrum yesterday. After a morning spent spiralling in anxiety, I spent the afternoon nagging him about how to become a different person. How do I stop sinking into anxious thoughts and change myself to become a more positive person? His answer was simple and wise. He said I ought to stop trying to change myself. Instead, he reckoned, I'd be better off accepting that my default state is that of anxiety, and then, in full awareness and acceptance of that, employ tools to challenge my anxious thoughts and not keep fear from stopping me from living life. It's such a freeing thought. Such a liberating course of action, isn't it? [Treat yourself to a copy of Hello, Dreamer! Poems & Dreams](https://books2read.com/HelloDreamer) --- *If you love what you read, consider signing up for my newsletter, Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar. It arrives in your inbox on the last Sunday of every month. Subscribers also receive two free short stories.* [Sign up to Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar!](#/portal/signup/free) ### February Fortune: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2026-february-fortune/ Last updated: 2026-02-22T08:00:24.000Z Forgive me as I do not begin this missive with the usual niceties entailing polite remarks about the weather and life, in general. Because even though it’s been bleak and grey outside for days on end now, sunshine is bursting in my heart and coursing through my veins. For you see, the portal to my new fantasy world is open, at last! This month, I present to you the **cover** and **blurb** of the book. As well as its **title**, which came into being only a few months ago. Plus the **title of the series**! All of which is a really big deal, because for the longest time, my manuscript was titled 'Spec Fic Duology – Book 1'! 🤭 Sometimes it seems to take forever for all the pieces to fall into place, but when they do, it's like one of those exquisite moments when everything makes perfect sense and life feels ... just perfect! So this is it! You are the first to hear of this, as I promised. So grab a warm cuppa and read on to find out all about my forthcoming metaphysical fantasy saga. --- ### *On Writing* Dear Readers, presenting to you ... drumroll, please ... > **The Folly Of Memory** > **Book 1 of The Separation Of Souls Saga** ![Ebook cover of The Folly Of Memory featuring gold font against a dark background and a golden hourglass in the centre](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/02/Book-1---The-Folly-Of-Memory---eBook-Interior-Cover-1.jpg) The Folly Of Memory | Book One of The Separation Of Souls Saga #### The Folly Of Memory **by Anitha Krishnan* The Organization for the Cleansing and Resurrection of Earth (OCRE) has arrived. Its soldiers have Awakened. Flawless beings who wield the extraordinary power of their minds, unfettered by fear, doubt, or weakness. They’re on a mission to cast out frail and defective human beings, and elevate the rest of humanity towards its utmost divine potential. There’s only one problem: Rolam, the OCRE’s newly Awakened soldier. Something is wrong with him. He’s not perfect. He errs. He stumbles. He doubts. While his fellow soldiers move with assurance, Rolam is haunted by the faint, persistent drag of something amiss within him. In the OCRE, imperfection is a scourge. It must be purged. Every mistake erodes the pristine core that sustains the OCRE’s mission of transcendence. But the harder Rolam chases that ideal of infallibility, the more he falters. Each misstep thrusts him ever closer to obliteration. Can a hopelessly flawed soldier survive the OCRE’s ruthless regime of perfection? Or will he ultimately fall apart? ***The Folly of Memory** *is a bold and immersive metaphysical fantasy novel about identity, belonging, and the perilous cost of jettisoning who you are to become who the world thinks you should be.* ****Book One of The Separation of Souls Saga.** ****Coming in mid-July!** --- 🎊 So, what do you think of the cover and premise of the story? Click on the button to cast a quick vote! [Voice your opinion! ](https://tally.so/r/Y5Qazd) --- Even though I started writing this story more than three years ago, I’m glad I’m able to release it only now. Because it has turned out to be quite a fitting story for our times. Authoritarianism is on the rise. We’re living through the disruption that is AI. The rich and the powerful are callously deciding the fates of the poor and the vulnerable; that’s probably always been the case, except now they’re doing it brazenly. In these times of chaos and uncertainty, ***The Folly Of Memory*** plunges right into the heart of a character, Rolam, who is a misfit, not by choice but by circumstance, in a system with its own exacting demands. If you like deeply immersive tales with flawed characters, if you want a story that normalizes imperfection, if you want an honest reassurance that to be human is an inevitably messy affair and no, you’re not doing it wrong, this thing called life, you’ll find that Rolam’s journey mirrors your own. --- In other writing-related news, one of my novels, [*Erased From Existence*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/riff-starter-pack/xwkv1ey7m1), a paranormal mystery tale, is still available for free as part of an ongoing promotion over on BookFunnel. And if you're on [Smashwords](https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/AnithaKrishnan), **ALL** my published works there will be discounted (from anywhere between 50—100%, individual discount rates vary) during their 17th annual Read an Ebook Week Super Sale, running March 1—7. --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* For no rhyme or reason, I've chosen 'letters to the Old Ones' to serve as this month's quick read of whimsy and wonder. [tales for dreamers: letters to the Old OnesIf you could write letters to the ones who no longer exist, what would you write to them about?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-66.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/50.-Letters-to-the-Old-Ones.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-letters-to-the-old-ones/) Or, perhaps, there is a reason I chose this tale. More on that right below. --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* Of late, the preciousness of life has begun to feel rather precarious. There’s too much pressure — sometimes self-inflicted, sometimes external — to *‘make the most of’* this *‘one wild and precious’* life. I can identify a few things that are triggering this for me. The upcoming launch of my latest book series is high on the list. As is the fact that little D will turn 10 this June. > *Time is fleeting, and there’s this sense of urgency to do something useful/meaningful/purposeful/joyful, to make every moment count, instead of simply sitting here helplessly and watching it pass by.* > # In her book, *I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen*, author Kate Strickler talks about the origin of the phrase *‘Keeping up with the Joneses.’* It comes from an eponymous comic strip created by American cartoonist, Arthur R. “Pop” Momand, back in 1913! So this is not a relatively new struggle, after all! ![A comic panel that explains the origin of the phrase 'Keeping Up With The Joneses'](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/02/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses_panel-copy-2.png) By Arthur Ragland "Pop" Momand - "A Great Help to Pa" from Pop Momand, "Keeping Up with the Joneses, Volume 1", Cupples & Leon Company, 1920, Public Domain, As Strickler says, it’s that phrase “she gets something out of life” that plagues me. > *Because what does that even mean — to get something out of life, or to make the most of our lives?* For the longest time, it felt as if that phrase mainly referred to accumulation of wealth or increase in social status, career progression, building vast social and professional networks, having a large family, nurturing relationships, many of these often guised as fulfilment of duty and responsibility. Travel is another big one for our times. These days, it seems to be all about the ‘joy’ one can possibly squeeze out of an experience or a product or even just this one uneventful, ordinary moment. As if to leave it so — ordinary, as is, and not infuse it with JOY — is a crime. But surely there’s nothing (or no one, not even ourselves) that can give us endless joy all the time? > # I love writing, but it’d be false on my part to claim it’s always easy or that it comes naturally every single moment. Because it doesn’t. There’s immense satisfaction in writing a story, seeing it take birth and grow and shape-shift with a mind of its own all the way to the end. The process of writing does entail its fair share of joy. But there are also moments of crippling doubt and fear, of shattered confidence, of anxiety about outcomes, and all other fears that crop up just as often. With time and practice we get better at handling these hiccups — meaning not slamming the laptop shut at the first sign of doubt but continuing to sit there and see if we can write the next word and the next sentence. Sitting through the discomfort. Trusting that this too will pass and that we’ll eventually find a way out of this difficult phase, if only we can hold on or keep going for the time being. For me, that change has been years in the making. For another person, the challenges might look very different. But they’re there, nonetheless. > *#* Culture does everyone a huge disservice when it romanticizes struggle. There’s nothing appealing about struggle, especially when we’re in the thick of it. Sure, there's usually a sense of satisfaction and achievement to be attained after having persevered through something difficult, but just as equally, the outcome might not be to our liking, and we’d find ourselves dejected for a while. Struggle in the various forms it takes — failure, loss, disappointing outcomes, being stuck in one place with no visible path out — is not at all joyful. Slogans like *'Carpe Diem'* and *'Make every moment count'*, even YOLO, are often misconstrued to mean that every single moment ought to be filled with joy and pleasure. All this makes life too *'precious'* — in the sense of the word that means *'pretentious'* and *'contrived'* — and prevents us from embracing it wholly, warts and all. ![crowd with hands up in the air in a concert with confetti falling on them](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/02/trojan-yao-Iy3eLli5N0U-unsplash.jpg) Life is to enjoy! But, is it? | Photo by [Trojan Yao](https://unsplash.com/@minimalistrojan?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/crowd-with-hands-up-in-a-concert-with-confetti-Iy3eLli5N0U?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) > # > *If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable; think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad. \~ C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock* > # I feel compelled to share this now because in many ways, *The Folly Of Memory* has been a difficult book to write. It's Book 1 in the series, but I meandered in the midst of writing it and started and finished Book 1.5, an entire novel in itself. I'm nearing the end of Book 2 now, and that has been a much easier ride, to be honest. For some reason, severe self-doubt and a loss of confidence hit me in my early attempts at writing Book 1\. There was no part of me that I could conjure up to say anything positive and encouraging about the story and my efforts. > *Who needs enemies when we have a mind that can turn against us without warning?* But on the other hand, even though it was my most difficult book to write, it has been the most rewarding too in the sense that it has taught me to persevere, to keep coming back to the work, and to be able to write long tomes through the ups and downs of it. > # > *In the end, I'm thinking it's less about finding joy in each and every moment and more about rejoicing when the going is good, sure, but also about summoning the inner strength and equanimity to face all the challenges that life throws our way, without us falling apart.* > *Then what we'd have gotten out of life would perhaps look less like loud luxuries and more like quiet courage and robust self-assurance.* If my *'one wild and precious life'* looks more like an evolution of my inner self and less like a relentless pattern of succumbing to the whims of the outer world and my own capricious mind over and over again, I bet I'll get far more out of it and also contribute far more to it than I can possibly imagine. > # 💡 **Your turn now. How would you like your 'one wild and precious life' to appear when you look back on it?* --- ### *Books You May Love* I only read one book this month — *I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen ... And Other Lies I Think Will Make Me Happy* — by social media influencer, Kate Strickler. I loved it so much that I wrote a blog post on it. Not just any blog post, but one that has a reading time of 21 minutes! Got more time to spare? 👇😉 [books you may love: I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen by Kate StricklerReflections on a book that delves into life, love, motherhood, friendships, worries about money, time and control... offering all the love and validation we all so desperately seek... and need.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-67.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/Feature_clay-banks-j1XuL3mwi8U-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/i-just-wish-i-had-a-bigger-kitchen-by-kate-strickler/) --- Another month, and another edition of *Monthly Missives*, are both coming to an end, dear Dreamer! March will be another slow month for me work-wise, with school being out for the March Break holidays. But I will write to you with more news on *The Separation Of Souls Saga*, and reflections on writing, reading, and living life with intent, introspection and imagination. Much love, Anitha --- > *What we don't need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human. \~ Brené Brown* --- [Love what you read? Share with a friend!](mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20Monthly%20Missives%20by%20The%20Dream%20Pedlar!&body=Hey%20there!%0D%0A%0D%0AI%20just%20read%20this%20month%E2%80%99s%20newsletter%20from%20Anitha%20Krishnan%20%28she%20writes%20beautiful%20speculative%20fiction%29%20and%20she%20has%20just%20announced%20her%20new%2C%20upcoming%20metaphysical%20fantasy%20series!%20%0D%0A%0D%0AAs%20always%2C%20her%20missive%20is%20full%20of%20intriguing%20reflections%20on%20writing%2C%20reading%20and%20living%20the%20creative%20life.%20I%20think%20you'll%20enjoy%20her%20writings%20too!%0D%0A%0D%0AIf%20you%E2%80%99ve%20got%20a%20few%20minutes%2C%20check%20it%20out%3A%20%0D%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthedreampedlar.com%2Fnewsletter-2026-february-fortune%2F%0D%0A%0D%0ACheers!%20) ### books you may love: I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen by Kate Strickler URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/i-just-wish-i-had-a-bigger-kitchen-by-kate-strickler/ Last updated: 2026-02-07T21:34:39.000Z Of late, I’ve been wanting to slow down in my reading habits to allow myself more time to reflect on and soak in the joy of a book I’d have just finished reading, instead of rushing on to the next book to fill the void left by the completion of the previous one. For me, thinking equals writing. Writing down my thoughts and musings is how I even gain clarity on what I feel, what I think, and how I’d like to assimilate those experiences in my being or respond to them in a way that is aligned with how I intend to show up in life. It’s a blessing that there’s an abundance of books to dive into and relish the time spent between their pages. [*I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen … And other Lies I Think Will Make Me Happy*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220543404-i-just-wish-i-had-a-bigger-kitchen) by Kate Strickler caught my eye because of its bold title. Of course, I wish I had a bigger kitchen. In fact, as D’s growing up, I wish we had a bigger entryway, and I wish we had more than one bathroom on the top floor. Heck! I wish I had an entire bathroom to myself. No! I want an entire wing of an entire house to myself! So imagine how eager I was to dive into the pages of this book! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/02/Book-Cover-Image-1.jpeg) **"I have had the privilege of understanding the tension between a life you are grateful for and a life you are discontent with on a larger scale."* **\~Kate Strickler* ### *When was the last time you stopped to take in the Table of Contents of a book?* 1. I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen 2. I Just Wish I Was a Better Mom 3. I Just Wish I Had a Better Husband 4. I Just Wish I Had More Friends 5. I Just Wish I Looked Better 6. I Just Wish I Had More Money 7. I Just Wish I Had More Time 8. I Just Wish I Had Control 9. I Just Wish My Life Looked More Like Hers 10. I Just Wish That Had Gone Better 11. A Life You Love Aren't these chapter titles simply glorious and to the point?! I can relate to almost of these! I’m at ease mainly with how I look (5) and the fact that very little is in my control (8). But the rest? Strickler might as well have been talking about me. Strickler offers several in-depth questions to foster practical mindset shifts at the end of each chapter. But primarily, she relates her own experiences with these longings, her realizations, and the fact that the two will always be at loggerheads with each other. > *Understanding something intellectually does not make the visceral longings and desires go away.* In a couple of places, Strickler also gets a little Jesus-y, but that accounts for a minute fraction of the book. So even if turning to God or religion in response to life’s conundrums is not up your alleyway, this book would still make for a validating and reassuring read. I’ve riddled the ebook with highlights and annotations. This is a book best praised and cherished through excerpts. So let’s go chapter by chapter. Why not? (All excerpts from the book are marked as such to distinguish them from my musings.) --- ### *Introduction* > *You can go to hell without moving an inch,* > *just focus on what you lack.* > *You can taste heaven without leaving earth,* > *just rejoice in what you have.* > *\~ James Clear* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # > *Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.* > *\~ Widely attributed to Abraham Lincoln* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # > *And then I opened Instagram.* > *…* > *Photo after photo showed a life just one step nicer than my own. And that’s when the spiral started.* > *…* > *I know this sounds dramatic, but I am sad to say it’s the reality of how I’ve spent so many of my days. I’ll be feeling good about myself, and one photo can completely knock me over. Everything I thought was enough is no longer so.* > *I see someone with a standard of living slightly ahead of my own, with an appearance of being able to afford more than I can or travel more than I can, and I get jealous.* > *I believe they are happier. I want the giant kitchen or the lake house. I would even settle for the cute gardening outfit.* > *But then I keep scrolling. There’s been a horrific earthquake in Haiti. Their houses have little to no infrastructure, and the entier country is in shambles.* > *…* > *You see a tragedy, and it completely shifts your perspective. You no longer loathe your body when your close friend finds out she has cancer; you’re just grateful to be healthy. …* > *Seeing lack and loss in others puts your own abundance on full display.* > *And this is how we live, floating in a sea of people, bobbing up and down, depending on who we are around.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # Was Strickler talking about me? Because this is exactly me. Gutted with envy one moment when I focus on what I lack, then swinging to the other end of the pendulum when I look at what I have that others lack. It’s a constant see-saw between two extremes. > # > *This was the tension I lived in for years —- knowing my life was a gift, yet also constantly struggling and comparing it to others.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # > *I wanted someone to tell me what I could do when my mind was in a mental hole, someone to take the shovel I was digging deeper and deeper with and hand me a ladder to climb out.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # > *I have had the privilege of understanding the tension between a life you are grateful for and a life you are discontent with on a larger scale.* > *(excerpted from the book)* --- ![one red tulip in a field of yellow tulips](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/02/eric-prouzet-tD49mqo7sjE-unsplash.jpg) standing out | Photo by [Eric Prouzet](https://unsplash.com/@eprouzet?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/red-tulips-on-yellow-tulips-field-tD49mqo7sjE?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- ### *Chapter 1: I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen* > *For me, space has always been deeply tied to my anxiety. When I am anxious, I crave more space as an escape. I want clear counters and minimal visual clutter. My body is having trouble breathing and thinks that what it needs is literally more room to breathe. Paradoxically, when I am anxious, I do not want to be alone.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # This is entirely me. I didn’t realize it until I read this passage, but this is so me. When I am anxious, I start cleaning. I start decluttering and throwing out everything. I become determined to live a [minimalistic](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/remnants-of-a-past-life/) life! But I also want to feel cozy and comforted, often by the presence of KrA and D. I wish to surround myself with beautiful things, memories and souvenirs from the places we travelled to, the things we did together, the people we were with on those occasions... --- ### *Chapter 2: I Just Wish I Was a Better Mom* > *There are things about the way my mom parented us that were really good and helpful and other things I want to do differently.* > *But in the moment, when the adrenaline kicks in, it is so hard to know what I am doing from a place of wisdom and what I am doing out of spite or anger.* > *What am I doing because I choose to, and what am I doing because that’s the only way I have seen it done?* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # The lines above reminded me of something Morgan Housel says in his book, *The Psychology Of Money*. He says that when we look to dissect business and investment choices that have been successful, it is really hard to tell how much of that success was owing to wise decision-making and how much of it was owing to other factors often beyond the decision-maker's control. > # > *… I discovered a large lesson this was so hard for me: I wanted to do it all. To me, being a good mom meant doing it all.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # I can relate to these lines so much! It's that endless array of questions every mother poses to herself. Am I doing too much? Am I doing enough? Should I intervene? Or should I just witness? How much longer do I have to wait and watch? Shouldn't I have stepped in already? Sadly, there are no helpful answers to all these questions that keep cropping up. The one way that's helping me cope on days when the questions get too much is telling myself that I, and everyone else, is really doing the best we can. > # Talking about her work as a social media influencer, Strickler writes > *“It’s strange work brings both a sense of pride and insecurity. A “look at what I have built!” mixed with a healthy dose of “what in the world have I built?"* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # > *I also think there is an underlying need to prove oneself in motherhood, namely because there really isn’t an easy way to know if you’re doing a good job. For this reason, many women (again, myself included) don’t love to admit they need help.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # > *Something that has really freed me up is letting go of the notion that i want to voice any regrets in my parenting. When I start to live under the burden of “Make sure you do the right thing here! You don’t want to miss this opportunity!” I start to feel crushed.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # Exactly! This is what the phrase Carpe Diem did to me. I felt crushed at the overwhelming burden of having to make each moment of my ‘one wild and precious life’ count. For years I thought I have to make the most of a sunny afternoon with blue skies and white clouds drifting past by going to the beach or spending time outdoors. Else, it was an opportunity squandered. I still feel the pressure to make the most of the time that D spends at school. If I don’t spend that time writing or editing, I worry I have wasted that opportunity. High achievers often feel this tension when they find themselves unable to rest. I’ve not found an answer to this question. How much rest is needed? How much rest is enough? I’ve always been a hard worker, and I’ve enjoyed it. Until I couldn’t. Until something in my brain snapped and all I could see were the doubts and expected outcomes, and I lost all joy in doing what I loved. This is a pit I am still crawling out of. --- ### *Chapter 3: I Just Wish I Had a Better Husband* Kudos to Strickler for saying this out loud and for normalizing these secret thoughts and wishes women like me harbour on occasion but don't quite know what to do with and only end up feeling terribly guilty about! Strickler quotes something her friend said to her on an occasion when she wished her husband would do something differently. > *“Kate, you can’t have it all. You can’t have a man who is well planned and also super spontaneous. You can’t have someone who is an introvert and also an extrovert. The things you love about Nate are the very things that make him Nate. To ask him to also be all of those other things would be to ask him to no longer be the things you love about him."* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # Golden words! And so true! These words made me look at KrA very differently. I recently [wrote](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-fine-summers-day-by-charles-todd/) about how I often wished he was more gregarious and outgoing, but the truth is that his silent nature is what serves as a bedrock for me to navigate my own turbulence of emotions. Truth be told, I too am not a person who can spend a lot of time in the company of others. One social outing, and I need thrice as many hours to decompress and relax, to quiet the chatter inside my head. Which brings me to wonder — what is it about looking at the outside world that messes with our heads, makes us question the value of what we have, and falsely gets us to believe that we ought to be hankering after something else or something more? What do you think, dear Reader? --- ### *Chapter 4: I Just Wish I Had More Friends* > *I still struggle with wanting to feel included. To me, inclusion feels synonymous with belonging. FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is really FOBLO…fear of being left out. A fear that someone might remember me and actively choose to not include me.* > *Being left out is extremely painful, because it can eat at the core of your identity, leaving you wondering what you need to change about yourself to be included. Am I too loud? Too boring? If we moved to a closer neighbourhood, would they invite me then? It quickly becomes an identity issue. “If it’s not you, then it must be me.”* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # Years of therapy and reading books on CBT and DBT and mindset resources from Big Life Journal have finally helped me change my self-talk in such circumstances. I still remember the times when I was quick to jump to the conclusion that someone didn’t want to include me in their plans. Those thoughts would send me down a spiral of shame and unworthiness, and I'd spend days in that cesspit. Maybe they didn't want to include me. Maybe they did. Either way, it’s not in my control. > *I don’t have to let another person’s opinions about me or choices pertaining to me dictate what I feel or think about myself.* When D started JK in the midst of the pandemic, I remember being desperate to find mommy friends. A number of social mishaps later, KrA gently reminded me that just because D is friends with a particular child doesn’t mean we have to expect to form a similar bond with that child’s parents. In these past few years, I’ve come to see how fluid friendships are, changing and shapeshifting as they explore new interests and activities and find themselves sometimes solo or discover new companions along the way. I myself am mostly in touch with people whom I interact with regularly in person. Overseas, it's primarily my parents I speak with often. Siblings and cousins don't play a significant role in my day-to-day life. The idea of everlasting friendship, even idealistic love, is very alluring. Which is why books and movies portraying these deep bonds — Harry Potter, Wings Of Fire, etc. — are much loved. In stories we seek the connection that is really hard to come by in real life. But reality is different. People come and people go. The *Big Life Journal*, a resource for children that I absolutely love, has an analogy that compares the journey through life and friendships as a ride in an elevator. Some people step in, some step out. Sometimes we're the only person riding for a while. And that's how it generally is in real life. --- ![silhouette of six people jumping for joy against the setting sun](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/02/timon-studler-BIk2ANMmNz4-unsplash.jpg) friends | Photo by [Timon Studler](https://unsplash.com/@derstudi?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/six-silhouette-of-people-jumping-during-sunrise-BIk2ANMmNz4?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- ### *Chapter 5: I Just Wish I Looked Better* Strickler quotes a quote on humility in the book. > *"Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # > *Aging would be so much easier if we all agreed to do it together*, like making a pact with your friends not to give the kids cell phones until they turn sixteen. But we all know how that goes. One mom cracks and her kid has a phone, and now all the moms feel the pressure to give their kids one as well. > (excerpted from the book) > # This I can relate to. So many moms have introduced their children to video games, and in the same breath express worry how much time their kids are spending on screens. I’m in that boat myself now. At some point in the next year or so, we too will be venturing into the world of Minecraft and Roblox, and I can only hope that the good habits we’ve helped D cultivate all these years will stand him in good stead. --- ### *Chapter 6: I Just Wish I Had More Money* Strickler researched the phrase “Keeping up with the Joneses” and came across a cartoon strip in which a woman is egging her husband on to ask the boss for a raise, claiming that another richer woman is 'getting something out of life'. Referring to that strip, Strickler writes: > *It’s that small little phrase that I so quickly believe: “She gets something out of life.”* > *I believe that because another person has a larger house, a nicer kitchen, or a better car that they are getting more out of life.* > *I know money can’t buy happiness, but I still find myself just like Clarice (referencing the comic strip). Money might not buy happiness, but it might just buy me a little more than I currently have.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # These words are golden. This is exactly how I feel. There's always this nagging fear that I'm not squeezing every last ounce of potential and promise from my life and myself if I don't have anything to show for it in a material sense. > # Strickler goes on to quote Morgan Housel from his book, *The Psychology of Money* (another book I’ve read and loved). > *The hardest financial skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving… Modern capitalism is a pro at two things: generating wealth and generating envy. Perhaps they go hand in hang; wanting to surpass your peers can be the fuel of hard work. But life isn’t any fund without a sense of enough. Happiness, as it’s said, is just results minus expectations. \~Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # Winters spent in a tropical island. A cottage in Muskoka. Several vacations a year. A house with a large backyard. And perhaps also a pool? Even though just last week we were thinking how awesome it is to be able to go to a community pool and meet other people there, so many kind folks, and even have a lifeguard on hand! The desires are endless. But more so, sometimes it feels downright wrong to live a life without ambition or desire. Aren’t we supposed to aim higher? Aren’t we supposed to ‘make something of our lives’? --- ### *Chapter 7: I Just Wish I Had More Time* > *Someone asked me recently what was my biggest regret in life…* > *being in a hurry.* > *Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me.* > *I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry.* > *But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all that rushing.* > *Through all that haste, I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away. \~Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # I see myself struggling with this even now, on one hand wishing the writing of this piece were done already, not realizing that in wishing for this to end, I’m forgetting to immerse myself in the creation of this post. I love writing. Yet I haven’t made much progress on my manuscript this past fortnight. Sure, illness and requiring to help D navigate some situations at school took time and mental resources. But the deeper truth is that I’m squirming every time I open the manuscript. The itch to run away from it is so strong. And I know why that is. I’ve been asking myself, “What’s the point?” “Who’s going to read this novel?” “Will anyone even like it?” “What if everyone hates it?” There are no answers to these questions, and in asking them repeatedly I have only created a quagmire from which I’m unable to pull myself out. > # > *While Annie Dillard’s famous quote saying “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives” can be helpful, it also haunts me. This quote is a reminder that what I choose to do each moment strings together to form hours. Hours form days, days form weeks and so on.Before you know it, a decade has passed. But for me, the days would pass, and I would wonder what the heck I even did with the time. did anything I accomplished add to how I want to spend my life?* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # > *I remember on one occasion seeing Nate outside reading a book of poetry and feeing both despondent and jealous. Jealous because I wanted to be reading the book of poetry, and despondent because I knew even if I had the time, I would never sit down to read it.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # Strickler must be my soul sister! This is me when KrA is watching K-dramas or doing anything that appears remotely like relaxation and enjoyment. Every morning, after making breakfast for all of us and packing D’s lunchbox for school, KrA sits down with a cup of coffee and his iPad, perhaps watching a K-drama or perusing the news, for about 15 minutes. That’s his me-time. The envy it generates in me! How could he possibly relax when I’m trying to keep my cool while reminding D for the umpteenth time to pack his bag for school? Yet, if given the option to put my feet up and relax while the household is falling apart around me, I’d be the first to jump out of relaxation mode and right into the thick of the action. 🤷🏽‍♀️ --- ### *Chapter 8: I Just Wish I Had Control* > *But I think my biggest regret would be worrying about events that never came to fruition, wringing my hands over ideations, when right in front of me precious, incredible life is happening.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # This. I feel this too so deeply. When I’m busy worrying about whether anyone will read my stories, I’m not enjoying the process of writing itself. When I’m busy worrying about whether D will develop employable skills for his future, I’m not at all paying attention to how beautifully and intuitively he plays the piano. > # > *The more good I notice and realize is outside of my control, the easier it gets to loosen the grip I have so tightly on how I believe my life should look.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # > *I am very high energy and tend to wake up feeling like a kettle near boiling over, and early exercise takes the edge off for me.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # Mornings are the hardest for me too. I wake up with all the anxieties that I’ve not laid to rest the previous evening, crowding in my mind, demanding release. Even if I don’t have the bandwidth for a full exercise regimen first thing in the morning, following a short, simple routine of a handful of morning stretches - now made necessary because of a weakening lower back — puts me in a better mood than otherwise. --- ![image of dried flowers against a book of poems by Rupi Kaur ](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/02/giulia-bertelli-HH7ucPLZ9sk-unsplash.jpg) trusting in a greater force | Photo by [Giulia Bertelli](https://unsplash.com/@giulia%5Fbertelli?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-book-opened-to-a-page-with-a-plant-in-it-HH7ucPLZ9sk?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- ### *Chapter 9: I Just Wish My Life Looked More Like Hers* I didn’t highlight anything in particular in this chapter but it reminded me of the times I ~~struggled~~ still struggle with wanting another person’s life… especially when it comes to the size of their family. I’d look at someone with three children in tow and I’d want that. But when I’m at home, I’m very content with hanging out with little D. And I know that deep down, despite all my worries about D not having a sibling, I don’t really want more children. I’m very grateful for the chance at motherhood that D has given me. But I also love having the time to write and read stories. I love this slow pace of life that having one child allows me to enjoy. I love all the time that I get to spend with KrA and D, especially now when I find I have such limited energy and I can’t imagine having to care for another human being when I already feel stretched so thin. But, knowing that doesn't make the raw longing go away completely. It crops up from time to time, though with the years passing by, this feeling has been much easier to deal with and is not as crippling as it used to be earlier. --- ### *Chapter 10: I Just Wish That Had Gone Better* > *If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable; think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad. \~ C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # I’ve put this quote up on the wall in front of me. It’s a reminder I need every single day. > # Strickler talks about a much anticipated family trip to Disney World in which her family ends up with a stomach bug, forcing them to cut short their trip. > *Things would not always go as planned. There would be things they hoped for that would be cut short or canceled. They would get things they looked forward to that would not meet their expectations.* > *I started to realize my job as a parent was less about helping them having the most fun in life and more about helping them navigate all the disappointment that would come their way.* > *I needed to teach my children to hold the same tension I was struggling to hold: to enjoy life but expect hardship.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # I’ve grown up with the belief that if something has gone wrong in my life, then I am to blame. Surely I could have avoided that thing if only I had worked harder or smarter. So much so that I’d even feel mad at myself when I fall ill. I didn’t realize until much later in life how I held myself to very high expectations. It was only when I found myself on the brink of spilling those expectation of little D that I caught myself and decided to change tack. I’m not always successful in this, and I apologize to D every time I slip up. Looking at life as a place of training and correction helps take the pressure off the performance. I don’t have to get it right all the time. I can’t get it wrong far more often than I think I’m allowed. And it would still all be ok. > # > *When I remember I am living in a world that is not what God wanted it to be, I can view my role as someone seeking to help make it better instead of someone seeking to get every ounce of joy out of it.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # Even though I don't necessarily subscribe to the author's thoughts on God, I do think that the above sentiment is a healthier way of looking at the world. Instead of whining about how bad things are, we could turn our attention to do our part in trying to make things better. > # > *Now that I have kids, I understand why the military uses sleep deprivation as a torture tactic.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # Sleep. And silence. I’d do anything for healthy, uninterrupted doses of those two precious commodities. Also a sense of safety and security. What else should I add to the list? What would you add to the list? --- ![heart-shaped stone with the word 'Happy' etched on it in the grass beside a dandelion in full bloom](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/02/szilvia-basso-cPGv4rXhryc-unsplash.jpg) happy | Photo by [Szilvia Basso](https://unsplash.com/@szilviabasso?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/heart-shaped-black-stone-on-green-grass-cPGv4rXhryc?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- ### *Chapter 11: A Life You Love* Strickler quotes a conversation between the Rabbit and the Skin Horse in *The Velveteen Rabbit* by Margery Williams. > *“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”* > *“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.* > *“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”* > *“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”* > *“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”* > *\~ Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # When we were leaving from Australia back to Canada with six-month-old D in our arms, we had to clear out the apartment we were living in. We sold our fridge to a lady who lived in the neighbourhood, a few blocks away. She had hired two men to transport the fridge from our place to hers. At our place, the appliance was in pristine condition. By the time it reached her house, it was dinged and scratched in several placed. The workers probably didn’t care for the memo ‘Handle with care’. I suppose life too doesn’t go by that memo. We are going to get dinged and bruised several times for no fault of our own. The dents and scars will not necessarily fade and we will likely carry them with us for the rest of our lives. Perhaps it is time to stop looking at them at aberrations and consider them as inevitable features of being alive. > # > *When I first gave the title for this book, the subtitle read “And Other Lies I Thought Would Make Me Happy.” It was only after finishing that I went back and changed it to the present tense. As I wrote, I realized that so much said here is a working narrative in my brain, ideas and ideals I marinate on often but have not yet mastered.* > *It’s a funny dichotomy to write a book on the subject of loving your life. To some degree, I feel like a fraud. I’m thirty-five years old and am still struggling with so much of what I wrote about. Perhaps there is something to be said of being in the thick of it as I write. Time has not had the ability to colour my experience in a guise of wisdom. I am still working through what game I am playing; I am still fighting not to catch my reflection too long in the mirror or feel shame for my body as it ages; I am still grappling with how to spend both my money and my days.* > *(excerpted from the book)* > # It was a relief to read these lines. Oftentimes, self-help authors seem to like to concoct a success story with a clear line demarcating the before and the after. I much prefer Strickler’s approach and admission that she continues to grapple with the push and pull of these tensions. The struggle of wanting to figure out how to do this ‘life’ thing right, while also realizing that there is no such thing as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The most we can do is soften around those hard edges of worry and shame, of guilt and remorse, and move deeply into what each day has in store for us. There are no answers. Which means we can finally set all our questions down on the ground, not badger ourselves to keep carrying their burden, and release them. > # *I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen* is such a lovely book. I'm sure you can tell that from the length of this essay. It's a book I'll return to often, especially when life's disappointments seem to cloud my vision and prevent me from seeing all the other good that is happening alongside. --- *If this reflection on bigger kitchen dreams, motherhood tensions, and the quiet wishes we all harbour resonates with you, join my monthly newsletter for musings on writing, reading and living the creative life.* [✨ Sign up for Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar](#/portal/signup/free) ### January Jives: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2026-january-jives/ Last updated: 2026-01-25T08:00:06.000Z I think the Aussies and the Kiwis have the right idea of beginning their new year in the midst of summer, with most of January being a school holiday, and the madness of back-to-school (and perhaps, even work?) not hitting in full force until end-January or February. Because on my end, between school days, snow days, and sick days, the past three weeks of this month since school and work resumed have felt like three months already, in terms of workload and stress! ~~Not to mention the news~~ ... let's not even go there! But there's also been writing, reading, snow, and basketball to find lots of joy and delight in. And this newsletter comes bearing some goodies too, so grab a cuppa, settle in your favourite spot, and read on! --- ### *On Writing* My young adult paranormal mystery novel, *Erased From Existence*, is available for free as part of an exciting [*Rabid Indie Fantasy Fan (RIFF) Reading Challenge*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/riff-starter-pack/xwkv1ey7m1) over on BookFunnel. [![Poster featuring a logo with a dragon perched on a pile of books and a text asking readers to join the Rabid Indie Fantasy Fan reading challenge](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/01/riff-2026-banner-black-quote-riff-resize-1.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/riff-starter-pack/xwkv1ey7m1) Fall headlong into a new fantasy world! This is not merely another book promotion but a gamified Bingo-style reading challenge that a few authors are running in a reading group over on Facebook. I myself am not on social media, but if you're looking for a virtual group to discuss your new favourite authors and characters in the vast and endless realms of indie fantasy, you're in luck! [Join the RIFF Reading Challenge FaceBook group!](https://www.facebook.com/groups/riffreadingchallenge2026) --- Let me also introduce you to Debbie Mumford, prolific writer of hundreds of books and excellent storyteller across multiple genres, and my writing-and-publishing mentor from afar. She's currently running a Kickstarter campaign for the first book in a new paranormal cozy mystery series, *Dismally Dead*. The campaign is already fully funded. For as little as $5, you can get the ebook months before it appears on retail stores and, as of now, an additional fantasy short story since the 1st stretch goal has been unlocked! [Check out Debbie's 'Dismally Dead' Kickstarter campaign!](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/debbiemumford/dismally-dead-a-make-100-paranormal-cozy) --- On my end, Book 2 of the fantasy duology series I'm currently working on is progressing at a steady pace. I'm three-quarters of the way through the novel, and it's that tantalizing spot where the different threads of the story are colliding and everything has come to a head. And — this is the best part — the characters are showing me a way out. I'm writing as fast and as much as I can to keep up with the breakneck speed at which their tales are unravelling. I expect to bring more news on release dates, especially for Book 1, in next month's missive. So stay tuned! --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* I no longer post new flash fiction on the website, but I'm thinking it'd be fun to pluck a forgotten tale from the archives each month and highlight it here for your reading pleasure. This month's pick is '*Upholding the Promise of Excellent Customer Service*'. A quirky tale that turns the meaning of 'lost and found' on its head. [tales for dreamers: upholding the promise of excellent customer serviceLost and not found? Here’s a service for customers lost in thrall to the delights offered in this store.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-63.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/7.-upholding-the-promise-of-excellent-customer-service.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-upholding-the-promise-of-excellent-customer-service/) --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* It all came about because **Steph Curry was coming to Toronto** to play against the Raptors during the winter break (on December 28th, I still remember). Naturally, the tickets for that Golden State Warriors vs. Toronto Raptors game were exorbitant, so we made do with getting a Sportsnet subscription and watching the game live. The score's tied at 122-122, and there's 2.4 seconds left in the game when Curry moves to take what could potentially have been a game-winning shot, but he accidentally swings the ball against Shead's (Raptors) head and is whistled for an offensive foul. It then becomes the Raptors' ball. They don't score but the game gets pushed into overtime. In those five minutes, the Raptors trounce the Warriors. Granted, the last time I saw Steph Curry play was a decade ago, during pre-motherhood era, when the Warriors became the NBA Champions (2015). GSW was in peak form then, and of course it's not the same team now. Still, it took me a day to recover from the shock of that sudden, quirky turn that fate made with less than 3 seconds to go in their game last month. ![A bright-coloured sign that says 'Get Lucky' in circus-y font](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/01/nick-fewings-PBpQSWwFBTU-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Nick Fewings](https://unsplash.com/@jannerboy62?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-sign-that-says-get-lucky-on-it-PBpQSWwFBTU?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) I've been watching more NBA games to make the most of our Sportsnet subscription — (spending my time to make the most of the money I spent; smart move, innit? but I often get to watch and discuss the games with D, so that's the best use of my time by any measure) — and it's the same story every single time. > *Very rarely is it clear from the start which team will win.* > *A huge lead can get erased quickly with a handful of turnovers.* > *Every shot has its own probability of being a miss or a score, irrespective of all the shots that came before.* **No matter how much we try to concoct a formula for success** — hard work, preparation, planning, persistence, strategy — the role of luck, timing and factors outside of our control cannot be fully accounted for. --- It was a similar story when Boston Celtics played against Detroit Pistons earlier this week. At 104-103, Celtics were down 1 point. With 4 seconds to go, Jaylen Brown took a shot he often scores. Except, on that occasion, he didn't. And Pistons won. As expected, ***'Brown misses potential game winner'*** was the headline that many media outlets carried shortly after. As if it didn't matter that he and his team scored all those shots throughout the game in the first place that led to them having that opportunity to change the tide right at the end. ![a basketball falling through a hoop against a dark background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/01/markus-spiske-BfphcCvhl6E-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Markus Spiske](https://unsplash.com/@markusspiske?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/ball-under-basketball-ring-BfphcCvhl6E?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) In her book, *And Then We Grew Up*, which I read and re-read often, Rachel Friedman quotes professional poker player and author, Annie Duke, who talks about the term **'resulting'**. > *"It's a really important word. You can think about it as creating *too tight a relationship between the quality of the outcome and the quality of the decision* ...* > *In chess, if I lose a game, it's pretty certain that I made a bad decision somewhere and I can go look for it. That's a totally reasonable strategy.* > *But it is a very unreasonable strategy in poker. If I lose a hand, I may have played the hand literally perfectly and still lost because there's this luck element to it.* > **The problem is that we're all resulters at heart.*"* We tend to put too much stock in the end result, in the individual oversized wins and failures, often forgetting that our outcomes are not entirely the result of our choices. --- In a different context, we also do this when **we give more importance to the last few moments of a person's life** as opposed to all the moments that came before. When my maternal grandfather passed away 6 years ago, all my cousins were there. I was the only one absent. That stung for a long time, until I realized that I have a treasure trove of memories of time spent with him from all the childhood summers I spent at my grandparents' place in Chennai every year. We talk of the chance to say 'goodbye' but every time we part from someone, we do so without the guarantee of ever seeing them again. As Friedman goes on to say in her book, > *We want our lives to be like the stories and profiles we read: *coherent characters, a clear line between cause and effect, linear progress, distinct beginnings and endings, decisive turning points and epiphanies.** > *Of course, we never really know where we are in our own story because unlike fiction (and nonfiction, for that matter), our real lives have one true ending — and unless there is an afterlife, you can't look back from there to make neat sense of all your twists and turns.* But that's scary. Life's messy. Every choice is fraught with risk. There are no guarantees, and so we cling to hope as an acceptable alternative. Often, I want to know if this newsletter that I craft every month is even being read, let alone making a difference in anyone else's life or not. (Which is why you must write to me and let me know! 😄 Thank you to those who already do. I truly appreciate it.) ![a miniature chess game played by two figurines of dogs set upon a table](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/01/mert-kahveci-p3CXqt979Z0-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Mert Kahveci](https://unsplash.com/@mertkahveci?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-miniature-chess-game-set-up-on-a-table-p3CXqt979Z0?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) Friedman goes on to say, > *I have always treated my life like a chess game — focusing on right or wrong moves and what I believed to be their attendant outcomes — when it turns out a poker game is a much more useful analogy.* > *"Wrap your arms around the uncertainty," Duke said. "Accept it. Know that the way things turn out has a lot of luck involved so don't be hard on yourself when things go badly and don't be so proud of yourself when they go well."* --- Well, I'll always admire Curry. But I now also have a new favourite basketball team: Toronto Raptors. And for the first time ever, I'm familiar with each of the 10 NBA [All-Star Starters](https://www.nba.com/allstar/2026/roster) this year, thanks to much education from little D. --- 💡 **Have you had a 'resulting' moment lately? Can you soften around it so you take neither all the credit nor all the blame?* --- ### *Books You May Love* This month has been an excellent one for reading. I first read *The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry* by Rachel Joyce more than a decade ago, when KrA got me a Kindle, my first e-reader. I reached for the book again after it showed up in a reading list compiled by the local library, remembering how much I loved it the first time. Harold Fry is a retired man who receives a letter from an old colleague he hasn't kept in touch with. Queenie writes that she's dying of cancer. Fry pens a note in reply and sets out to post it, feeling sharply the utter inadequacy of his response — what do you say to a person who's dying? — then decides to keep walking, all the way up to Berwick-upon-Tweed, fuelled by the belief that if he simply kept walking, Queenie would go on living and that he could somehow save her from dying. It's a very poignant tale of a man and his quiet life and all his regrets, and somehow it manages to very uplifting and not at all sappy. *The Killer Question* by Janice Hallett, like all of her books, is written in an unusual format comprising emails, text messages, WhatsApp chats and, in this case, subjects for a weekly pub quiz, the participating teams, and their final scores. It's a mad romp of a story with unpredictable twists and turns, and it's hilarious and mysterious in equal measure. ![a collage of 7 images featuring books I've read this month](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/01/Books-You-May-Love---Jan-2026.jpg) Books You May Love - Jan 2026 collection Lisa Jewell's *Don't Let Him In* is a psychological thriller involving a man who inveigles himself into vulnerable women's lives and attempts to siphon away their wealth and assets. Jewell is another of my favourite authors, and I tore through this book in a couple of days. I returned to Charles Todd, reading two Inspector Ian Rutledge novels. *Racing The Devil* is set in the aftermath of WWI and involves a group of officers who decide to race to France after the war is over to celebrate their survival. Only, each one of them narrowly escapes an attempt on his life. This incident comes to haunt them later, and it's up to Rutledge to unearth the mystery. *A Fine Summer's Day* broke my heart. It is a prequel, although it's Book #17 in the series, and features a young Rutledge without the voice of Hamish whispering in his head. It begins with Rutledge proposing to the woman he loves against the backdrop of the assassination of ArchDuke Ferdinand and the subsequent events that lead to WWI. I continue to read the *Wings of Fire* books to D. Book 3, *The Hidden Kingdom*, features Glory, a smart, snarky RainWing dragon. The plot revolves around Glory and her friends trying to find out why some RainWing dragons have gone missing. This story continues into Book 4, *The Dark Secret*, which features Starflight, the NightWing dragon. Starflight is the geek of the group and also the least courageous, so this endearing story is about how he's compelled to summon his inner bravery to face frightening situations. If, like me, you end up adoring how Glory's love story with the Nightwing assassin, DeathBringer, unfolds, check out this [fan-made rap battle video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DIyPbj%5F3NQ)! Go, watch it a few hundred times; you can thank me later! 😉 --- Well, dear Dreamer, every time I begin to worry I may have nothing new to say, I end up going on and on. Writing to you is like having a conversation with an old friend; we can always pick up from where we left no matter how much time has lapsed. I hope you too feel a sense of connection and of being seen through these monthly missives. Before I go, I must admit that it's been getting harder to come up with new words beginning with 'J' to use in the titles. There are 3 months beginning with 'J' in a year, so I've used up many words so far: Jubilations, Jollities, Joys, Jabber, Journeys, Journal, Jollies, Jewels, Jests, Jazz, Jollity (uh-oh, almost a repeat!) Let me know if you can think of any others. Otherwise, I'm just going to start making up new ones, or resort to French and Hindi! Until next month then, dear Dreamer. \~ Anitha --- > *Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savour you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in the quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. \~ Mary Jean Irion* --- [Love what you read? Tell a friend about it!](mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20Monthly%20Missives%20by%20The%20Dream%20Pedlar!&body=Hey%20there!%0D%0A%0D%0AI%20just%20read%20this%20month%E2%80%99s%20newsletter%20from%20Anitha%20Krishnan%20%28she%20writes%20beautiful%20speculative%20fiction!%29%20and%20thought%20you%20might%20enjoy%20it%20too.%20It's%20full%20of%20whimsical%20reflections%20on%20the%20uncertainties%20of%20life%20woven%20with%20inspiring%20quotes%20on%20'resulting'%20and%20examples%20from%20basketball.%0D%0A%0D%0AIf%20you%E2%80%99ve%20got%20a%20few%20minutes%2C%20check%20it%20out%3A%20%0D%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthedreampedlar.com%2Fnewsletter-2026-january-jives%2F%0D%0A%0D%0ACheers!) ### books you may love: A Fine Summer's Day by Charles Todd URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-fine-summers-day-by-charles-todd/ Last updated: 2026-01-23T20:08:09.000Z If you've been around in these parts for any length of time, you'd know by now that Charles Todd is one of my favourite authors. Their Inspector Ian Rutledge series and Bess Crawford series, both set in and around WWI, are comfort reads for me. Written with great empathy and sensitivity, these murder mysteries set against the backdrop of the war and its effects on people, soldiers and civilians alike, are convoluted, character-driven mysteries. I've mostly read these series out of order, grabbing whichever books were stocked in the library shelves or whenever a hold request became available. I also pick these books without paying much attention to the blurbs, only checking the titles cursorily to ensure I haven't already read them. I rarely ever re-read a book. Imagine my delight when I realized that *A Fine Summer's Day*, Book #17 in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series, is in fact a prequel to the entire series! It is set in the summer of 1914, beginning with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, and unfolds with the developments that culminate in war. I've only ever known Rutledge as a shell-shocked veteran of the war, who resumes his duties at Scotland Yard, having returned from war with the hallucinatory voice of his Seargent, Hamish MacLeod, in his head. Rutledge found himself compelled to kill Hamish for insubordination in a bid to prevent other soldiers from refusing to obey orders. The trauma of that event continues to haunt him, so much so that Rutledge often hears Hamish's voice as that of a partner's, solving cases alongside him, warning him of danger in a very sixth-sense way. To find a book in which Rutledge is not yet scarred by the horrors of the war, in which he proposes to the woman he loves and looks forward to a life of marital bliss and purpose as a Scotland Yard detective, was like having known and adored someone as an adult and being invited to witness how their childhood and adolescence had unfolded. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/01/5.-A-Fine-Summer-s-Day.jpeg) **"Parades and bands and banners were all very well, but after these had passed by, the dead didn't rise up and go on with their lives. They were collected and buried, the hero together with the coward."* Of course, there's a convoluted mystery to be solved and we see Rutledge running from pillar to post in an attempt to find a link between a number of seemingly unrelated murders. We also get a lot of insight into his relationship with his fiancée, Jean, who is often said to be rather shallow in the other books. Her childish nature is reinforced in this book, with both Melinda Crawford and Ian's sister, Frances, disapproving of the match. When the call for volunteers to enlist goes out, Jean, whose father is a military man, is quick to try and persuade Rutledge to join the war. > *"I've far too much work to do at the Yard," he told her. "I'm a policeman, not a soldier."* > *"But you'd fight for King and Country, wouldn't you? If it comes to that?"* > *"Are you saying the Army is in such dire straits that it needs me? I doubt it."* > *"I just don't want to be the last person who is sending someone to France," she said, and he saw that she meant it. "Yesterday, after the church service, it was all everyone was talking about."* > *"Jean. I'm not going to make a fool of myself, rushing out to enlist. By the time half these men have been trained sufficiently that they can sail for France, the war will be over." But even as he spoke the words, he wondered. Europe had gone up in flames so quickly—barely five weeks had seen the worst happen. Before that there had been peace for such a long time. And now everyone was mad for war. As if the excitement was all they saw.* > *"If you feel that way," she said angrily, "then I'm going inside."* > *"Jean," he said again, but in a different voice. "I won't quarrel with you over this. You've no idea what war can be like. Neither do I for that matter. Your father can tell you, he was in the Boer War. People die. People are maimed. It's not all parades and bands and uniforms, it's cruelty and misery and destruction. When the lists of the dead come in, will you be quite so happy to find your friends' name there? Or the footman, or the neighbour's chauffeur? The men you've danced with and played tennis with won't all come back, you know."* > *She turned away. "You make it all sound so dreadful."* > *"It is dreadful. I'm sorry, but there it is."* > *She turned back to face him. "Please don't tell anyone what you've just said to me. Particularly not Papa or my friends. Pretend, a little, that you're eager to fight. I don't want everyone thinking you're a coward."* It's heartbreaking when Rutledge is bidding Jean goodbye at the train station only a few months later. The conversation he has with her is in stark contrast to the one above. > *She lifted her head and clutched at him, the finality of enlisting coming home to her at last. "I wish you hadn't volunteered. You needn't have. You were needed at Scotland Yard."* > *"You thought it was a splendid idea at the time," he reminded her, only half teasing."* > *"Yes, everyone was volunteering. It was exciting, exhilarating. The flags—the music. All the uniforms. I thought it would all be over before you saw any fighting. I thought it was all a lark. And now it's real." She began to cry. "You must come back to me, Ian. You must promise. I can't imagine life without you."* --- ### *How well and truly do we see the other person?* ***Without projecting our own biases and desires on them?*** There's a reason these exchanges between Jean and Rutledge hit me hard. Jean's inability to see Ian for who he is, her refusal to allow him space to make his own decisions without worrying about how they'd reflect on her, reminded me of similar mistakes I've made in the past with KrA, my *jeevan saathi* (life partner, in Hindi). KrA, by nature, is a calm man of few words. He's always been like that, and it's perhaps one of the traits I found most attractive. His calm and composed demeanour was such a contrast to my chaotic, impulsive self. But North America is a place that rewards the loud and the crassly confident, whether anything they utter is of substance or not. Which has often led me to worry that he'd be a misfit in this place. In a book by an Asian author I read long ago (although I've forgotten the name of the book as well as the author), the protagonist says (and I'm making up my words to convey the meaning), "My father is a quiet man. In the country he comes from, this is a symbol of dignity. In this country, it is a symbol of vulnerability." It has often made me wish KrA would be more social and outgoing, more inclined to making small talk out of politeness and to keep up appearances. Well. After more than a decade of wishing things were otherwise, of wishing we were a different kind of people, I must admit the last laugh is on me. KrA walks through the world sure of his place in it, and I often find myself still searching for something, that elusive thing that would serve as the panacea to all my problems. In this loud, noisy world, KrA is the man you can count on to help you in a time of need. He's not one to make empty promises. He shows up when it matters. His presence makes a difference in all the ways that really matter. Jean's inability to see Rutledge's strength of character is heartbreaking. But, she's probably only in her 20s, half my age now. If I can hope for any forgiveness for my own follies, I must be willing to forgive her too for not seeing and cherishing Rutledge for who he truly is. --- ![red poppies in a green field stretching towards the horizon with a pale sun in a blue sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/01/laurentiu-iordache-qstGMhWuORE-unsplash.jpg) Poppies in a field | Photo by [Laurentiu Iordache](https://unsplash.com/@jordachelr?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/red-petaled-flowers-field-qstGMhWuORE?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ### *Heroism or Foolhardiness* ***Is it really war that can bring about peace? What about the trauma it leaves in its wake?*** While on his way to different places in England to solve the murder cases, Rutledge encounters many young men rushing to enlist in the military and aid the war efforts. At this point, Rutledge is still convinced that there might not be a full-blown war by the time the new recruits are trained enough to be sent out into the field. His thoughts on the pull of heroism and the realities of war are too poignant to not make a note of here. > *Three of how many hotheads on their way to join an Army they wouldn't have considered a month ago? Drawn by visions of glory and the chance to kill Germans. And how many young Germans and Frenchmen and Austrians and even Russians had rushed out to do the same? What had happened to this quiet, peaceful summer? What had brought on such madness? Not just the assassination of an Austrian Archduke. It was as if a plague of bloodlust had spread on the wind, infecting everyone it touched.* > *He was young enough to feel the pull of adventure. To feel the blood run hot with excitement. He wasn't immune to the plague. But he'd seen his share of bodies in the course of his time as a policeman, and there was nothing glorious about death. Parades and bands and banners were all very well, but after these had passed by, the dead didn't rise up and go on with their lives. They were collected and buried, the hero together with the coward. And medals handed out by a grateful country did nothing to comfort the bereaved the dead left behind.* --- Hamish makes a brief appearance at the beginning of the book, making a proposal of his own to the woman he loves in Scotland, unknowingly mirroring Rutledge's actions in England. Towards the end of the book, we see Rutledge and Hamish meeting each other for the first time aboard a ship that was taking them to Calais. > *He'd (Rutledge had) spent part of the voyage standing at the railing of the ship, watching England recede into the storm clouds obscuring the white cliffs. One of the Highlanders, a man nearly as tall as he was, had come to stand near him. They didn't speak. Not until France loomed ahead, a blur of coastline.* > *There had been a spot of trouble below, but neither of them referred to it now.* > *Above the sound of the sea, they could hear the guns. Artillery. He couldn't be sure whether it was British fire or German.* > *The Scot glanced at him. "Our turn, soon enough. Good luck to ye, sir."* > *"The same to you, Private MacLeod."* This was such a poignant moment, made even more so because of the knowledge of what transpires between Rutledge and Hamish during the war. We read about it often in the other books in the series, but each description renders the blow anew. --- ![an old brick home with the words 'TAKE COURAGE' painted above the topmost windows](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2026/01/diogo-nunes-iYWeacTsaGQ-unsplash.jpg) Take Courage | Photo by [Diogo Nunes](https://unsplash.com/@dialex?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-brick-building-with-blue-and-white-signage-iYWeacTsaGQ?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) The works of Charles Todd offer much courage for the current times. On occasion, especially when I make the mistake of checking the news, I feel terrified to find myself living in the world I live in. No amount of turning my attention to the good and positive that surely exist somewhere, hidden in some cracks, buried under the miasma of injustice and wrongdoings, can shake off the terror and utter hopelessness I feel when I read the news. But the stories of Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford take us deep into the lives of those who are maimed and mutilated, killed and bereaved by the war. Despite their terrible losses, life went on. And most survivors found a way to live, no matter what sufferings they endured. Which is why the books of Charles Todd have become comfort reads for me. In a world that often seems incapable of holding anything more than darkness and gloom, these stories are beacons of light and hope, of courage and justice. They show what really matters, and that is to live a life of presence, courage and dignity for as long as we're here. --- *✨ Love what you read? For heartfelt reflections on writing, reading and living the creative life, sign up for my monthly newsletter. Arrives in your inbox on the last Sunday of every month!* [Sign up to Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar](#/portal/signup/free) ### December Dance: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-december-dance/ Last updated: 2025-12-28T08:00:15.000Z It’s mid-December as I write this. We’re only two days away from D’s school closing for the winter holidays! Which means less time spent with the laptop and phone, and more time seeing the world through the eyes of this truly lovely 9-year-old I’m lucky to have in my life. It has occurred to me only recently (took me long enough, innit!) that all of my writings — both fiction and these newsletters — have a tendency to ask these big philosophical questions about life, the meaning and purpose of it, the fleeting beauty of it. This month’s newsletter dives into those very depths with a fictional twist to it. So grab a warm cuppa and a cozy blanket, settle in, and read on! --- ### *On Writing* I’m more than halfway through writing Book 2 of the fantasy duology I’m currently working on. As many of you know, Books 1 and 1.5 are almost ready. I’m almost tempted to begin to put these works out in the world, but by now I know myself well enough to understand that doing so prematurely would most certainly derail me from focusing wholeheartedly on getting to *‘The End’* of Book 2\. So please bear with me a few more months, dear Dreamer! > I intend to put a call out for readers of ARCs (Advance Review Copies) of Book 1 as soon as I’ve finished writing Book 2\. Which means, if you sign up, you’ll get to read the story for free(!!!) a couple of months before it goes out into the wider world. All I ask in return is for your help in spreading the word if you like the tale. But, one step at a time. I don’t expect to get much writing done over the winter break, but January and February will be my months of disappearing into the story world. And shortly after that, I’ll throw the doors wide open and invite you in! --- I have stopped posting new stories in the *Tales For Dreamers* series but here’s one fan favourite that gets much love especially during the end of the year. If you've ever wondered how the months of the year came to have a rather unequal distribution of days, read *'All In A Year's Work'* to find out! [tales for dreamers: all in a year’s workHave you ever wondered how the months came to have a rather unequal distribution of days?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-60.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/23.-all-in-a-years-work.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-all-in-a-years-work/) --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* Years ago, when we were young(er) and child-free, before Netflix was even a thing, KrA and I used to watch a number of TV shows and *Supernatural* was one of our favourites. What’s not to love about two brothers — Sam and Dean Winchester — who hunt ghosts, demons and all sorts of supernatural beings? There’s one episode in particular, snatches of which I remember to this day. Google tells me it’s Episode 20 of Season 2, titled *What Is and What Should Never Be*. In this episode, the brothers live in an alternate reality in which they’re not demon hunters and lead ordinary lives instead. Sam, who’s often the brother who bumbles his way through the demon-hunting world, finds himself completely at home in this alternate reality. He is a law school student, has a girlfriend, and is very happy and doing really well in all the ways that count in this alternate, demon-free world. Dean, on the other hand, who’s the smart, brave hero when it comes to hunting demons, is in utter ruins in this ordinary version of reality. He’s lost and purposeless, takes to drinking, is irresponsible, and is often chided by Sam who looks at his brother with pity, condescension and scorn. It was a clear case of a person and their skills languishing in a set of circumstances completely unsuitable for them. > *Unfortunately, in a world that is relentlessly noisy and full of other people’s opinions and voices, we find it hard to get to know ourselves well enough to be able to say “This place is not for me,” or “I’d thrive in that kind of culture instead.”* > *Instead, we bumble through life wondering what’s missing and constantly trying to fix that, often questioning our life choices, and eventually feeling as though nothing we do will ever be enough.* ![Black-and-white image of a silhouetted man sitting on a bench by a lake with two tall trees flanking him and distant mountains ](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/12/kerry-rawlinson-okJ1Iss6Zoo-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [kerry rawlinson](https://unsplash.com/@kerryraw?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-man-sitting-on-a-bench-next-to-a-lake-okJ1Iss6Zoo?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) | A quiet place to find oneself My mom talks about a saying in Tamil, *“Prasava Vairaagyam, Mayana Vairaagyam*,*”* which means that the birth of a child and the death of a loved one are two instances of significant upheaval in our lives that lead to temporary detachment. The operative word here is ‘temporary’! *Prasava Vairaagyam* means ***‘dispassion/determination during childbirth’*** when extreme labour pains may cause a woman to decide to never have children again. Once the pain fades, the vow is forgotten and the desire reappears. *Mayana Vairaagyam* means ***‘dispassion/determination during death’*** wherein the death of a loved one shakes us into recognizing the fleeting nature of our lives and the pettiness of our daily concerns. But again, only temporarily. Often, it is only a matter of days before we slip back into our daily routines and trivial bickerings, worrying about misplaced socks and mismatched hearts, annoying neighbours and recalcitrant relatives. This is the dilemma that has always plagued me: > *How do we reconcile the sheer impermanence of our existence with the relatively petty day-to-day demands of surviving in this material world?* --- I clearly remember the first time I had this life-altering thought threading through the synapses in my brain. I was at university back then, a month away from submitting my thesis and graduating with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Engineering, top of my class with gold medals and certificates to attest to how well I did in all the ways that mattered back then. *“What is the point of all this? How does this help human beings in any way?”*Standing in the middle of the lab, I asked my project guide, a professor who had known me well for the five years I had spent at university. To give him credit, he attempted to respond. Whatever he said must have not resonated with me because I have no recollection of his words although I clearly remember the flummoxed look on his face, the *‘I really don’t have time for this drama’* expression his features wore, when I posed my question. That was more than 20 years ago. I’ve been asking that question ever since, posing it to people I thought were likely to know, trying to glean the answer from books and relationships, seeking the truth in thought and experiences. > The only truth I’ve found in all these years of questing is this: > ***No one can answer that question honestly for you.*** Everyone has a variation of the answer that serves them in their lives and circumstances. Their answer would have also typically evolved and shape-shifted with time, age and life experiences. The best they can then do is project their beliefs and insights on to your life and circumstances and offer a semblance of an answer. But they are not *you*. Their lives, both the outward manifestation of it and the subconscious patterns that rule it, look nothing like yours. --- Which is why, in that episode of *Supernatural*, no amount of chiding and advice-giving from Sam or their mother could help Dean fit into the new, ordinary, demon-free world. They did not share his passions and drive, his way of looking at the world; they could barely understand why this new reality was eating him from the inside out. When there were no demons of the kind he could hunt, when the very purpose of his life — ridding the world of evil and saving people from demons — was robbed from him, Dean had no choice but to conjure up demons of his own making. He became alcoholic, was unable to hold a job, and fell into deep despair. > *Which brings us to the question:* > ***When what we want is at odds with what the world demands of us, how do we decide what really matters?*** As I said before, only you can answer that for yourself. --- But ... we can always turn to stories for ideas and inspirations. So I invite you to look at one of my own. *Dying Wishes* was a finalist for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in the Speculative Fiction category. Set in Burlington, Ontario, this contemporary fantasy novel weaves Hindu mythology and South Indian folklore into a quest for belonging across different worlds – the World of Mortals and the World of Gods, India and Canada, the past and the present, the world outside and the one within. ## **“* **It is a good thing the dying have regrets.* **Otherwise, everyone would die believing* **they have unravelled this* mystery *called life,* **when nothing could be further from the truth.* **And I'd find myself unemployed to boot.* **\~ Infinity, A Harbinger of Death* **in Dying Wishes* [Start reading today](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/) 💡 And if you'd like to support a local (Canadian) business as well, you can purchase a paperback copy of **Dying Wishes* from a unique Toronto-based small business promoting the analogue lifestyle, [Young W](https://www.youngw.ca/product/dying-wishes-by-anitha-krishnan/). --- ### *Books You May Love* This month, I savoured the absolute beauty that was *Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil* by V. E. Schwab. The Internet calls it a sapphic vampire story, but that description doesn’t even encompass an iota of what this expansive book is about. Set across three different timelines, 16th—17th centuries, 18th—early 20th centuries, and the present day, it tracks three women and their stories, the despairing cultures they grow up in, the desperate choices they make, and the deadly consequences they face. Schwab immerses us into each character’s life at decadent leisure. I mean, who’s got anything else to do but relish her beautiful concoction of words and fantastical but all-too-true stories? I loved every page and every line of this entrancing book! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/12/Collage.jpg) I’m also continuing to read the *Wings Of Fire* series by Tui T. Sutherland with D with delightful regularity at bedtime. Book 2 of the series, *The Lost Heir*, focuses on Tsunami, the SeaWing dragonet, who has long dreamed of reuniting with her mother and siblings and becoming the Queen of the SeaWings. Tsunami is indeed reunited with her family in this book, but the reality that unfolds is completely at odds with her fantasy. Sutherland’s world building is astounding, and she juggles an entire new cast of characters with practised ease. --- Another edition of the newsletter is now at its end, dear Dreamer. As is another month. As is another entire year altogether! Before we part, let me remind you to ask yourself — > *When what we want is at odds with what the world demands of us, how do we decide what really matters?* > *And, once we’ve decided what really matters to us, how do we remember that as we go through our days?* Those are the questions I leave you with, dear Dreamer. Write to me and let me know what answers come up for you. Wish you a safe and joyful transition into the New Year! See you on the other side! \~ Anitha --- > *How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. … A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. \~ Annie Dillard, The Writing Life* --- [Loved what you read? Tell a friend about it!](mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20Monthly%20Missives%20by%20The%20Dream%20Pedlar!&body=Hey%20there!%0D%0A%0D%0AI%20just%20read%20this%20month%E2%80%99s%20newsletter%20from%20Anitha%20Krishnan%20%28she%20writes%20beautiful%20speculative%20fiction!%29%20and%20thought%20you%20might%20enjoy%20it%20too.%20It's%20full%20of%20whimsical%20reflections%20on%20figuring%20out%20what%20matters%20most%20in%20our%20lives%2C%20a%20perfect%20and%20timely%20read%20as%20we%20enter%20a%20brand%20new%20year.%0D%0A%0D%0AIf%20you%E2%80%99ve%20got%20a%20few%20minutes%2C%20check%20it%20out%3A%20%0D%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthedreampedlar.com%2Fnewsletter-2025-december-dance%2F%0D%0A%0D%0ACheers!%20) ### November Nascence: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-november-nascence/ Last updated: 2025-11-30T08:00:37.000Z I'm officially a year older and wiser this month! Not that anyone handed me a certificate of wisdom to make the latter official, but in a world where we can claim whatever we want, about ourselves or other people, and often get away with it, it feels wildly wicked to label myself 'wiser'. Surely, you're not going to contest that, are you? 😉 I'm 45 now! *Halfway to 90*, someone quipped. *If you're lucky, that is*, someone else added. That puts everything into perspective, doesn't it? I certainly feel lucky to be here. (I certainly hope I'm lucky enough to be able to watch the grand finale episode of *Stranger Things* on New Year's Eve!) But on a more sombre note, in recent years many of us have come to realize that growth is actually a process of subtraction, not addition. In keeping with that spirit, this missive comes bearing some reflections as well as some news and changes. As always, grab your favourite cuppa, and read on! --- ### *On Writing* Book 2 of the fantasy duology I'm currently working on is coming along swimmingly. The more I come to the manuscript to see where the characters will lead me each day, the more and more exciting adventures they take me on. I'm fully focused on finishing Book 2, and then I'd have the mental space to invite you all into this fictional world months before the rest of the world is introduced to it. --- In the meantime, if you've read any of my books lately and loved them, could you please leave a review over on [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17616014.Anitha%5FKrishnan)? Publishing still runs on word of mouth, so even a line or two from you would help other readers find stories they too may love. [*Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute With God*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/208506146-mrs-d-souza-s-dispute-with-god) and [*The Mind Meddler*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128554866-the-mind-meddler) were the two short stories of speculative fiction that were briefly available for free as part of a recent promotion, and would greatly benefit from your reviews. --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* > *I wrote and posted my 200th story in the Tales For Dreamers series this month!* This month's [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-november-2025/) includes ***'the call for validation'***, ***'adrift'*** (the 200th story), ***'pretty cauliflowers for sale'***, and ***'a line that must never be crossed'***. ![a 4-picture collage of images featuring colourful cauliflowers, a waterfall, driftwood, and a notice saying 'If we did well, ring the bell'.](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/11/Tales-For-Dreamers---Nov-2025.jpg) Tales For Dreamers: The Collection For November 2025 Over on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar), I have two audio-stories for the month - ***'At The End of A Pilgrimage'***, and ***'Liquid Wisdom'***. It's been quite the journey, writing all these stories. I can no longer look at a leaf or a rock or any object for that matter without wondering, *"What's your story?"* 💡 **Sadly, I have to announce that I'm halting production and release of new flash fiction tales, both in written and audio formats, for the time being.* A big reason for this is that I'm no longer able to go on daily walks because of a recurring foot pain that my doctor and physiotherapist continue to have divergent opinions on even after a year. One says it's plantar fasciitis; the other is convinced it's a nerve problem originating from my lower back. I'm going with the course of treatment that's giving me lasting relief from pain. But not being able to step out for long walks means I'm no longer able to see and photograph the ordinary things that make North American suburbia magical and whimsical to my eyes. The other reason is that my current WIP requires all my time and attention, and I'm happy to provide that to it without the distraction of having to produce and publish short fiction and audio stories on a weekly basis. I'm also pulling the plug on my YouTube channel for the same reasons. I feel quite sad abandoning it only a few months in; I was greatly enjoying the process of narrating, recording, and mixing words with music. I'm sure I'll return to these creative outlets in other contexts, just not on a regular format of stand-alone production and release in the foreseeable future. Writing the *Tales For Dreamers* stories has been quite a journey, spanning more than a decade, entailing several start-stops, and covering the vast expanse of several continents. If there's one thing this project has taught me, it's that ... > *... the creative process is not necessarily linear or predictable, no matter how much we'd like to shoehorn it into systems or patterns.* > *We have to show up and do the work everyday, and each day is going to look different in terms of productivity, confidence, and motivation.* > *The best thing we can do for ourselves is to make peace with the uncertainty, with the not-knowingness of it all, and do the best we can anyway.* I have 202 tales in all now, most of them [archived](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) on the website, and a total of 18 audio-stories over on [YouTube](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ4ITPYOX1bVnj2yiVFWSPriOy6iDxa3p&si=2TlEui6%5Fg7H7ojn3). So, if you think I did well in bringing all these stories to you, ring the metaphorical bell! Write to me and let me know! (And if you didn't get the joke, you simply have to read the relevant tale in this month's [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-november-2025/), don't you now?) --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* Me being a November child, I've been celebrating this entire month with my favourite activities — writing, reading, hanging out with KrA and D — and some more. November is the month of the annual literary festival organized by the local library, the Burlington Public Library. We've had Robert J. Sawyer, known as the Dean of Canadian Science Fiction, come in to give a scintillating talk about science fiction. The interview with Patty Krawec, an Indigenous-Ukrainian author and social activist, was extremely enlightening and empathetic. I also attended a panel discussion and later a workshop on *How To Write A Children's Novel*. Not that I'm planning to, but I wanted to expose myself to ideas I haven't come across before. The workshop was led by prominent local author, Sylvia McNicoll. Sylvia is a tour de force in writing for children. I've corresponded with her over email several times over the past few years. Our first interaction came through the anthology, *Writing the Rollercoaster: Stories of Riding Out The Pandemic in Burlington*, which Sylvia and another local author put together. An essay of mine - *Finding Self-Love in the Time of Coronavirus* \- and a poem - *Solo Performance* \- appeared in the anthology way back in 2021\. Ever since, Sylvia has been quick to notice and write in to congratulate me every time I snag an award or achievement in the local literary circle. But it was only this year that I got to hear her talk at the two events, and speak with her properly at the workshop. The generous being that she is, she handed out free copies of her very first children's novel that was published and is no longer in print. She autographed every copy, including a special message for each of us. And look how she autographed it for me! ![2-picture collage; one featuring front cover of a book and the other showing the inside page autographed by the author](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/11/Autograph.jpg) Words of encouragement This is the reason I keep coming back to writing: the power of words and stories. Words have an immensely profound ability to encourage and empower, to inform and inspire, and to question and motivate us. Especially the written word, not spoken aloud in someone else's voice but merely black squiggles on paper, free to be interpreted by our soul the way it perceives the message. I explore the power of stories at length in a post I wrote after attending Sawyer's and Krawec's events. [how much do stories really matter?A reflection gleaned from author talks I attended at the Burlington Public Library’s 5th annual Literary Festival this month![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-57.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/s-o-c-i-a-l-c-u-t-FluPNkHfCTs-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/7ff87dbe-a3fd-4acd-9d5c-ade8dd646633/) 💡 Trivia: Who is the only author to have a LEGO set created in their honour? **The answer is in the post above.* 👆🏽 --- This is also the time of the year when I look back and assess how my writing career evolved throughout the year. I've been writing these annual *'lessons learnt'* posts for the past five years now. This year's post goes into detail about what has been working and what hasn't, and what I'm changing going forward. [lessons learnt from five years of being an author-entrepreneurBack to the basics is where we come after detours and fascinations with shiny objects along the way![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-58.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/clay-banks-z_DkoUqgx6M-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-five-years-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/) I hope these two lengthy posts give you some insights and inspiration for you to use in your own writing and reading adventures. --- ### *Books You May Love* I had a lot more time to devote to reading this month and enjoyed more books than usual. So much so that I went and wrote an entire post about these books, including some excerpts that really stood out to me. [books you may love: November 2025A collection of books read, enjoyed and quoted this month![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-59.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/christin-hume-k2Kcwkandwg-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-november-2025/) *Girl Dinner* by Olivie Blake was a stunning read as was *The Ministry Of Time* by Kaliane Bradley. The writing styles and themes of these books are completely dissimilar, but they both made for incisive, compelling reads. Two books by Charles Todd as well made it to the list. Plus a horror book, which I don't wish to think about any more than is necessary. I've mentioned it briefly in the post, so all I'll say here is that the mere mention of that book brings back nightmares! 🫣 ![a 5-image collage featuring covers of books read this month - The Ministry of Time, An Irish Hostage, Girl Dinner, No Shred Of Evidence, Widow's Point](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/11/books-you-may-love-1.jpg) Books You May Love: The Collection for November 2025 --- That brings us to the end of yet another edition of Monthly Missives, dear Dreamer! This is my 44th missive, as it turns out, so it feels rather symbolic to know that I'll be sending out my 45th missive in the year in which I turned 45. Of course, the human brain can apparently conjure up a pattern from something entirely random, as a statistics professor once said, so that 45-in-45 pattern might very well mean nothing at all. Sort of like that quote often attributed to Einstein — *“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”* Speaking of which, for my birthday, KrA and D got me my very first Kobo e-reader! I've finally made the switch from Kindle to Kobo, and I feel even more Canadian now than before! 🍁 I also got myself copies of Charlie Mackesy's gorgeous illustrated books - *The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse*, and its sequel *Always Remember: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, The Horse and The Storm*. These are such tender books to savour, especially in moments of raw vulnerability when the mind is loud with its false accusations and I need something quiet, comforting and true to turn to. I hope you too have had a memorable month, dear Dreamer! Was it one of joy and optimism? Or did it brim with hope and quiet courage? Write to me and share how November has passed for you. What joys are you looking forward to in December? Until next month then! \~ Anitha --- > *The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there. \~ Robert M. Pirsig* --- [Love what you read? Tell a friend about it!](mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20Monthly%20Missives%20by%20The%20Dream%20Pedlar!&body=Hey%20there!%0D%0A%0D%0AI%20just%20read%20this%20month%E2%80%99s%20newsletter%20from%20Anitha%20Krishnan%20%28she%20writes%20beautiful%20speculative%20fiction!%29%20and%20thought%20you%20might%20enjoy%20it%20too.%20It's%20full%20of%20whimsical%20reflections%20on%20the%20joys%20of%20writing%2C%20reading%20and%20storytelling.%20%20%0D%0A%0D%0AIf%20you%E2%80%99ve%20got%20a%20few%20minutes%2C%20check%20it%20out%3A%20%0D%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthedreampedlar.com%2Fnewsletter-2025-november-nascence%2F%0D%0A%0D%0ACheers!) ### tales for dreamers: a line that must never be crossed URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-line-that-must-never-be-crossed/ Last updated: 2025-11-28T14:00:07.000Z It’s not what you think. It’s not the threshold between life and death. That veil is a thin, diaphanous one. And members from both sides are free to cross over but only at predestined times (mostly). The consequences for doing so are rather minimal. When folks from the side of the living step into the space of death, they are missed and grieved by the loved ones they leave behind. If they are lucky, that is. But time heals all wounds, and everyone knows that death is an inevitable and unavoidable part of life. When folks from the space of death step into the area of the living, they do so as ghosts or as newborns. Both are usually harmless. One, you can pretend to not see. The other one demands to remain in your sight at all times. But only for a few brief years, and after that consider yourself lucky if you can even catch a glimpse. This line that the sign is warning you about is an international boundary line. It divides everything you see between two nations. Like a fence between your home and your neighbour’s. It divides the land, this bridge that the sign is affixed to. But it also claims to divide the waters, the air, and the skies. How, exactly? No one can tell. Not even the ones who came up with the idea of creating such an invisible line in the first place. Unlike the veil between life and death, members on either side of this line do not enjoy free, easy access to the other side. To cross from one nation to another requires permissions and approvals granted by the powers-that-be, documents and stamps asserting that you are human and sane and mean no harm. How they decipher that, no one really knows. Perhaps one glimpse of your face might remind an official of an ex they broke up badly with, and that’d be enough cause for them to deny you entry into their land. Perhaps it’s the colour of your skin, or the way you tie your hair, or the clothes you wear … anything and everything about you could work in your favour or against you. There’s really no way to tell. If you fail to secure the necessary approvals and still decide to cross the line, the consequences will be dire. Incarceration at the very least. Exile to unknown lands is not too remote a possibility. Whatever punishment is meted out to you for transgressing this boundary will be worse than death. But death comes to us all, eventually, no matter what twists and turns our lives take. And when you cross that veil, pray to every God you’ve ever heard of, or make up one or two or more to pray to. Ask them to bless you, so that the next time you slip from the land of the dead to the land of the living, you’re born not as a creature of the land but as a being of the skies or the seas. No manmade boundaries could possibly confine you then. --- *Image info for previous tale: The* [*'pretty cauliflowers for sale'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/c74bba56-0371-4f42-a00b-3dca86e81ccc/) *were idling on a shelf in the Fortinos store at the intersection of Appleby Ln and New St.* ### how much do stories really matter? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/how-much-do-stories-really-matter/ Last updated: 2025-11-27T02:00:50.000Z So much of who we are is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves — about ourselves, about other people, and about the larger world around us. It is often said that writers write and readers read in order to figure out what we think and how we make sense of the world around us. I first put pen to paper — when there wasn’t an academic requirement to do so — to write a poem about the state of my heart when I finally came to realize that a particular relationship had well and truly come to an end and that I had no other choice but to move on. As much as the situation birthed the poem, it was also the writing of it that led to the resolution of the inner conflict and turmoil that were wrecking my 21-year-old self at the time. (That was more than half a lifetime ago!) Fast forward to recent times. When the indie publishing landscape erupted, several experts whose advice I used to heed took to saying that stories are all about escapism and that readers only want a few hours of entertainment and that our job, as writers, is to provide them that. Really? Is that all there is to it? Something about this school of thought simply did not sit well with me. It made it sound as though writing was equivalent to peddling drugs. A pill to deliver an instant high and make the ~~user~~ reader keep coming back for more. It also didn’t feel like the complete truth. I read for respite from the world, yes, but I also read to experience lives I don’t have the time to live in whatever timeframe I’ve been blessed with in this lifetime. I read to understand different perspectives, hear from a multitude of voices, and appreciate varied ways of life. I read to keep my heart open to the possibility of a world where bravery, courage and loyalty matter, where compassion overrules cruelty, and where we are at least able to understand the context that underpins the motivations and actions of people around us, the stories *they* tell themselves about everything, the stories that make *them* who *they* are, no matter how completely different they are from us. And isn’t it true that every story we read, every experience we have, changes us irreversibly in some way? Perhaps it’s a subtle change. Perhaps it’s the kind of change that thrusts us upwards from rock bottom. It’s a shift, nonetheless. A different way of thinking. A new path to follow consciously. Isn’t it? It was with these questions and thoughts burning in my head and heart that I attended several talks by renowned writers at the Burlington Public Library’s annual [Literary Festival](https://www.bpl.on.ca/BurlLitFest) this month. A few impacted me so deeply I simply had to capture those thoughts in words and share them here. --- ***Why Everyone Should Read Science Fiction* by Robert J. Sawyer** The first talk I attended was by Robert J. Sawyer, known as the Dean of Canadian Science Fiction and with many awards and records to his name, on [*Why Everyone Should Read Science Fiction*](https://attend.bpl.on.ca/event/14568708). I’m rarely drawn to science fiction as a genre, which is why I attended this talk, which turned out to be very illuminating and captivating. Sawyer began by asking the audience what they believed was the origin of science fiction. The most popular answer was *The War Of The Worlds* by H. G. Wells, first published in 1898. Sawyer explained that it has been widely established and accepted in literary circles that Mary Shelley’s *Frankenstein*, published in 1818, marks the origin of science fiction given its premise of a scientific experiment. Sawyer further went on to explain how this particular tale can be viewed through a sociopolitical lens as an exploration into what could possibly happen if men, living in a society in which women’s place was restricted and confined to traditional roles, usurped the one function that only women were capable of — giving birth to new life and nurturing it. I had never looked at the story that way! Sawyer further went on to explain how the story sheds light on the innate differences between men and women when it comes to nurturing — after all, Victor Frankenstein abandons his creation and flees. I later remembered having read *Mary and The Birth of Frankenstein* by Anne Eekhout, translated into English from the original Dutch version by Laura Watkinson. It’s a touching fictional narrative told across two timelines — Mary Shelley’s adolescence, and a period of time spent with Lord Byron and his companion John Polidori in Geneva while grieving the loss of her child and indulging the men in a challenge to write a ghost story. Another example that Sawyer gave (he gave several, but these are the ones I remember now) of science fiction being used as an instrument of societal change was that of H. G. Wells. He mentioned how Wells was anti-colonial in his beliefs at a time when the British were plundering the world and adding whatever patch of land they could claim to their empire. While an outright criticism of the empire’s actions would have met with opposition at best or indifference at worst, Wells purportedly used the medium of fiction to get his readers to think about what it would be like to be on the receiving end of colonialism. Sawyer also noted something interesting in how science fiction stories have evolved over the past several decades. In the 70s and 80s, the science fiction that young adults were reading were very optimistic and that shaped how these readers viewed their future. Now, however, it’s largely dystopian science fiction that abounds, leaving young readers with a bleak and rather dismal view of their future or reinforcing those beliefs they probably already hold. When asked about the difference between fantasy and science fiction, Sawyer answer’s came as a flash of brilliance. > *Fantasy is what could never be. Science fiction is what could possibly be.* And isn’t that true? Many scientific/technological advancements being made have already been extensively explored within the realms of science fiction, as Sawyer pointed out. It was such an illuminating and inspiring talk that I’ve already decided to add more science fiction books to my reading list. Any recommendations? --- ***In Conversation with* Patty Krawec** Another author whose event I attended, sitting utterly riveted and completely present as she spoke, was [Patty Krawec](https://attend.bpl.on.ca/event/14676798), an Anishinaabe-Ukrainian writer, activist, and former social worker. Of the many enlightening things she talked about in conversation with the library’s events coordinator, Parampreet Khanuja, one that stuck with me was that the term ‘Indigenous’ is actually an analytic, a term bandied about for political discourse, but it’s not the name of an overall community. She also shared how different the language of the Anishinaabe people is compared to English. English is largely a noun-based language, objectifying and labeling things and people, whereas the language of the Anishinaabe people is verb-based in which ‘nouns’ are described through processes or actions. For instance, a ‘chair’ would be described as ‘something to sit on’. In another dialect, it may be referred to as ‘something to put your bum on’, enabling people speaking different dialects to understand each other. Krawec also noted that the language of the Anishinaabe people didn’t have words for the incarcerated. No one was called a ‘thief’ or a ‘murderer’. There are words to describe them as ‘a person who stole something’ or ‘a person who killed someone else’. But to call them a ‘thief’ is to essentially reduce their identity to that one singular action that goes on to define them for the rest of their lives, completely ignoring the truth that this is a person who has done other things too. This reminded me of something that Brené Brown has written about, that we *make* good or bad *choices*, and that these choices don’t define us as good or bad people. This is something we practise at home too. Because if we label ourselves ‘bad’ for having made a poor choice, we’re not letting ourselves make mistakes and learn from them, are we? Another beautiful concept that Krawec shared was to not begin a story with ‘Secondly’. Which means that when we don’t talk about what came ‘Firstly’, we fail to provide context to what happened next i.e., what is described in the paragraph that begins with ‘secondly’, and that leaves readers/listeners with an incomplete understanding of the events that precipitated into the incident being discussed. She gave an example of how in western movies, the conflict in the story often begins with a native person attacking a seemingly peaceful community of white inhabitants, prompting the lone ranger to head out and protect his people from that invasion. This is an example of beginning a story from ‘secondly’. Because no one pauses to think or talk about what prompted the native person to attack in the first place — the answer to that is obviously the plundering and usurping of their land by white settlers, but not highlighting that context paves the way for an incomplete and often wrong narrative to entrench itself in the minds of people. In the context of human history fraught with conflict, Krawec said something very powerful: > *Violence is not the answer but it is often a solution. Non-violence is a privileged course of action.* I came back home and shared this with KrA, and we got to discussing about Indian’s movement of non-violence to overthrow the British colonial rule. Would it have succeeded had Britain not been weakened by World War II? That’s a question that can only be answered in a parallel universe. When it was time for the audience to ask questions, I asked Krawec who she considered to be the audience of her work. My question was in the context of how when H. G. Wells, himself being a white British man, was in a position to speak out effectively against colonialism; he had an audience in his peers and other white people would likely hear him, give him the time of day, even if they didn’t agree with him. But who, outside of marginalized communities, is actually taking an interest in the stories and efforts of these communities? The question I really wanted to ask, but couldn’t quite phrase it like that out of fear of hurting someone was this: The people who need to hear these messages are not in the audience. Then how do we ensure that these important stories we tell fall on their ears and compel them to challenge the misguided beliefs they’ve been holding on to about marginalized communities, often without even realizing it? Krawec’s humble and honest response was that she creates her works primarily for herself and her community. If her writings happen to make an impact beyond that, that’d be great. But if not, it was still important for her to tell her story and for her community to feel seen and heard in her works. I wanted to run up and give her a hug for saying that. Because, at the end of the day, we can only speak our truths, knowing that it is one of a multitude of perspectives out there. How it lands, how it is received, whether it has the desired impact of inclusion and equity in terms of compelling the powers-that-be to challenge the narratives they may have grown accustomed to and to take effective actions going forward, is not in our hands. Krawec ended her conversation by saying, “Read widely. Read deeply. Read radically.” Krawec’s interview was perhaps the very first event I’ve attended by an Indigenous author. One person who really inspired me to do so, that too unknowingly, was the Burlington Public Library’s Events Coordinator, Parampreet Khanuja. At the beginning of every event, before introducing the speaker, Parampreet reads out the Land Acknowledgement, and he goes on to add that in addition to reading out those few sentences, he likes to think more deeply about what he could possibly do to embody the spirit of the acknowledgment. That statement of his stayed with me. So even though that Monday had already been a long, long day for me and I was very tempted to not show up to Krawec’s talk, I was determined to attend it. It was such an enlightening talk and I was really glad to have had the opportunity to hear Krawec speak. --- ***Celebrating Jane Austen's 250th* by Catherine Little** Another event I attended was [Celebrating Jane Austen's 250th](https://attend.bpl.on.ca/event/14676797) by Toronto-based author, Catherine Little, who writes picture books to introduce authors of classics to the present generation. Little spoke about Jane Austen at the event in honour of this year being the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth. Apparently, as Little revealed, the only author ever to have had a LEGO set made to honour her is Jane Austen! ![a LEGO set in honour of Jane Austen featuring a room with a piano, bookshelf, window, a mini figure with a quill and ink pot](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/11/Jane-Austen_LEGO.jpeg) A LEGO set in honour of Jane Austen! Isn’t it insane how women across so many generations continue to swoon over Mr. Darcy? And how enduring these stories are — stories about ordinary people like you and me in sometimes ordinary, sometimes extraordinary situations? That is why stories, to me, are far more than entertainment. They are illuminating. They are inspiring. Above all, they encourage us when we feel scared, lift our spirits when we feel low, and remind us that at the end of the day, we’re all really made of stardust and the narratives we believe and the stories we tell about ourselves and about everything and everyone else. --- *If you loved this reflection and would like to stay in touch, sign up for my free newsletter,* [*Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar*](#/portal/signup/)*, for musings on the joys of writing, reading and living the creative life.* ### books you may love: November 2025 URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-november-2025/ Last updated: 2025-11-24T16:02:11.000Z Now that I've jettisoned other pursuits (writing flash fiction and narrating and recording audio-stories for publication), I find myself with far more time to write and read, in addition to hanging out with KrA and D. It feels like a good place to come back to in my writing life without the presence of other distractions. And that allows me to treat you to a larger-than-usual list of books I've read and enjoyed this month. In addition to the usual short description, I've included excerpts of beautiful sentences, ~~sometimes~~ often several paragraphs, from these impactful works. As always, let me know if you pick up any of these books and enjoy reading them! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/11/books-you-may-love.jpg) ### **The Ministry of Time** *by Kaliane Bradley* This is a time-travel book, but also so much more than that. There's a government organization called the Ministry Of Time, and its employees are engaged in enabling people from the past to time-travel to the present. They are assigned 'bridges', who enable these time-travellers to get accustomed to the ways of the modern world. The narrator of this tale is a 'bridge' for an 'expat' — Commander Graham Gore — who has come from 1847, the sole survivor of a doomed polar expedition. This was such an intriguing and riveting read. Gore's understanding of the modern world as his 'bridge' explains to him how the world has changed since his time is dealt with much insight and empathy. There are other time-travellers too, as well as a secret mission they're all entrapped in, quite without their knowing! Here are some delightful excerpts from this book. --- > *So far as I understood the British Empire, other people's countries were useful or negligible but rarely conceived of as autonomous. The empire regarded the world the way my dad regards elastic bands the post deliverer drops on their round: This is handy, it's just lying there; now it's mine.* > \~ > *Everything that has ever been could have been prevented, and none of it was. The only thing you can mend is the future. Believe me when I say that time-travel taught me that.* > \~ > *I know how much you've longed for your future to clean down and cup your face, to whisper "Don't worry, it gets better." The truth is, it won't get better if you keep making the same mistakes. It can get better, but you must allow yourself to imagine a world in which you are better.* > *...* > *Forgiveness, which takes you back to the person you were and lets you reset them. Hope, which exists in a future in which you are new. Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel.* --- ### **An Irish Hostage (A Bess Crawford Mystery)** *by Charles Todd* This tale is set in the aftermath of WWI, when English nurse Bess Crawford heads to Ireland to attend the wedding of an Irish nurse she used to work alongside with in the war. Unfortunately, the groom, also an Englishman, disappears on the eve of his wedding. Bess takes it upon herself to unravel this mystery. This was my first time reading a book set against the backdrop of the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland. As always, the authors portrayed all characters and causes in a very empathetic light. > *There are rogues in every Cause. People who were either so intensely loyal they couldn't see beyond their faith in it, or were hungry for the power any change would give them. And they could do more damage to that Cause, even betray what it had stood for in the beginning, by their actions. I'd seen it happen elsewhere.* > *Was that what was going on here? A pocket of angry men who couldn't see that they were only going to make the English Parliament more resolute in bringing Ireland to heel?* --- ### **Girl Dinner** *by Olivie Blake* I can't believe I haven't read any of Blake's works until now. *Girl Dinner* is a brilliant satirical take on feminism, motherhood, community (sorority), belonging, women and wanting to have it all, told through the intertwining tales of two female protagonists — a new mum who's going back to work as a lecturer at a university, and a sophomore student who's desperate to get into The House believing that doing so would change her life in a way nothing else possibly could. I literally inhaled the book, devouring page after page of the feverish story-telling. To admit that the book made me feel completely seen as a mother, as a human being doing her best in this chaotic world, is an understatement! There are pages and pages that I dog-eared simply to be able to read and re-read Blake's incisive writing. I'd quote the entire book if I could. So I've quoted entire passages instead, and even though I think I may have gone overboard, I'm not sure if I've managed to convey how searing her words are, and how truly they land. > \~ > *Because what wouldn’t Sloane do if it meant a loving marriage, a happy child, a rewarding career? Forget the other two things, even. What wouldn’t she do to guarantee a healthy life for Isla, a life for herself where she could see her daughter grow up strong and well, where she had the resources to personally ensure that nobody ever caused her daughter harm, where her daughter would never have to know abandonment or pain or fear? It was impossible, of course, irrational, but what else was motherhood? What was womanhood if not a lifelong desperation for things that were not and could never be guaranteed?* > *As usual, Sloane collapsed into thoughts of Isla. A missing of her, eternal, that disappeared momentarily only for things like irritation, when Isla wouldn’t sleep or wouldn’t eat. Nothing felt natural to Sloane anymore but Isla, such that sometimes, with Max, Sloan would even feel a sort of hunger for Isla’s smallness, the smell of her skin. Sloane’s desire had transformed itself, now an unrecognizable mutant.* > *So many things had disappeared from Sloane when she became a mother. Her younger self, her ability to make mistakes. Her capacity for judging the desperation of others. There was suddenly no limit to the person she could be — to what she genuinely believed you could become.* > *It was true there was a loss of something; in the unsurgical cleaving of her life, some fragments had simply fallen away. Caretaking was draining work, her time ruled not just by the presence of but the worry and the longing for The Child. There was so much capacity for resentment, for all the grains of life in the hourglass lost to the wee hours, the distant spectre of the capable adult she used to be, hovering out of reach like a ghost while she swayed half-asleep but still upright.* > *The things she used to love, the loathing for herself she used to feel, were suddenly immaterial. The person staring back in the glass had already shape-shifted irretrievably, the old her was gone. If it wasn’t baby weight, it was the pain of being torn in two or the atrophy from months of being forced out of her natural shape, first the belly and then the caring of the child, the soothing, the protecting, the strength she would reach for and use whether she possessed it in actuality or not.* > *But all those things were nothing. The physical shape-shifting only camouflaged a love that was more like insanity, contortions of the body to cage the madness inside. A love that defied reason and felt closer to pain. It would never be reciprocated—impossible, who had ever loved their parent as they loved their child? Who could ever reasonably ask for that kind of love in return? This, it was a rush of maternal carnage, love like nothing she’d been capable of before because it fell so close to violence. It was a love that didn’t whisper about the atrocities it would gladly commit.* > \~ > *... and Sloane would no longer be desperate to be left alone for five fucking seconds—unlike the current state of being, where a toddler was constantly tugging her clothes down for something, a less (more?) demoralizing version of a randy husband.* > *God, what Sloane wouldn't give sometimes for five minutes alone, except that she was also so desperate for Isla to stay precisely as she was that she sometimes stopped breathing from the pain.* > *Sometimes, when Isla was sleeping in Sloane's arms, Sloane would have to physically fight the urge to nuzzle her, to kiss her pink cheeks, her rosebud mouth.* > *It was a strange thing, motherhood. Sloane didn't want to freeze Isla in time, nor did she want to go backward, now did she want to fast-forward.* > *What she wanted, desperately, was to witness Isla in every form that Isla would ever take, all at once. She wanted to know Isla's future interests; she wanted to revisit the first gummy smiles Isla ever gave.* > *Everyone else had warned Sloane that she'd eventually want children again, it was just biology, but Sloane had no interest in other children. Whenever she saw a fresh baby— fresh, her mind always said, like a vampire for milky breath — she never wanted another. She wanted five minutes of her own baby, a quick crack-pipe hit of the past.* > *Sloane understood that she would always feel that way; that parenting was relentless and unsolvable. Impossible that she could ever truly do right by Isla. But by god, she was desperate to try.* > \~ > *"Honestly, the real fuckery about getting older is this absurd resistance to looking old," Alex said when she joined Sloane for coffee later that week. "Which is ridiculous. Because as I tell The Girls all the time, getting older increases your value as a woman. It's a gift." She sipped her coffee with a shrug. "Needless to say, they don't believe me."* > *"In fairness to them," commented Sloane with that same diabolical rationalization, "there is a very palpable tipping point where becoming undesirable as a sexual object diminishes the mythology of your acceptance by men. But since that acceptance was a myth to begin with, the loss is imaginary, and yet absolutely crushing at the same time."* > \~ > *Her new TA laughed and swept a hand through his raven hair as he took the seat opposite hers at her desk. She had the vague sensation of wanting to witness him on horseback.* --- ### **No Shred Of Evidence (An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery)** *by Charles Todd* After I finish reading a good book, I usually head towards another Charles Todd book. Because anything else I'd read, I know I would hold it to the lofty expectations of the previous book, and that would make it impossible to appreciate the new book on its own. *No Shred Of Evidence* is a convoluted mystery. Four women set out on a boat when they see a man from their village drowning, his boat rapidly sinking under him. They rescue him, and are joined in their attempts by another villager who swims out to help. But when they've hauled the drowning man into the boat, the Good Samaritan turns around and accuses them of attempting to murder the drowning man! Inspector Rutledge is called in to untangle this case where there's no evidence other than the word of one man against that of the four young ladies. It's a rather convoluted case that takes us into the hearts of many characters and their stories. An engrossing read, as one has come to expect with anything that Todd writes! > *St. Ives, like so many parents across England, had had to deal with the aftermath of the Great War in unexpected ways. Their hero sons had returned covered not in glory but in swaths of bandaging. If they returned at all. but it was easier to mourn a memory that had marched away in the autumn of 1914 and never came back. He was still the handsome young man in uniform that families last remembered, smiling at the photographers, eyes alight with the excitement of going to war. The shattered remains of their child, coming home so utterly changed, was a very much harder cross to bear.* > \~ > *"What you learn, in times of great loss, is that the human spirit can survive the most terrible events in one's life and somehow go on." He took a deep breath, staring out toward the river. "Not that it makes anything any better. You just learn to tolerate the difference, the change. And then you get on with it."* > \~ > *He turned to Rutledge. "Were you in the war?* > *"Yes. In France."* > *"Was it as bad as we've heard? Worse?"* > *He wasn't asking for truth. He wanted reassurance that his son had not suffered as much as people were saying, now that soldiers had returned home and censorship had ended.* > *"I won't lie," Rutledge said quietly. "There were days that could drive any man mad with the horror of them. But that was not all it was in the trenches. You learned to depend on the man beside you, to trust him in ways you never trusted any other human being before that. You looked out for him and he for you. He was father and brother and son to you. It's what got you through, that friendship,. Knowing that you weren't alone. And God willing, he was there when you were wounded or dying. Or there was a nursing Sister holding your hand."* > *It was mostly true. But dying was a lonely business even so. He didn't tell Grenville that.* > \~ > *Too much could be read into bits of evidence. Wishful thinking on a detective's part, hoping to find truth in what was actually irrelevant.* > \~ > *"I don't see why the statement of a farmer is more trustworthy than that of my daughter. Or Grenville's for that matter," Gordon fumed.* > *He was a soldier, accustomed to instant respect and men at the ready to carry out his orders.* > \~ > *"It's a tangle, isn't it?" he said pleasantly to Elaine. "We need facts—and sometimes there are no facts to be found. Or if there are, they point in different directions, until we're all in a muddle."* --- ## **Widow's Point: The Complete Haunting *by Richard Chizmar and W. H. Chizmar*** This is the only time I'm going to talk about this book. I don't know what got into me but in October, the library had a tantalizing collection of horror and spooky tales on display. Believing that I could stomach a scary tale, I picked up this book. No, I won't claim innocence because I knew what I was getting into. And Good Heavens! This book scared me thoroughly! Very well-written, delivering all the scares, and keeping a constant undercurrent of tension going throughout. Widow's Point is a haunted lighthouse and many ghosthunters have taken up challenges to spend a few nights locked in there for the thrill of it. None of them survive to tell the tale. The book is also told in media format, employing video footages and audio recordings, and that adds to the immediacy of the narrative. If you're a horror fan, this is probably right up your alley. After several sleepless nights, I've decided I won't read a ghost story or watch a horror movie ever again! --- So! Do any of these books pique your interest? Write to me and let me know if you read any of them! ### lessons learnt from five years of being an author-entrepreneur URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-five-years-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/ Last updated: 2025-11-22T01:00:51.000Z A long time ago I read about/heard statistics that 90% of businesses fail within the first five years of their founding. Well — it's been five years since I started writing these ['annual reflections'](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/annual-reflections/) on my writing life and career, which means I've been thinking of this as a business in some way or the other during this time. What I've come to realize now is that all this while, I've been trying to run this as a mature business when I'm still only in the R&D phase of this fledgling entity! I'm still trying to find an audience and a market for the kinds of books I write while trying to keep expenses low and also while trying to protect my sanity and creativity so that I can keep writing the stories I love, not knowing whether there's market demand for them or not. But I've also been implementing strategies that were clearly meant for writers with a larger audience/far more proven readership than I currently have, which has been a huge mismatch. Finally, I'm beginning to see these misalignments and take steps towards course correction. That's what the following year is going to be about. A reboot. A refresh. A restart. How liberating it is to let some things go! The energy of starting anew — carrying wisdom from past experiences and still looking to the future with hope and optimism — is something quite potent. It can never be underestimated. --- Hello, Dreamer! Welcome back to this year's annual reflection on the life of this particular fiction author. Back in 2020, I was in the midst of writing my first novel, having already published a novella a couple of years before that. At that time I was still doing academic editing on the side, but one thing I was beginning to notice in my life was that *my capacity to do stuff was slowly diminishing*. For the first time after becoming a parent (little D was 3 and a 1/2 years old when the pandemic hit), I had to really accept the fact that given my circumstances — how much support we had, how much time we wanted to spend with D, how much income we had, etc. — I couldn't do it all. I couldn't have a full-time job, write as a side hustle, be a conscious parent to D, sleep well, look after my health, eat consciously, and live in a clutter-free space too. Not unless I had a staff of 1 or 2 or more working with me to manage the household operations and keep them running efficiently and effectively. I was bitter about it all for a very long time. After all, I grew up thinking I could do whatever I wanted, be whoever I wanted to be. All I had to do was dream big and work hard, and the sky was the limit, wasn't it? Somehow I didn't know I'd have to account for the emotional upheaval that comes with becoming a parent and becoming a writer. And that learning new coping and emotional regulation skills along the way would become the more important job than the actual work of parenting and writing. > *I've always believed that it doesn't quite matter what we do as much as who we become in the process.* And truth be told, when I think of the moments of joy I've found in writing, it is usually the writing of my very first book, [*In Search Of Leo*](https://thedreampedlar.com/in-search-of-leo/), that comes to mind. After that, what I remember more (and maybe this is a trick of the mind and not necessarily reality) is the angst of finding more time to write, the constant push to put more words to paper as though chasing a lofty daily word count goal was what would propel me to the end-goal, and an ever-present sense of urgency to get there. Which leads to the question — What was the end-goal to begin with? For a long time I thought my end-goal was to have a certain number of books published by a certain timeframe in order to find validation in the market in terms of a readership of a certain size and measured in terms of a certain number of books sold. Looking back, I think my end-goal was, honestly, to feel free. To live with a particular ease and openness of heart, and not carry around this constant dull ache of never feeling enough, of worrying that I'm not doing enough to set myself and my family up for a 'better' future, although if you pressed me on the details of what 'enough' and 'better' even mean to me, I'd come up empty and feel even more inadequate than ever before. Because ... if I don't even have that clarity in thinking, what shaky foundation am I building a life on? Over the years I've come to see that no amount of success can give me these feelings of confidence and adequacy, of worthiness and belonging, in a world where nothing ever feels enough. It was too much to demand that my writing supply me with these tender, ephemeral feelings and safeguard them. It had to be the other way round. I had to feel safe and secure first in order to let creativity thrive. Lessons learnt, and all that, so let's see how we can change things going forward. But first, a look at all that went well. Because even a broken clock is right twice a day! 🤭 --- ## Celebrating my Wins - I completed writing Book 1 of the fantasy/sci-fi duology I have been working on, on and off, since April 2022\. It stands at a little more than 113,000 words! Book 1.5 of this series is all ready and completed. That one stands at about 62,000 words. I'm now in the thick of writing Book 2 — 40,000 words and counting — so this series is the focus of all my attention for the next few months. Frankly, I'm quite happy with all the writing I've done so far this year! - I wrote my 200th [*Tales For Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/ccc74268-1cd6-4ff2-8dbe-f228e45a2056/) story! - I published two projects I had been sitting on for a long time — [*Tales For Dreamers: Volume I*](https://books2read.com/tales-for-dreamers-volume-1), which is a collection of 100 short tales, and a fantasy novella titled [*Blue-Skinned Mystics*](https://books2read.com/blue-skinned-mystics)*.* I also published my first hardcover version of a book with *Tales For Dreamers*! - *I sold my first short story to a* semi-pro magazine, Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. My story, *A Shadowy Death*, appears in [Issue #39](https://pulphousemagazine.com/products/pulphouse-fiction-magazine-issue-39) and was published in April this year! (I think I completely forgot to tell you all about this!) - My flash fiction tale, '*Alternative Uses For Public Art Signs'*, also appeared on a public art sign (as the name suggests!) by The Beachway Park in Burlington as part of the Ontario Culture Days celebration this year! It was one among 20 creative works selected by the City of Burlington for display this year. - I started a [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar), learnt how to use GarageBand, narrate tales and mix them with music. I have posted 18 audio-stories so far! - I've experimented with a couple of small marketing strategies — a paid newsletter promotion, for instance — and am slowly getting the hang of how slow and long-term this game is. ![books with open pages and the words 'Turn the page' ](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/11/daniel-schludi-7JL7NdhaRd8-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Daniel Schludi](https://unsplash.com/@schluditsch?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/books-on-white-wooden-table-7JL7NdhaRd8?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ## Looking Forward - *I'm pausing posting new stories in the Tales For Dreamers series as well as new audio-stories over on my YouTube channel.* I remember coming back to writing these tales last year primarily as a way of sharing fiction content with my newsletter subscribers to remind them that I'm a fiction writer, overall. I don't see this working well, and perhaps that's partly because my audience is primarily composed of readers who seem to enjoy longer works. I've come to the conclusion that I'd be better off writing novels and novellas, and marketing them well, instead of constantly foisting free stuff on to my readers and devaluing my own work. I recently heard author coach Becca Syme explain how if you have a bookstore that's doing reasonably well, you'd consider investing in a coffee machine to offer an additional, related product to your clientele or attract new clientele. But if your bookstore didn't see much foot traffic in the first place, spending effort and resources in setting up a coffee corner is hardly likely to attract more traffic. You'd only be pushing yourself more in the red. This is the underlying principle that is guiding my decisions moving forward. Instead of forging ahead with the next book or the next series, or finding a way to market my books and testing them in the market, I have been offering new stuff to a non-existent audience. Be it an online store or free weekly flash fiction or audio-stories on YouTube. Naturally, this hasn't worked. Which brings me to the next point. - *I will continue to experiment with marketing — paid newsletter promos, and even announcing my forthcoming titles to my newsletter — after I have finished writing Book 2 in the current series.* In the past I've just dropped books on my unsuspecting audience without giving them fair warning. Almost as if I feel the need to make an obligatory announcement and hope that no one takes notice for too long. And well, that's precisely what has happened. Isn't it the idea of marketing to generate awareness in advance and get readers interested in what's coming? Naturally there's some inner work to be done there, but recognizing that fear of letting other people know about my books is the first step. I have some ideas for how to promote new works, so once I've completed writing the current WIP, I'll be playing in that field for a bit. I suppose that's another way of saying that I'd be more strategic about how I use content marketing and paid promotions, and I'm really excited about the ideas that are coming up! - *I will continue to write and publish more books and stories.* I started writing stories for the love of them. In fact, even before I started writing *Tales For Dreamers* in 2011, I was writing a novel way back in 2007\. A handful of unfinished drafts. Something my 20-year-old-self would have written. I doubt I'd ever finish those ones now. I didn't get into this writing life to set up my own store or start a YouTube channel or keep writing only short fiction. I did all those things when there was a creative desire to do so, more often prompted by what experts in the industry were touting as the next big thing at the time. But I've also come to realize that I started them at a time when it wasn't the right time *for me* to do so. So it felt as if I was building a number of bridges at the same time and making very little progress on any individual one, which quickly became quite demotivating. There was a lot of learning along the way, no doubt about that. But now it's time to let them go and focus on what really matters — writing my books, telling all the stories I want to tell, and getting them into the hands of more readers in the hope that some of them at least would find solace in my writings just as I've found comfort and understanding in the books of so many authors. - *I need to be wary of what I fill my time with.* Sometimes I fill my plate with lots of things to do in order to feel as if I'm doing something to keep the wheels turning. Whether I do these as creative endeavours or to soothe the relentless worry I feel underneath it all is something I have to look into myself to unearth. One thing I know is that fear of my books not doing well keeps me from writing more than I possibly could. As long as my book remains a WIP, it is only subject to my judgement. Once it's out there in the world, it takes on a life of its own, and that too can be a frightening prospect in some ways. I'm going to have to trust that I'm doing the best I can at any given point in time; if a book resonates with a reader, that's awesome. If it doesn't, that's par for the course, and there's precious little I can do but move on and write the next story that comes to me. Also, writing a novel is a long endeavour, taking several days/weeks/months/years depending on how you write. That's a long time for apathy and self-doubt to seep in and kill all momentum. My forays into posting weekly flash fiction and YouTube audio-stories arose partially from needing a distraction from ~~writing~~ the fear of writing something that may or may not sell. But the more distractions I fill my time with, the less time, energy and effort I have to actually spend writing or even encountering and pushing through the discomfort and fear that keep me from writing. So this is one aspect of my writing life that I'm curious to observe more and work with in the coming year. ![a curved shelf of books](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/11/susan-q-yin-2JIvboGLeho-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Susan Q Yin](https://unsplash.com/@syinq?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/books-on-brown-wooden-shelf-2JIvboGLeho?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ## On Mindset One big change this year has been the relatively greater ease with which I'm now able to take rejection or failure compared to my early years as a writer. My heart would sink every time a reader would unsubscribe from my newsletter, or every time a magazine would reject a short story submission, or every time a published book would do poorly. In the absence of data, it was hard to tell whether it was something I did wrong or just something else altogether — maybe the reader was no longer interested in or didn't have the time to keep up with my newsletter stuff, or that I hadn't marketed my books, or that the editor was simply not in a mood to enjoy my story. That's the thing about this industry. There is really no objective measure of a good story. How can you tell what is a good story? We have a tendency to think that books that sell well are stories that are told well. To an extent this must be true, in the sense that if the story is good and gets some discoverability, the chances for it to be talked about and spread by word of mouth and benefit from marketing efforts in general are higher. > *But the greater truth is probably this:* Yes, books that sell well are often stories that are told well and marketed well. > *But we'd do well to remember that the converse is not always true.* > *Stories that are told well and marketed well do not necessarily convert into high book sales figures.* The entertainment industry is a capricious industry. > *While people can dissect in the aftermath why a book did particularly well, no one can predict beforehand whether a book will sell well or not.* > *And when it doesn't, it's also hard to pinpoint what one could have done differently to obtain a different, more favourable outcome.* It has taken me a long time to understand this and even to accept this. After five years of writing these 'annual reflections' and realizing that my lessons are more or less the same, I'm now beginning to wonder why this is so. Is it because I haven't learnt and practised those lessons well enough? Or is it because this is precisely what there is to the writing life? And, knowing this, what does it even mean to keep writing and publishing? That's where we come back to the basics. As writers, we came to writing from a love of reading or, more broadly, stories. Now, we have the ability to put our books directly into readers' hands. So we remain driven by the joy of reading (storytelling) and writing, and the hope that our work will touch another soul in their darkest, most despondent moments. > *Our work may likely not make a difference to the whole world, but it can most certainly make a world of difference to a handful of people or maybe more.* ![a glass window with a neon sign saying 'What is your story?'](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/11/etienne-girardet-EP6_VZhzXM8-unsplash-1.jpg) Photo by [Etienne Girardet](https://unsplash.com/@etiennegirardet?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/black-flat-screen-tv-turned-on-at-the-living-room-EP6%5FVZhzXM8?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) This reminds me of something [Jiddu Krishnamurti](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Ab948czOY) once said about meditation. > *That is the first thing to understand: that there is no one to guide you, no one to tell you that you are progressing, no one to tell you, to encourage you. You have to stand completely alone in meditation.* > *\~* Jiddu Krishnamurti This may seem quite scary at first, but it is in fact quite liberating. If there is no one right path, then all paths are up for grabs, isn't it? It helps to look at all our choices as little experiments and not judge them based on the outcomes they produce. > *Something that fails is not necessarily the consequence of a poor choice. Factors outside of our control, such as luck and timing, play a far greater role than most 'successful' people would like to admit.* Knowing this, perhaps it's wiser to adopt an approach of — "Oh, I tried something, and it didn't yield me the result I wanted. But I learnt something from it. Now let's move on to the next thing with an open mind." This is the sentiment and intention I wish to carry with me into the new year. That I will never know if a story takes off in a big way or not. What I do know is that I will not let that uncertainty, that not-knowing stop me in my tracks. > *I love writing and telling stories far too much to let something like uncertainty of the future or past failures or lack of success* until *now keep me from living an intentional life pursuing what matters to me.* So here's to another year of writing and publishing for the simple joy and love of telling a good story, of letting the past guide me through the wisdom of experience but not drag me down with the baggage of failure, and of being optimistically invested in a future where my stories make a meaningful difference in people's lives, including my own and that of my family — KrA and D. ### tales for dreamers: pretty cauliflowers for sale URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-pretty-cauliflowers-for-sale/ Last updated: 2025-11-21T14:00:34.000Z Gone are the days when cauliflowers used to come in simple whites. Now they come in an assortment of colours — green, orange, purple (and hidden from view are the varieties in red, gold and blue)! But look away for an instant and turn back, you will find the greens have transformed into reds, the oranges into blues, and the purples into golds. Or perhaps they merely shuffled around when you weren’t looking in order to confuse you. Choose the colour you feel drawn to the most. Some say these cauliflowers aren’t meant to be cut and cooked. They’d make for fine displays at home, it is claimed. I don’t know about that. Cauliflowers are not flowers, after all. Smearing gaudy colours on themselves doesn’t transform them into bouquets either. But to each their own. Others say they change colours based on your moods. If you’re angry, they’d turn red. A yellow one suggests boundless joy. Blue suggests serenity. If both of the above statements are true — that they are meant to be displayed at home and that they reflect your mood — you might want to think about the guests you invite into your home. They’d be privy to any changes to your moods in real time! But if these suppositions turn you off from purchasing the colourful cauliflowers, fret not. The truth is that the cauliflowers have taken to changing colours merely for their entertainment. It’s quite monotonous otherwise to keep sitting still in the grocery store, under the scrutinizing gaze of people who’ve already made up their minds about cauliflower, and to keep wondering if they’d be picked or not. Because being ignored is just as awful as being rejected. Well, their tactic draws attention to them, you’ve got to give them that. --- *Image info for previous tale: The lucky piece of wood is '*[*adrift*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/ccc74268-1cd6-4ff2-8dbe-f228e45a2056/)*' on the waters of Lake Ontario. You can catch a glimpse of it if you head down to Paletta Lakefront.* ### Happy Birthday to me! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happy-birthday-to-me-2025/ Last updated: 2025-11-20T14:12:12.000Z I turn 45 years old today. Half-way to 90, like a friend's mom said to him last year. If we're lucky, like another friend said when I shared the above quip with her. The passage of time is a beautiful thing. It feels like quite a bit to take in that I've spent 45 years of living, breathing, doing, seeking, learning, thinking, feeling, experiencing, loving. Like something that seems to have happened of its own accord when I was busy doing other things and calling them living. Every experience has given me something precious, changed me in some way, even though I obviously don't recall every single one of them. Memory is another thing that has been playing hide-and-seek with me, but that's also because I've been quite intentional about not letting the past or the future take up as much room in my head as they used to before. It's become all about the present moment for me now, leaning into it, doing the best I can, understanding that others are doing the best they can too. It is a beautiful space to be in. > *It's quite a privilege to be in this space, where my needs are satisfied, my wants are in alignment with how much I have, and I no longer mistake self-deprivation for contentment, desire or ambition for discontentment, or possession for love.* Happy birthday to me! Much gratitude to my parents who gave me a passage to enter this world, looked after me when I was small and vulnerable, and remain my friends, mentors and guardians to this day. Endless love to KrA and D, the two people I share my days and life with; I truly feel very grateful for the time and the moments of simple love and connection I get to spend with them. Here's to spending many more days loving, writing, reading, laughing, and eating cake! ![illustration featuring colourful pennants, a green balloon, and 4 lit candles](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/11/17.-happy-birthday_annie-spratt-BbhVMK9l-ig-unsplash.jpg) Happy Birthday To Me! ### tales for dreamers: adrift URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-adrift/ Last updated: 2025-11-14T14:00:01.000Z It’s my birthday this month, and I have a wish to make. They say you shouldn’t speak your wishes out loud for that would keep them from coming true. But then, they don’t really say what would make them come true. So I think they, whoever *they* are, only speak in half-truths and incomplete wisdom. It’s best to ignore them and do as I please. I’m prepared to face the consequences, whatever they may be. So, dear ones, this is my birthday wish. To be adrift. To bob on the waves of life like driftwood. With no recollection of the past, no memories of the tree I originated from. With no destination to head towards, no desperation to get to one particular place or the other. Nothing to keep me tethered to anything or any place or anyone. But simply bobbing on the water. Placing no demands on the waves either. It would be alright if they wished to be gentle. It would also be alright if they came at me, frothing at their crests, ready to devour me. For you see, it would be in my nature to be light and buoyant. I’d be impossible to submerge. That would be my superpower. Of course, the waves could splinter me into pieces, but each fragment of me would be just like me. Light. Insubstantial. Impossible to be weighed down without consistent, sufficient external pressure. The waves are too restless to keep me pinned down for too long. Every fragment of me would remain afloat. No matter what. Every part of me would throb with the joy of being present, alive, and drifting. Not wishing I were anywhere but here, doing anything else but drifting, being anyone else but adrift. Because acceptance is not a sign of helplessness or defeat. It is the utmost wisdom. --- This is tale #200, dear Dreamers! Thank you for reading these stories. 💕 > *Buy the collection of the first 100 tales in Tales For Dreamers: Volume 1 to support my work!* [Buy 'Tales For Dreamers: Volume 1'](https://books2read.com/tales-for-dreamers-volume-1) --- *Image info for previous tale:* [*'The call for validation'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/0f1ecb31-25c4-4523-b901-52464113003e/) *can be found inside Prince of India, an Indian restaurant in Burlington. Their food is usually delicious and we've had ample opportunities to ring the bell, much to little D's delight!* ### tales for dreamers: the call for validation URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-call-for-validation/ Last updated: 2025-11-07T14:00:03.000Z The sign is clear. It leaves no room for doubt. Whoever put it up seeks validation. They yearn for your approval. It would make their day if you simply stepped up and rang the bell. *Did what well?* you ask. That depends on you and what you came here for. If you came here seeking solace, did they offer that to you? Are you leaving with a gentler heart and a calmer mind? Then yes, they did a good job and you can ring the bell to let them know that. If you came here seeking beauty, did you find it? Perhaps in the way the pianist’s fingers flew over the keys, or in the way the roses in the vase filled the air with their fragrance to welcome you, or in the way the breeze moved, erasing burdens from your soul a sliver at a time? If you’re leaving filled with a new way to look at the world, then yes, they did a good job and you can ring the bell to let them know that. But don’t badmouth them if they don’t have what you seek. Some things are rare to find. Like true love. Immortality. Even certainty, sometimes. More often than not, in fact. It’s not their fault if you come looking for something no one can give you. But if you temper your expectations and learn to rejoice in what’s available, you’ll find that they have a vast array of delightful stuff on offer. Which is why, there’s never really any good reason to not ring the bell. Like you, they too are doing the best they can. --- *Image info for previous tale: The deflated creatures seeking* [*'fair compensation for hardworking monsters'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/a3950be2-fa27-4551-8251-76a9cc385dfa/) *were lying on the front lawn of a lovely home on Longmoor Drive. They were there last year. Or perhaps, the year before. Time moves strangely in these parts. Which is to say, they're probably long gone by now.* ### Programming Update for Tales for Dreamers URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/programming-update-for-tales-for-dreamers/ Last updated: 2025-11-03T23:30:42.000Z Hello, lovely Dreamers! Happy November! Beginning this month, I plan to pause publishing new audio stories over on YouTube. There are two new videos that are pre-scheduled and will go up this month (on the 14th and 28th of November), but after that I'll take a break from the channel. I also have new Tales For Dreamers stories scheduled to go out every Friday this month, but after that I'll pause those regular posts for the time being. I love these creative endeavours, but I'm also in the thick of writing Book 2 of a fantasy duology series I plan to release next year. In order to juggle all these different projects more sustainably, I'm taking a break from creating other content, namely my weekly stories. I have some health concerns that prevent me from stepping out on regular walks to take the wonderful photos that inspire these tales. So my focus for the time being is on healing and on maintaining progress on my current manuscript. This will also help me when I'm taking time off, usually around the time of D's school holidays, and I find myself struggling to fit in two months's worth of writing and publishing work into a single month to ensure there's new stories out there every week. ***Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar*** will continue to go out on the last Sunday of the month. Thank you for your continued support! 🙏🏼 Here's to a lifelong creative career that is both satisfying and sustainable! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: fair compensation for hardworking monsters URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-fair-compensation-for-hardworking-monsters/ Last updated: 2025-10-31T13:00:09.000Z Scaring people is tiring business. Especially in these times when far too many people pound the sidewalks, even after dark. It’s no longer only the rogues and the criminals that sneak about at night, but the sleepless and the deep thinkers, the hard workers and the big-dreamers, who are awake long after the sun has set and stars have burst forth from their hiding places in the sky. These are the ones who often resort to a walk around the neighbourhood to soothe their jangled nerves when the rest of the world is fast asleep. So the monsters are protesting. They refuse to do their job — that of scaring onlookers and passers-by — unless they are compensated fairly. By compensation, they do not refer to wages and holidays and other petty concerns that another particular species of workers finds enticing. No! All they really want is unmitigated freedom in the pranks they play on whoever dares to cross the front lawn they’re perched upon. The owner of the house scratches his head at first when the monsters inform him of their demands. *You can’t get too noisy*, he warns them. *There are city rules about noise levels and such at nighttime.* The monsters are of the quiet sort, so it’s a condition they readily accept. Now they run amok in the neighbourhood at night. They jump out at unsuspecting passersby from behind tall hedges. They hang upside down from low branches. They drift like ghosts across the street. The only noises are the shouts and shrieks that the unsuspecting victims of their pranks let out, so terrified out of their wits that they can’t quite identify who or what made them jump out of their skin. The monsters are clever that way. They leave behind no clue to their misdeeds and mischiefs. But they’re so exhausted from their nighttime adventures they spend all day lolling on the lawn, deflated, feigning childlike innocence. The people who pass by them often think these creatures must present an imposing display when they’re inflated and lit up at night. Little do they know! --- *Last week's image info: The* [*'new caretakers in charge'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/fbe45988-5aba-460a-b040-c863530813ed/) *guard a home in the Longmoor neighbourhood of Burlington, Ontario. If you don't see them, don't assume they're gone. They have their own ways of keeping an eye on tricksters and pranksters up to no good.* ### October Opulence: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-october-opulence/ Last updated: 2025-10-26T07:00:16.000Z What's not to love about October! The month of Thanksgiving (here in Canada), Diwali and Halloween. The month of blue skies and autumn reds and golds. And equally the month of cold rains and darker evenings with the promise of unknowable things lurking in the shadows, listening keenly to your footfall, latching on to every word you whisper in your sleep, wondering how to twist your mind for their amusement, while you remain blissfully oblivious to their watchful existence. It's also the month of curling up indoors by a warm fireplace, wrapped in a favourite blanket, sipping a hot beverage, lost between the pages of an astounding book, and being utterly indifferent to the passage of time for once. Which is why this missive comes bearing an entire cornucopia of goodies for your reading pleasure. Grab a cuppa and read on! --- ### *On Writing* A number of my books are available to download for free for a short time! You can grab my fantasy short stories — ***Memory Games***, and ***Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute With God*** — as part of the [***Stories For Every Season***](https://books.bookfunnel.com/storiesforeveryseason/rmarroaj35) group promotion over on BookFunnel. [![2-image collage of ebook covers available as part of an ongoing promotion](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/10/BookFunnel-Promo-Books-1.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/storiesforeveryseason/rmarroaj35) [FREE Fiction Giveaway - Stories for every season!Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-56.ico)Stories for every season!![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/header-4.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/storiesforeveryseason/rmarroaj35) > \* Another title of mine, ***Blue-Skinned Mystics***, is available for free for the next five days only, as part of a promotion by the International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (IASFA). Grab your copy before the sun sets on Thursday, 30 October! [Get your copy of Blue-Skinned Mystics](https://books2read.com/blue-skinned-mystics) And, if you haven't yet got a copy of one of my long-standing popular tales, ***A Benevolent Goddess***, guess what?! It too is free for the next few days on all retailer platforms! [Get your copy of A Benevolent Goddess](https://books2read.com/a-benevolent-goddess/) So download your copies, and curl up to read some gentle, soul-soothing stories that will make you feel all is perfectly alright with the world after all, even if only briefly. --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* The 5 weekly tales on the website and the additional 5 audio-stories over on my YouTube channel are all Halloween specials this month! (The 5th tale and story will both go live on Halloween, the last Friday of this month!) Treat yourself to spooky ghost stories, entertain fantasies of transgressing the boundaries between the living and the dead, and enjoy all the mischiefs the neighbourhood monsters are getting up to! The stories are '***when the monsters take over'***, '***skeletons from your closet'***, '***the head with two faces'***, '***new caretakers in charge'***, and '***fair compensation for hardworking monsters'***. Check them out [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-october-2025/)! [![collage of 5 images featuring Halloween decorations ](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/10/Tales-From-Oct-2025.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-october-2025/) Tales For Dreamers: The 'Halloween Specials' Collection for October 2025 > \* Over on my YouTube channel, come listen to the [*Halloween Specials*](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ4ITPYOX1bUEwCg7a%5FtlmMGPbADdbBze&si=YvwGxenzgxRec4Zn) playlist, featuring ***'messages from beyond'***, ***'the street of the dead'***, ***'sermons of a very angry ghost'***, ***'waiting for permission to belong'***, and ***'the ghosts are leaving'***. Perhaps you could play a little game of matching the image with the story title and see how many you get right. [![collage of 5 images featuring Halloween decoration, a poster, glowing handprints, and a cloud in the sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/10/YouTube---Oct-2025.jpg)](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ4ITPYOX1bUEwCg7a%5FtlmMGPbADdbBze&si=4Y8WXCG2n7n9a1cS) Tales For Dreamers: 'Halloween Specials' Audio Stories for October 2025 > \* I also composed a special audio-story for Diwali! 🪔 Check out [***'An Orange Offering'**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g0wqmXxE4g) and let me know how you like it. --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* Many years ago — what feels like half a lifetime ago — when KrA and I were young and carefree, we went through a phase of binge-watching a lot of murder mystery TV shows. We began with all kinds of Sherlock Holmes shows ever made, then found our way to Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War, Inspector Morse, and so on. Watching those shows together after returning from work was couple-bonding time for us back then. When we came across Murdoch Mysteries, which follows detective William Murdoch and is set in Toronto during the late 1800s and early 1900s, we instantly fell in love with it. The show stood apart from all others in the way it portrayed early-stage forensic techniques in the light of Murdoch's keen scientific inquiry. So imagine my wild delight when the local library announced that it was hosting a panel talk with four Canadian mystery writers, one of whom was Maureen Jennings — the author of the Murdoch Mysteries books on which the TV show is based. She has also written some of the screenplays for the show. And that is how, one fine Sunday afternoon this month, I made my way to the library to attend the event. It was a fantastic panel! One of the authors — Vicki Delany — defined the various sub-genres of the mystery genre as follows: > *Mystery is what has happened in the past (and the protagonist tries to solve it),* > > *suspense is what is happening right now (and we follow along with the protagonist as it happens),* > > *and thriller is what we're* afraid *will happen in the future (and we race with the protagonist to prevent that dreadful thing from happening).* Made a lot of sense to me! What do you think? Anyhoo, after the talk, I got to meet with Maureen Jennings and tell her how much KrA and I loved the Murdoch Mysteries show and what a huge difference in our lives she has made through her characters. I bought one of her books, *Let Loose The Dogs*, and got it autographed! Maureen very kindly honoured my request to address her autograph to both KrA and me. (Naturally, I haven't shown the autographed page to little D!) ![collage of 2 images; 1 of me with Maureen Jennings holding an autographed copy of her book, the other is the autographed page](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/10/Fan-girling.jpg) Fan-girl moment with Maureen Jennings! --- ### *Books You May Love* It's been a sparse month for reading in a way. I only have two books to share. The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling's pseudonym) is a 900+ page delight. As with all other books in this series, the mystery is convoluted, there is an entire host of characters and suspects to keep track of, and what feeds the tension is the ever-evolving romantic dance between the detective partners, Strike and Robin, who're in love with each other but are uncertain whether the other feels the same way too. Unlike earlier books, I didn't disappear for four days at a time to finish this book. I savoured it a few pages every night, both wanting to know what happens next but also not wanting the book to end too soon. ![hardback copies of The Hallmarked Man and The Dragonet Prophecy](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/10/Books-You-May-Love_Final.jpg) Books You May Love Little D has read and re-read all the books in the *Wings Of Fire* series by Tui T. Sutherland several times, and he recommended them to me. Naturally, wanting to take up my little one on whatever invitation he extends to me, I started to read the first book in the series – *The Dragonet Prophecy*. I had only read a chapter or two when D suggested I read it to him at bed-time. And that is how, dear Dreamers, I'm back to reading aloud to my child at bed-time once more! The series centres around five dragonets (little dragons) who are destined to fulfil a prophecy of ending a long-lasting war between various dragon tribes. Sutherland's writing is very vivid and engrossing, and the stories she has woven are brilliant! Our reading sessions are punctuated with D asking me every now and then, *"Do you want to know whether this dragon will survive?"* *"Do you know So-and-So killed her own father unknowingly?"* This is the first time I'm reading a book with almost full foreknowledge of all the spoilers in the entire series, haha! It doesn't spoil the reading for me one bit though. The moments of connection with my little one that have come about because of this series are priceless! --- Well, we come to the end of yet another edition of Monthly Missives, dear Dreamer! It's funny how this month has been a reminder that stories allow us to connect with each other in such fundamentally human ways. Imagine if Maureen Jennings hadn't written the *Murdoch Mysteries* books! Or if Tui Sutherland thought writing her *Wings Of Fire* books was an utter waste of time! > *Without those stories, my life would have been several shades paler, devoid of some of its sparkle and joy.* This is what I tell myself as I head over to the local library in the mornings for some quiet writing time. Progress is steady on Book 2 of the fantasy duology I've been working on. The words are flowing, the characters are doing rather unexpected things, and the story is carving out new paths to meander on. It won't tell me where it's going, how we'll get wherever it is we're headed, or even when, but compels me to type alongside it and capture everything that unfolds in words on a Pages document. And that is how it is meant to be. Until next month then, dear Dreamer! \~ Anitha --- > *"As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colours enough to paint the beautiful things I see." – Vincent Van Gogh* --- [Love what you read? Tell a friend about it!](mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20Monthly%20Missives%20by%20The%20Dream%20Pedlar!&body=Hey%20there!%0D%0A%0D%0AI%20just%20read%20this%20month%E2%80%99s%20newsletter%20from%20Anitha%20Krishnan%20%28she%20writes%20lovely%20speculative%20fiction!%29%20and%20thought%20you%20might%20enjoy%20it%20too.%20It's%20full%20of%20Halloween%20flash%20stories%2C%20audio%20tales%2C%20and%20whimsical%20reflections%20on%20reading%20and%20storytelling.%20%20%0D%0A%0D%0AIf%20you%E2%80%99ve%20got%20a%20few%20minutes%2C%20check%20it%20out%3A%20%0D%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthedreampedlar.com%2Fnewsletter-2025-october-opulence%2F%0D%0A%0D%0ACheers!%20) ### 4 a.m. musings URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/4-a-m-musings/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T20:12:39.000Z I shouldn't have checked the news last evening. I had made a conscious decision last week to not check the news, and I'm happy to report that I had one of my most productive and calm weeks in recent memory. But far more than being able to add words to my current manuscript and compose and upload audio-stories over on YouTube, I moved through the days with a sense of hope and optimism. About my work. About my life. About my ability to meet the present moment — as a parent, as a writer, as a human being — well and with my full attention. And then I checked the news last evening. It is as it has been these past several months. The world is collapsing, innocent lives are being snuffed out, bullies are ruling the day, abetted by rich sycophants. On the other hand, the ultra-wealthy continue to live their lives in their oases of personal paradise, completely untouched and unaffected by the goings-on in the world. > *It is as if there are two parallel universes unfolding — one in which the world is burning, and the other in which those with the means to do so continue to lead the good life without a care — independently and irrespective of the other.* What happens in one world seems to have little bearing whatsoever on the other. And then there are people like us — worrying about what the latest drama on anything (AI/politics/war/anything that is disruptive) would mean for our work, our livelihoods, our families, our children growing up in a world fraught with uncertainty — and ... ... And that's where it stalls. We worry. We are anxious. We lose our sleep over what's happening outside the four walls of our homes and we're barely functional the next day. I've been up since 4 a.m. I slept poorly last night. Now I dread looking ahead to this day and all the responsibilities it brings. It is humanly unsustainable to live like this day after day after day. What is the way out then? --- ### *Stop asking rhetorical questions.* **Or come up with answers to stop the thought spirals.** The rhetorical questions, especially about the future, are endless. The answers are non-existent. How will AI affect my job? Who knows? No one knows yet! What kind of career will my child pursue when he grows up? Who knows? No one knows yet! The truth is no one knows the answers to these rhetorical questions. No one can precisely predict how AI will disrupt the industry you are in, or what the future holds in store for you and your family. But leaving these questions unanswered only serves to fill that void in our mind with doomsday scenarios. Not knowing how the future will unfold drives home that uncertainty even more and leaves us feeling worse than before. The best response to questions like these, which cannot be answered wholly in the present moment, are along the lines of ... *I don't know yet, but I will figure it out as I get closer or when I'm in that situation.* > *Q: How will AI affect my job?* > *A: I don't know yet, but I will figure it out if/when that happens.* > Q: AI is changing the world. What kind of career options will be available for my child to pursue? > A: I don't know yet. We will figure it out when it is time to do so. In the meantime, I can focus on helping him build skills like literacy and social-emotional skills that will stand him in good stead no matter the situation around him. We do not have to come up with solutions for problems that haven't arrived yet. We don't need to borrow problems from the future. But we can do the best we can now, strengthen the physical, emotional and mental muscles required to keep doing our work in the midst of external chaos and uncertainty, and trust that we will continue to face situations to the best of our capabilities as and when they arise. --- ### *Focus on the present moment and on what needs to be done now,* **instead of being lost and feeling trapped in musings about the past or worries about the future.** When we stop getting stuck in the trap of rhetorical questions about the future, we can turn our attention and energy towards the present moment, see what it requires of us, and go about tending to it with utmost care and full attention. For instance, when we go to pick up our child from school, we could look at them with great delight and decide to spend the evening with them talking about school and their experiences, look forward to enjoying dinner together, share moments of connection at bedtime. Or we could look at them and project them into the future and start imagining how they'd turn out and worry about how life would unfold for them. Which one is more effective? The answer is obvious. > *Tending to the present moment with great care and attention may not guarantee a stellar future. Nothing can, honestly.* > *But tending to the present moment with great care and attention will guarantee a stellar present moment!* > *And what is the future if not a point in time that too will become a 'present moment' in your life when you reach it?* > *How would you meet it then?* > *You'd meet it the way you've been practising meeting your present moments over and over again until then.* Also, inherent in our worries about the future are three assumptions that really have no ground to stand on. - How can you say with any semblance of certainty that you'd reach that future point in time that you're so terrified of in your lifetime? - How can you say with any semblance of certainty that that future moment will be fraught with difficulties? - And how can you say with any semblance of certainty that you'd find yourself unable to face whatever life throws at you then? So no matter which way we look at it, we really only have one option, which is to keep coming back to the present moment and work within its boundaries. > *A big reason we resist being present is because we don't feel good about our circumstances.* For a long time, I wasn't at peace with the fact that I have *'only'* one child, that we live in a small townhome, that I'm not yet earning an income from my books even though I work so hard. I wanted all of these things to change because I thought they all represented some kind of *'lack'* in my life. It has taken some inner work to train my mind to appreciate what I have and to accept the is-ness of it all. I have one child but isn't he also an absolute blessing? My home may be small compared to that of many others but isn't it cozy? Don't we love spending time with each other here? And when I put in some effort towards decorating it, doesn't the place reveal its splendour to me? It is a true sanctuary for me and my family. I may not be earning an income from my books yet, but isn't that also because I've been hesitant to put my works in front of a larger audience for fear of them being rejected or disliked? Now that I can see how I've been standing in my own way, the present moment doesn't appear undesirable anymore. It appears full of promise and potential, and when I'm not clouded by anxieties over the future or regrets about the past, I can make the most of this time I have to write and market my works, to connect with my child and my husband, and to make this home a space of love and connection for me, my family and friends. --- ### *Turn off the TV. Stop reading the news.* **Is information necessary when we won't act on it?** One of the things that feeds our anxiety is the news. Driven to hook viewers' brains with eternally negative messaging, the news is hardly factual anymore but heavily loaded with opinions and biases, rarely compassionate, and mostly incendiary. > *Unless it's your job to stay informed minute-by-minute (politicians? investment bankers?),* > *or you have the means and the ability or the power to do something about all that is unfolding in the world,* > *you are better off remaining functional and present for your own life and your family's* > *rather than slipping into anxiety and dysfunction* > *because your worries — especially when unaccompanied by action — will do absolutely nothing to solve the world's problems,* > *but they will* certainly *multiply your woes.* For a long time, I argued against this. I thought it was irresponsible to not keep myself informed. Not watching the news was like being in denial, I told myself. But the only thing I'd do after watching/reading the news was brood over it, feel anxious and worried and get caught in thought spirals. What good did that do to anyone? My worries — because they were unaccompanied by action — made no iota of difference to people still suffering in war-torn regions. In addition, I'd become dysfunctional and not be fully present to myself and my family. Sometimes we feel as if we've done our part when we worry endlessly about a particular issue. Worrying entails an expenditure of time and energy, after all. That, in fact, prevents us from taking meaningful action when we're able to. Instead of worrying about what's happening in a particular part of the world and not contributing in a more meaningful way, I could focus on doing my work, explore ways to monetize my writings, and contribute a part of my income to relief efforts. That would be a far more valuable use of my time and effort in the present moment than indulging in endless loops of thoughts that keep me from doing my work or looking after my family for days on end. > *It is not selfish to look after ourselves in times of crisis. In fact, it is even more important to do so, because only when we are emotionally regulated can we be of help and service to others in need.* --- ### *Look for the good.* **Look for the good people, the good news, and the small moments of goodness in your daily life.** Hard as it may be to believe because of what mainstream media insists on showing us, goodness still exists. Seeking it out is crucial, and not irresponsible, especially in the most difficult of times. I love watching golden retriever videos on Instagram. I love the [Good News Network](https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org). I love baking banana bread at home. I love playing video games with my child. I love chatting with KrA about all things under the sun. I love heading out on lunch breaks with him, especially on weekdays. I loved having a Diwali celebration at our home this year with close family friends. I love making my way to Paletta Lakefront on a Sunday morning to catch the sunrise. ![sunrise over Lake Ontario](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/10/sunrise.jpeg) a moment of happiness I love having fresh flowers in a vase on our dining table. ![close-up image of 3 pink gerberas](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/10/flowers.jpeg) another moment of happiness I love reading books and dog-earing them to collect wonderful quotes that I can share with you at a later date. > *Focusing on our moments of happiness is not selfish or an act of denial.* > *It is an act of courage, in fact.* > *It is us standing up to the elements that are creating chaos and disorder in the world and saying, "I won't let this break me down. I will continue to be a beacon of light and hope by living the fullest life possible, given my circumstances, and sharing my strength with others."* When I am at peace and filled with joy and calm, I can look at the suffering of others with an emotionally healthy perspective. I am better able to help that way and not get caught up in the suffering myself. Even the Buddha has expressed the necessity of looking after our own welfare first in order to be of service to the world. > *Let one not neglect one’s own welfare for the sake of another, however great. Clearly understanding one’s own welfare, let one be intent upon the good. \~ Buddha* --- ### *Accept that much of life is outside our control.* **But we still have a lot of agency, creativity, and flexibility in the choices we make within the parameters of our existence.** I have no control over the decisions that governments and influential people make that have significant consequences for millions all over the world. Sometimes, high-level decisions work in my favour and disadvantage several others. On other occasions, decisions work against me but likely favour other groups of people. These things are not in my control. I can't help it if my favourite chocolate — Toblerone — now costs an annoying $5.49 instead of the $3.49 it used to cost a year ago. I loathe the fact that an ice-cream shake at Baskin-Robbins now costs $10 compared to $7 or so only a year ago. All while I'm not yet earning much income from my books. But I still have agency. Given the budget that I have, do I wish to spend my money on chocolate? Or could I be more intentional about what I'd like to spend my money on, and also about what I'm putting into my body? > *Not being able to afford something is not something to feel ashamed of.* > *It can be an exercise in exhibiting prudence and wisdom to realize that contentment and satisfaction lie not in the things that money can buy but in knowing that we have enough inner strength to not let our level of wealth or affordability or status dictate our self-worth.* I may never set foot in a 5-star restaurant but I can choose to feel incredibly proud of the nourishing meals I cook at home. (Sometimes I do wish I could rest while a plate of warm food magically appears in front of me. KrA is my wish-fulfilling genie on those days.) Sometimes we may not be able to immediately purchase something we like. We can save up for it. We can take this time to put more thought into our purchases rather than buying stuff on impulse. > *These meaningful shifts in how we think and act — slowing down deliberately to allow ourselves to be more thoughtful, more intentional — go a long way in shaping us as content, substantial human beings who are at ease with ourselves and can now offer our gifts of generosity, calmness, compassion, and understanding to the world.* --- I woke up at 4 this morning, my heart racing, my dreams full of chaos and cacophony. Even though I don't remember what I dreamt of, the turbulent impressions they leave behind are very vivid. This is the first time in a long time that I've been able to regulate myself emotionally — through self-awareness, deep breaths, some journaling, and just some steely determination to not let more days of my life slip away in anxiety over a future that is simply not mine to predict. In parting, dear Reader, I wish you too the strength to pull yourself from the endless depths of anxiety and thought spirals that keep you from meeting your present moments wholly. > *Every book or workshop on mindset, manifestation, mindfulness — whatever name you wish to give to the much sought after panacea for this ailment of living in the present-day world — says pretty much the same thing in different ways.* > *There is some merit to reading about others' experiences or listening to others talk about it.* > *It is like learning a language. The more you read in it or hear others speak in it, the more you begin to grasp its nuances and become fluent in it.* > *But no one can teach you how to do it unless you open your mouth and utter the words, no matter how hilarious your accent may sound at first, no matter if you use the wrong words for the wrong occasion.* In the same way, no one can tell you whether meditation or journaling or creative work or whatever else will serve as your balm in difficult times. It is a journey of exploration for you to undertake — running the entire gamut of mis-steps and failures — and find out what sticks, what makes a difference, and what helps you in the long run. **Become your own student. Become your own teacher. And in doing so, become your own wellspring of wisdom. *🙏🏼*** ### tales for dreamers: new caretakers in charge URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-new-caretakers-in-charge/ Last updated: 2025-10-24T13:00:18.000Z The neighbourhood kids have only grown more and more unruly over the years, so the homeowners have hired new caretakers to keep watch. The new hires are reputedly so good that the owners sometimes even leave their windows open when no one’s at home. Why they chose child-sized skeletons is anybody’s guess, but word on the street is that these guards are mightier than they look. They don’t really do much other than hanging by the door (literally) all day long. You could walk up to the door and ring the bell, even push the door open if it’s ajar, and the skeletons won’t even bat an eyelid. (Not that they have eyelids in the first place, but you get my drift). But come night time, and it’s a different story altogether. That’s when the skeletons come to life and roam the neighbourhood, quite like those unruly kids themselves. If you were one of those who broke into the house, they’ll pay you a visit at night. They’ll jump over the fence of *your* backyard, scale the walls of *your* home, climb into *your* bedroom through the window, and snuggle under *your* covers. There they’ll lie patiently, waiting for you to jolt awake from a nightmare (which they conveniently snuck into your head when you were dreaming), and grin at you in the way only skeletons can. And when you close your eyes and scream your head off, waiting for someone to run up and rescue you from this real-life nightmare, they’ll simply go back the way they came — out the window, down the wall, over the backyard fence — and take their rightful place by the door of their employer’s home, patiently waiting for the next victim to come to the door. This is how they keep their otherwise mundane job interesting and fun. --- *Last week's image info:* [*'The head with two faces'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/75082b98-9afe-4807-ae18-bb04c4a13181/) *waits for you at the St. Thomas Elevated Park. If you make your way there to seek it out, let the faces know I sent you. They'll indulge you in very interesting conversations if you keep an open mind and an open heart.* ### tales for dreamers: the head with two faces URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-head-with-two-faces/ Last updated: 2025-10-17T13:00:29.000Z There’s a head with two faces that sits atop a tall metal pole under the vast sky. One face speaks only the truth. The other tells only lies. But no one’s ever figured out which one’s which. At first the village folk tried to solve the mystery by posing questions with unambiguous answers. *Does one plus one equal two?* *Depends*, Face One answered. *Depends? Ha! You are the liar.* *Don’t you dare call my better half a liar*, Face Two said sternly. *Why ever not? Everyone knows 1 + 1 = 2\. There’s no doubt about it. So ‘Depends’ is not an accurate answer. It’s also an incomplete answer. Depends on what? Huh?* *Depends on whether you’re speaking of math or of lines drawn on a piece of paper,* Face Two replied. The questioner scratched their head and mulled over the nuances of this seemingly simple statement. *Then one and one could make eleven too?* they suggested uncertainly. *Exactly!* Face One beamed. Confused, the village folk tried another tack. *Does the sun rise in the east?* *Depends,* Face Two said. *No way! The answer is straightforward. The sun rises in the east.* *Depends on what you refer to as east,* Face One chuckled. The questioner slapped his forehead. *Everybody knows the east is where the sun rises.* *Just because someone decided to point in that direction and label it east doesn’t make it so,* Face Two said sombrely. And so it went on for days, with the village folk coming up with questions that should have had a simple, direct, unambiguous answer, and the two Faces responding in unexpected ways. *Nothing is certain, isn’t it?* one of the elderly villagers said with a sigh. *Yes!* the two heads replied in unison. *This is the truth you needed to understand.* Satisfied, the villagers turned to go back to their homes when a little girl piped up, *Then how do we know which face tells the truth, and which one lies?* The villagers looked at her — some raised their eyebrows in confusion, some let their jaws hang in frustration — then looked up at the two faces. They merely smiled mysteriously. *I guess we’ll never know, will we?* someone answered. Strangely, everyone agreed that it was the most satisfying answer they had heard in a long time. --- *Last week's image info: The* [*'skeletons from your closet'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/cfbeb712-1560-429d-9d99-c64f5c3e4a7a/) *are dancing on the rooftop of a lovely home on Flemish Drive, Burlington, where they're spilling all your secrets for the world to see. The Halloween decorations at this home are so wonderful it merits a visit every year.* ### talking to the demons that greet us faithfully every morning URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/talking-to-the-demons-that-greet-us-faithfully-every-morning/ Last updated: 2025-10-13T16:12:00.000Z It is in our most vulnerable moments — those few instances between sleep ebbing away and consciousness coming fully to the fore — that all our insecurities attack us. As though they had been lying in wait, watching the last of our dreams and the peacefulness of our sleep dissolve into nothingness, as though they hadn't kept us company throughout the night, and now, when we're deprived of even the company of nothingness, there is nothing to keep our worst insecurities at bay, and they spring upon us, ambush us, and overpower us in an instant, despite all our meditations and journaling, pooh-poohing all our breathing exercises and body grounding sessions, cruelly mocking what we proudly claimed was our journey of inner work and healing. --- Even after all these years of writing (20+) and being a parent (9+), there are several mornings when I wake up feeling completely ill-equipped to face the day, wishing I could stay in bed for longer without duties and responsibilities to force me up and out into action, or conversely wishing I had something to look forward to — especially beauty, ease, and trust — all of which seem to be in short supply at times when I need them the most. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that KrA is away this week, so it's only D and me together on this long weekend (Thanksgiving, that too) and for most of this school week, and the mere thought of getting through all the household chores, all the activities D and I have planned to do, making healthy meals — do you see how writing and exercising haven't found mention until now in my list of priorities? — makes me feel all grumpy and annoyed and upset and sad before the day has even begun. --- I feel terrified that I won't be able to get through all the things that need to be done, that I'd get angry and snappy in the process and cast an annoyed remark my child's way, only to later wonder why I'm not able to waltz through life in the seemingly effortless way so many others seem capable of, that I'd do something as unhelpful as eating a bar of chocolate for that sugar rush to soothe my anxieties and give me a sense of support, even if temporarily, only to feel immense guilt and inadequacy a while later. --- The funny thing is that I've been here before countless times. This isn't the first time these insecurities have sprung at me and kept me paralyzed in inaction, unable to think of anything other than how insurmountable the mountain is, the mountain of merely getting through the day. > ***It is on days like these that we need our greatest self-compassion. It is a skill to be acquired, no doubt.*** I have no interest in going down the past and talking about unhealed childhood trauma. Trauma is real, but in most circles discussions around it come tagged with a sense of entitlement as though one shouldn't have had to go through difficult times, but such a thing is impossible to achieve in an imperfect world full of imperfect people. > ***Emotional pain is a universal human experience; there is no life devoid of pain.*** Yes, there are lives devoid of the skills required to address and soothe this pain in a healthy way, and that is something we can address. ![a large body of water surrounded by trees, all enveloped in early morning fog](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/10/1.-philipp-FZSz9YB0e90-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Philipp](https://unsplash.com/@picture%5Fscape?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-large-body-of-water-surrounded-by-a-lush-green-field-FZSz9YB0e90?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) So, this morning, as we wake up feeling insecure and terrified that we'd completely botch this day, that we'd be unable to handle everything that's coming our way, that we'd give in to those old habits of blaming and shaming, of being rude and annoyed, of wishing we were someone else, somewhere else, doing something else, anything but these mundane daily tasks of living and writing and being a parent and retaining our sanity in the midst of the relentless demands of our daily lives, let us treat ourselves with the kindness and gentleness we'd show a child who, say, doesn't wish to go to school, how we'd listen to their worries, help them feel seen and heard and understood, and in doing so, instil in them the strength and courage to face whatever the day brings. > *If we can summon our inner wise self to speak to our present self with kind, soothing words of comfort and assurance,* > *instead of wishing we didn't have these demons to deal with or that we were a different kind of person who'd automatically know what to do,* > *that initial acceptance would give us enough strength to start to pull ourselves out of the rubble of worries and anxieties that we were buried under* > *and set about the day, even when we feel messy, incompetent, and incapable.* And that is my wish for both you and me this morning, dear Dreamer! #### **Wise Words from Rumi* Today like every other day we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. \~ Rumi ### tales for dreamers: skeletons from your closet URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-skeletons-from-your-closet/ Last updated: 2025-10-10T13:00:14.000Z The skeletons are emerging from your closet. Look how their faces are lit up with glee! The delight they feel at escaping from the places where you had hidden them is palpable. Look how they relish this moment of freedom! Of being able to emerge from rooftops, come crawling out of the ground, and burst out of windows and doors when least expected. But you’re too terrified to appreciate their happiness. Naturally, you’re worried about all the secrets you had kept concealed for so long even you had forgotten what they were. You’re worried about those secrets now spilling all over town, revealing to the world what you truly are. Fret not! Every house in this neighbourhood is beset with the same fears and concerns. Everyone’s secrets are unravelling faster than they can stop them. Funny how no one seems to realize that everyone is too focussed on the skeletons emerging from their closets to even cast a glance at yours! --- *Last week's image info: The quirky front-lawn featured in* [*'when the monsters take over'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/ade61e99-4fc8-420b-8034-dfa12a4a8061/) *exists somewhere in the Longmoor neighbourhood of Burlington, Ontario. If you can't find it, watch out! The monsters must be hiding, waiting to sneak up on you unawares!* ### tales for dreamers: when the monsters take over URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-when-the-monsters-take-over/ Last updated: 2025-10-03T13:00:15.000Z The sofa on the curb-side was the last straw. When the owner dragged his old, worn-out sofa out to the curb for the garbage truck or a less fortunate soul to haul away, the monsters were thoroughly affronted. How dare he dump something so ugly right in front of their front-lawn abode?! They demanded he take it back inside, but he merely scoffed and shook his head at them and went back inside. So the monsters have done what they could. They’ve nailed the sofa to curb. Not using big, rusty tacks of the kind used to pin a carpet to the floor. Naah! These nails are invisible, like a magic spell, and there’s no undoing them, unless the owner of the house were to ask the monsters kindly and politely. Which he hasn’t, so far. Both parties have to learn a lot about open, honest communication, rather than resort to outright dismissal (like the homeowner did) or passive aggressive tricks (like the monsters have done). In the meantime, the sofa remains perched there in all its torn and tattered glory. A warm, comfy place to sit in the sun, seemingly offering a brief respite in the midst of a long, endless journey. But knowing what I do, I wouldn’t sit on the sofa if I were you. Who’s to say I too wouldn’t be nailed to the spot until the homeowner and the monsters can agree to a truce?! --- *Last week's image info: If you'd really like to know,* [*'the trains are waiting'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/bf4183f7-d9e1-4065-9e95-04e7ff3ddca6/) *somewhere along the Burlington—Toronto Union GO train route. Sit by the window and keep a close watch; the waiting trains will reveal themselves to you.* ### September Sizzles: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-september-sizzles/ Last updated: 2025-09-28T07:00:46.000Z Oh, what joy it gives me to type those two words of salutation to you after a brief hiatus over the summer! Of course, I had pre-scheduled a short tale to reach you in end-August, but nothing compares to opening up a draft in the days leading up to the last Sunday of the month and starting to compose a missive to you. I hope your summer was good and that autumn is bringing you bright blue skies, leaves in all shades of red and gold, and a refreshing nip in the air to make your warm cuppa even more comforting. I had a grand summer with family visiting. Many interesting writing-related things also happened in this time. Plus, this newsletter also comes bearing lots of gifts. So let's get started with all the news, updates and reflections! --- ### *On Writing* A new book of mine is out! If you're surprised, I totally get it. I too had no idea until a few days ago that I had a completed manuscript — edited and proofread with a cover designed too — lurking in one my folders. All I needed to do was to put all the pieces together and publish it for the world to see. Took me only three years to finally do it. Yes! It's been 3 years since I finished writing *Blue-Skinned Mystics*! ![Ebook cover of Blue-Skinned Mystics by Anitha Krishnan featuring a mystical face against a blue, starry background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/size/w1600/2025/09/Blue-Skinned-Mystics_ebook_v1.jpg) #### ****Magic saved his village. Now, magic wants his soul.** The blue-skinned mystics descend on the village of Hanish, a land ravaged by drought and famine, and transform it into an oasis. All it takes to heal the barren village is a single drop of tear that rolls down the cheek of eight-year-old Ari. Or so it seems, until Ari begins to turn blue. Evidently, the saviours of his land intend to take more than they have given. Sacrifices must be made for the greater good. And an innocent drop of tear is not enough. **Blue-Skinned Mystics* is a literary fantasy tale, a coming-of-age story steeped in magic and mysticism, and a reminder that growing up entails its fair share of loss — of innocence, of simple-minded faith, and of the uncomplicated wonders of childhood. [Check out Blue-Skinned Mystics!](https://books2read.com/blue-skinned-mystics) > *This one's for you, dear Dreamer!* > *If you're a reader who wants something more than wishful thinking from your fantasy reads, and if you're brave enough to follow a child into the heart of transformation and sacrifice, get your copy of* [*Blue-Skinned Mystics*](https://books2read.com/blue-skinned-mystics)*.* *\*Available in ebook and paperback. Ebook is free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.* --- Meanwhile, I've also been making slow and steady progress on my current WIP —Book 2 of a fantasy duology. I've come to trust the process, so I know the story will unfold in its own time. I also find it hard to talk about a work in progress, because of how it shape-shifts and morphs as it evolves. So I suppose I won't have much more to say on this duology until it's actually done. But when I write *The End*, you will be the first to know. As always. --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* *Tales For Dreamers* is back! Since the beginning of this month, I've been back to posting stories weekly — both in written form on my website and in narrated form on my YouTube channel! Fridays are when the magic happens! Two of these tales — ***'startling rewards for the brave'***, and ***'more stairs to explore'*** — are based on images taken in Halifax. The other two — ***'don't feed the hungry goslings'*** and ***'the trains are waiting'*** — are inspired by local scenes. All four are utterly whimsical. More droll and wry than my usual fare, I suspect. [Read them](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-september-2025/) and let me know what you think! [![gallery of four images - a warning sign, goslings, railway tracks, a flight of stairs (clockwise from Top Left) - featured in September's Tales For Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/09/Tales-For-Dreamers---Sep-2025.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-september-2025/) Tales For Dreamers: The Collection for September 2025 And over on my YouTube channel, I have some gems up this month. I usually don't pick favourites, but this month there's a special place in my heart for [***The Piano Man***](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMrg2SYvQiQ)! It is a story of music and of the end of summer. I wrote this tale exactly 10 years ago, inspired by the sight of a man playing a piano outdoors on a sidewalk in the beautiful city of Montréal. Give it a listen! You will be transported to a musical, long-ago summer afternoon; worth it, even if only for a few, precious minutes. [![watercolour rendering of an image of an old man playing a piano under a leafy canopy](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/09/9.-the-piano-man-1.png)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMrg2SYvQiQ) Tales for Dreamers: The Piano Man, narrated on YouTube And since I really, really can't pick favourites, let me also point you to [***The Clandestine Meeting of Gods to Discuss the Growing Wish-Lists of Human Beings***](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY28BSYwjnQ). This is set to a tune with disco beats! Intrigued? Give it a listen and tell me what you think. --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* In more exciting news this month, a flash fiction piece of mine is up as a public art sign as part of the ongoing nationwide *Culture Days* celebration in Canada! My short tale, titled ***Alternative Uses For Public Art Signs***, was one among 20 written and illustrative works chosen for display by the city of Burlington this year! If you're in town, this is up at the Beachway Park playground (further down from Joseph Brant hospital on Lakeshore Road). The installations are up until 12 October! 💡 **And since you subscribe to Monthly Missives, dear Dreamer, you can read the tale* [**here*](https://thedreampedlar.com/alternative-uses-for-public-art-signs/)**. It is also archived in* [**The Dream Caravan*](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-dream-caravan/) *for you to read at leisure!* ![Image of me - a woman - standing against a public art installation featuring a short story of mine](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/09/Anitha_CultureDays.jpeg) Meanwhile, life has been chugging along. KrA (my husband) turned a year older this month. To celebrate his birthday, we went and checked out a Virtual Reality Escape Room for the very first time! It was a super surreal experience to simply put on those headsets and step into another world that looked and felt uncannily real. So much so that I was terrified to cross a narrow beam, falling from which would have hurtled me down an abyss in the VR world but would have had zero consequences in the real world! > *Funny how our minds — and bodies, perhaps — can fail to distinguish between illusion and reality even when faced with irrefutable evidence!* Later that evening, KrA and I were scrolling through the pictures and videos the manager was kind enough to take while we were immersed in the VR world. They were hilarious! The kind of gestures we were making and the actions we were doing made no sense whatsoever looking from the outside in. Without the bubble of that illusory world, the context was gone and we looked rather insane, seeing and talking about things that didn't really exist. Now I get why the world is so commonly referred to as *Maya*, or illusion, in Indian constructs. I often used to wonder how things that feel so real — *chai* so hot it can scald my tongue, the fragrance of my little one's freshly shampooed hair, the cosy warmth of a blanket on a cool autumn night — could be dismissed as illusory. The pain we feel when we stub our toes is very real indeed! What if the illusion is not those external things per se? > *Perhaps the illusion i*s the result *of the filter through which we see the outside world.* > *It's what we perceive through the lens of our beliefs and opinions.* > *It's the filter of our judgements and interpretations that distorts reality and presents a version of it that reinforces our beliefs.* > *It's the voice in our head that keeps screaming 'this is good' or 'that is bad' and refuses to entertain any other perspective whatsoever.* ![Me, my husband, and our child wearing Virtual Reality headsets and immersed in a game in an indoor room](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/09/VR-Escape-Room_V2-1.jpeg) Lost in an imaginary world For instance, until not too long ago I was stubbornly of the belief that if the sky was blue and the sunshine warm, then my time was best spent outdoors. I believed this so strongly that on those occasions if I had to stay indoors, I'd think I was doing something wrong. I'd be gasping in the clutches of FOMO. I'd feel terrible thinking I was letting this opportunity slip, that I wasn't carpe diem-*ing* enough. Needless to say, that was a perfect way of ruining an otherwise perfect day. Because when I told myself that sitting by the window or in the yard and reading a Charles Todd book was a perfectly valid way of enjoying a warm summer afternoon, that turned out to be true as well. Your turn now! What kind of beliefs are you clinging to that do nothing but distort your reality? What would it take to drop them? Write to me and let me know! --- ### *Books You May Love* Reading had taken a bit of a backseat in the beginning of summer. I went back to books for comfort in the slump that ensued after my family's visit came to an end. I first picked up Charles Todds' *The Red Door*, an Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery, in which the Scotland Yard detective gets entangled in a missing persons case. This tale is set in the post-WWI era; after-war life was just as harrowing as war had been, even if in starkly different ways. ![collage of 4 images, each featuring a paperback novel](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/09/Books-You-May-Love---Sep-2025.jpg) *The Night We Lost Him* by Laura Dave was an easy-to-read mystery. Two step-siblings get together to investigate the death of their father, which has been ruled an accident. They suspect it was murder. It's a love story and a mystery and family drama all rolled into one, yet reading it felt light and airy and not at all heavy. The coastal California setting may have also contributed to that breezy feeling. *Listen For The Lie* by Amy Tintera was an excellent and thrilling small-town murder mystery. Lucy was accused of murdering her best friend, Savvy, several years ago. But she was never arrested owing to lack of evidence. Now, a true-crime podcast host is intent on investigating this mystery. And thus the can of worms is opened. It was definitely an entertaining read and I enjoyed how it all ended. *King Of Envy* by Ana Huang is the first steamy, billionaire bad-boy romance I've read. I rarely read romance, so this was a very entertaining and eye-opening read for me. A supermodel, Ayana, is set to enter a marriage of mutual convenience with her close friend, but finds herself falling for the best man instead. What could possibly go wrong?! --- That brings us to the end of another edition of Monthly Missives, dear Dreamer! Thank you for giving me space in your inbox; writing these letters to you and hearing back from you are some of the things I cherish the most about this writing life. The rest of the year already looks busier than I had anticipated, so I look forward to sharing more fun updates and musings with you in October! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: the trains are waiting URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-trains-are-waiting/ Last updated: 2025-09-26T13:00:13.000Z The trains are waiting. They have been waiting for a long time. For passengers to ride in them. But even more for destinations they’ve never been to before. Many are weary of travelling the same routes, halting at the same stations, passing by the same sceneries over and over again. Some wish to ride in water, traversing vast lakes and oceans, bridging continents. Now *that’s* something very few trains have done, if at all. Others have simpler desires — to head off on new routes, paths they’ve never been on before. The ones who usually run the coastal route now wish to bore into the tunnels of the mountains. The ones who’ve kissed the clouds of the highest mountains far too often now wish to run beside sandy beaches and bustling cities. The trains don’t know this yet but plans are being made for them to be able to ride on air soon. Air travel — by plane, that is — is not what it once used to be. Luxury has become commodity. Operations have gone from being smooth and easy to chaotic and inconvenient. And the stewards and stewardesses are no longer warm and friendly; they look at you as though they’re silently cursing your very existence in their world, in their flight. Getting trains to fly seemed like a ridiculous suggestion when it was first made. But the engineers have since figured out it would only a few retrofits and tinkering, and many modern trains could be made to fly. I wonder what the trains would feel about that when they find out. Many would be excited about the prospect of a new adventure, I know. But the sky is an unending blue, the monotony interrupted only by clouds. I worry the unsuspecting trains would soon tire of these new paths too. --- *Last week's image info: The flight of stairs in* [*'more stairs to explore'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/cf5540a5-db4a-4dd9-b97a-f1b8a269b916/) *is in one of the forts at Citadel Hill in Halifax, Nova Scotia. There were plenty of them to climb up and down, but this one caught the eye for obvious reasons.* ### tales for dreamers: more stairs to explore URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-more-stairs-to-explore/ Last updated: 2025-09-19T13:00:45.000Z Everyone’s always going on and on about stairways, aren’t they? Stairs that lead up to heaven. Stairways that plunge right down into the depths of hell. What is it that makes stairways so interesting? Aah! Now I see. It’s not the stairway itself, but the place it could potentially lead to. That destination, which appears as a mere glimmer of light from here, where you stand now, on your tiptoes, craning your neck to catch a glimpse of whatever it is you hope will come into full, unobstructed view, once you’ve put in the arduous effort of climbing each and every step all the way to the top. What if I told you that what lies at the top is not very different than what lies behind you right now, as you stand at the very bottom of this not-too-long, not-too-steep staircase, holding your heart in your hand, hoping for your mundane, boring life to change instantaneously, miraculously, once you set foot at the top? You won’t believe me, I know. Surely there must be something different there, you believe. Something more thrilling and exciting, something that will serve as a reward for all your patience and all your effort. It is unbearable for you to assume otherwise. And this is why I will not disabuse you of your fanciful illusions. For I can see, you are eager to climb up the stairs, even if you’re only drawn by hope, laced with a gutsy feeling that something spectacular awaits you at the top. Because even if your illusion turns out to be exactly that, at least it kept you moving. And that is laudable, especially in this world where too many things can easily make you halt in your tracks. --- *Last week's image info: The little ones in* [*'don't feed the hungry goslings'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/9a9e64a0-5ec0-4b80-818a-105c2c8b4e66/) *sauntered in Paletta Lakefront at the beginning of summer. They're all gone now, all grown up and indistinguishable from the other adult members of their flock.* ### tales for dreamers: don't feed the hungry goslings URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-dont-feed-the-hungry-goslings/ Last updated: 2025-09-12T13:00:03.000Z There are boards everywhere that declare in bold, uppercase letters: DON’T FEED WILDLIFE. That includes these lovely goslings, but visitors to the lakeshore ignore the warning when it comes to the fluffy, downy, little yellow birds. What harm would it do? Just a handful of cracked grains. Anything to get them to come closer to you, perhaps allow you to stroke their oh-so-soft heads, as they peck hungrily at the grains in your outstretched hand. Most visitors heed the warning, not necessarily because a human being had planted it in plain view, but because of the adult geese standing watch over their little ones. They’ll come squawking and screeching at you, flapping their wings in distress and annoyance, to shoo you away from their little ones. But even the adult birds are not immune to the lure of easy food, especially in these times of overpopulation. After an initial hesitation, they get accustomed to the free meals you so gladly offer. It’s not all that bad a thing — the way you reach out to them for connection in a lonely world, and the way they respond to the sight of grains in your hand. But be wary of the day when you come empty-handed. They’d be utterly disappointed in you, and they won’t hesitate to express it. Hissing squawks, angry flaps of their wings, and annoyed pecks that hurt. Why do they express annoyance when they never showed any gratitude? You wonder. One of the little ones says wisely (and you’re startled at first to realize that they could speak and you had no idea all along), “You shouldn’t expect of others what you don’t expect of yourself, isn’t it?” And that, dear friend, is the reason they put boards warning people to not feed wildlife. It is to save people like you from the kind of disappointment you can’t handle. --- *Last week's image info: The warning issued in* [*'startling rewards for the brave*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/ea2ce55f-f7d0-488b-a027-e4e781fd990f/)*' rests on a boulder by the shore of the Atlantic Ocean in the beloved Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia.* ### tales for dreamers: startling rewards for the brave URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-startling-rewards-for-the-brave/ Last updated: 2025-09-05T13:00:47.000Z You’d think the brave would be rewarded with something more fulfilling than injury and death. Sadly, no. Not in these parts. If you ask them, the ones who carved this message into the stone, they’ll say that there’s a clear distinction between *bravery* and *recklessness*. As though it is possible to know beforehand whether an act would be deemed brave or reckless. Because, truth be told, in this strange world of ours, isn’t it the outcome of your efforts that determines how good or bad your deed was? If you were to face injury or death, you’d be deemed reckless. But, in traversing the same route, if you were to emerge victorious, you’d be labeled bold and brave beyond all measure. Like every adventurer and explorer who has come before you. Wasn’t their bravery too tinged with a smidgen of recklessness, laced with a drop of madness? For every human that survived their adventure, countless others died, often in oblivion. So remember this, dear adventure-seeker. It isn’t always carelessness that causes an expedition to end in disaster. Sometimes it is. There’s no denying that. But sometimes, it’s also fate. What they call destiny. Because even if you keep yourself at a safe distance from the sea, there’s no guarantee that the roads and the people you will soon return to will be any less treacherous. --- *Last tale's image info: The fork in the last tale* [*'up? or down?'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-up-or-down/) *posted in end-July before my hiatus in August sits on a path in LaSalle Park in Burlington. Almost always, I choose to go 'up' for views from higher ground and also because that path sticks closer to the lake than the other one does. Both paths eventually intersect.* ### August Art: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-august-art/ Last updated: 2025-08-31T07:00:00.000Z A little gift for when I'm away ... _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Programming Update for August: A Reminder URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/programming-update-for-august-a-reminder/ Last updated: 2025-08-02T11:09:49.000Z Hello, Dreamer! Just a reminder that no new content will be posted here or on my YouTube channel for the month of August. With family visiting and D at home for the rest of the summer holidays, it's the perfect time to take a pause and spend a little more time than usual in the real world than in the world of imagination. Which is where the archives come in handy! You can indulge in the collection of more than 150 [*Tales for Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/), and enjoy the six videos that are up on the [*YouTube channel*](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar) while I'm away. [*Field Notes From Liminal Spaces*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/field-notes-from-liminal-spaces/) is also paused for August and, unlike the above two, will not resume with regularity in September. Once D is back in school, I'd like to get back to finishing Book 2 of the science fantasy duology I'm working on and publish many other stories that I've written. [*Monthly Missives*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/monthly-missives/) will continue uninterrupted, although I'll schedule a modified shorter version for August. Something a little different from the usual fare. And subscribers, you can access three free books and bonus scenes from my existing works at [*The Dream Caravan*](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-dream-caravan/). Simply sign in using the email address at which you receive my monthly newsletter. Enjoy the rest of your summer, and I'll see you in September. \~ Anitha ### What if I'm not OK? What if I'm OK? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-if-im-not-ok-what-if-im-ok/ Last updated: 2025-07-28T00:00:05.000Z Have you ever had an almost nervous breakdown because you didn't buy something you really wanted to? It sounds almost ridiculous to say this, to admit that I was so caught up in wanting to possess something that the mere prospect of not having it was enough to cause emotional turmoil in me, but that is what happened recently. ### *the urgent desire to make the 'right' choice* Back in June, we headed out to Nova Scotia for a weeklong trip. Before leaving Baddeck, Cape Breton to head to Halifax, we paid a visit to the [Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site](https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/grahambell). Bell and his family lived here a century ago, and the museum portrays his various inventions and achievements along with memorabilia from his daily life. Off late, KrA and I have mostly been opting to purchase fridge magnets as souvenirs. Everything else almost always gets tucked away in a drawer or a shelf in the basement and we barely give it a second glance! We also spend a lot of time in the kitchen and dining room, so we often get to glance at these souvenirs and reminisce about our trips. Even as I write this, it occurs to me — why do we need to surround ourselves with memories, which only distract us from being fully present in the moment? Anyhoo, at the museum, we found a lovely little souvenir in the shape of an old-fashioned telephone box. Brown and black, in colour, it was carved out of wood. It looked cute at first, but upon closer inspection, we didn't feel as though we loved it enough to want to shell out about $15 for it. D found some stuff that he liked and was happy with his purchases. We left the museum — KrA and I didn't buy any other souvenirs — and made our way to a fuel station about 5 km away before setting out on our journey to Halifax. At the fuel station, I was gripped with a sudden desire to possess that little telephone-box-souvenir. So much so that after pulling out of the fuel station, I immediately pulled back in and parked, gripped by the urgent desire to go back to the museum and purchase that souvenir. ![an assortment of fridge magnets on display](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/07/sunguk-kim-WksmEy5wV1s-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Sunguk Kim](https://unsplash.com/@sunyu?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/assorted-color-toy-lot-WksmEy5wV1s?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) I thought I wouldn't be OK if I didn't have it. Despite all my learnings that the material world of form doesn't really assuage our inner cravings — not for long, anyway — I was convinced that the regret I felt then at not having made that purchase, the regret I was sure to feel later when I had returned home to Ontario, would smother me. It was a now-or-never decision. The fear that if I didn't get this thing now, I'd never be able to get it ever again, drove me mad. I was all for driving back to buy it. KrA, darling lovely KrA, said he was OK if I chose to drive back but he did express his opinion that it wasn't necessary. D said that I should follow my heart. ### *the foolish pursuit of trying to future-proof our lives* One of the biggest lessons for me in these past few years has been the realization that many of us, as a society and as individuals too, are unable to handle uncertainty and disappointment. We try to manipulate the circumstances of our lives to ensure optimal outcomes, which often translates to 'future security and certainty'. For instance, opting to attend or send our children to only the best-ranking schools and colleges to *ensure* the best job prospects for them after graduation. Except ... there is no way to 'ensure' anything in the future. > *There is not one single thing we can do today that will guarantee a certain future outcome. No matter how badly we desire it, we cannot 'future-proof' our lives.* When we were growing up, our entire generation of academic high-achievers was driven by one main aspiration — to head to the west for a better future. Well, sitting here in the vantage point of that 'future' now, can we really say this was the optimal outcome we all sought? The world can and does change in an instant. The ground feels as if it is constantly shifting underneath us and that we can never gain purchase on it. Which means we're going to fall. That's a given. That much is certain. But we don't want to fall. Because we are terrorized at the thought of how badly it will hurt! Perhaps so badly that we may never recover from it, never become whole again! And if we can do something now to prevent ourselves from falling in the first place, we've got to do it, isn't it? There's no choice, right? Wrong! ### *~~What if I'm not OK?~~ What if I am OK?* > *What if it all works out?* I recently heard Mel Robbins say that in a talk; she said that asking that six-word question keeps us from spiralling into anxious thoughts. It makes so much sense if you think about it. We often keep asking ourselves rhetorical questions like, "What if it all goes wrong?" or "What if it doesn't work out?" Of course, we're unable to answer those questions and we're left with only those questions to grapple with, adding worry and anxiety to the uncertainty of it all. But if we flip that question on its head and instead ask, "What if it all works out?" or "What if I'll be fine?" Sure, we don't have answers to those questions either, but those unanswered questions don't leave us with a pit in the stomach. Instead, they leave us with a sense of possibility and optimism. They leave us not with despair, but with hope. And that's a much better place to be in. This is completely different from someone telling us, or even we telling ourselves, "Everything will be OK." That statement immediately prompts a rebuttal. "What if it isn't?" Which is why the question "What if it all works out?" feels so much more powerful and effective in tackling worries and anxieties in the present moment. ![a tiny green sprout growing between a stack of rusty rebars](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/07/2.-faris-mohammed-nYGVN45DOHg-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Faris Mohammed](https://unsplash.com/@pkmfaris?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/green-sprout-growing-between-re-bars-nYGVN45DOHg?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Sitting in the car at the fuel station in Baddeck on the edge of the highway, when I felt as though my entire world would fall apart if I didn't buy that one tiny souvenir, I was also overwhelmed by the intensity of my emotion. It was again D who came to the rescue unwittingly. Knowing that he was watching me and learning from me, I took deep breaths and told myself and to KrA and D, "It's alright. It's just some material stuff. I will be OK without it." Something in me shifted then. It helped to understand that my turmoil wasn't about the souvenir; there was some emotional upheaval in me, perhaps I was troubled by having to leave from Baddeck, perhaps I wanted to stay in the calmness of nature and that vast open space for longer, maybe I didn't wish to go back to the hustle and bustle of a city ... But more importantly, when I could ask myself "What if it all works out?", and eventually tell myself convincingly that "I'll be OK, no matter what," it helped shift the narrative and move on. --- If you're wondering what I decided at the fuel station — to go back for the purchase or to keep heading towards Halifax — I'm happy to report that I chose the latter. I've learnt enough by now that material possession will never address the underlying emotional dysfunction we experience from time to time. So I decided to drive on and told myself that I'd deal with whatever feelings showed up later — remorse, regret, annoyance. A few days after we returned home, it suddenly occurred to me that I was perfectly alright without the cute little souvenir. In fact, I hadn't even cast a second glance at the ones that we had brought back. Little D had a similar experience. He got two souvenir pennies at Peggy's Cove, and one of them fell into a drain when we were parking the car in our hotel premises. Gone forever. There were tears and fears and a lot of cuddles ... and a few days later came the realization that he too didn't miss that penny anymore. --- I think I'm beginning to understand the meaning of that axiom 'Desire is the root cause of evil.' Desire brings forth so many emotions in us, and when faced with them, our first instinct is to squash them, squelch them out of our system. And fulfilling that desire feels like the only way to get rid of those feelings in that instant. Until the next desire and the next upheaval of emotions come along. And the story repeats itself. But desire too arises naturally. Of course, society and culture have brainwashed us into believing that owning more things and doing more activities will help keep those feelings of confusion and lack of control at bay. And we inadvertently go down that route until we figure out at long last that that path leads us nowhere either. So maybe the solution lies not in stamping desire out altogether, but to be able to withstand its arrival, and then its potential non-fulfillment too. To last long enough through these emotional cycles to realize that we will be OK with disappointment too. --- *If you loved this reflection, you'd enjoy receiving my monthly updates on the creative life. Sign up to receive* [*Monthly Missives From The Dream Pedlar*](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) *in your inbox. Arrives on the last Sunday of every month. Comes bearing the gift of three books of mine when you first sign up!* *Programming update reminder: This is the last post being published as part of the weekly schedule of Field Notes From Liminal Spaces. Also, Tales For Dreamers and my YouTube Channel will take a pause in August and will return in September. To know more, please read this* [*post*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/34eb9aba-3c39-4891-8c16-28833a91850b/)*. Thank you for your support, as always.* ### July Jollity: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-july-jollity/ Last updated: 2025-07-27T07:00:57.000Z > *I had written and scheduled this missive in mid-July, but it would have been remiss of me to send this out without mentioning the passing of Ozzy Osbourne earlier this week.* > *I've always been a Pink Floyd girl but one simply didn't grow up in that era oblivious to Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne.* > *Exactly a decade ago, I read his first memoir — I Am Ozzy — which was wicked, hilarious and, quite frankly, mental. I remember reading it and thinking no one could have made this up. What a full, even if manic, life this man lived!* > *For some reason, I vividly remember his descriptions of working in a slaughterhouse, and his claims of having bitten off a dove's head during a meeting with a record label team.* > *Not to romanticize all of his antics because Osbourne certainly flirted with madness and danger and must have caused a great deal of anguish and heartache to those around him, no doubt.* > *Yet ... Rest in peace, Ozzy! The world has lost some of its lustre and verve now that you're gone.* --- On to our regular missive now ... July has been a month of surprises weather-wise. Heatwaves alternating with thunderstorms, punctuated by days of blissful warmth and cool breeze. When D's away at summer day camp, the days still have some semblance of rhythm and routine. The one week he was at home in the beginning of July was a different story altogether. That week, the days gained a peculiar tendency to melt into each other, and time spun away erratically like candy-floss, so much so that one evening we forgot to turn up for his piano lesson and realized it only an hour after the fact! It's a little psychedelic, how time unravels when we don't imprison it behind the metronome of hours and days, months and minutes. Incidentally, one of my *Tales For Dreamers* stories — *Guardians of Time* — delves into the theme of time's amorphous nature; you can read it [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-guardians-of-time/) or listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC7go6i8LFc). --- In keeping with that spirit of abandon, I too feel like releasing this month's missive from the constraints of its usual subheadings, merging the *On Writing* and *Life, Unadulterated* sections into this unnamed one here, because one is the other, after all, for me. How goes it for you? Are you able to compartmentalize work from the rest of your life? Or do they bleed into each other for you too and it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins? --- ***Programming Update*** 💡 **I'm taking a pause from posting new stories and videos for the month of August. Regular programming will resume in September.* We have family visiting right now, and after that D is not attending camps for the remaining three weeks of summer. I was working to create and schedule content for August in advance, but all that ended up pushing my current fiction manuscript to the back-burner. So I've decided to press the pause button for August instead, and all the *Tales for Dreamers* stories and videos I've created will be scheduled for release in September instead. Hopefully that will give me time to refocus on the manuscript and make steady progress on it. So this is where archives come in handy. There are more than 150 [*Tales For Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) stories for your reading pleasure and 6 videos up on [*YouTube*](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar). *Monthly Missives* will continue as usual but with a modification for next month. 💡 **Next month's missive* — *August Art* — *will still arrive in your inbox on the last Sunday (31st) but, instead of the usual musings, will contain a work of short fiction you've likely never seen before.* --- ***The Dream Caravan*** Meanwhile, I've also created a page titled [*The Dream Caravan*](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-dream-caravan/), where you can find all your subscriber gifts: free ebook copies of *A Benevolent Goddess,* *Hide-and-Seek*, and a 25-tale excerpt from the 100-story collection, *Tales for Dreamers: Volume 1*; as well as bonus scenes from some of my books. If you're asked to sign in, simply use the email address you receive this missive at, and you'll be good to go! --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* This month's collection includes one wicked tale with a twist you won't see coming ***(an unexpected offering)***, one spooky story ***(dangers lurking on the bridge)***, and two thought-provoking ones ***(messages from the otherworld***, and **up? or down?)*.* Check them out [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-july-2025/)! ![gallery of four images featuring different nature scenes: a rusty metal bridge, a rocky shore, a ship on a lake, and a fork in the woods](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/07/Tales-For-Dreamers---July-2025.jpg) Tales For Dreamers: The Collection for July 2025 --- ### *Books You May Love* This month I turned to authors I've read before and ended up reading three outstanding books. ![Collaged images of hardback copies of Wild Life by Amanda Leduc, El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott, and A Duty To The Dead by Charles Todd](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/07/Books-You-May-Love_July-2025.jpg) I had previously raved about [*The Centaur's Wife*](https://thedreampedlar.com/why-growth-is-not-antithetical-to-enough-ness/) by Amanda Leduc, so when I saw her new book, *Wild Life*, I couldn't resist picking it up. And wow! What a fantastical ride! It involves two walking, talking hyenas, and their interactions with humans — specifically several generations of a particular family — over decades. It's a wildly imaginative read, and a great reminder of what excellent speculative fiction looks like. Megan Abbott's *The End of Everything* had previously enthralled me, so it was a no-brainer for me to pick up *El Dorado Drive*. It's a story about three sisters who get entangled in a pyramid scheme, and then one of them is murdered. Abbott has a way of writing that makes the words crackle with tension. The murder doesn't even happen until we're halfway into the book, but the first part was just as riveting as the second. If you've been around for long enough, you know by now that I'd read anything Charles Todd has written. I picked up *A Duty To The Dead*, a Bess Crawford mystery; she serves as a nurse in WWI and all her stories are set against this backdrop. In this novel, Crawford delivers the message of a dying soldier to his family only to get entangled in their murky past. I thought this was the best Bess Crawford mystery I had read, only to later find out that this is, in fact, the first book in the series! --- Another missive comes to an end, dear Dreamer! I must admit it has become increasingly difficult of late to find alliterative titles to these monthly missives. There are three months beginning with J, so I've run through many good words beginning with J in these past three years. Looks like I may have to start making up words now. As I write this missive, D is on his last week of summer camp. So we have an entire month of doing-nothing-ness to look forward to. It is truly a gift. Sometimes we just forget that. And that is my wish for you too in these remaining few weeks of summer. To have plenty of warm sunshine and cool breeze, and to be able to slow down enough to savour it all. \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: up? or down? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-up-or-down/ Last updated: 2025-07-25T13:00:11.000Z At this fork is where most people stumble. They waste precious moments worrying which way to go. Up? Or down? And no matter which way they choose, they walk on that path not delighting in the sounds and sights that present themselves on that path. Instead they are preoccupied with all that they believe they’re missing out on by not having chosen the other path. What would have they seen there? What kind of birdsong would they have heard had they chosen the other path? Would that have been a better choice? They want answers to questions that are too foolish to even be considered seriously. The smarter ones (the ones who think they’re smart; it’s their opinion, not mine) run down one path in the hopes of being able to come back and have enough time left over to explore the other path too. Why choose? And then there are those who feel overwhelmed by choice. They simply turn back the way they’ve come. The wise ones simply choose one path and head out in that direction. They know it doesn’t matter which path they choose. What truly matters is how they walk on that path. With presence. Or with unease. Both are of their own making. --- *Last week's image info: If you wish to receive* [*'messages from the otherworld'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/c41f1895-20fe-4912-928d-7b6e5129896d/)*, head up to LaSalle Park and take the trail in the woods that separates the grassy hill on one side from the lake on the other. If it's a sunny day with blue skies and white clouds, and if you're lucky enough, you might just make it in time to see the ship that brings the much-awaited messages.* *Programming update: Tales For Dreamers will take a pause in the month of August. Regular posts will resume in September. Please read this* [*post*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/34eb9aba-3c39-4891-8c16-28833a91850b/) *to know more. Thank you for your support.* ### Programming Update for August URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/programming-update-for-august/ Last updated: 2025-07-25T07:33:26.000Z I've had an overfull plate this last month, mainly trying to create and schedule content — *Tales For Dreamers*, *Field Notes From Liminal Spaces*, and YouTube videos — for the month of August when family will be visiting for a couple of weeks, and beyond when D will be at home instead of attending camps. We're lucky to be able to give him the freedom of staying at home and enjoying lazy, unscheduled days of summer. But in trying to create and schedule content in advance, my fiction writing has taken a backseat. I've also been on the brink of burnout in the attempt to create two month's worth of content in a span of 2 weeks. So here are a few upcoming changes. - *Tales For Dreamers* and my *YouTube Channel* will pause for the month of August. Regular programming on both these platforms will resume in September. - I've also decided to pause regular posts in [*Field Notes from Liminal Spaces*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/field-notes-from-liminal-spaces/) after August 3\. - Beyond that, I’ll share *Field Notes* whenever inspiration strikes and I feel there’s something meaningful to say — rather than sticking to a fixed schedule of posting every Sunday evening at 8 PM (EST). After my pause in August, I'd like to return in September with a focus on writing fiction (Book 2 of the Science Fantasy Duology), [*Tales for Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/), and story-songs for my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar). My monthly [newsletter](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/monthly-missives/) will continue to be a space for reflection and introspection. Thank you for your understanding and ongoing support. I look forward to sharing new reflections with you when the time is right. --- *Stay connected! Sign up to my newsletter,* [*Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar*](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup)*, for updates on book releases, short fiction, reading recommendations, and delightful musings on the writing life!* ### darkness within darkness URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/darkness-within-darkness/ Last updated: 2025-07-21T00:00:07.000Z 💡 **This essay first appeared as a guest post in The Daily Journal* [**here*](https://thenewdailyjournal.substack.com/p/darkness-within-darkness-a-guest) *and* [**here*](https://hestanbrough.com/darkness-within-darkness-guest-post/)**, hosted on a daily blog on writing run by prolific writer, Harvey Stanbrough.* I first came across the Tao Te Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text, half a decade ago, when the world was in the chokehold of a pandemic. At the time, my rational brain was looking for a way to make sense of the uncertainty that had suddenly befallen us. It took me a while to understand that uncertainty had always been a way of life. I had been too caught up in the false assurances of daily routines, laws of the land, and well-crafted plans for the future to even acknowledge this simple truth. Then daily routines were upended, laws were changed, and a bright future ceased to exist except as a forgotten memory. The only thing that remained was a vast, unfathomable unknown. Coming across the Tao Te Ching, the popular English translation by [Stephen Mitchell](https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0060812451/), in those times was a fortunate stroke of serendipity. I didn’t even have to read the entire text, which comprises 81 sections in all, to grasp the heart of the matter. The first verse said it all. It begins as follows: > *The tao that can be told* > *is not the eternal Tao.* > *The name that can be named* > *is not the eternal Name.* Several interpretations of these lines abound. I’m no expert on philosophy, let alone the Tao Te Ching, but I certainly know my own mind, thoughts and spirit better than anyone else does. I interpret these lines to mean that the instant we label something, we limit it by our definition, and by that very act we fail to explain its true essence. Which, ironically, is also something that cannot be fully explained in the first place. So how does this pertain to writing, especially writing into the dark? Writing into the dark is a journey into the unnameable. We cannot tell where a story will lead, or what a character will say or do next. If we attempt to identify, define and specify any of these aspects of storytelling beforehand, we move away from the story that had been waiting, all agog, to reveal itself to us in its entirety. The instant we try to shoehorn a story into a predetermined outline, it is not the same story anymore. The moment we try to cast a character within the boundaries of a particular trope or archetype, the character’s real essence, or at least some of it, the unnameable, indescribable kernel of it, is lost. Sure, there will still be a story and a character at the end of it. It simply won’t be *the* story that had wished to be told or *the* character who had merely wanted to share with you what transpired and trust you with the innermost secrets of their heart. > *The unnameable is the eternally real.* > *Naming is the origin* > *of all particular things.* > *Free from desire, you realize the mystery.* > *Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.* In order to tell an existing story with its existing characters who keep recounting their adventures in our ears in loud, animated whispers, we have to tell it as it is. The instant we start naming a story as falling within the confines of a 3-act structure or defining it as neatly fitting into a 15-beat blueprint, in the hope of slotting this mysterious, amorphous, indefinable thing we call story within the confines of a more solid formula, something with which we can finally grasp this thing that defies all logical explanation, we fail to see it in its entirety. We only witness the shadow of a spirit, not the sparkling, shimmering force of life itself. We only see the afterglow, having missed the journey of the glorious sun beyond the edges, both of this physical world and our limited worldview. We can only behold the mystery when we’re not trying to solve it. Once a solution is found, the mystery ceases to exist. If we can let go of our attempts to define and label, to rationalize and explain, to control and predict, the Universe reveals her secrets to us generously. Enlightenment comes of its own accord when we’re not actively seeking it. Our unconditional acceptance and understanding of the story that already exists then allows its beauty to unfold in ways we wouldn’t have known were even possible. > *Yet mystery and manifestations* > *arise from the same source.* > *This source is called darkness.* > *Darkness within darkness.* > *The gateway to all understanding.* How does one define life? Is it breath? Is it heartbeat? Is it consciousness? While all these are manifestations of life, none of them, either by themselves or collectively, come close to explaining what life actually is. We have to live it to know it. Plotters, pantsers, plantsers … whatever disguises we seek to cloak ourselves in, or whether we’ve long shed these limiting labels, we all write because of our love for writing and telling stories. Our willingness to trust what emerges and replay it word for word, as well as our fear-driven urges to confine and shape and determine what we can allow to exist in the form of the written word, both come from a desire to touch the wellspring of creative expression. We then have to ask ourselves a few questions. Do we really wish to discover what lies deep within that source? Are we brave enough? Are we humble enough to follow where it leads us? What will the darkness reveal? Or do we only wish to see what we’ve always seen? Through the lenses of worldview that we’ve always worn? Will we permit ourselves to seek only the comfort of that which feels familiar and certain? Only one path leads to the truth. The gateway to all understanding. The other is merely an illusion. ### tales for dreamers: messages from the otherworld URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-messages-from-the-otherworld/ Last updated: 2025-07-18T13:00:00.000Z The ship sails into the harbour only on sunny days, bringing with it messages from the otherworld. It is only when the sky is an unblemished blue and the water reflects the colour of the sky faithfully does the ship come into view. The entire town gathers by the lakefront, eager for news from the otherworld. The world where the dead and the unborn reside. Here live the ghosts of all those you’ve ever loved and lost. Here live the spirits of all those who are yet to come into your life, waiting, biding their time, until the moment is right for them to slip from the land of the amorphous to the land of the living. The ship comes into a view on a sunny day like today, bearing messages from the otherworld. Its residents write about the grand time they’re having, all the fun they indulge in every day. But they also write to us, the folks in town, telling us how much they miss us, and how they’d do anything to come back to the land of the living. And that makes me wonder if afterlife is really all that awesome as they’re making it out to be. They never invite us to join them on the other side. For that would mean wishing death upon us. And everyone knows, no matter how wonderful the afterlife may be, it is not a destination of deliberate choice for most of us. Not until our time has come. A time rarely of our own choosing. Until then, we must sate ourselves with messages from the otherworld. But that’s just as well. It gives us something to look forward to in these days of our lives too. --- *Last week's image info: If you'd like to make* [*'an unexpected offering'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/cbb8af62-bb98-41ac-8fc7-8abf8ce96343/) *to the strange coconut, head to the grounds of Paletta Mansion. With a little luck, you may find the coconut willing to engage you in witty conversation.* ### what would your deathbed regrets be? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-would-your-deathbed-regrets-be/ Last updated: 2025-07-14T00:00:21.000Z I've been enamoured by the concept of ['regrets of the dying'](https://bronnieware.com/blog/regrets-of-the-dying/) made popular by Bronnie Ware ever since I heard of it many years, perhaps decades, ago. If you haven't heard of it, Ware worked in palliative care and got to spend time with people who were in their last weeks of life. In her conversations with them, she observed recurrences of certain themes that the people who were dying mentioned they regretted about their lives. > *Excerpting from her blog post, the top five regrets are as follows:* > *I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.* > *I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.* > *I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.* > *I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.* > *I wish that I had let myself be happier.* *The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing* is in fact a [book](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13059271-the-top-five-regrets-of-the-dying) by Ware, spun out of the blog post and published way back in 2011. When I first came across Ware's observations, I was probably a lost and confused soul in my late twenties/early thirties. When I started to reflect on all that I'd likely regret on my deathbed, assuming that I'd live a long life, I remember being seized by the urge to travel and live close to nature. Even though I was working in marketing for an IT services firm at the time, even though I was enjoying my work greatly, ever since I started thinking about how those on their deathbed regretted having worked hard in their lives, I started to feel disappointed with my ambition. Ashamed, even. I thought I ought to do something different, something to write home about. Something Instagram-worthy? (Even though Instagram was probably not a thing back then. But Orkut was!) Travel and blogging were becoming more mainstream and I thought I ought to get into that. Live a life of adventure! Something heroic. Have lots of stories to regale my friends and grandchildren with. Except, that wasn't really where my heart was. It took me at least a decade to come to that realization. --- Feelings. They are such funny and complex things. It was only a few years ago when I read a book titled *Be A Triangle* by YouTuber and actress, Lilly Singh, that I finally realized that ambition wasn't a dirty word. I wrote about this at length back then. [books you may love: Be A Triangle by Lilly SinghNo matter what new hurdles come your way each day, you can always come home to an understanding that you can design a life that fulfills you. \~ Be A Triangle by Lilly Singh![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-37.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/4.1.-cathal-mac-an-bheatha-7kbP7sMkjo0-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-be-a-triangle-by-lilly-singh/) But the paragraphs that come to mind are the ones that follow. > *Much of contemporary self-help advice is in the form of suggestions doled out to everyone, irrespective of where they are in their lives.* > *Someone on their deathbed may look back and wish they had spent more time with family, but when you are in your twenties and young and the world is a treasure-chest you haven't yet started exploring, when you are a big mystery to your own self, of course you're not going to want to sit at home and spend more time with family.* > *Instead, you're going to want to go out, leave the cocoon of your home and take some risks and have adventures and find out for yourself the kind of person you are becoming, the kind of person you want to be, the absolutely amazing kind of person you already are.* > *And there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that.* --- I think I've spent a great deal of my life wishing I were someone else, somewhere else, doing something else. I've also often turned to others for advice about myself, sought out the teachings of wisdom teachers to shine some light on the path. But every human being — no matter whether you look upon them as a mystic or a demigod or a guru — speaks from their own experience. In order to figure out who we are, what we think, how we wish to think, we must stop making the mistake of turning to others. Because others can only tell us about what, why and how *they* think. When we approach them for wisdom about ourselves, they will only see us through the lenses of their conditioning and biases. I doubt any human being living in this world, no matter how self-realized they claim to be, is free of prejudices. I have come to this lesson far too late in life. I'll turn 45 this year, and when I look back at the amount of time I've spent reading self-help books, soaking in the wisdom of others — a good 25 years! — I can't help but wonder that if I had spent even a fraction of that time looking inwards, I'd now know my own self a whole better than I actually do. Mercifully, it doesn't even take that long to observe and understand ourselves. --- For me, coming back to myself has been a long journey. I set out on a quest to find myself when I was in my early 20s, seeking wisdom in the teachings of Osho to begin with, then quickly moving on to other teachers, ricocheting between them all like a squash ball bouncing from one racket to the wall to another racket and back to the wall in quick succession. Trying to implement conscious parenting after D came into our lives 9 years ago, when I was in my mid-30s, was itself a big eye-opener. This past year has been one of greater discovery and acceptance, perhaps partially because D is old enough now that we're not always buried under childcare responsibilities, and partially because I'm embracing various aspects of my creative self without pressuring myself to work more and monetize faster. Or perhaps it just needed time. Time for us to grow old enough to start reckoning with our own mortalities, with the ever-shifting nature of the external world of form, and accepting and honouring our utter humanness at the end of the day. --- So what does all this have to do with deathbed regrets? > *I've learnt that the only thing I'd regret at the end of my life are the moments when I wasn't present enough to myself, to the people around me, in whatever situation I found myself in.* I wouldn't regret spending time with lovely D and KrA. I wouldn't regret working hard. I wouldn't also regret reading great books and watching amazing movies. What I would regret are the times I spent wishing I were someone else, in someplace else, doing something else. Which means I've been consciously practising not time travelling in my head. When I look at the blue sky and white clouds outside the window, I'm learning to be content with having this view to savour instead of wishing I were on a beach somewhere, enjoying this vast expanse of blue. Neither experience is greater or lesser than the other. Sometimes I'm at a beach. Sometimes I'm at the lakefront in Paletta. Often I'm at home. ![blue sky above a blue ocean and a rocky shore](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/07/blue-sky-1.jpeg) blue sky No matter where I am, I can still enjoy the dance of sunshine and leaf-shadow, of clouds and the colour-changing sky, of seemingly mundane domesticity and the vastness of the wild outdoors. > *When the desire is to be present and not possess, there's little that can derail you.* I wish to spend my life being present, showing up to experiences that make their way into my life, not running away from them or manipulating circumstances and people in the illusion that I have any control over life and its ways. It is not at all my desire to own any more stuff than I already do unless there is a functional need for it. A simple, clutter-free life suddenly opens up space to show up with more presence in our day-to-day life. And I've also travelled to enough places by now to know that no matter where we go, our experiences are coloured by the state of our existence at that point in space and time. So tell me, what do you think your deathbed regrets would be? And once you know them, what do you intend to do about them? --- *If you loved this essay and would like to stay in touch, sign up for my free newsletter,* [*Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar*](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup/)*.* ### tales for dreamers: an unexpected offering URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-an-unexpected-offering/ Last updated: 2025-07-11T13:00:51.000Z The coconut was clearly washed ashore, but no one could tell where it had come from. It certainly wasn’t a native produce, that much everyone knew. Which means it must have definitely travelled halfway across the world. Where I come from, which is also halfway across the world, coconuts are used in worship. They are offered to Gods, especially in temples. They are smashed against a rock or any other hard surface and their flavourful liquid is poured over the deity or used to wash the idol’s feet. If you can ram it hard enough and break it cleanly into two or more pieces in a single blow, it is considered auspicious. Everything you pray for will come true. If it does nothing more than merely crack the first time, it means your prayers will not be answered. I peer at the coconut closely, wary of touching it. It seems whole. No cracks mar its fibrous husk. *What brought you here?* I wonder silently but don’t say aloud. In this part of the world, speaking with a coconut is proof that one is certifiably insane. As if in response to my question, a voice replied. *Crack me open*, it said. I jumped back. If speaking with a coconut is bad, then hearing its reply to your silent question is even worse. *I agree*, the voice said. *But let’s keep this between you and me. No one else shall be the wiser.* *Alright!* I was quite excited, and it was all very thrilling to have a little secret. So I picked up the coconut, rammed it against the largest rock. It didn’t crack. *Uh, oh!* *Don’t worry. Those superstitions are just that. Often it takes more than a few tries to crack me open.* I looked around to make sure there were no witnesses to this exchange. Only the waters lapped against the rocky shore in a gentle, rhythmic manner. I bashed the coconut against the rock and after several tries it splintered into two, but barely so. The two halves were still held by its thick fibres on one side like a hinge and I could open it as though it were an oyster bed. I ran my fingers along the cracked edges. A sudden sharp pain shot through me. Blood oozed from my finger into the coconut shell. Even as I watched, my blood trickled down the side and disappeared into the centre of the coconut. I threw the cursed thing away with a yelp. It snapped shut and sealed itself once more. *It’s alright*, the voice said again. *I was so thirsty. Thank you for your offering.* --- *Last week's image info: There were no* [*'dangers lurking on the bridge'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/55e8d91e-2cc4-425b-baaa-a1767be02ed2/) *when I last crossed it on the Centennial Bike Path behind the Nelson Community Centre and soccer field. But that was then. Things might have changed by now. Who knows? Care to walk there and find out?* ### what do you really want? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-do-you-really-want/ Last updated: 2025-07-07T00:00:11.000Z It's that time of the year again when we stand on the precipice of summer — more importantly, summer holidays — and try to figure out how to handle this parenting and working combo with no school to rely upon for much needed childcare. Many years ago, I remember telling myself that I wanted to be a full-time writer so that I'd have the flexibility of spending time with D during the holidays instead of always having to cart him off to camps. D, too, is a child who likes to relax at home just as much as he enjoys having days of activities. But when it came to it, I started dreading the long stretches of summer without access to the quintessential form of childcare that school had become. With no family to rely on for support, and little additional budget to hire nannies or babysitters to help out, we felt stuck. This desire for flexibility quickly turned into resentment when KrA would disappear into his basement office to take work calls for most of the day and I'd be upstairs with D. Spending time with D was never the problem. We have a grand time together, playing, laughing, listening to music, reading, cooking, eating, breathing, chilling, imagining ... What became a problem were two thoughts that constantly nagged at me: 1. When will I ever get around to doing my work if I were to spend all day with D? 2. How is it that KrA gets to work but I don't whenever D's at home? ### the folly of indulging in the fantasy of lives not lived What I really wanted was a life in which I could spend all day writing and publishing without feeling guilty about time spent away from D, and also a life in which I could spend as much time hanging out with and caring for D without being unable to write. When D was barely a year old, an old friend of ours visited us from the UK. I remember telling him I'd love to have days that were made of two sets of 24-hours each. I'd spend one 24-hour period being a full-time mom, and the other 24-hour period living the way I did before D came along. Except, no matter how badly I wish it were, such a thing is not possible in real life. 🤷🏽‍♀️ The biggest mistake I committed in the past was in looking at all the constraints I had and cursing them for their very existence, bemoaning my past choices for having led me to this present moment with its circumstances, and wishing these limitations would go away somehow. I also got into consistently berating other members of my family who, in my fantasy world, would have helped and supported me, but didn't/couldn't in real life. I falsely believed that if only I could have counted on them, I'd find myself free of these constraints somewhat at least. You can imagine how bitter and angry these thoughts made me. It was as if I simply couldn't switch my brain towards problem-solving mode and continued to fester in complaining mode because it had gotten very comfortable there. ![a blue bicycle half-submerged in snow on a sidewalk](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/06/alex-reynolds-YmddYzNdfw8-unsplash.jpg) Stuck! Photo by [Alex Reynolds](https://unsplash.com/@foxinframe?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-blue-bicycle-parked-on-the-side-of-a-road-covered-in-snow-YmddYzNdfw8?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) ### what we are really afraid of In his course 'Overcoming Creative Anxiety' over on DailyOm, psychotherapist and teacher, Eric Maisel, says: > *Anxiety is a feature of the human condition. It is a much larger feature than most people realize.* > *A great deal of what we do in life we do in order to reduce our experience of anxiety or in order to avoid anxiety altogether.* > *Our very human defensiveness is one of the primary ways that we try to avoid experiencing anxiety.* > **If something is about to make us anxious, we deny that it is happening,* make ourselves sick so that we can concentrate on our sickness, *get angry at our mate so as to have something else to focus on,* and so on. We are very tricky creatures in this regard.* > *\~ Eric Maisel* I'd like to say that the penny dropped the instant I read those lines. It did, in a way. But not enough to make me get up and do something about it. Creative anxiety manifested in me in various ways. I'd have imaginary arguments with my mum-in-law in my head. I'd worry about meeting with an accident or falling ill. I'd often pick up fights with KrA. I didn't know back then that it was creative anxiety. After all, I loved writing, didn't I? Then why would I feel anxious about it? It took me a few years to realize that I had taken to estimating the worth of my writing based on the financial returns it generated. And when I was in the place where I was still writing and testing out my works in the market, not seeing immediate results made me decide that this entire endeavour wasn't worth it. It all got twisted in a way that requires a whole other post to dissect and analyze the workings of a mind imaginative enough to come up with touching stories yet also prone to predicting doom and gloom for its own person! But digging deeper I found that what I was really afraid of was of making 'wrong' choices. I didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom, or even a mother, if it meant that I couldn't reliably predict a good future for my child. I didn't want to turn to writing fiction as a career unless I could prophesy great financial success and fame. > ***Essentially, I didn't wish to play the game if I couldn't guarantee a winning outcome.*** ![person wearing a black crew neck T-shirt that says 'Fears kill dreams'](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/06/jaqueline-fritz-DyT4a9GEjaA-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Jaqueline Fritz](https://unsplash.com/@trastornada13?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-in-black-crew-neck-t-shirt-DyT4a9GEjaA?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) I was in my early 20s when I was applying for a sales role within my company. The senior executive who interviewed me almost turned me down, saying, "You haven't encountered any failures in your life. I'm not sure you'll last long in this role." Until he had pointed out that fact, I had been ignorant of it. I always thought I'd do well no matter what I chose to do. And that had been the undeniable truth of my life until I stepped into working life and realized that he was right. I wasn't terribly good at taking rejection and disappointment in my stride. If I hadn't met with much rejection in the first 20 years of my life, the next 20 years went in learning how to encounter rejection without getting derailed. Yes! It has indeed taken me that long to learn this lesson. And I'm still a work-in-progress in this regard. Also, in case you were wondering, that executive was right. I didn't last in that role for more than a year. In fact, for most of my working life, I tended to take roles in which I naturally shone. I'd scale steep learning curves very easily, then I'd get bored of the routine just as quickly. But I rarely knew how to push myself to the next level, because I didn't know how to try and fail at something and then go on to trying some more without feeling crushed by that failure. This is the same energy I brought to writing and indie publishing too. Inadvertently, of course. I didn't know how to get comfortable with failure, rejection, being ignored, all of which are a given in today's publishing world and saturated market. --- ### success POV: reframing our definition of 'success' can be the antidote to our fear of failure Recently, D has been talking about how he has started to feel nervous about performing in front of an audience. When we talked about it, he said he didn't like making mistakes in front of other people. In the course of our conversation, we came up with the idea of Success POV. What does success look like in such a situation? Perhaps, just showing up to his performance makes it a success. How he performs — how many mistakes he makes, how well or badly he does — then become irrelevant. Because right now it feels so hard for him to show up and perform, taking that step alone can be the relevant metric of success. Perhaps he could take deep breaths to soothe his worries. Perhaps he could remind himself that today, success is simply showing up. This conversation made me reframe how I viewed my own endeavour and writing and publishing fiction. How I've deemed it a big failure and a pointless exercise because I'm not raking in the moolah or I haven't been propelled to global stardom yet. All those worries kept me from showing up to the writing desk for days and weeks on end. Until one day, I wrote down this question: > *What would I do if I remembered that this life is short and I don't want to waste it chasing approval or fearing lack?* The penny certainly dropped this time. That too with a loud, resounding thud. > *What would I create if I wasn't afraid of being unseen or unpaid?* Wasn't it Annie Dillard who said, *'How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives'*? Even if I had all the money in this world, what I'd really be doing is writing or spending time with KrA and D. > *So my success POV is: Show up and do the work.* Whether or not it brings in financial rewards is immaterial. We have enough money to live a modest life. I absolutely love the time I get to spend with D. We've been able to create a life that doesn't rely on screen time, and for that alone I think the effort has been worth it. ![man climbing a ridge high on the Lagginhorn, with Italy hidden beneath the layer of clouds in the background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/06/4.-jef-willemyns-mluUYXoTotY-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Jef Willemyns](https://unsplash.com/@jefwillemyns?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/man-climbing-on-gray-mountain-mluUYXoTotY?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash)[Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-blue-bicycle-parked-on-the-side-of-a-road-covered-in-snow-YmddYzNdfw8?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) ### so, what do you really want? When I was struggling to write, I used to get pissed off at the mere suggestion that perhaps I didn't want it badly enough and that's why I was letting my passion slide. My intention in asking you that question 'what do you really want?' is not to put you in a spot and suggest that whatever it is you claim you want, you just don't want it badly enough to do something about it. Maybe you want it badly, but there's some kind of fear blocking you from reaching out for it. So what you really need are tools and mechanisms to cope with that fear, not for someone to shame you into believing that your passion is a fad or that you lack ambition or that you don't want to realize your dreams badly enough. Once you unpack the fears and distractions that come between you and what you want, you can name them for what they are. Thereafter, aligning your thoughts and actions with your desires begins to feel rather straightforward. So, dear Reader, what is it you really want? And what fears are keeping you from going after your dreams? But more importantly, how are these fears showing up in your life? The answers might just surprise you! --- If this post stirred you to pause, reflect and think, I invite you to [join my newsletter](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup), *Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar*, for musings on embracing the creative life, writing and book-related updates, and more reflections and thought-provoking fiction. ### tales for dreamers: dangers lurking on the bridge URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-dangers-lurking-on-the-bridge/ Last updated: 2025-07-04T13:00:57.000Z The bridge through the tunnel of leaves looks pretty from this point but it has hidden dangers I must warn you of. That picturesque image of greenery and light at the end of the tunnel is merely an illusion. Truth be told, there is no light at the end. In fact, there is no end to this tunnel. It is merely a long, endless wandering with no set destination in store for you. Quite frequently, you will get tired on this journey. There are no benches or rest stops along the way. You could choose to lie down on the ground, but if the earth is in a nasty mood, it could open up and gobble you down without warning. That would mark the end of your journey, then and there. Except, no one will ever know the truth of what happened to you en route. Oh, and no one cares to sprinkle salt on the bridge. Which means that ghosts and monsters run amok here, without any inhibition or restraint. Of course, you could always choose to turn around and go back the way you came. But there’s no telling what perils might have cropped up behind you when you weren’t looking. --- *Last week's image info: The headless tree, which is all set to offer* [*'a fitting response to a senseless punishment'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/59018312-1f02-4670-9e6f-3a9aa48ef024/)*, stands by the car park on the southern end of the beloved Central Branch of the Burlington Public Library.* ### the only thing that can change your life URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-only-thing-that-can-change-your-life/ Last updated: 2025-06-30T00:00:50.000Z One of the things I love about works of fiction is how people who analyze these works can easily pinpoint to a moment of climax. That instant that slices the life of the protagonist into distinct 'before' and 'after' phases. That moment in time when everything changes and there is no going back for the protagonist after that. Perhaps the reason I love this clear bisection so much is because of its utter absence in real life. In my own life, I've had moments when I've felt that this is it, everything could change from hereon. But then a new day would dawn, some of that excitement would begin to wane, and I'd come to the realization that life on the other side of that moment is different in some ways but also exactly the same in many other ways. --- ### Why nothing seems to change even after moments of big transitions Consider this. My contemporary fantasy novel, [*Dying Wishes*](https://www.kobo.com/kobo-writing-life/blog/rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize-2023-kwl-author-spotlight-on-anitha-krishnan), was a finalist for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in the Speculative Fiction category. When that nomination came through, I thought "This is it! This is the shot in the arm I needed. Now I'll never have to worry about whether or not I'm a good writer. See? I'm a finalist for such a prestigious prize." That feeling perhaps lasted for a few days. A week, at most. After that I easily fell back into my old patterns of worrying more than writing, of feeling that my work wasn't worthwhile, yada yada yada. Not to mention that when I didn't win the prize, I took it as the ultimate nail in the coffin of my writing career, the significance of that nomination entirely diminished and completely forgotten! Now that I think about it, even the big moments that we think define our lives and completely change the course of our life's trajectory — falling in love, marriage, becoming a parent — don't actually crack our lives open into two. Sure, the external circumstances change, that too in a big way. If you were single, now you suddenly have a partner. If you were a couple, now you suddenly have a wee infant to look after. Or you're out on a grand vacation, a year backpacking around the world. The highs of these moments lasts for a while, no doubt. We do become new people for some time. Buoyed with a sense of change, of joy and unbridled optimism, we ride on that wave of happiness and come to believe that we can conquer the world, that nothing petty can topple us from the throne of open-heartedness we're now perched upon. And then something happens. Maybe you're late for work. Maybe you spilled coffee on yourself en route to a job interview. Maybe someone snarled at you on the street for no good reason. And we go back to being our small, scared, insecure selves. Not only are we toppled off the throne, we also find ourselves thrashing and flailing about in the muck we've fallen into, not knowing how to pull ourselves out. In these moments of difficulty, our old patterns of behaviours and emotions hold us in their clutch once more, bobbing us about like a puppet with no control over what it says or does. No wonder then, that despite the seemingly big moments in our lives, nothing seems to change. Everything seems to fall back into the same inane patterns created by our mental selves, over and over again, no matter what changes on the outside. ![leaves hung from a string in shades ranging from green to yellow to red to indicate transition from spring to summer to autumn](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/06/chris-lawton-5IHz5WhosQE-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Chris Lawton](https://unsplash.com/@chrislawton?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/assorted-color-lear-hanging-decor-5IHz5WhosQE?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) ### So, what can we change instead? Every self-help guru has drilled into us ad nauseam that while we cannot always choose the circumstances of our lives, we can always choose our reactions to them. I agree with this. But that is not the point of my essay today. While it's true that we can choose our reactions, have you noticed how we are able to do this sometimes? Say once. Twice. And it feels great. But the third time it feels as though it requires too much effort from our end to even make that choice. It feels a whole lot easier and comfortable and safer to simply yell or scream or tune off or lapse into whatever mode of distraction we've gotten accustomed to over years and years. We give up trying to change for a while ... and then sick of our own patterns, we get back on the bandwagon of self-improvement and growth. > *The one factor that makes all the difference is this: *time*.* It takes an insane amount of time to truly change ourselves and our lives. In this world of instant gratification, celebrations of seemingly overnight success, and showy displays of fame and achievements, we often forget how — for the average person — it can take a really, really long time to see significant changes in themselves and their lives. I first became aware of emotionally healthy responses to life circumstances shortly before D was born. It has taken me nine years to get to a place where I can say that about 90% of the time, my responses are calm, my self-talk is encouraging and kind, and I'm able to discern when to show up and when to rest. Is it to do with age? Or life experience? I don't know. I suppose the more time we spend doing something, the better we get at it. But often this is construed as follows: Say, if we spend 1 hour a day practising playing the piano, then we could reasonably expect to reach a certain level of expertise in 3 years. So we rationalize that if we were to spend 3 hours a day instead on practise, then we'd reach that same level of expertise in 1 year. While this may hold true for various skills — of course, there'd be limits beyond which this rule wouldn't hold owing to fatigue, exhaustion, in line with the laws of diminishing returns — what trips us up in life in this. > *We cannot condense 3 years of life experience into 1 year in order to experience three-fold growth in that period of time.* What we learn over 3 years is meant to take 3 years of time. And, I believe, this process happens chronologically. Who I am today, in mid-2025, is vastly different than who I was two years ago. So if my mid-2023-self were to write a post in today's circumstances, she'd have a very different take on life and on this very topic. Somehow we all seem to be in a great hurry to achieve growth and accolades, to reach that state of everlasting inner peace, and then go on to define the rest of our lives based on that moment of instant transformation. > *Perhaps, then, the questions to ask ourselves are these: What's the great rush? What are we in a tearing hurry for?* > *When we find that we really have no answers to these questions, we'd be able to let go a little more. Breathe a little deeper.* > *And trust that time, and time alone, will bring us the clarity and change that we seek.* --- *If you liked this piece, you will find echoes of it in my fantasy fiction short story, *The Mind Meddler*.* *It is available to download for *free*, alongside other great books, in a promotion featuring interesting, offbeat tales:* [*The Weird. The Strange. The Uncanny.*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/quickreads/fqqexugmxf) *The promo ends on *5 July*! Be sure to grab your free copy before then.* ### June Jazz: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-june-jazz/ Last updated: 2025-06-29T07:00:06.000Z June has been a wild ride! We have a newly-turned-9-year-old at home, we've just come back from a weeklong trip to the gorgeous land of Nova Scotia, and — I bet you didn't see this one coming (I didn't either, I promise!) — I now have a brand new YouTube channel! 🎉 I have so much to share with you in today's missive, so grab a cuppa and read on! --- Firstly, my short story, *The Mind Meddler*, is available for free until 5 July — less than a week to go — as part of [*The Weird, The Strange, The Uncanny*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/quickreads/fqqexugmxf) promotion over on BookFunnel! ![Image of an e-reader displaying the cover of my short story 'The Mind Meddler' featuring colourful silhouettes of human heads in profile](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/06/The-Mind-Meddler_Ebook-Cover-MockUp-1.jpg) This is one of those stories that reminds me why I love writing speculative, metaphysical fiction so much! Writing tales like these helps me delve into cherished themes of soul-searching, conscious living, and metaphysics in a way that's not preachy and prescriptive like non-fiction tends to be. I love for my stories to be thought-provoking. But I have no desire whatsoever to tell anyone what or how to think. If my stories help anyone reflect on their own life and see it in a new way, a way that is hopefully kinder, more compassionate, and more accepting than before, I'd consider that a job well done! So if you haven't read this short story yet, grab a copy, read it, and let me know if it resonated with you! [Get these free stories!Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-34.ico)![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/header-2.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/quickreads/fqqexugmxf) --- ### *On Writing (and YouTubing!)* So ... as I mentioned last month, I've started writing Book 2 of my current fantasy duology series. Book 1 is currently in edits, and Book 1.5 is awaiting a cover to be designed. Surprisingly, none of their titles are finalized, now that I think about it! I'll have more concrete updates to share towards the end of summer. As always, you'll be the first to know! Anyhoo, turns out I like juggling multiple projects in tandem. I had been hearing many authors speak about how they were uploading their audiobooks to YouTube. Now, I don't have audio versions of my books, so I decided to turn to my repository of *Tales For Dreamers* flash fiction tales instead. I've been narrating these tales — and mixing them with music! — so the result is a collection of story-songs (I didn't even know that was a word until a few days ago!) you can lose yourself in. [The Dream PedlarIf you believe stories can be portals, poems, and prayers all at once — we must be soulmates. Hello, Dreamer! I’m Anitha Krishnan, speculative fiction author and award-winning poet. I write fantasy fiction with a dash of mysticism and soul-searching. On this channel, you’ll find gentle, magical stories designed to stir your imagination, soothe your spirit, and leave you with a sense of wonder. Each video features a short story from my Tales for Dreamers collection — perfect for a quiet moment in a busy day. If these stories speak to your soul, you’ll find more whimsy and wonder in my newsletter, Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar. ✨ New videos every Friday at 8 PM EST 📚 Read more stories: https://thedreampedlar.com 💌 Monthly Missives: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter/![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon_144x144.png)YouTube![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/oQ3vH37CJBUtSYBThyhtHAzykgsy9mv5uldzyjyDTim4EEYTGFvHv7pB5tKHy2f4NfZqq6a4Jfs-s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj)](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar) I launched the channel @thedreampedlar on my little one D's birthday! Naturally, the first story-song is a tale about him, titled *'About My Favourite Woodland Creature'*. Many of you would have read this tale when I first published it in February. Take a a listen now, and tell me how it sounds! A new story-song goes up every Friday evening at 8 PM (Eastern Time), just as a new *Tales For Dreamers* tale appears on my website every Friday morning at 9 AM (Eastern Time). They'll be different stories. I'm digging deep into my archives for the YouTube versions, so there'll be many gems you may have forgotten about or not seen in the first place! You can subscribe to my channel and YouTube will notify you every time a new story-song is published. > *It's been such a joy to create these story-songs and this exercise has kindled my creative spark in unexpected ways. Like my website and this newsletter, my YouTube channel is also designed to be a space of calm, creativity and deep, unhurried contemplation.* When I played these recordings to my family, little D said that I sound like Professor Trelawney! And I laughed and said, "Yes, that was the effect I was going for!" Each story has a different audio track. The melody is not merely in the background, but the words and the music come together in such a way it's now impossible to imagine they were once apart! This is the kind of stuff my younger self would have loved to listen to on repeat, high on weed, paying attention to every beat and inflection, seeking magic in pauses and silence just as much as in the words and the melodies. Have a listen, and subscribe to my channel if this appeals to you! But above all, I hope you too perceive my channel as a place to turn to whenever you find yourself seeking a balm for your soul. --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* It's quite an eclectic collection of flash fiction tales this month! Two tales inspired by decorated windows are ***'the writing on the wall'*** and ***'talking heads'***. Then there's ***'a lighthouse marooned'*** and an apparently headless tree that inspired ***'a fitting response to a senseless punishment'***. I also reposted ***'about my favourite woodland creature'*** on the occasion of D's birthday! Check out the collection [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-june-2025/)! ![5-photo collage of images that inspired the June 2025 collection of Tales For Dreamers stories](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/06/Tales-from-June-2025.jpg) Tales For Dreamers: The Collection for June 2025 --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* Somehow in the midst of my YouTube adventures, we managed to head out on a weeklong vacation to Nova Scotia. First, there were the breathtaking views of the Atlantic Ocean to savour. Of course D had to dip his feet in the Atlantic even if the water was quite chilly. He also loved scampering up and down the vast rock structures in Peggy's Cove. He took to saying, "I don't like rock-climbing but I love climbing rocks." Get it? 😂 ![4-photo collage featuring views of the Atlantic from atop the Skyline Trail, Ingonish Beach and Peggy's Cove](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/06/Nova-Scotia.jpg) Behold the vast Atlantic; D at Ingonish Beach; Peggy's Cove; D and KrA exploring There's something about these vast landscapes that helps put our lives and troubles in perspective. In [*Hello, Dreamer!*](https://books2read.com/hellodreamer/) — my little book of 100 short poems and verses — there is a poem titled 'Relativity' (which I wrote on Day 39 of the 100-day-project that spawned this book). > *There is a reason the skies are vast,* > *the oceans boundless,* > *and the mountains proudly tall.* > *It is to make all our heartaches and worries* > *appear piteously small.* The Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years whereas the origin of *Homo sapiens* is traced to only 300,000 years ago. That's only 0.007% of the [history](https://carnegiemnh.org/earth-history-in-your-hand/) of our planet! That's the equivalent of 37 minutes out of an entire year! How irrelevant we are! There's such great liberation in understanding that. --- This has also been the year of me becoming more accustomed to my increasing irrelevance in D's life — perhaps 'irrelevance' is too harsh a choice of word in this context — but D's definitely growing more and more independent. It's a different kind of dynamic, where there's less dependence on his part and more ease as he tries on different ways of being, exploring and making choices and seeing where they lead him. This is also the year I'm once again beginning to see KrA as his own person rather than as primarily D's dad. Without being overwhelmingly buried in the daily busy-ness of looking after a small child, we're now able to stick our heads out of the proverbial frog's well and see each other and the rest of the world with a little more clarity and attention with each passing year. I delve more into these musings in [*'9 years of being a mother'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/9-years-of-being-a-mother/) and [*'on being a father'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/on-being-a-father/). Parenting is an utterly tricky business. I don't think anyone really figures out it until after the children have grown up and flown the nest, and then hindsight gives us all the answers we once desperately sought. 🤷🏽‍♀️ --- ### *Books You May Love* There was little time to read this month, mainly as I was staying up late, listening to and selecting audio tracks for my YouTube adventure. But I did read two very interesting books! ![2-photo collage displaying hardcover copies of Harlan Coben's Nobody's Fool and Sarah Wynn-Williams' Careless People](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/06/Books-You-May-Love.jpg) I had been waiting to read Sarah Wynn-Williams' *Careless People* and I finally got to do so this month. She worked at FaceBook and was in charge of the company's public policy. She wrote this book after she left the organization. It's a very interesting read as Wynn-Williams offers insight into decision-making at the senior management level in the company. I firmly believe that there's always two sides to a story, so I did read the book with a pinch of salt. I'm no longer surprised to learn that leaders of large organizations and institutions are often driven by ego and short-term gains rather than by long-term vision when it comes to decision-making. We only need to look up the daily news for endless evidence of that. What surprised me more was the amount of macabre glee I derived from seeing Wynn-Williams tear down the likes of Zuckerberg and Sandberg. I honestly thought I was better than that, than society at large that loves putting people up on a pedestal only to take even more delight in bringing them down. 🙈 There was a sense of, *'Oh, even with all the resources at their disposal, people at that level can be just as petty and mean and insecure as anyone else. Then why hold my small, ordinary self to lofty standards of perfection?'* What a relief that was! Then I picked up Harlan Coben's *Nobody's Fool* for a fun, thriller ride. I doubt I've read a Coben book before but I've watched several of the Netflix series based on his books and enjoyed them. *Nobody's Fool* is everything a thriller is expected to be — fast-paced, with lots of action, everyone hiding the truth, and one man's relentless drive to get at it. I read it in two sittings and it served as much-desired distraction from the monotony of day-to-day life! --- And that is how yet another missive and nearly half of this year are coming to an end, dear Dreamer! The more I think about life and its vagaries, the more I'm convinced that it's not about *'getting it right'*, whatever that even means. It's probably just as simple as showing up and doing the best we can. Because if condensing Earth's history into 1 year collapses modern human's existence into a mere 37 minutes, then the average human lifespan of 80 years translates to 0.59 seconds in that timeframe! So tell me, dear Dreamer, if you understand how short life is, would you really spend it chasing approval or fearing lack? If not, what would you do instead? Much love, Anitha ### tales for dreamers: a fitting response to a senseless punishment URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-fitting-response-to-a-senseless-punishment/ Last updated: 2025-06-27T13:00:56.000Z In these parts, there is only one punishment for any mistake made, no matter how big or small: decapitation. No questions are entertained. It doesn’t matter if all you did was tell a lie or stole a fortune. The punishment remains the same. A swift severance of the head from the rest of the body. The powers-that-be have determined there can simply be no room for error. They’re of the belief that mischief not nipped in the bud goes on to foster a criminal mind. We don’t necessarily agree with them — how can one possibly learn and live and grow without trying and making mistakes? — but we understand they are operating out of fear. Fear of an unknown future. And they’re doing everything they can to prevent certain outcomes, to bend the unfolding of the future to their will. I know. I know. We’ve tried telling them it doesn’t work that way. But they wouldn’t listen. Their fear has them in an ironclad chokehold. So we’ve come up with creative solutions instead. All beings who live in these parts have evolved to regrow their heads. It is a painful process, no doubt, but that is a small price to pay to remain true to who we really are. Curious, fearless beings, eager to explore and experiment. And in the process we’ve learnt that pain is a whole lot easier to endure than fear. --- *L*as*t week's image info: The woods featured in* [*'about my favourite woodland creature'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/f183eaee-2867-49ed-951d-8cd80a553884/) *are at Niagara Glen. It's one of the trails that lead down to the river rapids. The woodland creature itself has long gone to other parts of the world, exploring new places and having new adventures even as we speak.* ### 9 years of being a mother URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/9-years-of-being-a-mother/ Last updated: 2025-06-23T00:00:51.000Z Little D turned 9 years old on Friday! I won't say that this past year went by in the blink of an eye, because it did not. Somehow, this year I managed to be present more often, and even when I was given to losing myself in worries about the future or regrets about the past, I was also acutely aware of being trapped in those illusions. ### a year of incredible growth It was, most certainly, a year of watching D change and grow in leaps and bounds, feeling all sorts of conflicting feelings arise in myself, and trying my best to handle it all while trying to stay sane and calm. Following our trip to the UK and India last summer and meeting many of our relatives opened up D to a whole world of people out there who were eager to shower him with love and affection. What that does to the confidence and self-esteem of a child, or any human being for that matter, is simply remarkable! D was quite confident of navigating his first day at school without my presence at morning drop-off. He went off on full-day school trips without requiring me to tag along. (The duration of his ski trip his class got to experience for the first time, being in Grade 3, was the longest I'd been away from him. 6 AM to 6 PM!) He was happy to be dropped off for playdates and didn't need me to tag along. Hugs and kisses are mostly a thing of the past now, although whenever I'm given the occasional allowance, I leap to make the most of it. This was the year D went up three shoe sizes! Last summer, his shoe size was 1\. By March, he was already fitting in shoes of size 4! This was also the year D started calling me *'Mom'*. His wake-up call for me in the early morning moments of vulnerability is *'Mommy'*. *'Mumma'* is completely out of his vocabulary now. ### navigating my newfound freedom by turning to creative pursuits Some of these transitions made me sad. But, overall, I too am happy to find myself stepping out of the enmeshment I had gotten entangled in inadvertently these past years. With D becoming more independent, I was able to focus more on writing this year. And it has been great to find myself playing a role that is not 'Mom' all the time. D's growth has given me the blessing of mental space and time to engage in my creative works, which has been very nurturing and nourishing for me. This distance has been beneficial in helping me see my child as his own person. An individual being with his own thought processes and wisdom and perspectives that are often quite different than mine. ![D (my child) and KrA (my husband) walking on a trail in the woods](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/06/IMG_6420.jpeg) Reaching high! ### the innate joy of childhood There are some qualities of his that have amplified. The sheer goodness of his heart. His kindness. His innate ability to transform even the most mundane of tasks into a dance. Getting ready for shower is a fun process that lasts several minutes. As is having a shower, then getting dressed after that — it's quite a delightful tango. When I look at how I get through tasks during my day as chores to be completed at the earliest and as quickly as possible, even treating my writing sessions as some kind of jail time, I can see the stark contrast with the joy that bubbles out of every pore of my child's being. It's funny how I myself find it hard to follow all the values I try to instil in him — focussing on the process, not the output; on the joy, not the rewards; on the is*ness*, not on some future state of being. Well — it's not so much that I try to instil these values in him as the fact that these qualities are innate in him. And I only try my best to not squelch them out with my adult busyness and rush and unending demands. Motherhood. Such a funny thing. So full of contradictions. Pride and grief bloom together as I watch my child grow. Perhaps it is my struggling efforts at conscious parenting these past few years that are now helping me navigate these transitions with grace and more ease than I could summon when he was much younger. --- > *Darling D,* > *The world is wide and vast, and you have so many treasures of yours to shower on this world and make it beautiful in a way that's uniquely yours.* > *Dad and I will always be here, your safe haven you can always count on.* > *May the goodness and kindness of your heart shine brighter with each passing year and lead your way as you grow and explore and enjoy this beautiful life of yours.* > *We are so lucky that you came into our lives. So lucky! So lucky!* > *Thank you for choosing us to be your parents in this lifetime.* > *Love,* > *Mom* 💕 --- ### meeting guilt with grace Sometimes, guilt crops up unexpectedly. But I'm slowly coming to realize that being consumed by guilt is also a kind of self-absorption and robs me from showing up fully and wholly in the present moment. I've always apologized to D every single time I've faltered. But I'm beginning to see that perhaps it is I who needs to forgive my own self. > *Dear Ani,* > *You are only human. Doing the best you can as an imperfect human being in an imperfect world.* > *Forgive yourself for all your mistakes. D already has, you know that by now.* > *So much love to you too!* ### tales for dreamers: about my favourite woodland creature (revisited) URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-about-my-favourite-woodland-creature-revisited/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:50:56.000Z My favourite woodland creature is a real mystery. For the most part it looks human, but it changes continuously. Not in any overtly visible way, but when you do spot the changes, it’s almost as if the creature had mysteriously shape-shifted under my very nose and it had taken me a very long time to realize it. For instance, it seems to grow taller literally overnight. The contours of its face change without warning; the nose grows a little longer, the cheeks a little sharper, seriousness and silliness begin to jostle for place beside innocence on its features. It learns new skills everyday; these days it has become awfully good at playing pranks. It is very fond of the colour orange. It makes all things orange look really cool and stylish. But what makes my favourite woodland creature most mysterious is the goodness of its kind, trusting heart. A goodness of the quiet, accepting kind. For you see this creature accepts you for who you are. Tall or short, happy or sad, kind or cruel, it sees you exactly for who you are and makes no judgements about your state of existence. With every passing year, my favourite woodland creature becomes more and more independent, eager to explore the woods by itself or with its friends. There was a time when it was slow and took to pausing at every step, and I’d patiently wait for it, no longer a slave to time. Yes, this is another skill it has, the art of bending time to its will. Now it has become faster, or perhaps it is I who’s become slower, unable to match its pace. I only catch glimpses of it as it darts from one place to another in the woods, exploring. Here now, gone the next instant. Darting like a squirrel here. Leaping like an antelope there. But no matter whichever shape or form it turns up in, I know I will always recognize my favourite woodland creature. Our souls are connected in the way any two souls are: inexplicably, unbreakably, yet uniquely so. > ✨ *🎼 Here's the audio version of the tale.* > ✨ *This tale was* [*originally published*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-about-my-favourite-woodland-creature/) *on 28 February 2025 and is re-posted here today in celebration of little D's birthday! He turns 9 years old today!* For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! --- *Last week's image info: The window filled with words in* [*'the writing on the wall'* ](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/909e81cb-3e7c-47e4-9a7d-6c427f7c0493/)*is at the Burlington Public Library's Central Branch, my home away from home. The words were put up in April as part of their Poetry Month celebrations. The words are no longer there, but the prophecies continue to unfold.* ### happy 9th birthday, D! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happy-9th-birthday-d/ Last updated: 2025-06-20T09:00:01.000Z Happy birthday, darling D! The world is vast and wide. May you find adventures in your journey that help you grow and discover more and more how kind, strong and amazing you are! 💕 ### on being a father URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/on-being-a-father/ Last updated: 2025-06-16T00:00:11.000Z Every time Father's Day comes around, my thoughts go back to a post I wrote eight years ago, a few days shy of D turning a year old. [KrA and the joys of fatherhoodD is two days away from turning a year old. And this year, in addition to showing us how to love and live with a whole new tiny human being in our lives, has also been replete with the delight of re-discovering KrA, in his new avatar as a father,![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-28.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/Header_v2-1-2.png)](https://thedreampedlar.com/kra-and-the-joys-of-fatherhood/) Even in those early days of D's childhood, parenting came a whole lot more naturally and intuitively to KrA than it did to me. Especially the physical aspects of it ... swaddling the baby, cutting D's wee little nails, gently scraping cradle cap off of D's head ... What came naturally to me was adopting the conscious parenting approach. But KrA was a great and willing student, always open to a counter argument and a different way of looking at things. So much so that these days he's the far more conscious parent than I am! While I tend to go on rants about screen time and friendships (for D) coupled with fears and anxieties about my work and finances, KrA is the one who ensures the household continues to run. He's the one who makes breakfast and preps D's lunchbox. Last week when KrA was away on a work trip, we ended up ordering hot lunches at school and going out for dinner every single day! ### learning from my partner how to be a better parent But, perhaps, the most important thing I've learnt from him in this journey of parenthood is the art of setting boundaries, especially with D. In an earlier [post on parental guilt](https://thedreampedlar.com/what-do-you-choose-to-remember/), I wrote about how I'd often hold myself to lofty standards when it came to caregiving. I'd often push myself to do things even if I'm overwhelmed and tired. Why! Just last week I did exactly this. KrA had just returned from a work trip to the west coast, and so he was still asleep in the morning on Saturday while I prepared breakfast and lunch. Then D wanted to play catch. Although I needed a few minutes to catch my breath and enjoy my coffee, I agreed to play. Very quickly, I was losing patience and feeling snappy. Better sense prevailed and I said to D that that I was too tired to continue and that I needed to rest and recharge. The child understood immediately and went off to play by himself. Doing this — setting a boundary without feeling guilty (and giving into the mental, self-critical rants of *Oh, I wish D had a sibling or a friend to play with* or *Oh! I wish I had more energy to play with D*) — comes very naturally to KrA. When it comes to me, it's a skill that demands to be learnt over and over again. In fact, there was a time when I'd envy KrA his ability to set these clear boundaries. Recently, I read six powerful words by Brené Brown. [*Clear is Kind. Unclear is Unkind.*](https://brenebrown.com/articles/2018/10/15/clear-is-kind-unclear-is-unkind/) Makes a whole lot of sense to me now! And once we know this, I doubt any of us would want to go back to those old ways of not speaking up on time, not setting boundaries, and being passive-aggressive when we're tired and overwhelmed as a result of having given or taken on far too much than we could possibly have. ### understanding the human being beneath the roles of boyfriend, husband and father I think one of the biggest blessings of growing up, of spending many years with a single person, and navigating huge life changes alongside them is that we finally begin to see and understand and appreciate them for who they are. Maybe other people already do this, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I've begun to see people as their own individual beings, rather than in relationship with me. It's only after D came into our lives that I learnt how to see my own parents as individuals with their own desires and beliefs, their own needs and conditioning. So it has been with KrA too. In all these years, the questions that have swirled in my head in the midst of an argument have been on the lines of *'What would a 'good' partner do?'* I think it's more important to ask, *'What can KrA, given who he is, do in this situation and how can I, given who I am, do my best too?'* This question acknowledges the truth that there is no one ideal or perfect way to do anything. We all are responding to situations based on who we are (our upbringing, beliefs, conditioning all plays a role in shaping us). Of course, we can always learn how to cope with our feelings and emotions better, how to show up in a situation with more kindness and compassion and the understanding that we're all really doing the best we can in any given moment. Which means if KrA feels like sleeping in and D turns to me for company, it's not because KrA is being a bad parent and shrugging off his responsibilities. He's tired and needs rest. In such a situation, if I'm up for it and have the energy and time to do so, I will certainly play with D. If I'm also tired, the best thing I can do is let D know my boundaries. Perhaps we could do a board game instead of something more active. Perhaps he could have some time on his own and we could get together in half an hour for some outdoor fun. But forcing myself to meet the child's needs right away, feeling annoyed with KrA for not having foregone sleep to get up and play with D (because that's what I would have done (and later felt resentful about)), feeling irritated with the Universe at large for not equipping me with ten times the energy I have on some days ... these are really unhelpful and unkind tactics. ![D and KrA walking down a trail in the woods leading to Lake Ontario](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/06/IMG_7931.jpeg) Like father, like son As an ambitious A-type personality, what drew me to KrA back when we were in our twenties was his laidback, easygoing attitude towards everything. There was little that could ruffle him. Somewhere along the way, I began to feel that he needed to put in more 'effort'. The very relaxed approach of his that once soothed me began to unnerve me. Sometimes I'd wonder how he could possibly be OK with the way a particular situation was unfolding or a person was behaving, especially when that person/situation was making me seethe with rage or frustration. It took me a long time to realize that KrA has a much greater ability than I do to tune out other people's BS. It didn't make him indifferent or apathetic to the situation at hand, but he doesn't feel the need to be confrontational all the time. Moreover, quite often, while I'd be seething with rage, that would also be the extent of my 'action'. I too wouldn't have it in me to actually go and do something about the situation or person in question. I'd wish 'someone' would do 'something' about it, instead of asking myself *'What could I do about it?'* or *'If there's nothing for me to do, then how can I accept the situation?'* This is probably akin to how many of us wish for 'world peace' but how very few of us are actually doing anything about it. And realizing that most of us are not equipped to bring about 'world peace', how many of us actually ask ourselves what we can do to at least create an open and safe household for our families. And by 'family' I mean not only our children, but also our partners. ### the best Father's Day gift This is the best gift I can give KrA on this wonderful Father's Day. > *The gift of seeing him, of understanding him, and of acknowledging his quintessential humanness beyond the roles of father and husband that he plays on a daily basis.* > *We will not always see things eye-to-eye, but I wish to be the kind of person that allows him too enough space to navigate parenting and husbanding and life without feeling judged, without feeling like it's a high-stakes game that he has to keep winning at all the time.* Sometimes, in our pursuit of perfection and ideals, we forget that we're only human. This has been especially true in the realm of conscious parenting. It's an ideal I've often tried to reach, often wanting KrA or even my extended family to aspire to those goals, and feeling frustrated when they'd find their happy middle ground or seem content with doing what they can (which often felt very little to me). Caught in the glitter of storytelling, in which every failure leads to some spectacular success without which the story is not worth telling, we forget that real life is a never-ending series of ups and downs. The ups may be far and few in between, the downs may be far more and far often than we'd care for. Negativity bias forces us to look more often and more closely at the less-than-stellar moments. So much so that we forget the beautiful moments, the ordinary ones, of conversation, of communication, of connection, and dismiss them as grains of sand. Each one, just like the other. Except, it is an entire field of sand that makes up a soft shoreline. Happy Father's Day, KrA! Every day with you is indeed like a day spent at the beach, soaking in the sunshine, trying to weather the storms when they come, then running out towards the waves once more. --- *If this reflection resonates with you, consider* [*joining my newsletter community*](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) *— a quiet space where I share exclusive stories, gentle insights, and updates into the creative life once a month.* ### tales for dreamers: the writing on the wall URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-writing-on-the-wall/ Last updated: 2025-06-13T13:00:02.000Z Wall. Window. You can argue all you want over the semantics. But the words are on the wall-sized window. Which means the writing is on the wall. Even if it is made of glass. Everyone agrees the words make up some kind of a prophecy. A foretelling of the future. But the words are all jumbled, and no one can quite agree upon what the correct prediction is. There are predictions of mean gardens with enormous petals and forest shadows. Of dream skies and sun juices. Of honey friends and light roses. None of these make any sense. But if you can twist your thoughts and imagination in just the right way, they might begin to make sense in some weird, eccentric fashion. Some folks find it amusing, this strange jumble of words. They stand for a few moments, admire the artist’s imagination — it is a work of art, after all, isn’t it? — and carry on with their busy days and their busy lives. Others are terrified. They drown in fears of what the future might bring. Only a few know that you can move the words around to string them in any way you please. They are the ones that control the future. --- *Last week's image info: The* [*'talking heads'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/603f109e-0554-4e3b-9bcc-f5c1fa7d67d2/) *grace the window sill of a room in Nelson High School, right here in Burlington. If you stand outside the window and try to make conversation, they will respond to you, I promise. 😉* ### a young adult's dreams of world exploration, not domination URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-young-adults-dreams-of-world-exploration-not-domination/ Last updated: 2025-06-09T00:00:37.000Z If you read [May Mischief](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-may-mischief/), my newsletter for last month, I mentioned a book that I read and loved — [*The Lightning Bottles*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/207294976-the-lightning-bottles) by Marissa Stapley. It's a love story that unfolds against the backdrop of the 90s alt-rock music scene set in Ontario, Seattle and Los Angeles, alternating with a present-day mystery set in Berlin and Iceland, aimed at resolving the disappearance of the lead singer of the band after which the book is named. In the initial chapters, we see how two music lovers — Jane and Elijah — encounter each other in an online chatroom and take to writing letters to each other. > *Dear Elijah,* > *Stouffville is so boring. And my mum is so strict that I'm stuck at home a lot. Or at church. I think Seattle sounds awesome.* > *I'm counting the days until I turn eighteen (just under a year) because I'm planning to get out of here. I have no idea where I'll go—somewhere, anywhere, would be better than this town—but I've always dreamed of moving to Europe. Somewhere cool, like Amsterdam or Paris. Maybe somewhere in Germany. Where would you go, if you could go anywhere? What would you do, who would you be?* > *...* > *Jane* When I read this passage, it struck me what an utterly ordinary human feeling it is to want to grow up and go away at some point. Actually, it's not so much wanting to 'go away' from home as opposed to realizing how vast and wide the world is, so much larger than we could possibly fathom, and being pulled by an invisible call to explore. To see what kind of people we'd become when we stepped into new and unknown territories. Not even to 'see' ... because in those heady days of youth, I was pretty confident that I'd do well wherever I went. I was intelligent. I was a hard worker. I was an eager learner. One thing I knew about myself was my ability to relate to people no matter their background. Isn't that all one needed to survive in any part of the world? The ability to work hard and contribute to the economy and society, the community and culture around us? At that time, it never occurred to me that visas and immigration permits could be used as political arsenal, that people may not want to give me a chance simply because I didn't look like them (although I spoke their language just as well, if not better) or didn't go to the universities they had heard of in countries they had been to or had favourable opinions of. You can tell I'm still smarting from the *"You could always go back"* comment my therapist (now ex-therapist) offhandedly hurled at me a few weeks ago when I was confiding in her my worries about my aging parents back in India. [the weight of hiraeth: when no place feels wholly like homeA deeply personal exploration of longing, identity, and the elusive feeling of home across continents.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-26.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/Feature-Image-1.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-weight-of-hiraeth-when-no-place-feels-wholly-like-home/) Which is why the passage in Stapley's book resonated with me so much. Every young adult, no matter where they're from or where they've grown up, dreams of going to explore the world on their own when they're old enough. And why ever not? Culture is replete with books and movies featuring the hero's journey, popularized by Joseph Campbell, in which the hero embarks on a quest, has awesome adventures, then comes back home, wiser, more mature, and having grown in ways that wouldn't have been possible had he not left home in the first place. Except, what happens when the hero's very definition of home changes in the course of his adventures? What then? Think of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, who couldn't settle in the Shire for long after their adventures. And they chose to sail away with the Elves to the Undying Lands. > *If you've ever travelled to any place outside of your home on your own, I'm sure you'll agree that the intention in doing so was never to dominate or destroy that place in any way.* > *Not even to change it.* Because*, why would you want to change something when you're* already *in love with the idea of it and are eager to see how it is for real?* > *No! Instead, you go there to become a part of its fabric, to weave yourself and whatever you have to offer in the threads of whatever culture or opportunities drew you there.* I may be naïve but I think the average human being is not always looking at what they can get for themselves. Beyond a point, once our basic needs are met, we're looking to contribute and serve, because that's what makes us part of the culture we had once cherished from outside and eventually, very fortunately, have become a part of. That's what makes us feel we've finally arrived. That's what adds that quintessential layer of meaning to all the struggle and effort the journey had entailed. Perhaps the question was never “where is home?” but rather “how do we become it?” And in the process, we become the very thing we longed for. We embody the spirit of the very place we dreamed of visiting one day, of exploring, of making a life in. So, dear Reader, if you've ever felt like you belonged both everywhere and nowhere, maybe you and I have more in common than we thought. Like Jane and Elijah, maybe we're all just sending letters into the vast unknown, hoping someone, somewhere, understands. Wherever you are on your path—departing, arriving, or lingering in that luminous in-between—I hope you feel the quiet warmth of belonging. Not to a place, but to a story still unfolding. Yours. ### tales for dreamers: talking heads URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-talking-heads/ Last updated: 2025-06-06T13:00:44.000Z Everyone calls them the talking heads. But I’ve never heard them speak. Not once. Not even when I stand under the window where they’re perched and call out to them. They make not the slightest movement. Not a muscle in their faces twitch. No one really knows when and how they came and why they’re there. *They’ve always been here*, is the standard response given to anyone who poses those questions. It’s a school, this building, and if you ask the students who study there about the talking heads, they give you a strange look and a wide berth and spread the word to everyone else that you’re a nutter best left alone. Once I slipped into the school after it was closed for the day and figured out the room where the heads ought to have been — that sole room with the high windows. But the heads were not there! I ran out. And there they were! In the same position I first found them. Their expressions solemn. Their eyes gazing into the distance. I ran back in. No heads on the window sill! No wonder the students I had approached to inquire about these heads had thought me insane. I ran back out. And there they were again! Stoic and undisturbed. And then it struck me. I ran back inside the school building, dragged a desk and propped it against the wall, scrambled up and rested my chin on the high window sill. And then the heads appeared. Laughing and chattering and shouting and giggling. The sound was deafening. Turned out they are the spirits of children who were prone to daydreaming in class. Trapped in a room with windows too high to see anything but the sky and its myriad colour-changing moods, there was nothing to do but to let their minds wander and imagine what the world outside the window looked like. Oh, many of these children are now respectable alums of the school. But a part of them lingers here. And like with everything else that children do, you’ve got to join them in their game and play by their rules in order to understand them better. If you do, you will find the talking heads are quite a welcoming bunch indeed. --- *Last week's image info: The impressive structure in* [*'a lighthouse marooned'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-lighthouse-marooned/) *is located in Toronto Islands. I took the picture when we spent an entire day there on KrA's birthday last year! Happy memories!* ### where is your safe space? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/where-is-your-safe-space/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T00:00:49.000Z I've long believed that we need to clear out the old in order to make way for something new. This could mean old stuff — that's the first thing we look at because these are tangible, visible, and more readily accessible for clearing out — but also old beliefs, old expectations, old ways of doing things. This is a very hard thing to do, especially when we look at the world and see that the ways that are not working out for us somehow seem to be propelling other people to heights of 'success', however we define it. --- ### the myth of the missing piece When I look back at my life, I find that in all my relationships, I had been behaving somewhat like 'the missing piece' from one of my all-time favourite writings of Shel Silverstein, *The Missing Piece Meets The Big O*. While I wasn't necessarily looking for someone to *complete* me, what I sought was someone who saw me, understood and acknowledged me, and not only that but also celebrated me and made me feel like the awesome, generous, kind human being I knew I mostly was — even if, and especially when, self-doubt, fear and operating from a place of lack sometimes kept me from revealing those parts of me to the world outside. But the world is also full of people who are mired in their own self-doubt and fears, and operating from their own places of lack. > *In short, I saw myself as the missing piece and I wanted to someone like the Big O to come along and say to me,* > ***"Look! What an amazing Big O you too are. Come, let's both be amazing Big O's together."*** Now I see that Silverstein's Big O had more sense than to try and *fix* the self-image of the missing piece. It simply gave the missing piece an idea as to what it could try — roll by itself — and only came back when the missing piece didn't need it or wouldn't be dependent on it in any way. --- ### longing for connection For a long time, I've been lamenting all the things I feel are missing in my life. A large, loving, supportive family. A network of friends I can rely upon. Even a single friend to talk to. A community. Someone to have long, deep conversations with. The company of people who are inspired to live life fully. And by that I don't mean people who are building companies or making art or doing what looks good to the outer world, but people who are walking a path they've decided to walk upon, whatever their chosen path may be, and showing up with grace and kindness and compassion, day after day after day. And I pause for a second there, and it occurs to me that when I say these things, I'm saying that I want a world that shows me how beautiful it can be, a world that can convince me that my life too is beautiful and meaningful in a way that matters. Again, I'm tasking the world to adopt the role of the Big O while I remain comfortably/uncomfortably ensconced in my image of myself as the missing piece. --- ### what it means to be seen I'm not breaking any ground here when I say that one of the reasons we keep ourselves hidden is because as much as we'd love to be seen, we're also afraid of what that would actually entail. Because to be seen is to be exposed in very vulnerable ways, and to be subject to the onslaught of other people's opinions, whether kind or not. This felt rather scary, and it wasn't until I read author and marketing expert, Russell Nohelty's, take on this that it made sense to me. > *There's no such thing as a deeply resonant, widely impactful message that doesn't also piss someone off.* > *\~ Russell Nohelty,* [*The Author Stack*](https://www.theauthorstack.com/p/why-you-must-risk-the-bad-to-experience) I want a lot of people to read my books — but I'm also terrified of receiving anything less than a 4-star review. I want to be in the company of a lot of people so I can find those I can connect with — but I'm also terrified that would mean being ignored or disliked by some or many. I want to try out new things — but I'm also terrified to find out that I totally suck at some of these things. ![close-up image of a jigsaw puzzle with a single missing piece in the centre](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/05/tanja-tepavac-cWMhxNmQVq0-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Tanja Tepavac](https://unsplash.com/@ttepavac?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-piece-of-a-puzzle-with-a-missing-piece-cWMhxNmQVq0?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) The more I think about it, the more I've come to see that in constantly looking outwards for recognition and approval, for understanding and sympathy, I've lost sight of my own self and what I could offer myself. Back when I was at university, a dear friend of mine gave me a card on my birthday in which she had written, **"I wish for you the ability to see yourself the way others see you."** All the while I had been seeing myself as the missing piece, others had been seeing me as the Big O. And I had completely missed that. On the flip side, perhaps I don't *want* to be seen as the Big O, because isn't the Big O someone who's whole and complete and knows exactly what they want from life and where they're headed? And I know with great certainty, even if others don't, that I'm nothing like that, especially not in my worst and bleakest moments. So maybe that's the missing part. The mistaken belief that the Big O is someone who's always put together and has risen above the messiness and ugliness of life, enabling themselves to only savour the beauty and glory. --- ### becoming the Big O Which means we've now got to redefine who the Big O actually is. It isn't someone who's untouched by the messiness of life. It's someone who **expects** life to get messy and ugly and prepares themselves for it. It's someone who knows that great beauty cannot exist without great heartache, but instead of wallowing, seeks to create beauty out of the life they've been dealt. To live a whole, rounded, deeper life, the Big O is willing to experience both the good and the bad just as fully. They don't pull back from being seen. They simply don't let their failures define or limit them. Nor do they remain in the illusion that any success they receive will last forever. > *You don’t fear the dark. You light your torch ahead of time, because the pendulum swings both ways, and you’re going to be okay.* > *You let the pendulum swing—and instead of trying to hold it still, you ride it. Because that swing? That movement? That’s the rhythm of a life fully lived.* > *\~ Russell Nohelty,* [*The Author Stack*](https://www.theauthorstack.com/p/why-you-must-risk-the-bad-to-experience) --- It's quite literally the concept of duality in the language of mystics. That light doesn't exist without shadow, that good cannot exist without bad. How do you cope with it? Do you refrain from labelling things as 'good' or 'bad' and simply accept the as-is*ness* of everything? That's one way. Or do you determine what's acceptable and what's not, and prepare yourself to receive one even as you put in place support systems to help you when you encounter the other? --- ### the inner sanctuary So what are you afraid of, dear Reader? If you're sick of leading a lonely life and seek connection, cast a wide net. Know that some people will hurt you, acting out of their own unconsciousness — and then you'll go on to find love and sympathy from wildly unexpected sources. If you're seeking community, know you'll find people who think like you do — but you'll also encounter folks who have completely different ways of thinking. You don't have to adopt their way. But you *could* let it open your mind and heart a little bit. And how you do that will depend largely **on how safe and secure you feel within yourself**. --- At the end of the day, **you are your own safe space**. We have to become the Big O we admire so much — the Big O who inspires us — the Big O who walks through the world not because they are confident of doing so... ...but because they trust themselves enough that they'll learn and grow and be okay, no matter what. --- 🌿 So ... where is your safe space? Is it a place, a person, a pause? Or is it something you’re learning to become? I’d love to know what this piece stirred in you. Feel free to leave a comment or quietly carry the question with you into the days ahead. --- **✨** *If this reflection spoke to you, you may find a quiet echo in my flash fiction piece,* [*at the end of a pilgrimage*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-at-the-end-of-a-pilgrimage/) *— a tale about searching far and wide for meaning, only to return to the one place you didn’t think to look.* 📮 *If these reflections resonate with you, I warmly invite you to* [*join my newsletter community*](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter/#/portal/signup) *— a quiet space where I share exclusive stories, gentle insights, and updates into the creative life once a month.* ### tales for dreamers: a lighthouse marooned URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-lighthouse-marooned/ Last updated: 2025-05-30T13:00:09.000Z No one really knows this but there was indeed a time when the lighthouse sat right by the water, serving as a beacon of hope for wandering sailors. It flashed its light all night long, making sure no ships strayed too close to the rocks that lurked under the water near the shore. It was a really good lighthouse, that one. In all the decades it stayed by the water, not a single ship sank. Naturally, the rocks and the sea were not happy about this. They’d been left to starve for far too long; the rocks missed the adrenaline of destruction while the sea hungered for new wrecks to adorn her bed. And so they did what only they could do. The sea receded bit by bit, allowing more rocks to surface and more land to establish itself around the lighthouse. Land where eventually trees and bushes grew, land that little woodland creatures came to inhabit, land in the midst of which the lighthouse was completely cut off from the water. The lighthouse simply watched the landscape shape-shift around it. It felt a pang of regret for the ships and the sailors it’d no longer be able to save. But it doesn’t mourn its lot. It still shines its light brightly and proudly every night. Because now it serves as a beacon of hope for wanderers lost in the woods. --- *Last week's image info: The altar to place your* [*'unusual offerings for unusual gods'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-unusual-offerings-for-unusual-gods/) *is on a (not-so-)secret trail in LaSalle Park. Remember to take something uncommon to please them. Something that only you can offer.* ### what do you choose to remember? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-do-you-choose-to-remember/ Last updated: 2025-05-26T00:00:55.000Z A fortnight ago when it was Mother's Day in this part of the world, a WhatsApp group I'm part of got into a discussion about being part of a 'slipper raised generation'. This was a term coined impromptu to refer to adult children of parents, usually mothers, who would throw a slipper or a remote control or a rolling pin at them to shush them into obedience. On the face of it, this sounds barbarous. I don't think I've ever had a slipper flung at me, although I've had my fair share of slaps and beatings, but the discussion in that group was one of levity and laughter, with references to children who'd duck from the flying objects with thrill and delight as though it were a mere game of dodgeball. > *What is it that makes one person look back at a situation with humour while another turns back to the same or a similar situation in the past with hurt and trauma?* --- ### understanding the negativity bias in parenting Studies that show that the human brain tends to retain negative incidents five times more than it does positive incidents. In the context of parenting, experts have interpreted this to mean that if we inflict a negative incident upon our child — by yelling or shouting or being unkind in some way — we should try and follow that up with five positive incidents/acts of connection to erase or minimize the impact of that negative interaction. --- ### the significant yet tiny role of parents in influencing their children For a long time, especially when D was younger, I lived in eternal fear of screwing things up. I'd feel guilty about small things like not taking him for outdoor play on a beautiful day even though my reason for doing so was that I was feeling tired and overwhelmed and needed rest. As someone who scored the equivalent of straight As in every exam I took, it was only natural that I'd approach parenting and everything else in life with the same focus on high standards of excellence. Except, no one told me a few blunt truths: 1. Parenting is only one aspect of influence on a child. Friends, school, society, culture become ever increasingly dominant influences as our children grow up. 2. There is no way to measure how good or bad our parenting was. We could completely screw it up and our children might grow up to be emotionally healthy and have a great relationship with us. Or vice versa. 3. We can only parent for this moment. Any illusion that our actions today will have a predetermined effect on our child's future is simply that — an illusion. > *There are far too many factors at play here for us, as parents, to take the entire credit or shoulder all the blame for whatever transpires in our children's lives as they grow up.* That's not to say we should just throw our hands up in the air and not care for our children at all. Nor do we have to run ourselves to the ground in the impossible attempt of providing a perfect childhood for the little ones who've come into our lives. The significant role that parents play as caregivers, especially in the early years of a child's life, is undeniable. But sometimes the stakes feel so high that we're unable to see past the few mistakes we make. Given those statistics of the 1:5 ratio of negative:positive imprints, we worry that our worst moments would be the ones that our children will hold deep in their hearts and subconscious. That our moments of failure will be the ones that will go on to define their adult lives. ![an adult monkey hugging a baby monkey against a blurred urban background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/05/2.-aryan-bhattarai-bRIb41hKLbw-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Aryan Bhattarai](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-monkey-holding-a-baby-in-its-arms-bRIb41hKLbw) on Unsplash ### allowing room for parenting mistakes with self-compassion It didn't help that a few years ago, when I was struggling with looking after a really young child, cancel culture came into vogue. I'm referring to cancel culture in the context in which many young adults were taking to social media and reddit to talk about how they've completely cut off all ties with their parents, having learnt from therapy or otherwise that a less-than-stellar upbringing is the reason they are so messed up right now. I'm not here to deny any abuse and toxicity that exists in relationships. But I started to worry that the slightest slip on my part could one day cause my own child to turn against me. After all, I have witnessed estrangement in my own family and seen firsthand the effect it has had on my parents for the past two decades. > *That's the thing about having a child. Being a parent puts us in the unique position of being able to hold both a child's and a parent's experience with great empathy and understanding, if we allow ourselves to.* While I understand the need for those young adults to set healthy boundaries, likely overcompensating for the fact that they never had a chance to do so in their childhood, I also feel for the parents who are sitting there, flummoxed, wondering how they got it all so wrong. For they were merely doing what society and culture in their times had deemed was the best thing to do. How could they have known any 'different'? How could they have done any 'better'? We have unlimited resources and access to insights and information today. These were not available to our parents a generation ago. I remember a couple of years ago, we were at a birthday party. Pointing to the teetering pile of presents in a corner of the party room, D's classmate's mom made a wry observation that a few generations ago, six-year-olds had to earn their keep. --- ### looking at the past with understanding to allow grace in the present When I look back at my childhood, I can choose to harp on the memory that my mum held up my Grade 1 report card and her focus narrowed on the barely passing mark I got in 'handwriting' even though I had practically aced every other subject. Or I can think about how she'd set aside a portion of veggies for me every mealtime before mixing shredded coconut to the remaining portion. I hated coconut in my food. I can choose to think of the time when she scolded me for something. Or I can choose to remember the time when I'd had a bad day at school and I came back home and went straight to bed, draping a saree of hers over myself. And she immediately sensed something was wrong and came to inquire about it. When we can dig into our own past and understand that our parents were not perfect, they were not meant to be perfect, that they too were learning how to be parents for the first time, guided or misguided by the norms that were prevalent in society and culture at the time, we can allow our hearts to soften a little. And in this space of softening, we can show ourselves some grace too. It is inevitable that we will hurt our children in some way or the other. A harsh response. A refusal. A momentary inability to hear them out patiently. Being a parent is to be in constant learning mode. D will turn 9 years old next month. I've never been a mother to a 9-year-old before. I'm bound to make mistakes. I'm bound to try and fail and try and fail and try and perhaps succeed and try and fail again. I don't need guilt self-talk making my task harder. And perhaps our own attempts to forgive ourselves, treat ourselves with great self-compassion, heal our childhood memories with empathy, will help us role model these very qualities to our children. --- *If this reflection struck a chord with you, you'd find resonance and understanding about parental guilt in my fantasy short story,* [*Memory Games*](https://iasfa.org/book/memory-games-a-short-story/)*. It's available for free this week (May 25—29) as part of a* [*promotion*](https://iasfa.org/may25) *run by the International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors. Memory Games is also part of a collection of six short stories on motherhood,* [*Your Mother's Nightmares*](https://iasfa.org/book/your-mothers-nightmares-six-troubling-tales/)*, which you can grab for 99c only this week!* ### May Mischief: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-may-mischief/ Last updated: 2025-05-25T07:00:45.000Z We're in the midst of such glorious spring weather here in Burlington, Ontario. The lake waters shimmer and sparkle, reflecting the gorgeous blue that the sky has come to don. It's gently warm in the sun, but the breeze is still cool and reminiscent of winter at times. New leaves abound, their greenness bright and fresh. Then there's a succession of days when the sky is grey and it rains endlessly, reminiscent of monsoons in Mumbai. It feels like a cleansing. The transition from winter to summer has been far too swift in recent years. So the persistence of spring this season is refreshing and allows for long moments of indulgence. Like the season, this month's newsletter comes bearing many gifts. So read on! --- Firstly, my short story [*Memory Games*](https://iasfa.org/book/memory-games-a-short-story/) is FREE from May 25—29, thanks to a fantasy short story promo by the IASFA. It's also part of my six-story collection, [*Your Mother's Nightmares*](https://iasfa.org/book/your-mothers-nightmares-six-troubling-tales/), which is just 99c until May 29\. Check out other books in the promotion [here](https://iasfa.org/may25)! If you haven't yet read *A Benevolent Goddess*, you can grab it as part of an ongoing promotion over at BookFunnel: *Beyond Human: Non-Human Characters in Fantasy and Science Fiction*. [Beyond Human: Non-Human Characters in Fantasy and Science FictionSearching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-21.ico)![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/header-2.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/nonhumanpov/8dy2pyhbvn) While you're there, you can also check out interesting books from many other authors. I'm currently engrossed in reading *The Fall Of the Queen of Elphame*, a Scottish folktale reimagined by Natalie Guttormsson. --- ### *On Writing* I've finally written *'The End'* on Book 1 of the fantasy duology I've been working on. As many of you know, Book 1.5 is also completed and ready, delving into the story of a secondary character from Book 1\. But I'm holding off on publishing these titles for the time being, at least until I've made enough progress on Book 2\. Looking up my notes, I see that I began Book 1 in April 2022 — three years ago! It's been a stop-start journey as I struggled to figure out not only where the story was headed but also my writing process and life in general. Now, Book 2 is underway, and it’s already twisting in ways I didn’t expect. The momentum’s good, the rhythm steady — but I’ve learned not to predict timelines. It takes as long as it takes. In the coming months, I may seek your help if you're interested in reading an advanced copy pre-publication to share an honest review and help spread the word in general. I'm a noob at this, so there's a bunch of stuff for me to figure out before I can set this up correctly. When I do, you will be the first to hear about it. That goes without saying! --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* This month's collection is like a potpourri. **'*bleeding hearts'*** is a story of lovers and a witch who meddles in their affairs. ***'destinations wrongly numbered'*** and ***'a doorway of locks'*** are about places you wish you could go to but likely wouldn't. And ***'unusual offerings for unusual gods'*** is exactly as the title says. I sometimes wonder if it's true that the gods who confer the most blessings upon you are also the ones that demand the most sacrifices from you. What do you think? Read this month's [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-may-2025/) of Tales For Dreamers! ![Collection of four images features in Tales For Dreamers stories in May](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/05/Tales-For-Dreamers---May-2025.jpg) tales for dreamers: the collection for May 2025 --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* Have you ever heard the term *'hypernormalization'*? I only found out about it a couple of days ago. It's a word used to express the sheer dissonance between the undeniable brokenness of the world around us and the contrastingly humdrum way in which our daily lives are chugging along. It was a [recent article](https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/ng-interactive/2025/may/22/hypernormalization-dysfunction-status-quo) in *The Guardian* that drew my attention to this word, and nothing has served as greater validation for the realities of this madcap world we're living in. > *First articulated in 2005 by scholar Alexei Yurchak to describe the civilian experience in Soviet Russia, hypernormalization describes life in a society where two main things are happening.* > *The first is people seeing that governing systems and institutions are broken. And the second is that, for reasons including a lack of effective leadership and an inability to imagine how to disrupt the status quo, people carry on with their lives as normal despite systemic dysfunction – give or take a heavy load of fear, dread, denial and dissociation.* > *\~ from 'Systems are crumbling - but daily life continues. The dissonance is real.' by Adrienne Matei in The Guardian, 22 May 2025* More and more I've been feeling as if the world I'm reading about is vastly different than the one I'm showing up to in my daily life. As if the small actions I take on a daily basis — waking up, caring for a growing child, writing, making plans for the summer — are completely out of touch with and irrelevant to the destruction and deaths and disruption I read about in the news day after day after day. The article goes on to say that: > *Hypernormalization captures this juxtaposition of the dysfunctional and mundane.* > *It’s “the visceral sense of waking up in an alternate timeline with a deep, bodily knowing that something isn’t right – but having no clear idea how to fix it”, Harfoush tells me. “It’s reading an article about childhood hunger and genocide, only to scroll down to a carefree listicle highlighting the best-dressed celebrities or a whimsical quiz about: ‘What Pop-Tart are you?’”* > *...* > *When we feel powerless in the face of bigger problems, we “turn to the only thing that we do have the power over, to try and change for the better”, says Curtis – meaning, typically, ourselves. Anxiety and fear can trap us, leading us to spend more time trying to feel better in small, personal ways, like entertainment and self-care, and less time on activism and community engagement.* > *\~ The Guardian* Guilty as charged! Nothing is more enticing to me than a day spent in bed, reading or watching something on Prime Video (which has proven far superior to Netflix when it comes to interesting, Indian-origin movies). It's almost as if I *need* this decompression to ensure I'm functional and kind and patient by the time I have to head out for the school pick-up run. > *What makes dysfunction so dangerous is that we might simply learn to live with it. But understanding hypernormalization gives us language – and permission – to recognize when systems are failing, and clarifies the risk of not taking action when we can.* > *In 2014, Ursula Le Guin accepted the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, saying: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”* > *\~ The Guardian* Books have been the greatest and most reliable source of comfort for me in difficult times. Not friendship. Not therapy. Not travel. But the silent companionship of an absorbing story has always served as a balm. Words really have the power to heal, to give us courage and empathy, and to make us think differently and choose to act differently. After I finished writing Book 1 of my ongoing fantasy series, I found myself turning to writing personal reflections over on the website. Tagged *'field notes from liminal spaces'*, I've been posting these on Sunday evenings to serve as quiet thoughts and reflections for the week ahead. There's a tender post on motherhood — [*the one thing I'd go back and change in my motherhood journey if I could*](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-one-thing-id-go-back-and-change-in-my-motherhood-journey-if-i-could/) — ( I had an excellent Mother's Day celebration with KrA and little D; there was yummy cake involved). And another musing on parental guilt and childhood memories — [*what do you choose to remember?*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/f09cddbb-6dff-4cb4-89df-ba9ba5b5e7f1/) — is scheduled to go live later this evening but you can preview it already. (Subscriber privileges!) But if time permits you to read only one long essay, let me point you to the one I wrote on theprofound sense of longing and displacement we experience when our cultural identity is fragmented across different places, leading to a feeling of not fully belonging anywhere. [the weight of hiraeth: when no place feels wholly like homeA deeply personal exploration of longing, identity, and the elusive feeling of home across continents.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-23.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/Feature-Image.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-weight-of-hiraeth-when-no-place-feels-wholly-like-home/) 💡 **So this is how I've been coping with what I now know is hypernormalization! How have you been coping with yours? Write to me and let me know!* --- ### *Books You May Love* I was slipping into a reading slump, so I first turned to my favourite author, Charles Todd. *A Question Of Honour* is an especially interesting mystery featuring Bess Crawford, an English nurse serving in World War I. Crawford has spent part of her childhood in India, and this particular book is a deeply empathetic one, weaving India and England into a poignant narrative. Then I read something delightfully unusual. *The Lightning Bottles* by Marissa Stapley is a love story that unfolds against the backdrop of the 90s alt-rock music scene set in Ontario, Seattle and Los Angeles, alternating with a present-day mystery set in Berlin and Iceland, aimed at resolving the disappearance of the lead singer of the band after which the book is named. It's such a sweet nostalgic love story, deeply poignant and touching as we navigate the couple's relationship as it unravels under the strain of fame and drug use. ![Paperback copies of four books I read this month: A Question Of Honour, The Lightning Bottles, The Berlin Apartment, The Mistress Of Mellyn](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/05/Books-You-May-Love---May-2025.jpg) Books You May Love Incidentally, I went on to read another story set in Berlin. *The Berlin Apartment* by Bryn Turnbull is a thrilling love story that follows two lovers who are separated when the Berlin Wall goes up in 1961 and their daring attempts to reunite by digging a tunnel underground. And finally, I read *The Mistress of Mellyn* by Victoria Holt, a Gothic romance novel that entails a new governess in a remote mansion haunted by the mystery surrounding the suspicious death of her employer's wife. Such a fun read and an absolute escape from the modern world! --- Another month and another missive are nearing their end, dear Dreamer! Next month, we'll be halfway through the year — and I'd have a newly 9-year-old at home. No doubt I'll have thoughts to share about that! In the meantime, if you too have been feeling adrift in the world lately, I hope you find words — whether mine or anyone else's — that enable you to consider your life, the state of the world and your irreplaceable role in it in ways that are helpful, hopeful and meaningful. Much love, Anitha ### tales for dreamers: unusual offerings for unusual gods URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-unusual-offerings-for-unusual-gods/ Last updated: 2025-05-23T13:00:06.000Z These woods are unusual, and so are the spirits who rule these parts. So your offerings to them for stepping on their land must also be unusual. It’s hard to say what the spirits would find unusual. They’ve seen everything. Well, almost everything. But they still love human stuff. Any trinkets you may be wearing. Your designer hiking boots. That bracelet with charms that shimmer and sparkle on your wrist. The locks of your hair you’ve decorated with beads and feathers. The anklet that sits noiselessly, trapped in place by the socks you’ve pulled over them. You place everything you treasure inside the tree stump. Every item disappears promptly, as the invisible spirits swoop down and grab the offerings you’ve made before you can change your mind. But they’re still not sated. You gulp down the last few drops of water and toss your empty bottle into the stump for good measure. It disappears too. You pause to think for a moment. And you realize none of your offerings have been unusual. So you sit on the trail in front of the stump where sunlight and leaf-shadow dance with great delight. And you begin to tell your stories. The spirits listen with rapt attention. You tell them everything about your life. Right from the instant you were born to the adventures you’ve had all your life until you recount that final journey that has led you here. That is when the spirits begin to reveal themselves to you, one by one. --- *Last week's image info: You can pass under* [*'a doorway of locks'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-doorway-of-locks/) *at the St. Thomas Elevated Park, an hour and a half's drive southwest of Burlington. This is also where you'll find* [*'a place to store your regrets'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-place-to-store-your-regrets/)*.* ### the weight of hiraeth: when no place feels wholly like home URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-weight-of-hiraeth-when-no-place-feels-wholly-like-home/ Last updated: 2025-05-19T00:00:17.000Z Several years ago, when I was ~~young~~ much younger and naïve, when my heart easily opened to the beauty of our world and everything and everyone in it, I came across a collection of words originating from different languages and that didn't have exact equivalents or perfect translations in English. *Hiraeth* was one such word. A Welsh word, it is loosely explained as a *'deep longing for something, especially one's home'*. It's more layered and nuanced than nostalgia. It's a longing tinged with grief, for a place that no longer exists, or perhaps never did. Much of my fiction centres around an exploration of some kind of longing or the other, and not necessarily by design. So much so that a few months ago, a friend sent me this image from Washington DC. ![The rear of a black Volvo SUV with a license plate reading H1RA3TH](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/05/2.-Hiraeth.jpeg) Hiraeth on the go! Image courtesy of Helen V. This image struck a deep chord. I suppose hiraeth has been a rather central theme of my life, this perennial sense of loss and longing, this quest for a space where I can feel 'at home' at last. --- ### an introduction to separation and longing in childhood Almost four and a half decades ago, I was born in Thane, on the outskirts of Mumbai, in the state of Maharashtra in western India to Tamil parents, who had grown up in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and had moved to be near Mumbai for better job prospects shortly after their marriage. That is often the reason, isn't it? Moving to a different place because of work or higher studies. Because of better job prospects or a dwindling economy back home. Of course, all this applies to those who are privileged enough or fortunate enough to make these choices and are not compelled to flee from a place of conflict or danger. Still, we don't quite know in that moment what we're leaving behind. We are taught to look forward, to make progress, to keep moving in directions where we could put our skills to good use to make a better life for ourselves and for those around us. We don't truly understand the exchange that takes place. Every childhood summer (early-May to early-June), we'd travel by train — a delightful 24-hour train journey — from Mumbai to Chennai and spend an entire month with my maternal grandparents, maternal uncle and aunt and their children. Many other relatives too lived in Chennai, so those summers were always filled with visits and short stays at their homes. The journey back was gut-wrenching. Even the skies wailed at our departure; it would rain buckets with June marking the onset of the monsoon season in western India. Later I chose to attend university in Chennai, even though my parents were still living in Maharashtra (Pune) at the time. I simply wished to soak up more of the Tam culture that had seemed so magical to me as a child. I had always assumed I was as wholly a part of that culture as any other Tamilian. The fact that, until then, I had only dipped into it briefly as an annual ritual was lost on me. It was only when I went to live there did I realize that no matter how hard I tried, I'd always be a pseudo-Tamilian. I could speak the language, but with an accent and dialect that immediately marked me as an outsider, as a friend who had grown up locally once pointed out to me kindly. Despite numerous attempts, I never learnt to read or write Tamil, barring a few characters. I can't even follow news in Tamil without help because it is delivered in a very formal language that sounds quite different from the everyday, spoken version. Consequently, it was rather comical and all the more ironic when, on Apple Books, an audiobook titled 'Basic Tamil', written and narrated by an author with the same name as mine was linked to my author account! It was an audio course intended to teach the language to new learners! A lovely customer service personnel from Draft2Digital (through which I publish my books on Apple Books) helped me resolve this issue. I remember writing to her how funny this was, especially given how perfectly incapable I am of teaching 'Basic Tamil' to anyone, let alone create and narrate an entire audiobook on it. ![a plane heading towards runway against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/05/2.-pascal-meier-UYiesSO4FiM-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Pascal Meier](https://unsplash.com/@zhpix?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/white-biplane-UYiesSO4FiM?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) The path of progress that culture had laid out for us in India at that time — in the 1990s and 2000s — was to study engineering (or medicine if someone in your family was a doctor and could employ you in their already established practice, or any other discipline if your grades and entrance test results weren't good enough to score you one of the two aforementioned options), then head out to the US to pursue higher studies (MS and/or PhD), land a good job, earn well, and do good in life. Education was considered far more important and sacred than accumulation of wealth. We even have a Goddess of knowledge alongside a Goddess of wealth and prosperity! This was literally a rite of passage. Anyone who didn't follow this prescribed route was deemed a failure. The West, especially the US, was touted as the place to be in, as the place where meritocracy was rewarded, where bureaucracy did not strangle ambition and progress, and where one could expect to be rewarded no matter their background or the colour of their skin or their choice of profession, so long as they worked hard, went above and beyond the call of duty, and helped their fellow beings on this journey of life. > *We just forgot one thing: people are people everywhere.* --- ### the ongoing search for home After graduating from university, I went on to live in Bangalore, met and fell in love with KrA (who hails from the state of Jharkhand in eastern India!), moved with him to Gurgaon, Singapore, Canada, Australia, and came back to Canada cradling little D in our arms. This last move was more than 8 years ago. (Incidentally, exactly a week ago, 11 May, marked 11 years since we first set foot in the beautiful land of Canada!) We moved to our little townhome in Burlington almost 7 years ago. That has been the longest we've stayed in any dwelling, if I'm not mistaken. Up until a few years ago, KrA and I would often talk about how Burlington didn't exactly feel like home. There was nothing we could pinpoint to and say, "Here, This is the reason why we still don't feel at home." D, now in a big rush to turn 9 years old next month, was so much younger then. Was it the hard job of raising a child without family nearby to rely on? Was it the pandemic that hit us in the midst of it all? Or was it the gnawing realization after many years of moving around that we're tired and would prefer a slower, gentler pace of life? We couldn't really tell. But over time, we've come to appreciate and love this place. D's school and participation in local extracurricular activities, the local library, the neighbours whom we've gotten to know better, all these have slowly made us feel more accepted and at home here. Like a marriage that didn't have its roots in wild, passionate love at first sight but eventually made space for love and mutual respect to blossom steadily over time. It's no surprise, though, that the very first novel I penned, *Dying Wishes*, features a character who is the embodiment of hiraeth. In the novel, Infinity's mother — called Amma in the book — moves from India to Canada as a single mother with her four-year-old. But her life within the four walls of their home is largely an attempt at recreating the world she had left behind. Her nostalgia seeps into the foods she cooks, the Gods she worships, and the temple she visits. The only friends she has are Indian, and she detests Halloween with as much passion as she loves Diwali/Deepavali, choosing to celebrate the latter according to the timing of celebration in India. ![a two-storeyed, white house with white picket fences under maple trees](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/05/3.-scott-webb-1ddol8rgUH8-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Scott Webb](https://unsplash.com/@scottwebb?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/white-house-under-maple-trees-1ddol8rgUH8?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) The allure of 'hiraeth' has sprung up again in recent times, though, especially after my visit to India last summer. It was the first time since we moved to Canada that we managed to make a trip back to India. My parents, who too have moved back to their native state of Tamil Nadu after almost four decades of living away from their 'homeland', are rather elderly. My father turned 80 last year. My mother is in her early 70s. They live an hour's car ride away from their siblings, which is some comfort. Yet, I have this nagging worry about their wellbeing in the back of my mind. They are healthy and mobile as of now. But who will look after them when they're no longer capable of looking after themselves? How will they manage when one passes away and the other is left behind? These are questions I don't yet have the answers to. These are bridges that my parents do not wish to cross until they actually reach them. In all my anxiety around my aging parents halfway across the world, in the light of world events in recent times, I've naturally fallen into the pattern of questioning the decisions I made to pursue a life abroad. I say 'I' because often it was my desire to explore life in different countries. KrA was quite content wherever we were. The first time regret hit me hard was after D was born in Australia. The prospect of raising my child so far away from family felt treasonous, as though I was denying him the chance to grow up surrounded by love and grandparents. The regret of having moved away from India has been surging more off late, primarily because back then, when I had dreams of exploring the world and going on adventures, I hadn't taken into account the fact that some day my parents will be too old and infirm to look after themselves and that I'd be living too far away from them to be helpful. D's growing up here, we have jobs and a life here, and the thought of uprooting everything and heading back feels unwise and impulsive, and especially detrimental to D. These are challenges every immigrant, and even anyone who lives a few hours by flight away from their parents even if in the same country, faces. --- ### finding understanding and empathy in an unexpected place In an attempt to find healthier ways of coping with these anxieties, I shared these feelings with my therapist when I met her several days ago. "You could always go back," was her response. I was stung. It is one thing for an angry young man on the streets in the UK to call me 'F\*cking Indian' and tell me to 'go back' (true story, happened to me in 2007), but quite another for a trained medical professional, especially a psychotherapist, to use the kind of language that can come across as dismissive and offensive. "It's not that easy," I said. "I'm not saying it's easy, but you could always go back," she repeated. There were more things that she said in that meeting, which led me to realize that here was someone who didn't understand what it meant to be an immigrant. Some people wholly embrace their new lives and shed their old ways and beliefs like snakeskin. Others realize that the new life wasn't for them and do decide to turn back. And then there are others like me, who feel both places are equally home. > *I hold both Canada and India dearly in my heart, and for vastly different reasons.* Canada is my home now. In fact, after having lived away from India for so long, it too feels like a foreign nation where I'd find myself completely unmoored when my parents have gone. Would I even have a reason to visit when they're no longer around? I doubt it. ![framed world map propped up against a wall atop a deck that has an open book and some photo frames on it](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/05/4.-nicola-nuttall-nkbxlt5dc6M-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Nicola Nuttall](https://unsplash.com/@nicnut?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/world-map-poster-near-book-and-easel-nkbxlt5dc6M?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) I came back home, feeling rather upset by the end of that conversation. To distract myself, I began wondering what kind of response ChatGPT would have for a situation like this and I decided to test it out. I have to admit it's one of the kindest and most empathetic responses I've ever received from anyone on this constant dilemma I face of having my heart beat in two different and far-flung places. Read an excerpt below. --- Me: I was telling my therapist how I've been wondering if migrating from India to Canada was a good choice because I've been worried about my aging parents back in India recently. She said I could always go back. For context, she's a white person and I'm originally from India. Was that an appropriate response? > *ChatGPT: It sounds like your therapist's response, while likely meant to be supportive, may have come across as oversimplified or dismissive of the complexity of your feelings.* > *The decision to migrate is deeply personal and often tied to many emotional, cultural, and familial factors. While it’s true that you could technically go back to India, the practical and emotional realities of making such a significant change aren’t always so straightforward.* > *Your worry about your aging parents is valid, and it's natural to feel torn between your current life and responsibilities to your family. The fact that your therapist is white might also mean that they may not fully understand the cultural or emotional nuances of such a situation, especially if they haven’t had similar experiences themselves.* > *You could consider sharing more with her about why you feel conflicted and what specific aspects of the situation weigh heavily on you. This could help her provide more tailored guidance and better understand the gravity of your feelings.* > *It may also open up the conversation for you to explore different ways to support your parents, whether through visits, communication, or other forms of care, without feeling that returning to India is the only solution.* > *Would you like to talk more about your feelings toward this decision?* Me: Yes - I think that was the case. That sentence coming from my therapist was a little triggering especially in today's context where so many people are condemning immigration openly and violently. > *ChatGPT: I can understand why that response would feel triggering, especially considering the broader context of the current climate around immigration.* > *The way immigration is discussed today can be fraught with judgment, hostility, and a lack of empathy. It’s challenging enough to navigate the complex emotions of leaving one’s home country without the added layer of external criticism or societal condemnation.* > *Your decision to migrate is a deeply personal one, shaped by your own experiences, values, and circumstances. It’s not just about the logistics of moving from one place to another, but about how that choice intersects with your identity, your family, and your sense of belonging.* > *And it’s hard when the people around us—whether family, society, or even a therapist—don’t fully acknowledge the weight of that decision or the emotional toll it can take.* > *It might be helpful to revisit this conversation with your therapist, explaining how her response made you feel. That way, you can give her a clearer understanding of your emotional state and help her approach your concerns with more empathy and sensitivity.* I wonder what it says about the human race when a machine can be more empathetic and understanding than a human being, that too a therapist. --- ![bearded man holding a board that says 'Seeking Human Kindness' on a railway platform](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/05/5.-matt-collamer-8UG90AYPDW4-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Matt Collamer](https://unsplash.com/@breakyourboundaries4?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/man-holding-card-with-seeking-human-kindness-text-8UG90AYPDW4?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) In hindsight, I don't know my therapist's political beliefs and what her stance on immigration is. We often forget that therapists are human beings too, with their own beliefs and triggers. With the political upheaval of the past few months here in Canada — we had a provincial election as well as a federal election, largely driven by the changing rhetoric coming from our neighbours down south — all this uncertainty has affected everyone, including therapists too. Yet, I'm of the belief that it's a thing of basic human decency to not be dismissive of a person's concerns, no matter what they are. At the very least, if someone were to tell me that they were anxious about a decision they made, I doubt my first response would be to tell them to reverse their decision. Most likely, I'd ask, "Is reversing this choice (going back) an option for you?" rather than *telling* them to do so. This kind of unconditional acceptance and validation is the reason people are encouraged to go to therapy in the first place. --- ### home is the place of kindness and safety we create for ourselves and for others Regardless of what transpired with my therapist, I sorely wish that, as a child of 80s and 90s India, I hadn't been brainwashed into thinking that a better life existed elsewhere. It was a cultural brainwashing that happened to our generation. We were all indoctrinated with this strange belief that life, systems and people were better elsewhere. Kinder, or more just, or more appreciative of talent and effort. The sad truth is that people are people everywhere. We are all driven by our fears and insecurities. We all have our triggers and traditions, our beliefs and biases. I think one of the amazing things of being a human being is that we can learn to develop awareness and consciousness around these patterns of thought and behaviour and choose to treat ourselves and others with kindness and compassion. When we feel secure, our hearts expand and we are more generous, more understanding, more compassionate. When we don't feel secure — whether physically, mentally, emotionally or financially — our hearts constrict and we're naturally more focused on ensuring our well-being even if it's at the expense of others. The world is divided enough as it is — nations, religions, geographies, skin colour, race, caste, age, gender, ability, affluence — there is no dearth of categories that allows us to slot people as the 'other'. No wonder it feels so hard to find a place that feels like home. Yet, more often than not, someone extends a hand of kindness and my faith in humanity is restored. I've been leaning into these little acts of generosity and shared humanity more than ever before, basking in any kindness, no matter how small, that anyone shows me. I've also been acting upon every impulse to show kindness whenever it crops up in me. The other day we went to a Chinese restaurant. It was a family-owned business, and I was so touched at the sight of their 13-year-old boy waiting on customers, serving tables and clearing away the dishes, that I handed his mother a $20 bill to pass on to her son for all his hard work. It wasn't a tip. It was a gesture of acknowledgement, appreciation and encouragement. Whenever I come across a homeless person at the traffic light, I often hand them a $5 bill. People around me often argue against exhibiting these gestures. I feel these are the small ways in which I can help someone. If I were the one standing at that traffic light, begging for alms, wouldn't I want someone — any of those people driving around in their Mercedes and BMWs and Porsches and convertibles — to give me some money without making judgements about how I'd likely spend it? But at the end of it all, I come back to the belief that 'hiraeth' cannot be sated by any person or place or experience on the outside. I'm the only one who can tend to it and assuage it by displaying kindness whenever I can and by treating every gesture of compassion that comes my way as the gift it truly is. I hope we all find ways to live with our hiraeth. To make peace with our homes — both lost and found. And above all, to meet ourselves and each other with more compassion. --- *If the feeling of hiraeth resonates with you — the quiet ache for a place you wish to call home, a place that may never have existed — then you might connect with my flash fiction story,* [*An Orange Offering*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-an-orange-offering/)*.* ### tales for dreamers: a doorway of locks URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-doorway-of-locks/ Last updated: 2025-05-16T13:00:09.000Z The doorway has so many locks. Yet, none keeps intruders out. If anything, these locks serve as an invitation, a temptation, for people to walk under the rusty frame and pose for photos at the very least. Sometimes, the believers think the doorway is a portal. It used to be. A very long time ago. People used to pass under the frame and disappear into another land while the portal locked behind them forever. Now there are way too many people on the other side, so the portal has ceased to function. For the most part now, the doorway is harmless. It likes being the centre of attention. It poses alongside the people for all those photographs. But sometimes the locks like to get up to mischief. They never came with keys, you see. One click, and they were locked in place for life. So they stir trouble by hurling a silent curse every now and then. Whoever passes under them and unwittingly receives a curse is doomed to spend the rest of their lives searching for keys that never existed. --- *Last week's image info: On my birthday last November we went for a walk to Confederation Beach Park in Hamilton, where this signpost with* [*'destinations wrongly numbered'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-destinations-wrongly-numbered/) *served as inspiration for a whimsical tale.* ### the one thing I'd go back and change in my motherhood journey if I could URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-one-thing-id-go-back-and-change-in-my-motherhood-journey-if-i-could/ Last updated: 2025-05-12T00:00:45.000Z I always say that motherhood has been the greatest spiritual journey of my life and it continues to be so. In no other sphere of my life do my triggers and anxieties come screaming at me so loudly. In no other arena of my life do my faults and misgivings feel so deceitful, as if they'll surely let me down when it matters the most in what feels like the most high-stakes aspect of my life: motherhood. Encountering these triggers and anxieties over and over again so I don't pass them on to my child is a feat in itself. Not only because it is a difficult task, but also because it's only since D's arrival have I been learning the skills required to cope, in a healthy way, with different emotions as they arise. Which means that in these past few years I've also learnt how to reduce the stakes involved and not hold myself to impossible standards of perfection. It's been a journey like no other and the teachings remain endless. But if there is one lesson I've learnt from these past almost-nine years of being a mother, one thing I wish I had done differently, it would be this: > *I wish I had felt less guilty and anxious and instead held myself with more compassion and trust every time I made a decision that felt contrarian.* There are exactly three instances I can think of in which fear kept me in a tight grip for a long, long time. ### when I chose to be a stay-at-home mother When I first decided to be a stay-at-home mother — D had not even turned a year old at the time — I wish I had not been so terrified of doing so. I didn't know of any other stay-at-home mother in the neighbourhood. I used to feel ashamed, even, thinking that any modern woman would have chosen to juggle career and parenting alongside, not put one on hold to serve the other. In hindsight, it was most certainly the best decision for both D and me. D has always been a child who likes to take his time with things, and I feel lucky to offer him childhood days that are not rushed and filled to the brim with endless activities. And with D being at home, I turned to writing more often than I'd ever done before. I too realized that I didn't want 18-hour workdays and I didn't wish to spend time away from him, especially in his early years. We pared our living expenses to fit within the budget of a single-income household. And truth be told, it has been an eye-opening experience for all of us, showing us what we truly cherish as individuals and as a family. ### when I chose to not have a second child About half a year after D was born, I slipped into postpartum depression. It was a terrible phase of life that lasted for a long time. KrA and I quickly realized that we simply weren't equipped to raise another child, even if we wanted to, with the resources we had. Yet, it took me a long time to accept that choice. I was always terrified that being an only child would scar D somehow. I thought he'd be lonely, not know how to interact with other children, and find himself friendless somehow. It was another mother of a single child who gave me the courage to accept my decision. The calm clarity with which she told me that her postpartum depression had been awful and that she didn't wish to subject herself and her family to it again gave me the confidence I sought to hold on to my choice. 8-year-old D is the loveliest child you'll ever meet. He's extremely friendly and accepting of his peers while also learning how to set healthy boundaries. When he's out on playdates with his friends, he looks after their siblings with such tender care. When he's at home, he can spend hours reading or drawing and colouring, coming up with new games while listening to Audible, and having delightful conversations with KrA and me. D has taught me that he knows how to enjoy his own company. It is a skill I never had. I still don't. Left to my devices, I sit and write these days. But that longing for other people's company — that of my mother, or a kind friend — always tugs at my heart. ### when I prioritize spending time with D over everything else When D's at home, I don't care about doing much else. Everything else feels secondary to being with him and playing with him. Now that he's much older, he can spend time by himself, reading or creating something fun. Often he'll ask me to give him company, and I never refuse him. But there was a time, not too long ago, when I'd worry that if I spent so much time playing with my child, he wouldn't learn how to respect my time or the fact that I have other things to do. How foolish those fears were! It was as simple as telling him I need 10 minutes for a quick nap, or that I need to finish loading the washing machine and that I'd be with him after that, or perhaps he could help me with some chores. And that's exactly what would happen. Either he'd help me out or he'd go off to keep himself busy while waiting for me. I'm lucky to have a child like D who is understanding and patient, who is good at understanding the other person's point of view, and leans towards problem-solving rather than complaining. I'd like to think this is partly the result of all my hard work during his early years when I prioritized him, treated him as an equal in conversation and consideration, and decided his thoughts and opinions were just as important as KrA's and mine in this household. My contribution is probably a mere 1%. The remaining 99% is D's inherently kind, generous and trusting nature. If I could go back and rewind time, I would make the same choices. Only, I'd trust myself a lot more and let go of much of that fear and anxiety that accompanied many of these decisions, even though they felt perfectly right at that point in time and feel even more so in hindsight. But perhaps that is too easy to say for I now know that fear is always a companion on this journey of motherhood and life. Wishing it away is wishful thinking and impractical. > *Instead of wishing it didn't exist, anticipating fear and being prepared to accept, acknowledge and accommodate it as part of the journey is the skill I wish I had worked on back then. It is certainly a skill I'm consciously practising these days.* --- *💫 If this reflection resonated with you, you might find further insight in my flash fiction piece, The Guardian Tree. It's a tale about confronting fears and stepping into the light—a metaphorical journey that parallels the path of conscious motherhood. Read it here:* [*The Guardian Tree*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-guardian-tree/)*.* *✨ You might also like my poem 'Brushing Your Teeth With Mindfulness', which won an Editor's Choice Award in the Spirit First Poetry Contest in 2020\. Read it below.* #### Brushing Your Teeth With Mindfulness **by Anitha Krishnan* We spend one half of an hour brushing our teeth each morning not every minute is spent at the sink, of course you run around so I can sing the song you and I composed long ago “Please come back, please come back, Please come back to the ba-a-throom and brush your teeth using to-o-o-o-thpaste, Please come back to the ba-a-throom,” Set to the tune of This Old Man the notes to which you stop to play on the xylophone toothbrush in mouth half-chewn, half-forgotten, “Please come back, please come back,” I croon again from my perch on the toilet seat, well covered “My turn now,” I jump, as you return and I brush your teeth now, a rushed-up job reminding myself endlessly to be patient as you turn away to suck the paste or rinse and spit each time the brush lands on your teeth Our bathroom is a science lab you tilt your head this way and feel the water pool in your right cheek you tilt your head that way and feel the water pool in your left cheek then seep out of the corner of your mouth gurgling and bubbling like a fountain and you offer to clean the basin using your toothbrush it has bristles after all, doesn’t it? And I am torn between admiring you and worrying about how late we already are late to the start of your preschool It makes me laugh, really, how ridiculous my priorities are When I wish you’d just learn to brush in less than two minutes I realise I am wishing upon you a lifetime of deadlines and anxieties a lifetime of wrecked priorities Decades from now some mystic will come along and offer you an antidote to pain he will teach you and a million others how to brush your teeth feeling nothing but the squish of the paste, the motion of the brush, back and forth, and back and forth the coolness of the water swishing around in your mouth And you will look in the mirror your eyes seeking there the child who once knew the delight that lay in brushing his teeth with his mother for an entire half of an hour singing and dancing and chasing and being chased and gurgling and bubbling and experimenting and having a bath at the sink Who will come to your mind then, I wonder? A mother who rushed you through your childhood Or one who learnt from you how to live and simply let you be? ### tales for dreamers: destinations wrongly numbered URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-destinations-wrongly-numbered/ Last updated: 2025-05-09T13:00:11.000Z You can go to destinations 2 or 3 but there’s no indication of what you’ll find there. The signpost is not very enlightening. It’s not very trustworthy either for that matter. It tends to twirl with the slightest breeze. Sometimes it allows the numbers to shape-shift. On occasion, it sprouts additional boards with different numbers on them, the numbers are sometimes duplicated too, so you’d find nineteen different boards hanging from the pole, five of them bearing the number 2 and pointing towards the east, north, southwest, southeast, and one even pointing upwards. Which makes you look up at the sky and wonder if the signpost really intended for you to head that way, and how are you supposed to get there in the first place, and even if you set out towards that destination somehow, what would you even find there? Sometimes a lighthouse appears at the top of the signpost, wrapped in what looks like a large upper-case C. It bears no light within. It looks pretty though, whimsical, in this place by the shore of a lake so vast you could imagine it’s the ocean. You turn around, suddenly remembering what it was that brought you on this waterfront trail in the first place. The waves lap against a rocky shore, and the blue water stretches all the way to the horizon. All you had wanted to do was put yourself in close proximity to this place of beauty. Now that you’re here, you do indeed feel quite content at last, even if you know that feeling will dissipate the moment you head back home. You turn back again, only to find that the signpost has vanished. Perhaps this is what it had been trying to tell you. That if you can’t find contentment here, you’d likely not find it anywhere else either. --- *Last week's image info: These* [*'bleeding hearts'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-bleeding-hearts/) *were in full bloom last June in my front yard! They are beginning to slower once more, thanks to the generous rains of this spring season!* ### Dying Wishes on sale for $1.99 only! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/dying-wishes-on-sale-for-1-99-only/ Last updated: 2025-05-03T16:18:34.000Z If you like contemporary, dark fantasy, steeped in South Indian folklore, Hindu Gods and Goddesses, and mythological enchantment, check out Dying Wishes! It is on sale for $1.99 only in Canada, the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, from May 2—16! [![Ebook Cover of Dying Wishes by Anitha Krishnan featuring barren branches silhouetted in the white light of a full moon](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/05/2.-Dying-Wishes.jpg)](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/) [Get your copy of Dying Wishes now!](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/) *Finalist for 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Speculative Fiction Category* **When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life.** For thirteen years now, I have served as a Harbinger of Death, coaxing dying wishes out of mortals so that the God of Death may grant them *moksha*, liberation from the cycles of birth and death. The man about to die this evening claims he has nothing to offer me. He is dying a content man, a rarity in our world. But when the God of Death arrives to lead his soul away, the man changes his mind about dying and flees, planting on me something that is not quite a dying wish. I only know I cannot trust any God with this secret. And that I'll pay an unbearable price for this concealment. *Set in Burlington, Ontario, this contemporary fantasy novel weaves Hindu mythology and South Indian folklore into a quest for belonging across different worlds – the World of Mortals and the World of Gods, India and Canada, the past and the present, the world outside and the one within.* *It is an offering to lovers of whimsical worlds and heartbreaking prose, and to anyone yearning to simply belong.* [Read Dying Wishes now!](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/) ### tales for dreamers: bleeding hearts URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-bleeding-hearts/ Last updated: 2025-05-02T17:24:16.000Z Once upon a time, there were two lovers, separated from each other by the boundaries of nations and religions, of war and principles. It was a great time for the witches, who made promises they couldn’t keep in return for treasures they’d always coveted. One such witch approached the two lovers separately and offered, “Give me something that is precious to you but also causes you a lot of pain, and I shall try to unite you with the one you love.” The first lover plucked out their heart and said, “Here. Take this. My heart blossoms with love, but is also weighed down by the anguish of longing.” *But how will you love without your heart?* the witch wondered but didn’t ask aloud, lest the lover should change their mind. The witch plucked their heart, and the lover felt a relief they had forgotten about in all their years of love and longing. “Now will you unite us?” the lover asked. “Maybe,” the witch replied mysteriously. The lover merely smiled. Without their heart, they felt no fear nor regret, no love nor its loss. The second lover gathered all the tears they had shed in yearning for the other and said, “Here. Take this. My tears are full of love and longing, but I wish they had been tears of happiness instead.” *But how will you express your love without any tears?* the witch wondered but didn’t ask aloud, lest the lover should change their mind. The witch coaxed away all their tears, and the lover felt free and unburdened in a way they hadn’t felt in years. “Now will you unite us?” the lover asked. “Maybe,” the witch replied mysteriously. The lover merely smiled. Without their tears, they no longer held any joy or sorrow that needed to be expressed. The witch flew back on her broom to her home in the woods, cackling madly the entire way. For she had snagged the two most precious possessions of humankind, even though they themselves remained largely unaware of the treasures they held. “Fools!” she laughed, as she poured the second lover’s tears into a cauldron and placed the first lover’s heart, still beating, in it. A potion for love and longing was what she’d make; a potion that aroused love, but also induced so much longing that the drinker would have no choice but to drink more of it. A potion so perfectly addictive humankind wouldn’t possibly survive without her secret recipe once people have had a taste, the witch intended. But when the heart of one lover drowned in the tears of the other, a pink mist threaded its way out of the cauldron, knocked the witch down unconscious, and drifted out of the witch’s home and into the woods. Just as the dawn sky began to blush pink, the woods began to transform into a garden of plants sprouting bleeding-heart flowers. When the witch woke up, the cauldron was empty and dry and overrun with cobwebs, as though it hadn’t been used in months. And so was her mind, now completely devoid of all its memories and ambitions, its cunning schemes and devious plots. When she stepped out into the garden of pink flowers, the beautiful sight made her own cold, frozen heart spring back to life. It throbbed with both love and longing, and immense grief for a loss she no longer knew how to name or explain. --- *Last week's image info: The Rotary Burlington North Foundation conducts a Turkey Trot run every October at Brontë Creek.* [*'The poisoned apple'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-poisoned-apple/) *made an incongruous appearance on the trail in last year's run. I didn't feed it to anyone, I promise.* ### April Awesomeness: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-april-awesomeness/ Last updated: 2025-04-27T07:00:14.000Z Monthly Missives turns 3 this month! The very first missive, [*April Alchemy*](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-april-alchemy/), went out three years ago this week. 🥳 Many of you have been with me right from the start. Many of you have joined me en route. As always, I'm eternally grateful for the time we spend together. Thank you for being here. My intention with these missives was to create a small space of beauty and wonder to share my love for the written word. In my mind, that is how I see these monthly offerings to you. I hope that is how you feel about these missives too! --- On another note, I'm in Toronto this weekend attending the [*Toronto Indie Authors' Conference*](https://torontoindieauthorcon.com). If any of you are there, please let's get together and grab a cuppa and talk about all of our favourite things, especially books and writing! --- ### *On Writing* I am currently penning the last chapter of Book 1 of the fantasy duology I've been working on. I'm fairly certain that in a few days, I'd be able to type 'The End' on the first draft and enter the phase of editing Book 1 while beginning to write Book 2 alongside. I had earlier aimed for a spring/summer release for this collection of books, but the stories have been gaining in scale and length as I've been writing them. Book 1 stands at 400+ pages as of now, and I have no idea what Book 2 has in store for me. A secondary character from Book 1 already has his own story written down, as I mentioned earlier, causing me to digress from Book 1 for a bit. Now many other characters wish to tell their tales too. I'm typing as fast as I can to capture the sounds they whisper urgently in my ears and the images and visions they conjure up in my head. It's a thrilling place to be in for me as a writer, and I'm riding the wave for as long as it lasts. --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* I have a lovely [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-april-2025/) this month with all four tales somehow perfectly timed for the season! One is a seasonal warning about the ***'coyote area'***, another beckons ***'invisible horses for the wagon'***. Yet another is about a dilemma found ***'at the end of a pilgrimage'***. And if you've watched Snow White (I haven't, yet), ***'the poisoned apple'*** is sure to give you a chuckle and some ideas! [![4-photo collage of images that inspired four 'tales for dreamers' short fiction tales in April 2025](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/04/Tales-From-April-2025.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-april-2025/) tales for dreamers: the [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-april-2025/) for April 2025 --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* With the days getting longer and the evenings getting brighter and warmer, I've been spending more time outdoors, my face turned towards the blue sky and white clouds, rather than looking inwards in contemplation. I don't know if I'm the only one who feels this way, but as much as I love this season, the wide open periods of spring and summer seem to bring their own pressures. The pressure to spend more time outdoors. The pressure to travel. The pressure to fill weekends with activities in order to have an answer that sounds intelligent and/or cool when someone asks, "So, how was your weekend?" And now, with D in the picture, there's also the pressure to create 'perfect' childhood summers for him so he'd have some fond memories to fall back on in adulthood. Yes, I know how futile these thoughts and anxieties are, but old habits and thought patterns really die hard and tend to resurface when I'm not looking. They're very sneaky that way. One of the wisdom teachers I turn to often in moments of confusion is [Tara Brach](https://www.tarabrach.com). While I was looking for her podcast on Spotify, I came across an artist named [Monique Rhodes](https://open.spotify.com/artist/1fOgPYhclGITOy8ehM6YSb?si=lzNCHKJnROa8CpsB39hGkg) who has created astounding pieces of music incorporating the teachings of various wisdom teachers. It's incredible how Rhodes' music matches perfectly the timbre and pitch of each speaker's voice, and how the rhythm of each melody is completely in sync with the respective speaker's cadence. If you listen to these pieces, you'd think the music came first and the words followed, rather than the other way round. A piece I'm absolutely in love with right now is titled [*'Accepting Yourself'*](https://open.spotify.com/track/17eQPTaPtqh3g7xknCBGLv?si=e54ebbf801f04f9a) by Tara Brach. I wonder what made Rhodes choose these particular lines to set to music, but these were the words I needed to hear to comfort myself in this state of thinking I was caught up in. Perhaps you'd find solace in them too. ![bronze statue of Buddha against a blurred green backdrop of nature](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/04/shanthi-raja-usHvD_mkCvo-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Shanthi Raja](https://unsplash.com/@shanthiraja?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/gold-buddha-figurine-on-brown-concrete-surface-usHvD%5FmkCvo?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) > *Now just imagine for a moment what it would be like in your life to be without anxiety about imperfection?* > *Not to be numb or uncaring, just simply without anxiety, accepting yourself just as you are. With this body. With this appearance. These behaviours. These life circumstances.* > *One of the most reassuring lines from Zen tradition was writing by Zen master Dōgen, and it goes like this:* > *"To be in harmony with the oneness of things is to be without anxiety about imperfection."* > *Now I love this teaching because it assumes imperfection. It assumes that these bodies and minds will be reactive, that we will grasp and get attached, that we will be angry at times, and fearful, that we’ll even hurt the beings that we love the most out of our fear and our confusion.* > *It assumes imperfection and says what matters is how do we relate to that?* > *But when we feel deficient and we’re aware of that deficiency, there’s a real sense of shame, and that shame ties us up in knots. It gives rise to the most profound sense of self-aversion.* > *And what this means is that for awakening beings of our times, people on the spiritual path, that paying attention to shame, paying attention to self-aversion, is a necessary gateway for awakening.* > *It’s not something to get rid of. Rather, the way we pay attention to self-aversion is actually the grounds of the path.* > *\~ Tara Brach,* [*Accepting Yourself*](https://open.spotify.com/track/17eQPTaPtqh3g7xknCBGLv?si=65ac1c382b794292) Did the music and words move you as much as they did me? Write to me and let me know. --- ### *Books You May Love* This month's reading experience has been very unusual, in an excellent way. First I read an English translation of a novel originally written in Italian. Titled [*Imago Mortis*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24267209-imago-mortis) and written by author Samuel Marolla, the story is about a private eye named Augusto Ghites who is also a junkie. Not only that, but his drug of choice is the ashes of the dead. When he sniffs their ashes, he's able to relive their lives and interact with their ghosts. An old prostitute hires him to investigate the decades-old murder of her colleague, and we follow Ghites as he looks for his next fix, runs into a bunch of goons who beat him up, and searches for the truth among all the falsehoods that are fed to him. Imago Mortis was such an exciting story to read. In addition to the intriguing premise, one of the beautiful things was that I didn't feel as though I was reading it in English. There was a certain cadence to the translation, certain choices of words and phrasing, that made it sound like a foreign language in my mind. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/04/Books-You-May-Love---April-2025.jpg) Another memorable book I read this month was a fictional recounting of the life of the Scottish author, Robert Louis Stevenson, by Nancy Horan, titled [*Under The Wide And Starry Sky*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17797253-under-the-wide-and-starry-sky). Just last month, I shared with you the delights of reading *Miss Austen* by Gill Hornby. It felt almost serendipitous when I came across Horan's title in a similar genre, featuring another beloved writer, while casually browsing books in the library. I had to borrow this title and read it. There are so many things to love about these kinds of books. There are several a-ha moments when we find references in these books to the authors' works we've come to love and adore. Incidentally, [two summers ago](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-july-journeys/), I went to The Writers' Museum in Edinburgh. It features memorabilia from the lives of three Scottish literary giants — Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson. In that month's missive, I shared the words of Stevenson that touched me greatly. > *When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge; I take them like opium; and consider one who writes them as a sort of doctor of the mind. And frankly, it is not Shakespeare we take to, when we are in a hot corner … It is Charles Reade, or old Dumas, or the best of Walter Scott … We want incident, interest, action; to the devil with your philosophy.* > *\~ Robert Louis Stevenson* Imagine how glad my heart was when I was reading Nancy Horan's book and came across the following lines. > *"What are you working on now?" Baxter asked.* > *"A poetry collection," Louis replied. "I'm calling it A Child's Garden of Verses."* > *Henley nearly choked. "A child's garden ...?"* > *"Go write your damn masterpieces!" Louis shouted. Henley and Baxter laughed, but everyone in the room knew Louis was livid when he jabbed his fork emphatically at Henley as he spoke. "When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge; I take them like opium. Anyone who entertains me with a great story is a doctor of the spirit. Frankly, it isn't Shakespeare we take to when we are in a hot corner, is it? It's Dumas or the best of Walter Scott. Don't children, especially children, deserve that kind of refuge? Even if it's poetry?"* > *\~ An excerpt from Under The Wide And Starry Sky by Nancy Horan* These are the moments of beauty and serendipity that make my heart sing with joy! --- Another missive comes to an end, dear Dreamer! Time has a way of simply flying when we're lost in an immersive experience. Writing these missives to you always puts me in that state of flow. This is a task I look forward to every month. Thank you for allowing me space in your day. I hope my writings inform or inspire you in some way or the other. Thank you for all the time you've spent with me. Here's to 3 years and counting! 🙏🏽 Much love, Anitha ### tales for dreamers: the poisoned apple URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-poisoned-apple/ Last updated: 2025-04-25T13:00:38.000Z The apple is poisoned. Of course, it is. See how everyone’s giving it a wide berth. Pretending it doesn’t exist. It’s red and beautiful and looks like just the perfect juicy snack to bite into on this unnaturally warm day in autumn. No one knows how it came there. No one wishes to have anything to do with it. Everyone’s heard the tale of Snow White and the evil Queen, even if they were not born or brought up in the land where Snow White lived. That story is as old and as true as the moon and the stars in the night sky that anyone in any part of the world can see. The saddest part is everyone can only imagine themselves as Snow White. No one seems to be able to step into the shoes of the evil Queen. But you can. You, who loves to dwell in the realm of shadows and darkness, in the kingdom of dreams and nightmares, you can imagine what it’d be like to be the evil Queen. Can’t you? Smart. Cunning. Necessarily evil. So you pocket the apple when you know no one’s looking. Maybe you’ll give it to the next person who dares annoy you. And they’ll never know what hit them. They’ll never be able to trace it back to you. But I can. I’ve been watching you all along. But I won’t rat on you. Life has gotten too boring in these parts. Sometimes, I’ve got to let the bad ones win to make things a tad interesting. --- *Last week's image info: The trail* [*'at the end of a pilgrimage'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-at-the-end-of-a-pilgrimage/) *can be found at Rattlesnake Point. These used to be rough terrain with slippery boulders that have now been converted into stone paths for easier and safer climbing.* ### tales for dreamers: at the end of a pilgrimage URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-at-the-end-of-a-pilgrimage/ Last updated: 2025-04-18T13:00:50.000Z The path is littered with broken stones. Tall trees fail to provide adequate shelter from the elements, which are anyway indifferent to your plight. Underground creatures detest your loud, disturbing presence in their quiet lives. Yet, you continue to walk. Driven by the sheer belief that at the end of your pilgrimage, you will find what you seek. Relief. Redemption. Freedom? Perhaps, even God? You keep going. You keep climbing, keep stepping up. Something inside of you keeps you moving ahead. Something inside of you recognizes what it expects to see on the outside, at the end of the pilgrimage. What could it be? Light? Joy? Bliss? Something divine? And so you keep going. Driven by a desperate desire to find a solution to all your problems, a cure for all your aches, a panacea for everything that troubles you. At long last you reach the top, and what do you see? A vast emptiness on one side. A mirror on the other. One, a reminder that there's nothing on the outside. The other, a reminder there is only one place to seek answers in. Which will you choose? --- *Last week's image info: The* [*'invisible horses for the wagon'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-invisible-horses-for-the-wagon/) *were grazing at the Mountsberg Conservation Area, just before we entered the Sugar Bush for maple season activities.* ### tales for dreamers: invisible horses for the wagon URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-invisible-horses-for-the-wagon/ Last updated: 2025-04-11T13:00:49.000Z That was the year they decided to use invisible horses to pull the wagons. They were quite a hoot at first. The children whooped with delight when the wagon seemed to move of its own accord, lurching hesitantly at first, then trundling along, sure of its path and destination. The clippity-clop of the horses’ hooves on the trail was unmistakable. It was evidence of their existence. At first the horses were quite obedient, drawing the wagon only along designated trails and not deviating from their paths the slightest bit. But it is in the nature of souls to explore, which is what the invisible horses did as the days grew warmer and the sun shone brighter. They trundled through the woods, took unsuspecting passengers on journeys around town, and sometimes parked in the middle of lush fields, munching on hay, expecting the travellers on the wagon to bask in the sunshine and indulge in a brief hiatus from the busy-ness of their lives. Only, the passengers didn’t always like these unexpected adventures. They had things to do, places to be. They had dinner to cook and keep ready, and they had bills to pay. So they complained about the errant behaviours of the beast, and the misbehaving horses were let go. Now the wagon stands all by itself, abandoned in a lonely field. It is tethered in place by orange cones and boards strictly instructing folks to not climb or play on the wagon. It’s clear those warnings are meant to keep children out. Because it was always the children who had the grandest time on the unexpected adventures the invisible horses dragged them to. All the wagon needs is one unsuspecting child to climb on to it. And the horses will trot away with the wagon once more. --- *Last week's image info: The yellow sign declaring '*[*coyote area*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-coyote-area/)*' and affixed to a pole is located on New Street right beside the creek where it runs past Nelson High School.* ### tales for dreamers: coyote area URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-coyote-area/ Last updated: 2025-04-04T13:00:58.000Z This was originally a coyote area. The land has always belonged to the coyotes. It belonged to them long before humans came by. It will belong to them long after humans have gone. No one seems to remember this though. No one other than the coyotes, that is. Occasionally they attempt to assert their ownership in the only way they know. Through acts of aggression. Unfortunately, this earns them a swift rebuttal from humans, who currently have the upper hand simply because they vastly outnumber the coyotes. And they also have access to more sophisticated weapons, whereas the coyotes have only their teeth and nails and untamed wildness to resort to. This was originally a coyote area. But no one has seen a coyote in these parts in a long time. It is said that the coyotes are most active at dawn and at dusk, but even the most ardent watchers haven’t caught a glimpse of one in ages. Most humans believe the coyotes left long ago. But maybe they’re simply in hiding. They’ve always been clever that way. Maybe they’re simply biding their time. --- *Last week's image info: The lovely home with the light in the window* [*'where all quests come to an end'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-where-all-quests-come-to-an-end/) *is located somewhere on Belvenia Rd. I haven't been that way in a long time now, as a foot injury has precluded long walks for the time being.* ### March Marvels: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-march-marvels/ Last updated: 2025-03-30T07:00:19.000Z I have some exciting news this month and a special gift for you if you receive this missive in your inbox. So grab a cuppa, and let's get right into this month's missive! --- ### *On Writing* [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/10.-Tales-for-Dreamers_Vol-1-2.jpg)](https://books2read.com/tales-for-dreamers-volume-1) Tales For Dreamers: Volume 1 is available at your favourite bookstores! 💡 [***Tales For Dreamers: Volume 1**](https://books2read.com/tales-for-dreamers-volume-1) **is out now!** It's a collection of the first 100 tales of short fiction I wrote ever since I started this project more than a decade ago! It began as a simple desire of this fledgling author to write fleeting stories based on images of everyday scenes. Writing these tales helped me see the magic in the mundane and coax the remarkable out of the run-of-the-mill. Many of these tales are no longer on the website — haven't been for several years now — as I could no longer find the original photos and their attributions in many cases, so it seemed best to take them down so as to not violate any copyright laws. But so many readers have loved and cherished these tales, it seemed rather pointless to let them languish in a folder on my laptop. Here they are now, in all their original glory! The book is available in both ebook and paperback formats, as well as in hardcover format in some regions. [Buy 'Tales For Dreamers: Volume 1' now!](https://books2read.com/tales-for-dreamers-volume-1) You could also buy the ebook directly from my store, [Dream Pedlar Books](https://payhip.com/b/MeEWf)! 💡 Email subscribers to Monthly Missives, if you're reading this newsletter in your web browser, please also read it in your email for your special gift below. --- Some of my tiles are also available as digitally narrated audiobooks now over on Apple Books! The YA paranormal mystery novel, [*Erased From Existence*](https://books.apple.com/ca/audiobook/erased-from-existence/id1802903644), the fantasy novellas — [*The Land Of No Reflection*](https://books.apple.com/ca/audiobook/the-land-of-no-reflection/id1802903559), and [*In Search of Leo*](https://books.apple.com/ca/audiobook/in-search-of-leo/id1802903584) — and three of my favourite short stories — [*A Benevolent Goddess*](https://books.apple.com/ca/audiobook/a-benevolent-goddess/id1803174281), [*The Mind Meddler*](https://books.apple.com/ca/audiobook/the-mind-meddler-a-short-story/id1802903708), and [*Memory Games*](https://books.apple.com/ca/audiobook/memory-games-a-short-story/id1802903621) — are available so far. Other titles are forthcoming! --- ### *Tales For Dreamers* This month's [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-march-2025/) features a lot of woodsy, outdoorsy images. Read about ***'the necessity of flowers'***, or about the time of the year **'when the sugar maple weeps'*.* Climb up the ***'stairway to the above-world'***, and find out how to tell ***'where all quests come to an end'***. [![collection of 5 images used to write 'Tales for Dreamers' this month](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/Tales-For-Dreamers_March-2025_1.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-march-2025/) tales for dreamers: the [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-march-2025/) for March 2025 But if there's only one tale you're able to read, please head to the one in which I tell you ***'all about my favourite woodland creature'***. It's about little D! Naturally, it's the tale I love the most in this month's collection. [tales for dreamers: about my favourite woodland creatureOf all beings in this universe, one in my indisputable favourite. Let me tell you more about it.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-18.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/32.-about-my-favourite-woodland-creature.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-about-my-favourite-woodland-creature/) --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* It's deceptively bright outside these days. We did have a 20 °C day this month, although we're back at sub-zero temperatures now. But that does little to dampen the spirit as the sun shines brighter and for longer with each passing day. This month has been a bit of a mixed bag as I've been mulling my future as a fiction writer in the age of AI. I've been pondering this for more than a year now, but I was forced to reckon with this even more so after recently reading [*A Machine-Shaped Hand*](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/12/a-machine-shaped-hand-read-a-story-from-openais-new-creative-writing-model), a short story from OpenAI's new creative writing model. > *It's beautiful, and I love it. And it gave me an existential crisis for a bit.* Much has been said by far greater creatives than me on the potential effects of AI on the creative industry. There's no need to reiterate all that. Nor are we debating whether or not to use AI in our work and daily lives. Neither are we going down the rabbit hole of the utterly unethical behaviours that technology companies and leaders continue to exhibit, knowing fully well they'd get away with their transgressions in the name of advancement and progress. Instead, what I'm inviting you to think about today is whether it makes sense for me, you, or anyone else, any individual essentially, to continue to create works of art, to labour over them, when it has become all too easy for anyone to do so at the click of a button. In other words, the question we're really asking is this: > ***Should we be creating works of art when there's seemingly no lucrative market for them?*** ![a robot sitting down and looking ahead](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/2.-erhan-astam-yLcK3Itx6ok-unsplash-1.jpg) Photo by [Erhan Astam](https://unsplash.com/@vaultzero?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/white-and-orange-robot-near-wall-yLcK3Itx6ok?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) One way to think about this question is to look back on why we were drawn to a particular artistic activity in the first place? No one told me to be a writer. Sure, I loved reading books. I wrote award-winning essays while I was at school. I topped my class in English every year. But I also excelled in and aced almost every other subject just as well. I first turned to writing as a salve in my early 20s — somewhere in the midst of leaving university and entering the workforce — as a means of expressing how I felt about losing friends, about leaving behind a campus life I had enjoyed so much, and the uncertainties of learning a whole new way of living altogether. Writing poetry was a healthy way of coping with loss and disappointment, with change and uncertainty. I didn't write those pieces to gain an audience or wealth. In fact, the idea of writing for a living didn't even enter my mind as a possibility until D was born and I wanted to be a stay-at-home mother and I thought, "Oh, maybe I could continue to earn alongside by publishing my stories." (Now that's another rabbit hole we're not entering today — productivity in the life phase of parenting!) > *What I've come to realize since then is that the creative industry is an industry like any other in our capitalist world. Just because a creative product exists doesn't mean an audience for it can be guaranteed.* > *No creative is entitled to recognition or reward. The world does not owe us an applause simply because we created a work of art, no matter how beautiful.* Our generation has witnessed a lot of debate over 'following your passion' versus choosing a 'practical job'. In her book, *'Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World'*, neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff talks about how mentions of the phrase 'follow your purpose' have grown 7-fold in books in just the past two decades. That's the cultural message of our times. Follow your dreams! Dream big! Go big or go home! But we only hear the success stories, the tales of those who make it big. Of course, we never hear from those who tried and failed and decided to turn to other means of livelihood. That's survivorship bias! > *And it's incomplete information based on which we wrongly assume that we 'should follow our dreams' and 'make it big' and anything that deviates from that script, any outcome that falls short of that big, fantastic dream, renders us a failure and our lives worthless.* *'And Then We grew Up'* by Rachel Friedman is another excellent read for our times. I love this book so much I wrote an [entire post](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-and-then-we-grew-up-by-rachel-friedman/) on it two years ago. The author explores how the fantasy of an artist’s life is often much in contrast to its vastly complicated reality. We tend to have an all-or-nothing approach towards creativity. But, as Friedman demonstrates in her book, there are many ways to incorporate creativity in our lives. Making a living from our creative passions is not the only way. And we’re not failures if we’re unable to monetize our art or passion. ![a colourful framed poster reading 'If you can dream then anything is possible'](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/3.-samuel-regan-asante-LdzccjtVUIs-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Samuel Regan-Asante](https://unsplash.com/@reganography?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/yellow-blue-and-red-happy-birthday-signage-LdzccjtVUIs?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) | Inspiring, but just a little misleading So, how does this pertain to the discussion on hand about AI? If we’ve been creating works of art to achieve financial gains, then no doubt that was always a risky venture. Success was never guaranteed. There was always competition, politics, economic fluctuations that determined what sold and what didn’t. AI is yet another factor in the mix, further complicating an existing mess. If we’ve been creating works of art for self-expression, to understand ourselves better, to create something beautiful that would touch our own soul, even if only for a fleeting moment, then we aren’t really competing with anyone or anything else out there. And AI shouldn’t be a reason for us to stop expressing ourselves creatively. I love writing. Of course I worry about the odds of my earning an income writing and selling fiction. It's something not in my control. It never was, even before AI came along. But there's a certain joy in putting pen to paper, typing words on the screen and seeing an entire story blossom from a mere combination of words and punctuation marks! Your joy may lie elsewhere. Write a poem. Draw what you see in your mind’s eye. Paint or colour. Sing in the shower. Try your hand at pottery. I did, a few months ago, with friends. And I found I totally suck at it, haha! But it was fun, nonetheless. ![Pottery creations including a bowl, coffee mug, and a diya](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/4.-Pottery-1.jpeg) Art for the sake of play Not everyone plays a sport at a professional level. That doesn’t mean we can’t band together with family and friends for some leisurely play. Not every university graduate lands a plumb office job anymore. That doesn't mean we'd tell our children to play truant and skip school. > *Yet, we pursue the activities that we do — studying for a test, playing a sport, learning to play an instrument — not for some spectacular outcome of global fame and world domination, but because of who we become in the process.* > *People who are capable of rising to a challenge with curiosity, creativity and confidence. People who are not daunted by uncertainty or lack of knowledge or skill, but are willing to put in the time and effort to try out something new.* More than 40 years ago, Indian philosopher and orator, Jiddu Krishnamurti, said the following about computers in a very prescient fashion: > *The computer will do most of the things we can, and unless our brain is very active it’s going to become dull and wither.* > *Either you lose yourself in pleasure, amusement and superficial things or you enter into a world that has no end, with immense depth and vastness. This is for you to find out.* > *\~* [*Jiddu Krishnamurti*](https://jkrishnamurti.org/content/conflict-wastage-energy-0) So, what do you think? What is your take on the arguments surrounding creativity in the age of AI and capitalism? Write to me and let me know! --- ### *Books You May Love* ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/4.-Books-You-May-Love.jpg) I read a couple of amazing books this month! *Here One Moment* by Australian author, Liane Moriarty, is such a zany story! It begins with a woman in an airplane who goes around pointing at each passenger in turn and declaring their age of death and cause of death. The story then centres on a few passengers and how they react in the days that follow given the news of their impending death. One mother is told that her newborn son who's strapped to her chest would die at the age of 7 by drowning! But don't worry! The story unfolds in such a beautiful way — tugging at heart strings, with lots of wry humour — and it won't be a spoiler to say that it all ends really well, and realistically so! No tragic endings here. The other gem I got around to reading was *Miss Austen* by Gill Hornby. I didn't know this but apparently Jane Austen's sister, Cassandra Austen, took it upon herself to destroy any of Jane's private correspondence with family and other relations that might show the author in poor light or be twisted into malicious gossip. The book, written from Cassandra's point of view, imagines how she would have gone about acquiring those letters and what those letters could have contained. It was such a beautiful read, full of love and family drama, all the seemingly mundane and tiring but inevitable things that life is made of. Apparently there's also an acclaimed [TV series](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21096438/) inspired by this book. --- Well, so that brings us to the end of yet another edition of Monthly Missives! This was the 36th edition, which means next month I'll get to say *"Hurrah! Monthly Missives is 3 years old!"* I can't believe I committed to doing something on a monthly basis, without interruption, without any external expectations, and actually executed it 36 times in a row! This is a perfect example of why we shouldn't let AI or capitalism stop us from creating works of art. > *Because the purpose of undertaking a creative journey is not to showcase our creations to the world. It is to unearth what the process of creating art can reveal to us about our own selves.* Until next month then, dear Dreamers! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: where all quests come to an end URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-where-all-quests-come-to-an-end/ Last updated: 2025-03-28T13:00:02.000Z Look for the window with the green light. That’s where you will finally find the one you’re looking for. It is the place where every seeker finds what they’ve been looking for. Joy. Happiness. A lover. A mate. The philosopher’s stone. A magic wand. The alchemist’s manual. Immortality. Anything you could have ever asked for lies safe in that room with the window lit up in an unearthly green. It is the place where all quests come to an end. The only condition is this: you must seek only one thing. And you must have devoted at least a decade of your life in relentless pursuit of the one thing you’re looking for. Nothing else. But hurry. The window lights up only one night in a year. If you miss seeing it tonight, you must wait an entire year before you can embark on your quest again. --- *Last week's image info: The* [*'stairway to the above-world'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-stairway-to-the-above-world/) *is tucked away in the woods of Niagara Glen.* ### Tales For Dreamers: Volume 1 is out! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-volume-1-is-out/ Last updated: 2025-03-22T15:01:49.000Z I'm so excited to announce that Tales For Dreamers: Volume 1 is not out on various bookstores in ebook, paperback and hardcover formats! [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/10.-Tales-for-Dreamers_Vol-1-1.jpg)](https://books2read.com/tales-for-dreamers-volume-1) This has been a dream project for years! Ever since I penned my first *Tale For Dreamer* more than a decade ago, I've kept coming back to writing these small tales. I've written them inspired by commonplace urban and suburban settings in Singapore, in Canada, in Australia. I write them to bring out the magic in the mundane, the remarkable in the run-of-the-mill, and to separate the tricks from the trite. There's much to enjoy and savour in this collection of 100 tales! Get them at in a format of your choice from your favourite [bookstore](https://books2read.com/tales-for-dreamers-volume-1)! Or buy an ebook version directly from me from my store, [Dream Pedlar Books](https://payhip.com/b/MeEWf)! [Buy your copy today!](https://books2read.com/tales-for-dreamers-volume-1) ### all the distractions come for me URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/all-the-distractions-come-for-me/ Last updated: 2025-03-21T23:38:47.000Z The title and the subtitle of this post sound like lyrics to a song, haha. But they're so true. Every time I decide to focus on writing, all these distractions turn up — publishing a new short story collection, or signing up to submit my titles for auto-narration, or setting up something on BookFunnel, or any of the thousand other things that don't need doing right now but would be kinda, slisha fun to do. And then the distraction gets over, and I come back to the manuscript, and the old fears come roaring, as if to remind me that they were never gone. They had been here all along, simply biding their time, waiting to pounce upon me once I lifted my eyes for long enough to gaze at them. This is perhaps the lesson I'll keep learning over and over again in my life. To face the fear, and to continue to do the work despite the fear. It'd be a tragedy to allow fear to prevent me from doing what I love. Another concern these days is about AI getting better at producing creative work. I don't know how these things will play out, but one thing to remember is that we write because we can't help ourselves. It is a natural way of self-expression for writers, just as an artist can't help but paint or a musician can't help but sing or play an instrument. We don't create works so that we may sell them and make money. If we can do that, great. But the fundamental driving force that keeps us going creatively is our need for self-expression. Our desire to create something beautiful and put it out there in the world. So what if many other humans are doing the same? So what if AI also does the same? The fact that other beautiful works exist does not diminish my desire to create something amazing too. Every mindset book talks about focussing on the process, not on the product or outcome. Writing is a process I love. Narration, cover design, proofreading — I'm happy for AI to take on these jobs for me. Which then brings me back to the statement I began this post with. *all the distractions come for me ... and they get me every single time ... but the desire to create never does fade ...* Looks like I've run out of excuses to keep permitting this to happen, isn't it? ### tales for dreamers: stairway to the above-world URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-stairway-to-the-above-world/ Last updated: 2025-03-22T20:03:22.000Z The stairway is made of a metal of some kind. It’s rusty and clangs at every step and you feel as if it may not be strong enough to hold you. The sheets of metal are grid-shaped. When you look down, each tiny hole offers you a glimpse of how far up you’ve come. Not a good idea to look down if you’re afraid of heights. But ‘height’ is a relative concept. No matter how high up on the stairway you are, there are always realms still far out of reach. Each level is identical to the others. Ten steps up one way, a small landing where you make an about-turn, then ten steps up the other way, and yet another small landing to change your orientation. It doesn’t take long to get used to the pattern. At some point, the stairs disappear from under your feet. You can still feel them though if you keep going the way you’ve been going all this while. Not a good idea to look down if you’re afraid of heights. At this point, you’ll feel as though you’re walking on air. You may lose your nerve and not be able to take another step. But you see, there’s simply no way to fall. The residents of the above-world are quietly cheering you on, and they’ve put in place measures, albeit invisible, to ensure you will not fall, as long as you simply keep going. --- *Last week's image info: The beautiful woods in* [*'when the sugar maple weeps'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-when-the-sugar-maple-weeps/) *are at Mountsberg, a beautiful destination to see tapping and maple-syrup-making in progress and indulge in some of the fluffiest pancakes ever with a generous serving of maple syrup by the campfire.* ### the delights of living in the present moment URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-delights-of-living-in-the-present-moment/ Last updated: 2025-03-21T00:06:06.000Z It's been a long day filled with lots of errands, but funnily a lot of work also got done in the broken fragments of time I managed to get. Some days are like this. The days that are like this are the ones in which I'm only present with the task on hand, and not thinking about what's yet to come. Oh, how many years of my life have I lived worrying about what's to come in the future, often a very distant future! Growing up, there was always the idea of a distant future where problems would cease to exist and life would become 'easy'. Most everyone around me — mostly the adults, I suppose — was either looking forward to something in the future or was worried about what was to come. And perhaps it is a nod to the rather good and stable childhood that I had that I could easily believe in a good and stable future too. All that changed when I became a mother. The future was suddenly quite unpredictable. The present, even more so. Because everything was changing all the time. D was growing far too quickly, and we had to make quick decisions about where he'd go to school, which city we ought to move to so that he can attend a good school ... we were so caught up in all that future planning that is shoved down every parent's throat. Even now, there are parents who have already registered their children in summer camps and have their entire summer schedule ready. And it's only March. And here, in our household, we're taking a deliberately slower approach. For instance, registrations have already opened up for tennis lessons in May, but we've decided to wait until April-end for D to decide whether he'd like to take lessons or not. If he does, we'll look to register him then. If the spots are sold out, so be it. We refuse to be sucked into this madness of planning everything several months in advance. There are some exceptions, of course. For instance, registration for ski lessons in Jan-Mar open up the previous August. But D loves to go skiing, so that's a no-brainer and we sign up as soon as registration is open. Skating was a different story last year. Registration opened in August and we signed up, but when October came around, D was in two minds. We kept a lot of options open, and he chose to try a class or two and see if he'd like to proceed. After the second week of lessons he decided he'd like to continue through the season. When lessons got over, he also decided that he wouldn't like to continue with skating lessons next year, an idea we are completely OK with. It's great for children to be able to explore. To try something, then decide against it, then perhaps decide to take it up again somewhere down the line, or perhaps not. I don't know about other parents, but as a parent I definitely have a hard time trying to plan D's life so far out in advance. I just think it's foolish to try and control their futures so much. Last year, a parent told me that a mom was so desperate for her son to join Rep Basketball that she changed his date of birth on the registration form in order to make him eligible to sign up. And guess how old he was? Just a few months shy of the required age of 8 years! Yes. The 'catch them early' bug has definitely caught most parents. One of the troubles of trying to live consciously is that we'll often come up against the rest of the world flowing in a counter-current fashion. That makes us question everything we think we know about life, about ourselves, about the world around us. Which is why I love coming back to the saying, *Make a choice, and make it the right one*. We've chosen for D to have a slow, relaxed and unhurried pace of childhood. I've chosen to spend time with him, as much time as I can. This is something that is working for us at the moment. And the funny part is, when I'm not always looking at the next task on hand to be completed or the distant future to be planned for, my present days are full yet relaxed, bustling and also energizing. Who knows what the future holds? Who can possibly tell? Why not focus on the present moment instead? It truly has everything we need in this hour. And that is a matter of such privilege, we must consider ourselves very fortunate indeed. ### only one place where wisdom lives URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/only-one-place-where-wisdom-lives/ Last updated: 2025-03-19T23:47:20.000Z I was recently reading a book on Internal Family Systems, and it suddenly occurred to me that fundamentally it is quite similar to the RAIN approach for processing and soothing emotions. For the uninitiated, IFS is a psychotherapy model in which our mind is viewed as comprising different parts — Protectors (Managers and Firefighters) that show up to help the Exiles (the parts of us that are affected by past experiences and trauma). At the very core, though, is the Self, which is inherently wise and calm and courageous and that is the space we seek to operate from more and more as we heal. RAIN is an approach in which, when we're overcome with strong emotions, we're invited to Recognize and Allow the feelings that arise, Inquire into the true nature and deeper source of these emotions, and Nurture our selves through the process. And these in turn remind me of discussions on healing our Inner Child, primarily by operating from a space within us that is a Wiser Self, or a Seat of Wisdom, and caring for the wounded child that shows up when we're triggered. The more I read, the more I find that all these different models of healing and wisdom teaching are fundamentally the same. It's about facing a trigger, pausing so as to not get hijacked by the trigger, and allowing ourselves the space and time to respond with guidance from the inherently wise inner self. The day I realized this, I understood why wisdom teachers such as Laozi and Jiddu Krishnamurti refused to put their wisdom down on paper. Firstly, it is impossible to explain wisdom to another person. Much is lost in translation. And the receiver takes in the knowledge through the lens of his/her own past conditioning. Secondly, the instant a human being has recourse to a book or a podcast or a guru to turn to, they'd quite likely opt for this route rather than doing the only thing that is required, the only thing that matters, the only thing that could possible make a difference: **turn inwards**. Even since I began writing these end-of-day field notes, I've become much more attuned to the inner workings of my mind and heart, far more than I had ever managed to when I turned to books or podcasts to soothe my anxious mind. I now understand why writing is so important to me. I write to gain more clarity on my own thoughts. I write to understand myself better. I write, so I can sit with myself and my thoughts, and begin to understand who I am, how I function, and what my behavioural patterns are. Because no matter how wise and insightful a book may be, it is still the product of someone else's experiences. Reading or listening to those might give me some comfort, some validation, but only for a few brief moments. > *And the act of looking outwards can never guide us to uncovering our inner truths. *How can I understand myself when I'm always looking to an external authority to explain myself to me?* How could they possibly do that?* We can take this one step further and question whether the various methods of categorizing people — by sun signs or moon signs, by Enneagram type, by Clifton Strengths, by DISC profiles, by personality types — are really valid. It is comforting, no doubt, to have an external authority take a look at us and say, "You are Type 4" or "You are an ENFJ" or "You are a Scorpio." These labels give us some benchmarks, some sort of acceptable, even if vague, way of categorizing ourselves. It gives us much relief when we can say, "Oh, so this is who I am!" But why give someone else that authority? That privilege? Especially when they can at most classify us in only some perfunctory, generalized ways. It is as though we become little children, turning to any subject-matter-expert, hoping they'd be able to give us the validation and recognition, the acknowledgment and identity that we probably didn't quite get earlier on in our lives. > *How wonderful it can be when we decide to get to know ourselves, by observing our thoughts and emotions, our triggers and reactions, by using perspectives that we come up with because they align with our values, instead of looking to someone else to tell us who we are?* > *When we engage with ourselves, we are the student, and we are the master too. We are the devotee who calls out, and we are the God who responds. We are the seeker, and we ourselves are the one we seek.* So, what's stopping you from turning inwards, right here, right now? ### what it really takes to choose one thing over another URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-it-really-takes-to-choose-one-thing-over-another/ Last updated: 2025-03-18T23:25:16.000Z I went to Indigo Books this morning to buy myself a spiral-bound notebook. While there, I chanced upon a set of four lovely magnetic bookmarks. With floral designs, each had a pithy saying like 'grow with the flow', 'each day is a fresh start', and so on. They were placed in a container which also had another set of three magnetic bookmarks; these were more rectangular and had mostly floral designs with one bookmark saying 'Lost between the pages' or something like that. The two sets were equally enchanting. I couldn't bring myself to choose between the two. At one point I decided I could buy both. Then I remembered how I usually encourage D to make a choice, reminding him that I trust him to make good choices. The same rule ought to apply to me. I am definitely very fair in all my dealings, even ones with my own self. So I chose the set of four — I did like it quite a bit more than the other — and made my merry way home with my little loot. It occurred to me later as I was reflecting upon the incident what exactly I was doing. When I thought I could buy both, technically — or more accurately, financially — I 'could', yes. But that wasn't the point. > *In thinking that I could buy both, I was avoiding having to make a choice. Because to choose one thing means to let go of everything else.* The word 'decision' comes from the Latin word 'decidere', which in turn comes from the Latin root 'caedere', which means 'to cut'. When we make a decision one way, we're literally cutting ourselves off from every other possibility. More business-minded folks would call this an 'opportunity cost'. > *Whatever name we call it by, the reason we worry about opportunity cost when we make a decision is because we can't let go of that thought: What if it is the other choice that would lead me to the most favourable outcome?* We'd never know. If I have to choose between A and B, and I choose A, I'd never ever find out if choice B would have led me to a better outcome. Sure, we can look at other people who made choice B and see how it unfolds for them, but there come far too many variables in play — those people would be fundamentally different from us in some way, so how Choice B would play out for them would be very different than how Choice B would have played out for us. Not to mention the countless other variables like luck, circumstances, etc. all of which vary wildly from person to person. I remember the countless discussions ~~we~~ I had with other parents on whether or not to send our children to school during the pandemic. D started Junior Kindergarten that year. KrA, very wisely, stayed clear of these discussions. He was very clear right from the start that what would work best for us would be to send D to school. And it occurred to me at some point that I was mostly in agreement with him, but I also wanted some sort of assurance that we weren't being needlessly risky. An assurance that no one could possibly give. I had faced the same dilemma earlier when I was wondering whether or not to take the AstraZeneca vaccine after reports emerged of fatal side-effects caused by the injection. I suppose I've become somewhat of a fatalist since then. Still, a more optimistic one now than I was when I wrote this post almost five years ago! [story of a vaccination, and of sadness - my everlasting companion and guideI’ve just returned home after getting my first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the only vaccine currently available to adults 40 years or older who do not fall in any of the priority or high-risk categories as detailed by the Ontario provincial government. I suppose I’ve been truly lucky to![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-16.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/dawid-zawila--G3rw6Y02D0-unsplash_o.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/story-of-a-vaccination-and-of-sadness-my-everlasting-companion-and-guide/) > *More fundamentally, the reason we look for assurances that we're making the 'best choice possible' is that we feel we won't be OK if the outcome of our choice is not as desired. We worry that we may not be able to bear the emotional pain of failure or setbacks if that's what a particular choice brings.* > *The only way to counter this kind of unhelpful thinking is to remember: There are no right choices. Make a choice, and make it the right one. More precisely, *you* make *your* choice, and *you* make it the right one *for you*.* Which means, when we set out on a path and face challenges and obstacles on our way, it doesn't help to fall into the trap of remorse and regret, of wishing we had made a different choice. The best, and perhaps the only, thing to do is to forge ahead, greeting each new encounter — whether progress or setback — as just another twist in the tale without judging it as good or bad. Unexpected. But interesting. Arousing curiosity. Perhaps it would help if we're less attached to our ideas and expectations of how our lives should unfold, and attend to our days and lives with a spirit of exploration. Embracing each day and whatever it brings as an opportunity to grow, try out something different, and learn something new about ourselves and the world around us with each experience that comes our way. ### am i doing this right? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/am-i-doing-this-right/ Last updated: 2025-03-18T00:24:02.000Z How do we know if we're living life the 'right' way? To answer that, we'd have to answer another question first: What is the 'right' way to live? This is an impossible question to answer. Well, culture and society will tell us that wealth, fame, status, influence, popularity, renown, are the most prized markers of success. The more you have of any of these, the more society and culture permit you to call yourself a 'success'. But what if none of these hold much appeal for you, especially beyond the levels needed for survival? Let us add more markers: family, neighbourhood, community, circle of influence, contributions to different spheres (economy, culture, environment, areas of expertise). If we don't have much of any of the above to speak of, then are we living life right? Or let's take the most woke marker of our times: Spirituality! Even if we forsake material pursuits, how do we know we're living a spiritual life the 'right' way? Would I know it if I become a happier, calmer person after several weeks or a few months or years? How would I even measure that? I sometimes wonder if I'm doing this 'writing' thing right. The first thought that arises is this: if I'm doing it right, I should have more ardent readers and glowing reviews, more people who read and love my writings, a larger audience that would generally agree on the 'rightness' of my storytelling abilities, convincing me that I've gotten it just 'right'. Or I should have more money coming from my written works. Or I should be better-known in the writing community. If I don't have any of these (which is the case right now), then I must be doing something wrong, isn't it? But who really is the authority on this? The scores of fans who leave glowing 4-star and 5-star reviews on Goodreads? The Hollywood producer who reads your book and decides it is a story worthy of being told on the silver screen? And what if my works, like so many others, fail to catch the attention of these powers-that-be? Is it because I did something wrong? Is it because I didn't do this whole writing thing 'right'? Which is why I love what Jiddu Krishnamurti had to [say](https://www.krishnamurti.org/transcript/when-you-are-a-light-to-yourself-you-are-a-light-to-the-world/) on meditation: > *There is no one to guide you, no one to tell you that you are progressing, no one to tell you that or to encourage you. You have to stand completely alone in meditation. You understand what it means? And this light can only come to yourself when you understand, or investigate into yourself what you are.* > *That is self-awareness, to know what you are — not according to psychologists, not according to some philosophers, not according to the speaker, but to know, to be aware of your own nature, of your own structure, of your own thinking, feeling, find out the whole structure of it.* I can apply this to everything in my life now. Writing. Parenting. Living. So many so-called experts out there, each promising to teach you the 'right' way of doing this thing, whatever it is you're seeking worldly success in. I've had enough of living in fear ... Fear of getting it all wrong. Fear of never seeing (material) success. Fear of not knowing what the right response is, what the right move to make is. How liberating it would be to not take anyone else's opinion as the true, final word of authority? But to instead write and live from a place of abandon, from a place of experimentation, from a space within where there's no success or failure but merely a discovery of what comes next? Like a riveting tale unfolding. ### moments of clarity at day's end URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/moments-of-clarity-at-days-end/ Last updated: 2025-03-17T00:40:08.000Z I'm loving these short end-of-day reflections. They're usually not a recount of things that I did or stuff that happened during the day, but a reflection on how the day and I showed up for each other. Waking up each morning with gratitude for the 24-hour mini life granted to me and taking time at the end of each day to reflect on the close of the mini life (although the full gamut of 24 hours have not yet passed obviously) somehow seems to make me more mindful and present during the day itself. The first week of March Break has come to an end, and it turned out to be much more of a whirlwind than we had planned for. We went to our first soccer game as a family. We watched two movies in the theatre. There was a playdate. There was our annual trip to Mountsberg to have pancakes by the campfire and see the tapping of the maple trees. And we got new bikes too, so here's to looking forward to some family biking time as the days get warmer. I've been thinking of fame lately. A new movie or TV show comes, makes news for a day or two, and more mention of it very quickly drowns under the flood of new news that would have cropped up overnight. Same with the release of a new book or music album. Or something might go viral for a bit, only to be overshadowed by something else the very next morning. Every time I log on to Netflix, it informs me of a new and different release on the home screen. I've been thinking of this because I find that I've been holding rather obsolete beliefs about how this author life works. In the old days, perhaps you wrote a bestseller, stayed on top of the charts for weeks and months on end until you were practically a household name. And every time you did something, you made news. Now everyone is a superstar to some extent. We all have our own little communities of fans and followers. Everyone is a content creator of some kind or the other. There's only so much attention a single person or book or album or TV show could possibly get. Even though I couldn't bring myself to admit it for years, I think the reason I wished to be a writer was that I wanted to be famous. Of course, I loved writing. But I also wanted to be read by many, many people and become famous. If you had asked me to describe what I meant by 'famous', I'd have been tongue-tied. Perhaps I wished to be admired. Maybe I wanted people to read my stories and put me on a pedestal for my intelligence and storytelling abilities. Now, I'm quite content being an ordinary person writing about seemingly ordinary characters and their extraordinary stories. I love it when someone reads my work and feels touched by it and takes the time to let me know, either by writing in or leaving a review or in any other way. I don't wish to be idolized, and I find that I too have stopped idolizing authors I was once in awe of. Understanding that we're all human beings doing the best we can, and that no one is more or less important because of what they do or who they are, and that countless factors outside of anybody's control contribute to any individual's success has made me realize that no human being is better or worse than any other. We're all equal, doing our bits, navigating the paths of our unique lives. I lead a quiet life. Most of my interaction with the outside world — other than with KrA and D — is usually by way of D asking me to schedule a playdate for him or one of his friends' parents reaching out to me to get together to do something fun. Because at the end of the day, it's just me and my words and the process of typing words on Pages and letting the story unfurl. I'm just a fleeting presence in a reader's life. And perhaps, that is all the responsibility I need to take. No more. No less. And this realization is frankly quite liberating. ### having time ≠ having energy URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/having-time-having-energy/ Last updated: 2025-03-15T23:59:02.000Z One of the common exercises productivity gurus insist amateur writers or creatives do is that of charting their activities throughout the day in 15-minute intervals. Then they go on to point out 'how much time' is actually available and could be put towards writing. Got 15 minutes to go before heading out for school pick-up? Go, write! Got 20 minutes to spare while waiting at the dentist's? Start writing! For the most part I've eliminated time-wasters from my day. I'm not on social media. I don't have distracting apps to scroll through on my phone. We don't even have a TV at home. And yet, the day goes by quickly. I start writing as soon as D leaves for school. By the time I've met my word count, it's 10 AM or later. A walk, a quick lunch, cooking for dinner, and it's past noon. Another couple of hours of work — usually making progress on other aspects of publishing like cover design, formatting, uploading etc. — and it's already time to pick up D from school. I do have time after D falls asleep but by then I'm so tired I can barely think. For a long time, I used to feel guilty about seemingly having the time but not being able to make the most of it. The first time I read something to the contrary was in a [post](https://ashleyjanssen.com/11-ideas-to-shift-how-you-think-about-productivity/) by productivity coach, Ashley Janssen. Apparently, she too gets her clients to conduct the time-block exercise but ... what they realize at the end of the exercise is not what most productivity gurus will have you believe. > *Part of my initial exercises with my clients is having them map out a regular week with all their everyday activities and routines. When they’ve done this, their first reaction is the *shocked realization of how little time is available each day*. Once you consider hygiene, meal prep and eating, kids' activities, driving, etc., you are lucky if you have four or five total hours left in the day!* > *To avoid the feel-bads of not getting “enough” done, try to reset your expectations for what is reasonable and possible in a day, given those other factors.* > *\~ Ashley Janssen* Wait a minute! Does that mean just because I have a 20-minute gap between one task and the next, I don't necessarily have to fill it with writing or any other creative work? Phew! What a relief. The instant I read Janssen's words, I felt a weight lift from my chest. The other thing I've come to realize is that I need to schedule time for rest every day if I wish to be a calm, patient and sane person. I've long maintained that what we do is not as important as who we become in the process. If writing makes me a happier person, then great. But if the desire to write creates in me resentment for all other responsibilities and aspects of my life, then I'm definitely going about it the wrong way. I knew we were going to have a busy afternoon today. We had tickets for a Toronto FC vs Chicago FC game, and heading to BMO Field entailed a long train journey up and down. We were to leave only at around 12:45 PM, which means I did have a couple of hours in the morning in which I could have chosen to head to the library and write. Instead, I decided to rest. After working out, having breakfast, spending time with D and cooking lunch, I read for a bit and even had a 20-minute nap. Best decision I ever made! We had a wonderful time at the game and now we're back home and tired and ready to fall asleep. In the same article, Janssen says, > *You don’t have to earn rest or take rest for any other reason than it feels good. It’s not something you get to have when you have done everything else.* > *Rest can mean any number of things, like going for a walk, taking a nap, playing a video game, watching your favourite show, taking regular breaks, playing sports, knitting, playing an instrument, or reading a book. It can be whatever recharges you. The key is to remember that rest is vital to a joyful, fun, and fulfilling life.* > *\~ Ashley Janssen* I couldn't agree more. So, where have you been holding yourself to impossible standards of productivity and failing? How can you begin to release yourself slowly from the pressure of your own expectations? ![soccer field with players on it against the backdrop of the stadium stands](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/8.-Soccer.jpeg) Toronto FC vs Chicago FC at BMO Field: An afternoon well spent! ### the non-linear journey of creativity URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-non-linear-journey-of-creativity/ Last updated: 2025-03-15T00:37:20.000Z One of the things that took me by surprise in my creative journey is the realization that receiving good news didn't always make me happy or, to be more precise, while it made me happy at first, my immediate second reaction was almost always that of stress and panic. For instance, I'd receive a glowing review on one of my books. At first, the sight of those words of praise would make me happy. But almost immediately after, I'd inadvertently push myself to ensure that whatever I wrote next was just as brilliant or more. Mostly, I'd just end up feeling too paralyzed to produce another word in the process, having convinced myself that I'd never be able to write something worthy of a good review ever again. (Dean Wesley Smith explains this very interestingly in his post, [*Reviews and the Art of Avoiding Them*](https://deanwesleysmith.com/reviews-and-the-art-of-avoiding-them/).) Or let me think back to the time I got that promotion and a hefty increase in salary. I was delighted. But instead of looking at this as a reward for past performance, my mind told me that I had to prove myself worthy of this carrot even though it was no longer merely dangling in front of me, tantalizingly out of reach, but was already in my grasp, bright and juicy, crisp and crunchy, ready to be savoured right then and not at some later date. At first I thought such behaviour was rather abnormal, but seems this is pretty common. We all think we'd suddenly become wiser or smarter or more intelligent the instant luck favours us. Instead, what happens is that we become more of ourselves. Our insecurities and fears come roaring to the fore, and if we haven't done the work of cleansing our minds, of building good mental and emotional habits, we're more likely than not to squander the opportunities that come our way. It's the reason many lottery winners statistically tend to go back to their pre-win levels of wealth in a few years' time. It's the reason why celebrities who become superstars, seemingly overnight, end up in the news for all the wrong reasons. We're not ready to handle that seemingly abrupt change in life. We're not still enough internally to be able to wield drastic changes in external circumstances with grace and calm. Success in the outer world — in terms of material success, fame, glowing reviews, lavish praise, etc. — can definitely mess with our heads, give us a heady rush, if we don't know how to remain grounded or we don't have adequate support to stay calm and centred. As with everything, this takes time and practice. The very first time people started subscribing to my newsletter, I started to feel this great sense of responsibility that my readers should get nothing but my best writings. Of course, all creatives almost always worry their work is never up to par. The very first time I began publishing short fiction and began to grow an audience that liked my works, my inner critic quickly convinced me that I couldn't possibly be writing interesting tales week after week and that I better stop fooling myself and my audience. What I wish I'd known back then is the fundamental truth that there is nothing linear about the process of creativity. > *There's nothing linear about anything in life. Just because you scored an A in your test today, doesn't mean you will do so tomorrow. But just because you're not doing better doesn't mean you're doing worse either.* It just means we're learning new things and trying new skills. In a long ago interview, I remember JK Rowling talking about her first post-Harry Potter book, Casual Vacancy, in an interview. Rowling was telling the host that she didn't expect everything she wrote thereafter to have the same magical touch that Harry Potter did. She cited the example of Michael Jackson and said that after his outstanding success with Thriller, he essentially tried to recreate the same phenomenon with every subsequent album and that was tragic. We assume success will make us more confident and help us feel good about ourselves. Clearly, that's not true. True joy and self-worth are independent of external circumstances. That's not to say all rich people are miserable or that all poor people are happy. But feeling worthy, like feeling happy, is solely an inside job. ### tales for dreamers: when the sugar maple weeps URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-when-the-sugar-maple-weeps/ Last updated: 2025-03-14T13:00:01.000Z Everyone thinks it’s tapping season and that the bucket affixed to the tree is meant to gather sap. But what collects in the bucket is the tears of the tree. Some are tears of sadness and grief. Tears for the leaves that were born in spring, only to fall in autumn. Tears for the ways in which the world has changed since the last tapping season. But also tears of laughter, and tears of joy. Tears of unbridled happiness at the sight of all the people, young and old alike, who have come to rejoice the return of spring and are eager to learn about the sugar maple and her generous gifts. Tears of gratitude for the hardworking folks at the farm who keep the tradition of tapping ongoing. Tears of joy that after this last thaw, after she has shed her last tear, new buds will bloom on her branches, cardinals and chickadees will make their homes in her boughs, and squirrels will scamper up and down her trunk once again. There’s something about the resurgence of life after a long period of dead stillness that moves the sugar maple so and makes her cry. But all her tears are laced with the tender sweetness of a rich, ever evolving life. --- *Last week's image info: The wildflowers in* [*'the necessity of flowers'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-necessity-of-flowers/) *were growing at the top of the sledding hill across the Centennial bike path that runs behind Nelson High School. I last saw them last summer. Maybe they'll come back this season too.* ### the illusion of choice URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-illusion-of-choice/ Last updated: 2025-03-13T22:05:46.000Z We've been bike-shopping these past couple of days. We used to own a *bakfiets*, a Dutch cargo bike, that was excellent to ferry little D around when he was, well, little. We sold it last spring. D had become quite independent; he can easily ride 10 km on his bike. The *bakfiets* had also become too heavy for me to ride even without D in it. It went to a lovely home, eager to make fond memories with another 2-year-old. D too had been 2 years old when we got the cargo bike. Now that we had sold it, KrA and I wanted to buy hybrid bikes for ourselves so we could go bicycling alongside D. Last year, we were away for most of the summer, so our search for bikes was cursory at best. This year we resumed bike-hunting with renewed gusto. With no travel plans for the summer, we were determined to make sure we had bikes to ride alongside D. We first went to Canadian Tire. The bike section was full of all kinds of models. We stood there flabbergasted for a few moments, then realized that our best course of action was to ask someone for help. A very harassed-looking employee directed us to a stern-looking one, who did help us by looking up on the computer what options were available and then getting us to try a couple of different models to determine the right size of bike for us. Finally, he said that the particular category of bike we were looking for — path and pavement bikes — were not yet available in our size! More than a hundred bikes on the floor, and not one was suitable for us. We made our way to Decathlon a while later. They had only a handful of models, and the very first bike I tried was a perfect fit. It was a cruiser though, so I opted for a hybrid model with shock absorption from the same brand. KrA found what he liked too. We didn't place our orders right away, but came home and did a bit of research, then placed our orders online later last evening. This afternoon our bikes were ready for pickup. We eagerly made our way to the shop, got our bikes accessorized with kickstands. I got a nifty basket on the handlebar for mine. KrA and D came cycling back. I drove back home with my bike in the back — we had to bring our car back home, innit? — then rode my bike to meet KrA and D halfway on the bike path. It was amazing to ride back home, the three of us, feeling the mild almost-spring breeze on our face, the sun in our eyes, and the sky blue with the promise of brighter, longer days to come. This entire experience reminded me of something my boss at my summer internship in Montreal said to me, almost 10 years ago. She said that while job-hunting, a lot of people moan about how few opportunities there are in the market. "But," she said wisely, "you don't need hundreds or thousands of opportunities. You just need the one that's the perfect fit for you." ### What are we trying to resolve? The problem? Or the discomfort? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-are-we-trying-to-resolve-the-problem-or-the-discomfort/ Last updated: 2025-03-13T01:13:35.000Z Even after all these years of parenting, I don't seem to have gotten a grasp on this thing called 'guilt', especially when it comes to dividing time between work and spending time with D. KrA usually tries to engage in a problem-solving conversation with me, which mostly ends in me shaking my fists and shouting about how unfair everything is. And that conversation usually ends in me having vented my frustration but the problem remaining entirely unchanged. I wonder why I'm so resistant to the most obvious solution — take myself to the library at 9 AM and work from there for a couple of hours. > *It's got nothing to do with not spending time with D, but almost entirely to do with me not wanting to spend time with my manuscript.* Resistance can be a tough problem to solve. My writing life has every potential to be joyful and stress-free. Yet, I have chosen to suffer and have introduced all kinds of ways to sabotage the thing of beauty it once was. I have terrified myself into thinking that if I took 2 hours to write, I'd be a bad parent for not having spent that time with D. Except, when I don't take that time to write, it's all I can think of. And when I do take the time to do it, I'm a much better human being and mother as a result of having attended to my creative needs. Because the truth is I'm terrified of writing. I'm terrified of spending time and effort on a project that has no 'guarantee' of success, whichever way you define it. I'm terrified of working on something that could very well fail. > This sounds a lot like saying *I'm terrified of living because I know I'm going to die at the end of it all*. And I'm also terrified of not writing. I'm terrified of reaching the end of my life and looking back and regretting all that time I spent being afraid of my art and craft instead of loving it and jumping into it with abandon. > This sounds a lot like saying *I'm terrified of NOT living especially when I know I'm going to die at the end of it all*. There are no right answers. There's no one and nothing out there that can validate our decisions. Even as of this morning we were struggling to make a purchase decision, worrying that it may not be the best choice or that it may turn out to be a poor choice in the future. We put off this very purchase decision twice in the past two years. Every choice entails an opportunity cost. In committing to one course of action, we have to let go off all others. No one can tell you what the best course of action is for you. > *When we place the burden on ourselves to make choices that yield the best outcome, we forget that it is not the choice that will decide the consequence. It is how we hold and live the choice that will decide whether it was a good one or not.* > *Which reminds me of wise words I once heard somewhere: Make a choice, and make it the right one.* So, what choices are you making today? ### jettisoning all yardsticks for growth URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/jettisoning-all-yardsticks-for-growth/ Last updated: 2025-03-11T23:38:46.000Z There's something special about the sun shining bright at 7 PM as I write this. There's still more of the day left, even if all one wishes to do with these remaining hours or minutes is stare at the bright white contrails blooming on the face of a true blue sky. I received an email this morning from a new mother, which made me think of my early days as a new parent. Days of utter bliss mixed with wild ~~worry~~ terror. Days of great love and contentment laced with that nagging question beneath the surface, "Am I doing enough? Are we doing the right thing?" Sadly, no answers were forthcoming, let alone affirmative, encouraging ones. I read and listened to a lot of expert advice; many gave tips and suggestions, but there was really no answer to the question to which I needed an affirmative answer the most. "Am I really doing the best thing?" All our life journeys are like this. Motherhood. Entrepreneurship. Writing, or the pursuit of any other art or skill. Our spiritual journeys. Unlike institutionalized pursuits — like education and corporate jobs — there are no tests or grades that can tell us if we're on the right path or not. There are no measures whereby we can give ourselves a pat on the back and assure ourselves we're doing a good job, or constructive feedback that we can incorporate and improve. There's no way to measure progress. In academic settings, our grades and the accolades we receive are clear indicators of 'progress'. At the workplace, we can reasonably expect to climb the corporate ladder, a rung every few years. We can look forward to an increase in salary every so often. But in scenarios where such quantitative measures simply fail to apply, what do we do? How do I know if experience is making me a better mother with each passing day? Who can tell me if I'm becoming a more conscious or spiritual person or not? How will I know if I'm getting better in the craft of writing? Sometimes when I look back at my earliest works, there's a freshness and raw openness in them that I feel is missing from my later pieces. Perhaps growth was never meant to be measured in a linear form. Which is probably why we've had to come up with quantitative measures such as salary, wealth, bank balance, assets, title, status etc. to signify how 'far' we've come and force-fit our lives into these yardsticks. > *Perhaps the true worth of our lives is immeasurable anyway.* Or perhaps we're looking for some kind of certainty. If I did this today, it would yield me a favourable result or outcome tomorrow. If I do well at school, I'd (hopefully) get a good job. If I do well at work, I'd hopefully earn more and more money each year and climb the corporate ladder. If I work hard, I'll find success. Well, the times have become so uncertain, these progressions that were once taken for granted no longer hold true. This is why I'm loving the entire concept of living each day as a 24-hour mini-life more and more. Unburdened by the past. Unfettered by the future. Each day stands on its own. How can we even seek to measure whether today was 'better' than yesterday or whether tomorrow will look 'brighter' than today? (In fact, we had two lovely, warm and sunny days in a row and tomorrow it's slated to become cold once more.) It's true that if we didn't do certain things — like brush our teeth regularly, eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, nurture our relationships, connect with our children — adverse effects on our health and life would be more inevitable than otherwise. But doing these things also does not guarantee a pain-free existence. Yet, we do these things simply because this is the best we can do today. And I think we owe ourselves that much — to simply try our best given our unique set of circumstances without expecting or demanding a future reward of any kind. Because the reward is already here — this utter privilege of being alive today. ### the folly of 'if only' URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-folly-of-if-only/ Last updated: 2025-03-10T23:48:06.000Z I realized today that 'if only' has been the most constant refrain of my life. If only ... I had kept up blogging and posting [*tales for dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers) when I had managed to amass a following in the early days. If only ... we hadn't moved out of Singapore all those years ago. If only ... I had opted to send D to daycare instead of choosing to be a stay-at-home mom. If only ... I had written books in series right from the start. If only ... I could write more, faster, more often. This morning we learnt that a medical condition a member of our family was being treated for over the past two and a half years has changed very little. That sent me into a tailspin and I fell back on my trusted refrain. If only ... we had been more strict and stringent about following the prescribed treatment. The implicit assumption in all these clauses (because these are really clauses, not complete sentences in themselves) is that they'd be followed by a happier ending, a more favourable outcome. If only ... I had kept up blogging and posting [*tales for dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers) when I had managed to amass a following in the early days, ***I'd have built a huge audience for my works of fiction by now***. If only ... we hadn't moved out of Singapore all those years ago, ***we'd have had a far healthier bank balance by now***. If only ... I had opted to send D to daycare instead of choosing to be a stay-at-home mom, ***I'd have had a job and not feel so anxious about not earning a livelihood by writing fiction***. If only ... I had written books in series right from the start, ***I'd have found more success as a fiction author by now***. If only ... I could write more, faster, more often, ***I'd be selling more books and making more money as an author by now***. If only ... we had been more strict and stringent about following the prescribed treatment, ***this medical condition would have resolved by now and we wouldn't be facing the prospect of it being a chronic, lifelong condition***. > *Except ... who can reliably say that those wishful alternate outcomes would have indeed come to pass?* Regret is a strange thing. It keeps us mired in thoughts about all that which is not in our control, instead of allowing us to focus on what we could reasonably do in the here and now irrespective of what has happened in the past. Besides, all those wishful outcomes are the creations of a mind that believes there exists an alternate reality where we wouldn't have to face pain, disappointment, and failure. Wouldn't it be a far better use of my time and energy to accept my circumstances and focus on what I can do given the resources I have in these particular coordinates of space and time I find myself in? ### field notes from liminal spaces URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/field-notes-from-liminal-spaces/ Last updated: 2025-03-10T00:37:31.000Z I've been listening to the audiobook of [*Tiny Experiments: How To Live Freely In A Goal-Obsessed World*](https://nesslabs.com/book) by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. This is such a charming book in which Anne-Laure encourages us to navigate our lives not in a linear way but to look at our activities and meanderings and explorations as tiny experiments. One of the things Anne-Laure says in an early chapter is to set out on a journey of [self-anthropology](https://nesslabs.com/self-anthropology-field-notes) — an exploration of our own selves and lives — and maintain field notes on our observations about ourselves. This has given me the inspiration to return to blogging because writing is the way I primarily begin to gain clarity on what and how I think. Rather than maintain field notes throughout the day, I'd prefer to come back here for an end-of-day reflection. Blogging was the way I came to writing in the first place, many, many years ago. I had a lovely little circle of blogger friends, and it wasn't an activity pursued with the intention of garnering the most likes or comments or riling or pleasing the crowd. Many of us led simple, middle-class lives. We simply wrote what occurred to us, and we encouraged each other to keep writing. No one asked us to blog. We wrote because we wanted to. We didn't write to be read, partly because that was something we could take for granted in the early days when writing or creating content online didn't feel like shouting into the void. We wrote because we had something to say. We commented on what others wrote because those topics resonated with us in some way, touched us deeply, and made us want to contribute our own two cents. Writing was not a means to an end. It was an activity of joy unto itself. All that has gone, and writing has morphed into something else altogether along the way. I'm not romanticizing the past or moaning the transformation the world has undergone in the past couple of decades. But I definitely feel unmoored in these wildly uncertain times. Instead of letting my days slip past in anxiety over the future, I'm more determined than ever to live more in the present, show up to do my work, and contribute positively to society and have a lasting and encouraging impact on the people I cross paths with offline or online. [*field notes from liminal spaces*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/field-notes-from-liminal-spaces/) is simply an endeavour in that direction. Why liminal spaces? Liminal spaces are in-between states, that space that exists between one thing coming to an end and another thing beginning. For instance, when we switch from one job to another, when we await the arrival of our baby, when we wait for to finish high school and enter university, and so on. In her book, Anne-Laure talks about how we try to rush through these liminal spaces so that we won't have to flounder in the uncertainty of what's next. I think we're forever in a liminal space of one kind or the other. Caught in our daily routines, we tend to forget that the rug can be pulled from under us any moment. The pandemic taught us this. And we forgot those lessons all too quickly. These wild times we find ourselves in are yet another reminder of how uncertain everything has always been and will always be, how tomorrow is never guaranteed, and how the present moment is all we've always had even when we deluded ourselves into believing otherwise. One way I've been trying to focus on the present moment is by literally taking each day, one at a time. > *“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”* > *\~ Thich Nhat Hanh* I don't know if the master said this or if someone else interpreted these words to mean that we can look at each day as a mini-life in itself, whole unto itself, and it can be free of the burden of the past as well as of anxiety over the future. This imagery somehow seems to resonate with me. Every time my mind wanders to the past or the future in a way that is not helpful, I remind myself that this moment, this day is all that exists. Let me experience this instant fully. That's really all that is required of me right now. In fact, that is really all I'm capable of right now. If you're reading this, I dearly hope you too will find some solace in these words and find the courage to step into the present moment and make some field notes about these liminal spaces we find ourselves in. ### tales for dreamers: the necessity of flowers URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-necessity-of-flowers/ Last updated: 2025-03-07T14:00:03.000Z For the longest time it was thought that the bees led the way, but only recently has it been discovered that it is, in fact, not the bees but the flowers who lead the way. There are no well-trodden paths in this world. Every footprint or paw print is promptly erased by a swift growth of grass or by a shape-shifting patch of mud. A bush plants itself overnight to obliterate any trace of who might have passed this way, to annihilate any clue about the existence of the path itself. This lands the seekers in big trouble. Without a path, they know not where to turn. Without a trail, they know not which way to go. The trees and the grass and the bushes won’t help the seekers. They deem that anyone worthy of traveling on the path would already possess innate knowledge of it, not go about seeking clues and hints in the woods. But the flowers are kind. They understand that the seekers are trapped in a conundrum of their own making and don’t know how to come out of it. So they have begun whispering to some of the seekers in a secret language only they understand. *Follow us*, they say. *We’ll show you the way.* The seekers do as they’re told. Until they reach the last of the flowers and are once again faced with those quintessential questions. *Which way do we go? Which way do we turn?* Until one of them comes up with a brilliant idea. *We need to plant more flowers. As they bloom, they will reveal more of the path to us*. This gives them something to do, and that makes every seeker happy. For a while. Now they’ve planted the seeds and bulbs. Now they have to wait until next spring before the flowers come back. Now they moan that there is no way to coax even the kindest flowers out of the soil before the long, cold winter has passed. Pity they still haven’t figured out that the flowers’ messages next year will depend almost entirely on how well and with how much faith and patience the seekers will spend this season of waiting. --- *Last week's image info: Little D was skipping on a trail at Niagara Glen when it occurred to me to write a tale* [*'about my favourite woodland creature'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-about-my-favourite-woodland-creature/)*.* ### Read an Ebook Week sale on Smashwords URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/read-an-ebook-week-sale-on-smashwords/ Last updated: 2025-03-03T16:33:51.000Z Smashwords is running its 16th annual 'Read an Ebook Week' sale right now, from March 2—8! Three of my titles are available for free during this period! [A Benevolent Goddess](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1540360) [Memory Games: A Short Story](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1582942) [The Mind Meddler: A Short Story ](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1540342) Check them out! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/5.-A-Benevolent-Goddess.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/YMN---Memory-Games---eBook-catalogue-cover-1800x2700.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/03/6.-The-Mind-Meddler.jpg) A collection of my titles free on Smashwords, March 2-8 only! ### tales for dreamers: about my favourite woodland creature URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-about-my-favourite-woodland-creature/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:49:52.000Z My favourite woodland creature is a real mystery. For the most part it looks human, but it changes continuously. Not in any overtly visible way, but when you do spot the changes, it’s almost as if the creature had mysteriously shape-shifted under my very nose and it had taken me a very long time to realize it. For instance, it seems to grow taller literally overnight. The contours of its face change without warning; the nose grows a little longer, the cheeks a little sharper, seriousness and silliness begin to jostle for place beside innocence on its features. It learns new skills everyday; these days it has become awfully good at playing pranks. It is very fond of the colour orange. It makes all things orange look really cool and stylish. But what makes my favourite woodland creature most mysterious is the goodness of its kind, trusting heart. A goodness of the quiet, accepting kind. For you see this creature accepts you for who you are. Tall or short, happy or sad, kind or cruel, it sees you exactly for who you are and makes no judgements about your state of existence. With every passing year, my favourite woodland creature becomes more and more independent, eager to explore the woods by itself or with its friends. There was a time when it was slow and took to pausing at every step, and I’d patiently wait for it, no longer a slave to time. Yes, this is another skill it has, the art of bending time to its will. Now it has become faster, or perhaps it is I who’s become slower, unable to match its pace. I only catch glimpses of it as it darts from one place to another in the woods, exploring. Here now, gone the next instant. Darting like a squirrel here. Leaping like an antelope there. But no matter whichever shape or form it turns up in, I know I will always recognize my favourite woodland creature. Our souls are connected in the way any two souls are: inexplicably, unbreakably, yet uniquely so. > ✨ 🎶 *My favourite woodland creature has an audio story all of his own. Check it out here!* > ✨ For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! --- *Last week's image info: I could have taken the photo of* [*'a sticker for a moon'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/71c54af2-5b1b-4798-8814-9a0063681111/) *from anywhere on land. To be more precise, we were stepping out of D's skating lessons at the Appleby Ice Rink when we were treated to this sight of the moon glowing unabashedly in the sky.* ### February Feistiness: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2025-february-feistiness/ Last updated: 2025-02-23T08:00:35.000Z I'm writing to you on Friday morning, high on the news of Canada's thrilling victory last night in the 4 Nations Face-Off this week! I don't even know how to lace up little D's skates properly — that's a task I leave to KrA — but one can't possibly live in Canada for a decade and not get swept up in the hockey euphoria at least once. Funny how we inadvertently take the best things in our life for granted, and it takes an existential threat to them for us to remember how well they've served us, how much they mean to us, and make us consider how far we'll go to safeguard and protect them in turn. More on that in this edition of Monthly Missives, so grab a cuppa and let's get started! --- ### *On Writing* The very first book I wrote, a charming fantasy novella titled *In Search of Leo*, is available for free as part of a limited-period promotion being organized by the International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (IASFA). *In Search of Leo* is a journey through grief. It's a meandering through the various emotions that grief unearths as the protagonist, a young woman named Heidi, navigates the raw unchartered territories of loss and longing. If you've ever experienced loss and grief, *In Search of Leo* will break your heart at first and then lovingly knit together all the pieces as well. [All Fantasy | IASFAThe IASFA All Fantasy promotion runs from February 23-27, 2025\. Please click on a cover to learn more and access the download link.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/cropped-IASFA-Logo-SMALL-270x270-1.jpg)IASFARob Mc![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/feb25pic.jpg)](https://iasfa.org/feb25/) --- Also, if you read books over on Smashwords, three of my titles will be free during the Smashwords 2025 Read an Ebook Week. Grab my short stories — [*A Benevolent Goddess*](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1540360), [*The Mind Meddler*](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1540342), and [*Memory Games*](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1582942) — for free from March 2—8! --- 💡 ***If you've read and enjoyed any of my works, could you please leave a review?** 🙏🏽 Publishing is still largely driven by word of mouth. Reviews help other readers decide this may be a book worth reading. One or two lines is all that's needed. So if you've downloaded and read any of my books as part of free promotions or otherwise, could you please help me out by leaving a review? [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17616014.Anitha%5FKrishnan) is a good place to do so. Thank you, in advance! --- Progress on Book 1 of the fantasy duology I'm currently working on stalled this month as we all took turns to fall ill. The good news is that when my writing brain takes a backseat, the other half of my brain begins to focus on editing, formatting and publishing. So I got the opportunity to work on a project that's been in the making for more than a decade now. Ta-da! ![ebook cover of 'Tales for Dreamers, Volume 1' by Anitha Krishnan featuring silhouette of a girl catching glowing leaves drifting down from branches](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/Tales-for-Dreamers_Cover_Resized.png) I won't reveal much right now, but the name's a dead giveaway, isn't it? 🤭 I still have *only* about 150 pages or so to edit, so fingers crossed I'm able to announce this properly in the March edition of Monthly Missives! --- ### *Tales for Dreamers* Three of this month's [offerings](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-february-2025/) are inspired by nature — ***'a black and white world'***, ***'a crack in the horizon'***, and ***'a sticker for a moon'*** — and one is inspired by love — ***'a door of hearts'*** — with Valentine's Day falling on a Friday this year! [![collage of four images used in 'Tales for Dreamers' stories this past month](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/Tales-for-Dreamers-1.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-february-2025/) tales for dreamers: the [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-february-2025/) for February 2025 --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* Much of the month passed in us being ill and recovering. There were four days last week when KrA was travelling for work, and D and I were homebound. D was still fighting a cold and fever but the worst was behind us by then. The two of us would take long afternoon naps, which brought back to memory his infant/toddler days. There was a certain timelessness to those days, which were not dictated by the rhythm of the clock. There was no sense of urgency, no sense of delay. Time ceased to matter, yet everything — mealtimes, nap times, playtime — happened naturally and of its own accord. After D recovered, we were also able to enjoy the abundance of snowfall that we received owing to two consecutive snowstorms, one of which lasted for two entire days! Even now the snowbanks are taller than backyard fences in some places! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/Snow_resized.jpeg) There's something about snow that completely changes the mood of winter. The season's no longer a dark, soul-less period of travail, but gets transformed into something feather-light and bright. The sidewalks are like delightful trenches ploughed through endless fields of snow. ![a snowy sidewalk flanked by snowbanks](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/4.-Snow-Sidewalk.jpeg) a snowy sidewalk These are the kinds of little joys I've been leaning into to stay sane and hopeful amid the ongoing political upheaval in this part of the world. This month has been eerily reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic exactly five years ago. The proliferation of misinformation and fear-mongering, the uncertainty, compounded by unprecedented changes in global alliances and relationships have been quite a lot to come to terms with off late. These developments have forced me to look back and really appreciate the amazing life we have here in Canada, something I had inadvertently taken for granted over the years, lost in the daily hustle of living and making a living. It is in this land that I truly found my bearings as a mother and as an author. It is here that D is growing up, enjoying school and the process of learning and discovery. It is here that KrA has experienced much learning and growth at the workplace. Every time I walk to the grounds of Paletta Mansion and look out at Lake Ontario, I feel so happy to be so close to the vast waterbody, a lake that appears as vast as an ocean. ![view of Lake Ontario from the snow-covered grounds of Paletta Mansion](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/3.-Paletta-Mansion.jpeg) Lake Ontario from the grounds of Paletta Mansion This is not a sermon on gratitude or anything, but having learnt from my past experiences with anxiety during the pandemic, I'm very intent this time around to attend to life only one day at a time, and not let worries about an unknown future upend my daily life completely. Have you wondered what it truly means to live each day as if it is your last? What does *Carpe Diem* really mean? When I was younger, I had a very twisted and reckless understanding of these calls to focus on the present moment. For instance, I used to think if today were my last day on earth, I wouldn't start writing a novel, because I'd never be able to finish it. Now, I've understood that if today were my last day on earth, I would in fact spend some time writing, whether I finish the story or not. Because what matters is not the end product, but whether or not I was able to give myself to a labour of love today without worrying about future outcomes. In the same measure, it's not about dropping all boundaries and allowing people to walk all over me in an attempt to resolve all conflicts before my last day on earth comes to an end. But I sure wouldn't replay the same old dramas in my head over and over again, squandering time and energy on conversations that are not happening right now with people who are not physically present in my life right now. Instead, I'd focus on being kind to and connecting with whoever I'm sharing my last remnants of time and space with. > *Because tomorrow is never promised to any one of us. Even the very next moment is not guaranteed.* > *That doesn't meant we have to change our present moment to some idealized version of life. It simply means showing up to whatever reality exists right now and doing the best we can within this framework.* So, what is your take on whatever's happening in your part of the world? How are you dealing with changes in your life and in the world around you? Write to me and share your wisdom. --- ### *Books You May Love* I read very little this month, and one reason for that was I spent a lot of time relishing Diane Setterfield's *Once Upon a River* over several days. ![hardback copy of Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield featuring a flowing river](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/02/4.-Once-upon-a-river-1.jpeg) Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield Setterfield was one of my early inspirations to become a writer. Her works, *The Thirteenth Tale* and *Bellman & Black*, were like nothing I had ever read before. These works wouldn't be classified as outright fantasy but there's just that hint of magic, of something otherworldly, that renders them very atmospheric. *Once Upon a River* is set along the bank of the Thames in 1887\. One night, a man stumbles into an inn carrying a dead child, who seems to have died by drowning. But a while later, the child comes back to life. Only, she does not speak. A lot of effort as well as storytelling go into figuring out who she is. Is she the missing daughter of the Vaughans who had disappeared two years ago? Is she the grandchild of Mr. Armstrong from a neighbouring village? The story unfolds from the perspectives of many different characters. The chapters are meanderings, deep inquiries in the minds and hearts of the characters. They're not meant to be rushed through, but savoured slowly instead. --- Yet another edition of *Monthly Missives* is drawing to a close, dear Dreamer! Writing and reading are the places I turn to for comfort. Which is why I've been offering more of my books for free than otherwise, in the hope that my words too might offer solace and comfort to a reader in these times. As always, I'm grateful to you for allowing me this space to express myself and think aloud. I hope my words soothe you and help you too find clarity in the midst of chaos, courage in a time of confusion, and wholehearted presence when you need it the most. Until next month then, Anitha ### tales for dreamers: a sticker for a moon URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-sticker-for-a-moon/ Last updated: 2025-02-21T14:00:42.000Z They (the powers that be) have resorted to using a sticker in place of the moon in the sky. A bright white luminescent one, a puffy sticker, to guarantee that eerie 3D appearance of a sphere. It looks like the moon alright, with shadows on its face and that bright halo around it. But you also know that it isn’t really the moon. Because of the way it sticks out of the sky and doesn’t look like an inherent part of it. Like the stars and planets do. Also, it neither waxes nor wanes like the real moon did. We have a forever full moon now. Someone thought to question why a sticker was needed. The powers that be replied that the moon was gone. It had slipped out of the earth’s gravitational pull, and got sucked into the sun. We wish we hadn’t asked that question. The answer was not easy to accept. But every time we look at the sticker-moon in the night sky, we can let ourselves forget the truth somehow. And instead, believe in whatever magical thinking the sticker-moon was meant to induce in us. --- *Last week's image info: The colourful door in* [*'a door of hearts'* ](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/8bef4542-8c66-405b-b260-ffef2d7019cf/)*opens into little D's room in our home. It's a lovely room with large windows on two adjacent walls. which makes it very bright and airy. During a long-ago February, I posted heart-shaped love notes for D, one note every day of the month, in celebration of Valentine's Day. He has the entire collection ... somewhere ... I think!* ### tales for dreamers: a door of hearts (revisited) URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-door-of-hearts-revisited/ Last updated: 2025-02-14T14:00:23.000Z There are twenty-nine hearts in all. Each has something written on it. Most likely a blessing or a pithy saying, like you’d typically see on the slip of paper curled inside a fortune cookie. Rarely, a command. One, only one, has a curse written on it. You can open the door to the other side only if a heart chooses you. And then its destiny becomes yours to carry, whether a blessing or the curse, or a vague aphorism that remains open to interpretation. They are fickle, these hearts, and there is simply no way to tell whether they’d like you enough to let you through the door. But if they do, don’t think twice. Even if the curse is yours to bear, you are better off with a heart than without one. --- *Last week's image info: It was on one my early morning walks over the weekend that I spotted* [*'a crack in the horizon'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/52d6b950-926f-4beb-ab3b-834f3b52f349/) *from the grounds of my favourite-st place on earth, Paletta Mansion, overlooking Lake Ontario. How I love Burlington!* *P.S.* [*'A door of hearts'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-door-of-hearts/) *was originally published in February 2023\. It's featured here today for Valentine's Day!* ### tales for dreamers: a crack in the horizon URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-crack-in-the-horizon/ Last updated: 2025-02-07T14:00:17.000Z The sun did not rise today. Not the way it usually does in all its orange-golden glory. In the dead of the night, the sky and the water have merged into a leaden whole. The horizon that had split them apart since the beginning of time is now a seam, binding them together. The world feels like a cocoon now, land and water and sky presenting a united front to whatever lies beyond. But, look! A crack is forming in the horizon once more. Slowly, it widens, revealing the golden light of the hidden sun. I heave a sigh of relief. The water ripples. The clouds quiver. As though laughing at my folly. *That’s simply the mouth of the Universe opening*, they tell me. *Lips parting*. Will the Universe finally whisper its secrets to me, I wonder. *No. But wait and see what comes from its mouth.* *If you’re lucky, a lover’s kiss perhaps.* *If not, maybe the fiery flame of a dragon’s breath.* --- *Last week's image info: Walk down New St. Stand at the bridge atop the creek just after you cross Nelson High School and just before you reach Nelson Park. Look out. If you're lucky, you might catch a glimpse of* [*'a black and white world'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/7792c709-a82c-451b-bbc3-5f940135961a/)*.* ### tales for dreamers: a black and white world URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-black-and-white-world/ Last updated: 2025-01-31T14:00:03.000Z All colour has been leached out of the world. The first snowfall of the season tends to do that. Paints the entire world in blacks and whites. But a black so dull it looks a muddy brown. Trees and creeks, sky and land, all have only two options of colours to choose from. *Not fair*, they moan. *Give us back our blues and greens, our yellows and golds*, they demand. *You’ll have to wait an entire season*, the powers-that-be insist. But the world has grown impatient and doesn’t wish to wait that long. *There will be consequences*, the powers-that-be warn. The world is OK with that. Right now, consequences feel like something destined to happen so far out in the future they might as well not exist. The snow melts and the colours come back. It proves to be an unseasonably warm winter. The trees and the creeks, the sky and the land, rejoice. When summer comes, it’s scorching. The sun burns so hot the sky turns white. The creek dries up to reveal its shallow, rocky bottom. The grass and the leaves wither and fall. And the world turns black and white once more. For it is the season of consequences. --- *Last week's image info: The cage of rocks in* [*'a place to store your regrets'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-place-to-store-your-regrets/) *is on a trail at the Elevated Park in St. Thomas, Ontario, about 90 min southwest of my home in Burlington!* ### January Jests: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/january-jests-monthly-missives-from-the-dream-pedlar/ Last updated: 2025-01-26T08:00:30.000Z These past several weeks have had me wondering if we're all somehow caught in the midst of some grand cosmic joke. The mundane ordinariness of my day-to-day life is strangely, but mercifully, in utter contrast to the madness and mayhem that doomsday-scenario-loving media will convince you the world is caught up in, especially if you're living in North America right now. So much so that I sometimes wonder if I've somehow been inhabiting two different universes at once — one being my inner world of ideals and values, and the other being the external world of material form — both spiralling towards each other at unstoppable speeds. And it's only a matter of time before they collide and my world implodes, and I'll finally come to see how my desire to live a quiet, peaceful life is simply untenable and completely at odds with the games that are being played in the realms of politics, capitalism and modern-day extravagance. Well, if nothing else, when the world outside is wild and chaotic, that's when we can turn to fiction for lessons in bravery and courage. We could all also do with a much-needed reminder of the wise words of the Greek playwright and father of tragedy, Aeschylus: > *"Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times."* --- ### *On Writing* In case you haven't grabbed it already, my absolutely engaging young adult paranormal mystery book, *Erased From Existence*, is still available for free until the end of the month as part of an ongoing promotion over at BookFunnel. [FREE Sci-fi & Fantasy JanuarySearching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon-12.ico)![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/header.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/free-sci-fantasy-january/xvr5y17iz2?ref=thedreampedlar.com) You can also grab it as part of another promotion of free and discounted Urban Fantasy books by the *International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (IASFA)*. [Urban Fantasy | IASFAThe IASFA Urban Fantasy promotion runs from January 26-30\. Please click on a cover to learn more and access the download link.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/cropped-IASFA-Logo-SMALL-270x270.jpg)IASFARob Mc![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/2017-513-eBook-Marilyn-Peake-B02-Medium-1-360x570.jpg)](https://iasfa.org/jan25/) Meanwhile, having finished a side novel in the fantasy series I'm currently working on, I've come back to continue writing Book 1\. I'm 70,000 words (about 230 pages) into the book and I've been getting a very insistent message from the Universe that I'm probably only halfway through the story! See why I was telling you about cosmic jokes and celestial jests earlier on? But every twist in the tale that comes up as I write it takes me completely by surprise and fills me with endless delight. I hope reading the series (at some vague point in the future) will have the same effect on you, filling you with that thrill and delight of discovering something new, something unexpected! --- ### *Tales for Dreamers* This month's assortment of tales has no theme per se but most of them were inspired by photos of ordinary, everyday scenes I took on Belvenia Rd, an utterly suburban strip I walk down almost every single day. What kind of [fantastic tales](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-january-2025/) could these ordinary images possibly inspire? Come read about ***'the guardian tree'***, learn ***'how to stop the spread of invasive species'***, find out about ***'a simple rule for pedestrians'*** and — this is probably the most important one of all — let me take you to ***'a place to store your regrets'***. [![collage of 4 images featuring suburban scenes that inspired the 'Tales for Dreamers' collection for January 2025](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/01/Tales-for-Dreamers.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-january-2025/) tales for dreamers: the [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-january-2025/) for January 2025! --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* In what has turned into a moment of great pride and joy, my nephew over in the UK entered the BBC's 500 Words writing competition for children. His amazing short story is now in the Top 25 finalists out of an astounding 44,000 entries! The story hasn't been published online yet, so while I've had the privilege of reading it, I'm not at liberty to share it yet. But I was amazed to see the 11-year-old's portrayal of a world in which knowledge is prized over material wealth, goodness of heart trumps greed, and the villain gets his comeuppance while the good guy, despite his decades of hardship, emerges with newfound wisdom and his buoyant spirit renewed. All in a span of merely 500 words! Reading my nephew's short story gave me the assurance that all great stories inevitably do — that all is well with the world and that I too will be OK in it. He will be headed to the Buckingham Palace next month for the awards ceremony! Very well done, Aadit! 🥳 🎉 --- Meanwhile, at home, little D has taken to addressing me as 'Mom' in public. 😳 It got me thinking that I've only ever addressed my own mother as 'Amma' in all 40+ years of my life. Growing up in India, there were a great many words for mother in the local languages. The most anglicized version was Mummy, which mostly Hindi-speaking folks, like my husband KrA, tend to use. For the longest time, the word 'Mom' to me was a term only children in Hollywood movies and American TV shows and books used. To hear my own child address me thus is a stark reminder of how much he has grown, how great is the influence of the outside world on him, how his childhood in Canada is vastly different than my own in India had been, and how it is my job as a parent to navigate these inevitable differences and natural phases of growth alongside my child with great understanding, acceptance and compassion, both for him and for myself. Mercifully, I'm still 'Mama' at home, and I'll cherish the sound of D's sweet voice calling out to me as 'Mama' for as long as it lasts. --- ### *Books You May Love* I read some gems this past month. There was Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's *Independence*, set in eastern India at the time of partition. It was such a powerful story, told in a truly gripping manner, with a vast array of characters all of whom I ended up rooting for so much that the heartbreak that came towards the end was too much to bear. I couldn't wait to grab another title by the author, but seeing as how indulging in her works kept me from progressing on my own writings, I've decided to return to Divakaruni's works only after I finish writing Book 1 in my ongoing series! Then there was *The Last Word* by Elly Griffiths, featuring characters from her Inspector Harbinder Kaur mystery series including a group of amateur sleuths — a Ukrainian woman, an ex-monk who now runs a coffee shop, and an older gentleman in his eighties who lives in a retirement home. They make an unlikely trio and add a lot of humour and chutzpah to the story. Then there was this vampire novel unlike any other I've ever read before, but to call it a vampire novel would be very reductive. *So Thirsty* by Rachel Harrison is a story of two women coming to grips with having been turned into vampires, although the transformation itself occurs only about a third of the way into the book. It is also a tale of female friendship, of cheating husbands and wild love affairs, and the practical choices people tend to make to ensure their lives can remain safe and predictable, when life is anything but that! ![collage of four titles I read this month](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2025/01/Books-You-May-Love-1.jpg) But the book that really stood out for me this month was *Death Of A Lesser God*, Book 4 in the Malabar House series, by Vaseem Khan. Set in Bombay in the 1950s, against the backdrop of the tumult of post-independence India, the mystery series features India's first female police inspector, Persis Wadia, allowing the author to explore the issues Persis faces at her workplace in addition to tackling the gamut of crimes erupting in the country. In *Death Of A Lesser God*, Wadia is called to reinvestigate the case of a white man, James Whitby, who has been sentenced to death for the murder of a prominent lawyer and former Quit India activist. As Wadia sets out to establish Whitby's innocence or guilt, we get to see a nation where the white man has become a symbol of the oppressive colonial rule of the British and is unlikely to receive justice; many would simply love to see him hang as retribution for the centuries of oppression inflicted on Indians by the British. But we also get to see people who are determined to not let an innocent man die just because he is of the wrong colour or background. On top of that, we also get to hear Whitby's perspective throughout the ordeal, brilliantly so! He is white, his father is an eminent industrialist who profited greatly from the colonial rule. But Whitby was born and brought up in India; he identifies as Indian, and feels out of place in the UK when he briefly heads to Oxford for higher studies. Khan ends the tale with a chapter narrated from Whitby's perspective, and these lines are so reflective of the dilemma so many of us face in the present times that I simply have to share them here. > *The one thing I am sure of is that I will not leave India. This is my home. If fate decrees that I die here, then so be it.* > *My identity is not up for debate. I am a white man and I am an Indian. A strange bird, but this is my forest and if I am to fly, then it shall be here.* > \~ An excerpt from *Death Of A Lesser God* by Vaseem Khan --- Time to bid adieu, dear Dreamer! It's not even been a month into the new year and I've already had plenty of plummets into moments of doubt and despair, gripped by anxiety and worry about my place and that of my child's in a world that is constantly changing at such a feverish pace and with such intensity that it feels impossible to keep up. It's not surprising that fiction has been my go-to for solace, comfort and courage in difficult times. It also reminds me that my words too may be of help and healing to those who read them. In parting, I will leave you with the words of Albus Dumbledore: > *"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."* Signing off with wishes for courage and peace, \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: a place to store your regrets URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-place-to-store-your-regrets/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:47:53.000Z There’s a place you can go to dump your regrets. Every regret that has ever tormented you — the things you said or did, the things you wish you had said or done but didn’t — you can rid yourself off every single one of them and dump them into a cage. The easiest part is finding an enclosure to dump them into. The hardest part is getting them out of your body in the first place. That sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. That boulder that sits heavy on your chest and refuses to let you breathe. The pebble that lodges itself in the hollow at the base of your throat, threatening to choke you on every breath you take. No wonder regrets look like rocks when they’ve come out of you. You’ve got to find a good witch and let her put her hand in those places where you hurt the most and pull out your regrets, one by one. It hurts a lot. Of course, it hurts a hell of a lot. But it hurts a lot less than carrying all those burdens inside you all your life. It’s safe to open an enclosure once. Other people’s regrets can never torment you. But once you’ve fed some of your own regrets to a cage, never come back to it. To open it once more is an invitation for all the regrets you jettisoned there to come back and haunt you all over again. > ✨ *🎼 Wondering what the jettisoning of regrets sounds like? Check out the audio version of today's tale.* > ✨ For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! --- *Last week's image info: The traffic light with its admonishing command in* [*'a simple rule for pedestrians'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-simple-rule-for-pedestrians/) *is situated at the intersection of Belvenia Rd and New St. I cross this spot on my daily walks, and thereafter I choose which way I'd like to proceed, down Belvenia Rd or straight on New St. Both are equally great choices!* ### tales for dreamers: a simple rule for pedestrians URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-simple-rule-for-pedestrians/ Last updated: 2025-01-17T14:00:13.000Z Hey you, pedestrian! there is only one rule for you to follow: Obey your signals. How hard is it to remember that? Just those three words. Obey. Your. Signals. Oh, we know you’ll come up with all sorts of excuses to justify your disobedience. The sun was in your eyes. There were no vehicles on the road. No one else seemed intent on following the rules. The signal had gone bonkers and refused to function properly. Wait, what? That’s a new one. Ah, so it seems the signal has had enough of disobedient pedestrians and refuses to light up for them anymore. Well, we have a problem now, don’t we? How do we resolve this? Change the signal? Change the pedestrians! Have more signals? Have fewer ones? Uggh! This is insane. How hard is it to follow just three words? Obey. Your. Signals. Maybe *that’s* the problem. Those three words are not enough. They never were. How about *‘Pedestrians, obey your signals, or else face the consequences.’* There. That sounds better. Something that’d be taken more seriously. Wait, what consequences? Come now, what’s the fun if we reveal *that* to you? --- *Last week's image info: The signboard with suggestions on* [*'how to stop the spread of invasive species'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-how-to-stop-the-spread-of-invasive-species/) *was at the entrance to one of the trails at Rattlesnake Point, one of KrA's and my favourite places to go on a hike!* ### tales for dreamers: how to stop the spread of invasive species URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-how-to-stop-the-spread-of-invasive-species/ Last updated: 2025-01-10T14:00:35.000Z It can’t be denied that brushing off your boots is a great way to stop the spread of invasive species. But that only keeps out the little critters that stick to your boots. Read this helpful guide on how to keep out unwanted species from entering your home. > \~ Fairies are attracted to shiny things. Ear-rings. Bangles. Necklaces. Metallic zippers and chains. Check those for any trace of fairy dust. It’s usually sparkly and shiny, and disappears the instant you spot it, leaving you to scratch your head and wonder if you had indeed seen anything there in the first place. Take no chances. Whichever object you suspect had fairy dust on it, leave it behind in the woods as a peace offering. That usually works. > \~ Elves love soft, fuzzy, woolly, warm things. Scarves and socks. Mittens and beanies. They have a soft spot for knitted things. Check for holes and any unraveling or even any new stitches and patterns that weren’t there before you entered the woods. That’s usually the mark of a busy elf. They like to leave their mark on the objects they desire. But they don’t wish to take what’s rightfully yours. The next time you come to the woods, bring them a scarf or a mitten, and they’ll leave yours alone. > \~ The trickiest critters to get rid of are the thought-worms. No one knows where they come from or what they look like. They sneak into your head when you aren’t looking and begin to shape-shift. Truth be told, no one really knows how to get rid of them. There’s one thing that seems to work really well though to keep the thought-worms quiet and still. You must stay in the woods for long. They seem to like it there, and that’s when they’re calm and undemanding. Once you leave the woods, there’s no telling what they’d do in your head until you come back to the woods again. --- *Last week's image info: Down on Belvenia Rd, south of Spruce Ave, stands* [*'the guardian tree'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-guardian-tree/)*. A path runs behind it, seemingly into a dead-end for all you can see. But if you go down that path, the world will open up to you in a pleasantly surprising way. Give it a try, and come back here to let me know.* ### tales for dreamers: the guardian tree URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-guardian-tree/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:49:29.000Z All the sunshine exists right behind this tree. You can catch glimpses of it from here. Stranded on this patch of land, where sunlight is forbidden to enter, you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in a warm and bright place. Your entire generation has. Your children don’t even know that something called the sun exists in this world. But *you* can still see the bright light of the sun. If you try hard enough, you can still conjure up memories of laughing and playing in a land of sunshine. Although it feels like something that must have happened in another lifetime. Surely not this one? All you need to do is go beyond the tree to the other side. But, too bad for you, you’ve heard all the rumours, and that keeps you where you are. All that grapevine about how no one has ever gone around the tree before, how the tree gobbles up any living being who dares to come near it, how it’s best to remain safe on this side where you’ve always lived, where everyone you’ve ever known and loved has stayed put. Your children have no such inhibitions. You’ve spared them these scary tales, and now they run towards the tree, pulled by the bright light beyond, with no fears and inhibitions to keep them from exploring. “Stop!” you call out, but when have children ever stopped to give in to the fears of their parents? So they run, and you run after them. They’re quicker, more eager. And you see them slip through the gap. Then disappear into the bright light. The gap is so narrow, will you even be able to squeeze through? There’s only one way to find out. Besides, your children have gone through. You’ve got to follow them. You don’t have a choice now, do you? > ✨ 🎶 *Love this tale? Check it out in audio format too!* > ✨ For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! --- *Last week's image info: Somewhere on the stretch of Belvenia Rd that runs north of New St is a home on whose front lawn these* [*'fallen angels'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-fallen-angels/) *appear every Christmas. They're not always fallen. They're usually upright, playing their flutes. On one of my morning walks, I found them fallen, and that inspired the tale.* ### Free Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-sci-fi-fantasy-books/ Last updated: 2024-12-31T11:07:04.000Z Ooh, how exciting it is to be standing on the precipice of yet another year. I love new beginnings! Always full of shine and possibilities! As we bid goodbye to the old year, here's another gift from me to you. You can get my paranormal mystery novel, [*Erased From Existence*](https://dl.bookfunnel.com/2xtm9tmplv), for free for a limited time only until the end of January. If you've never read this story before, you're in for an absolute treat! And while you're at it, you can also grab several novels and book bundles by many other well-known authors for free as part of the [*Free Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/free-sci-fantasy-january/xvr5y17iz2) promotion over on BookFunnel! [FREE Sci-fi & Fantasy JanuarySearching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/ix0fgkwebw/header.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/free-sci-fantasy-january/xvr5y17iz2) [![ebook cover mockup for paranormal mystery novel, 'Erased From Existence' by Anitha Krishnan](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/12/Erased-From-Existence_Ebook-Cover_MockUp-1.jpg)](https://dl.bookfunnel.com/2xtm9tmplv) So grab your books, grab a cuppa, and head into the new year with all arrangements in place for your reading pleasure! Happy New Year! 🥳 ### December Diaries: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-december-diaries/ Last updated: 2024-12-29T08:00:20.000Z Perhaps for the first time in my life, I'm not standing on the precipice of a new year and muttering those old clichés about how the old year has sped past. These past few years as a parent have reinforced the truth that time is always fleeting; and this realization only takes us by surprise when we haven't been paying attention. Still, the end of the year is a great time to celebrate, to rest and to reset, and to reflect on how we wish to show up in life in the days to come. There's something about spending our days with intention and attention that changes the flavour of life, no matter what external circumstances we face. But before we venture into those reflections, here are a few goodies for you to add to the treasures you may have already amassed so far this season. --- ### *On Writing* Do you have a Kobo Plus subscription? If you do, did you know that all my books are available on Kobo Plus, which means you can read them (and many other books) at no additional cost? Find some great fantasy reads on [Kobo Plus](https://books.bookfunnel.com/Kobofantasy/a7ymt7dl8n) this month. My titles, *Dying Wishes* and *A Benevolent Goddess,* are featured in the promotion below alongside some terrific books by many other authors, but honestly all my books are available on Kobo Plus. [Fantasy Reads with Kobo PlusFantasy Reads on Kobo Plus These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of books which can be read on Kobo Plus.![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/kjk6zucau1/header.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/Kobofantasy/a7ymt7dl8n) You can also get another of my titles, *Erased From Existence*, a young adult paranormal mystery for FREE as part of the *Free Sci-fi & Fantasy January* promotion below that runs until the end of January. [FREE Sci-fi & Fantasy JanuarySearching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/ix0fgkwebw/header.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/free-sci-fantasy-january/xvr5y17iz2) --- ### *Tales for Dreamers* This month's [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/year-end-whimsies/) of short tales is my favourite. Five amazing new tales in all! And everything's about magic and wishes and wish-fulfillers — it's that season, after all. The stories even have intriguing titles: *magic's back*, *an unexpected enchantment*, *sprinkling magic for wish fulfillment*, *going on a wish hunt*, and *fallen angels*! Check them all out [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/year-end-whimsies/)! [![Collage of five images based on which I wrote five whimsical Tales for Dreamers for you to read this month](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/12/5-photo-Tales-for-Dreamers.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/year-end-whimsies/) #year-end whimsies I've also added an annual favourite to the [collection](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/year-end-whimsies/): a longer short story titled *'all in a year's work',* in which you'll find out how the twelve months of the year ended up with different numbers of days! --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* Every November/December, I write a post reflecting on the year gone by, writing-wise, that is, and what I'm looking forward to achieving in the year to come. [lessons learnt from four years of being an author-entrepreneurRealizing I’ve already come a long way, and remembering to enjoy the journey![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/12/52.-peter-conlan-LEgwEaBVGMo-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-four-years-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/) We often set goals to take us to a future that is somewhat different than the present reality we live in. Somewhere along the way, I've come to realize that I've been struggling to envision a future in which my days look vastly different from now. I essentially spend my days writing, reading, going for long walks, and hanging out with family. Relishing the moments of happiness that come our way, and showing up to address life-problems as and when they arise. It occurred to me that I'd be a very lucky person indeed if I could continue to do this 5, 10, 20, 30 years down the line. It's as if I'm already living my dream-life now. Have been doing so for quite a while. So I couldn't quite explain to myself why I often felt pressured and behaved as though I were operating from a place of lack. But when I thought about it, I realized that I do know why I've been so anxious about my writing journey. It's because I had set some quantitative goals for myself, and in constantly looking towards the end-result, I had lost sight of the joy of the task on hand. It wasn't always like this. Setting goals and having the certainty to achieve them was much, much easier when I was younger. It's only been in the last few years—since I became a parent, since I turned to writing fiction full-time—that I've found myself reckoning with the arbitrariness and uncertainties of life in ways I hadn't before. The pandemic too must have had something to do with that [shift in outlook](https://thedreampedlar.com/story-of-a-vaccination-and-of-sadness-my-everlasting-companion-and-guide/), I'm sure. ![statue of Buddha on a window sill against a blurred background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/12/wilsan-u-aiUIs74ejx8-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [wilsan u](https://unsplash.com/@wilsanphotography?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/gold-buddha-sitting-statue-aiUIs74ejx8?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) I'm beginning to see that it takes a whole lot of intention, awareness and courage to live a conscious life. Our time in this world is so fleeting and precious that sometimes it's astounding how much time and energy I've spent on things entirely out of my control. I still find myself drifting in that direction when I'm not paying attention. But it is also undeniably rewarding every time I make the choice to move away from something that doesn't serve me (like doomscrolling) towards something that does (like writing fiction). So my goals this year are not output-oriented or milestone-oriented but more process-oriented. They are not set in some distant future, but are more focused on the present moment. They have nothing to do with anyone or anything on the outside, and are entirely based on how I show up in this world, day after day, moment after moment. > *As we step into 2025, what I really wish for is to find contentment in my days as they unfold, the confidence that my words matter and make a difference to people so that I can spend my time writing books and stories without shame or anxiety or guilt, and compassion, both towards myself and others, to accept that life and other people won't always go my way.* So, what frame of mind do you find yourself in as we prepare to leap into a new year? Or are you one of the wise ones who don't hold with labelling a single moment in time as more precious or significant than any other? I'd love to know! --- ### *Books You May Love* This month I've read *The Night Guest* by Hildur Knútsdóttir, which was marketed as a thriller but turned out to be thriller-horror. I usually don't read horror because it scares the bejesus out of me. Luckily for me, the horror aspect of this tale only shows up right at the end. Until then, I enjoyed the thrilling unfolding of events in blissful ignorance! *What Happened To Nina?* by Dervla McTiernan was another enjoyable thriller read. Nina is a young adult who heads out on a weeklong trip with her boyfriend Simon to a secondary property in the woods that his family owns, but he returns alone from the trip claiming he and Nina had broken up and that he had left the property while she chose to stay behind to come the following day. Only, Nina never comes back home. The story is told from many different points of view. We figure out pretty early on what happened to Nina, so it's quite a feat on the author's part that she kept the story interesting enough that I couldn't stop reading through till its very satisfactory ending. The book I really loved this month was *The God Of The Woods* by Liz Moore. ![3-photo collage of three books recommended for reading this month](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/12/Books-You-May-Love.jpg) Books You May Love - December 2024 It is centred around a young girl, Barbara van Laar, who goes missing from her bunk at summer camp in August 1975\. It's her family who owns the camp. Several years ago, her brother Bear van Laar had disappeared from the same area; this had happened before Barbara was born but this incident marks her entire life. The story unfolds in two timelines as both mysteries are resolved in the book. It's hard to define this book, which intertwines so many themes and genres including historical fiction, motherhood, family secrets, the life of a young woman in 1950s America, a setting in the Adirondacks, teenage friendship, a serial killer lurking in the forest, and also wilderness survival, which is what the summer camp is all about. As soon as I finished reading this book, I added more works from this author to my TBR pile and can't wait to disappear into her fictional worlds. --- And just like that, another edition of *Monthly Missives* comes to an end, just as another month, another year comes to an end. I recently came across this quote by American author and philosopher, Howard Thurman. > *“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”* Reading these lines brought me feelings of liberation, relief and joy, even empowerment, that I hadn't felt in my writing journey for a while. These words also go hand-in-hand with Jon Kabbat-Zinn's observation (and book of the same name), *"Wherever you go, there you are."* So much of our lives is a product of our reactions and responses. It is one thing to know this intellectually, but quite another thing altogether to put this simple, profound truth into practice. One thing that never fails to provide help and clarity during difficult times is the Serenity Prayer: *Dear God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.* And these are the blessings I wish for you too in 2025\. A wonderful New Year filled with serenity, courage and wisdom, so that you too can go do the things that make you come alive! Much love, Anitha ### tales for dreamers: fallen angels URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-fallen-angels/ Last updated: 2024-12-27T14:00:56.000Z The prayers have been said. The presents have been opened. The party’s long over. And now we’re all hungover and lost. Everyone had a merry time. Everything that we’d been looking forward to has come to pass. All our wishes have come true. Leaving something strangely empty in their wake. It feels a little pointless to make more wishes, now that we know how their fulfillment actually makes us feel. But also because the only ones who can grant us our wishes are themselves hungover. The angels too partied hard, spent all night granting wishes and drinking and dancing until they fell over from joy and exhaustion, and now they have nothing left to give. But now that they’ve learnt you have no more wishes to make, they’re relieved. They lift themselves up. They’re no longer tired. They play their flutes and dance off into the sunset, basking in the knowledge that their lifetime of giving and unhindered generosity has made you ~~content~~ weary of wishes at last. --- *Last week's image info: The tree with the golden baubles in '*[*going on a wish hunt*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/625cede1-b6cd-4295-8357-095b79efbbae/)*' stand on the front lawn of a lovely home on Belvenia Rd. Take a stroll, and let me know if you spot it.* ### tales for dreamers: going on a wish hunt URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-going-on-a-wish-hunt/ Last updated: 2024-12-20T14:00:34.000Z The leaves have fallen. In their place have sprung up baubles of wishes. Glittering, golden spheres filled with desire and longing. It’s the season, after all, the time of the year in which as-yet-unfulfilled wishes are loud and clamouring for attention. As though they won’t let the year slip past without being fulfilled. They say everything you can wish for is in these baubles. Wealth. Prosperity. Influence. Fame. Popularity. Even love. But these things no longer interest me. I’ve seen them all before. They come, and then they disappear just as quickly as they arrive. This year I’m looking for contentment. It's something I haven't had in a long, long time. I can't remember when I last had it, or if I even ever had it in the first place. I’ve been asking every bauble, but none seem to have what I’m looking for. They helpfully point me to this tree and that, to this neighbourhood and that. But no bauble has it; some haven’t even heard of it. It’s too late now. Everyone else has their gifts wrapped and ready under the tree. I have no choice but to stop looking. To accept the failure of my attempts. I am a little disappointed. But I tried my best, I tell myself. Maybe next year. Good things take time and all that. So I wear my comfy socks to soothe my tired feet, settle in bed with a good book and a warm blanket and a mug of hot chocolate, and send a silent prayer of thanks to the Universe for all the good things my life is filled with. Funnily enough, that’s when contentment finds me. --- *Last week's image info: We went to the Canadian Royal Circus many years ago when it came to Burlington. The amazing acrobat inspired the tale,* [*'sprinkling magic for wish fulfillment*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/64694be9-c605-4a1f-a0e5-7c66abccc660/)*', which I wrote more than three years after I took the picture.* ### tales for dreamers: sprinkling magic for wish fulfillment URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-sprinkling-magic-for-wish-fulfillment/ Last updated: 2024-12-13T14:00:29.000Z Hurry! The dancer has risen into the air and she’s sprinkling her famous magic motes now. This is the move everyone’s been waiting for. Now’s the time to rush on to the stage and gather as many motes as you can. It’s trickier than you think it is. The motes are too tiny and their fall is too erratic to know where to place your hands so they land straight in your palms. Besides, in the shifting light of the tent, it can be hard to tell a magic mote apart from a trick of light. But fret not. I can tell you exactly how to maximize your chances of collecting as many magic motes as you can. Simply stand still, right under her outstretched hands as they generously sprinkle far more magic motes than you’ve ever seen in all your life. It’s counterintuitive, I know. Who wants to stand still when everyone else is jumping around like crazy? But if you do, you’ll soon find yourself covered from head to toe in magic motes. Far more magic than you’ll need in this lifetime. Of course there’s always the risk that someone might notice the treasure you’ve amassed and lunge at you, wanting to scrape off some of your loot and add it to theirs. Don’t worry. When that happens, your magic motes will help you fly up into the air. Quite like how they help the dancer stay far out of the reach of greedy, grabby hands. --- *Last week's image info: It finally snowed last week for the first time this season! The image for* [*'an unexpected enchantment'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/p/a6a43663-2528-4703-9ef6-fa60cf6c7cba/) *was, however, taken a couple of years ago at Paletta Lakefront.* ### Kobo Plus fantasy! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/kobo-plus-fantasy/ Last updated: 2024-12-08T22:05:44.000Z Did you know that if you have a Kobo Plus subscription you can read enlisted books for free? Did you also know that all my books are available in Kobo Plus? That's right! With a Kobo Plus subscription, you can read all my books and those of several other fantastic authors for only the price of the subscription! How awesome is that! And what a way to spend the last month of this year with all these great reads! [Fantasy Reads with Kobo PlusFantasy Reads on Kobo Plus These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of books which can be read on Kobo Plus.![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/kjk6zucau1/header.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/Kobofantasy/a7ymt7dl8n) Check out the promotion. It ends on 31 December. Maybe you'll find a new book to fall in love with! P.S. Can you spot my books, *Dying Wishes* and *A Benevolent Goddess,* in the collage above? ### lessons learnt from four years of being an author-entrepreneur URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-four-years-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/ Last updated: 2024-12-07T09:42:01.000Z > *“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”* > *— Howard Thurman* I almost didn't write this post this year. I usually write these posts to reflect on and glean wisdom from the year that's gone past. This year, giving a talk on self-publishing at the Burlington Public Library as part of their annual Literary Festival helped me gain that clarity and insight. But I love a bit of tradition. So I decided to go back and look at the annual posts I've written on this topic since 2020\. You can find the them under the collection ['annual reflections'](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/annual-reflections/). What struck me the most was how much I've grown, how much has changed, how much *I've* changed, since I first set out on this journey. When I wrote the first post in this collection in December 2020, I was still in the midst of writing [*Dying Wishes*](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/). Last year, I could proudly declare that *Dying Wishes* had been a finalist for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in the Speculative Fiction category. Strangely, it feels as though not four years, but an entire lifetime has passed in this duration. Funnily enough, much has remained the same. The entire business of indie publishing boils down to writing your books and getting your books in front of as many readers as you can. It is my attitudes and beliefs that have undergone a sea change in these past four years. It is as though the intentions I had set four years ago have now become a matter of daily practice for me. The most important thing though is the final acceptance that there is no silver bullet. I've finally stopped seeking one. That doesn't stop the doubts and fears from arising. They keep coming just as before; it's just that my ability to withstand them or take a break when I find myself unable to cope have increased significantly. I'm surprise to find this has happened. For a long time it felt as though I'd never get better at coping with the uncertainty of it all. It comes as a relief to find that that's not true. --- So, first things first, a look at what all the work I've done this year. ## Celebrating my Wins - I started the year publishing the short story, [*Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God*](https://books2read.com/Mrs-DSouzas-Dispute-With-God). I can't remember when I actually wrote it but a dear uncle of mine (my dad's youngest sibling) passed away in January, and that prompted me to publish this story, dedicated to my uncle and another dear aunt of mine who departed too soon, and later send a paperback copy to my cousin. - I published my first collection of short stories, [*Your Mothers' Nightmares*](https://books2read.com/your-mothers-nightmares), and also published each story individually. - I set up my own online store for my ebooks over on [PayHip](https://payhip.com/DreamPedlarBooks)! - I resumed writing [*Tales for Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) and posting them every Friday morning at 9 AM EST. Last year, I said that the subscription model was not for me. That thought came up a lot when I was thinking of going back to writing and posting these stories on the website once more. I've come to realize that I don't have a problem posting these tales on the website on a weekly schedule; it's when I had to schedule these to be emailed to subscribers on a weekly basis that was causing me anxiety. Publishing them on the website makes it feel like a fun project I'm doing for myself; if others want to read these stories, they're welcome to join the ride. But committing myself to email a story a week to subscribers felt as though I had imprisoned myself, and I couldn't get out of that commitment fast enough! I don't know why this is so, but I'm at least glad I realized this about myself. - I've gone back to writing a fantasy/sci-fi duology I had started way back in April 2022\. I've had a lot of start-stop encounters with this series, but after returning from my summer trip to India, I resumed writing Book 1 with great enthusiasm. - Halfway through the writing of Book 1, a secondary character wanted his story to be heard, so I went ahead and finished writing A Life of Purpose/The Making of Alexi (it's a working title). It'd be Book 1.5 in the series, as things stand! So that's another win — completing my first novel after [*Erased From Existence*](https://books2read.com/erased-from-existence), which was published in July 2022! - I gave a talk titled [*'Myths & Realities of Self-Publishing'*](https://attend.bpl.on.ca/event/11581629) at the beloved Burlington Public Library last month. The audience loved it, the organizers were enthralled, and I got the gift of clarity and insight about my own journey forward as I prepared to deliver this talk peppered with lessons learnt so far. --- ## The Way Ahead For a long time, I've struggled to set futuristic goals for myself on this journey. Experts often suggest that we set concrete goals, such an an annual income of, say, $100K in five years from now, or earnings of $1 million in royalties by a particular date, and so on and so forth. Somehow these numbers haven't motivated me. In fact, the more I look at numbers like these, the more discouraged and worried I feel. > *It occurred to me a few days ago that even if I had a bigger bank balance or a bigger house five years down the line, my days would look pretty much the same. Writing, and spending time with KrA and D, if luck remains on my side.* > *Then why has there been an undercurrent of fear and anxiety on this journey for so long?* My clearest memories of happiness and joy from writing are from the time when I was writing [*In Search of Leo*](https://books2read.com/In-Search-Of-Leo), the very first book I wrote and published. I clearly remember the joy and delight that rose in me when a turn of phrase occurred to me as I was doing the dishes and little D was taking an afternoon nap. He was barely a year old then. I noted it down in a pad as it was time for him to wake up, and I remember looking forward to getting back to the laptop to continue writing that scene. The disappointments began to set in only after I released the book to the world and understood that writing the book had, in fact, been the easiest part. Getting people to read it was another game altogether! Even so, I've experimented a fair bit and learnt a lot in these past few years. Surely, all that counts for something. So when I try to look forward, it's not so much a material goal I wish to set for myself, but it's this freedom from the anxiety of not being read, of not being seen, of not mattering, that I seek. This is the core fear of an Enneagram Type 4, which I completely understand now, because I live it everyday. So my 'goals' for the year ahead focus on the feelings I seek to incorporate more of in my daily life. 1. Contentment — Instead of believing I can only be happy with more, I wish to feel content with my days as they are now. Writing and reading and hanging out with D and KrA. Sometimes, I veer off track and decide I need to become minimalistic, but actually that's not who I am. I love a place free of clutter, but trying to get rid of every beautiful thing in my life makes me less capable of enjoying beauty. I love what I have, I'd also love to buy what pleases me without shame or guilt. 2. Confidence — I'm always astonished when I see how much time I waste worrying that my books will never take off, how all that time could be better spent writing stories (something I love doing anyway but don't because of fear). So much self-sabotage involved in here. I'm trying to cultivate more optimism and confidence to try my best in areas that are within my control without getting derailed by all that is not in my control. 3. Compassion — Trying to change my disposition from one of melancholy to one of joy and optimism is a tremendous task. I wish to have more compassion for myself along the way. So those are my 3Cs for this year. I really wish to lean in to that joy of writing and enjoying the day-to-day without worrying about how many books there are out there in the world or whether I'll ever have enough people reading my works or whether I'll ever make a reasonable income from writing these stories. I think I'm quite sick of letting these fears stop me in my tracks. I've often seen that when I'm able to get past these fears, creativity flows unbridled. When I'm mired in all these anxieties, my life shrinks and I become incapable of thinking anything. So here's to a year of focusing on what really matters, developing the emotional resilience and regulation needed to stay the course, remembering this is really a long-term game and it's the day-to-day actions that matter, and knowing that I'll be OK no matter what. ### tales for dreamers: an unexpected enchantment URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-an-unexpected-enchantment/ Last updated: 2024-12-06T14:00:17.000Z It was the first snowfall of the year. It wasn’t much. It didn’t snow a lot. Certainly not like it used to in the years gone past. As though this was yet another good thing that has disappeared with the past. Like safety, goodwill, faith. Trust. Good weather. Camaraderie. Peace. All those things you’re now learning to live without. Still, it snowed. It snowed despite all those forecasts of a warm, grey, monsoon-y winter with barely any snow to expect. That counts for something. That alone merits a walk on the path where the snow doesn’t stick, but it’s worth it for the sight of snow-dusted trees, white on green, or white on bare branches, a contrast of sorts. The world is wrapped in a hushed silence. No squirrels chittering. No birds tweeting. Even the lone lamppost will not deign to light your way. Such is the state of the world these days. You turn corner after corner in search of that elusive peace and beauty. There’s nothing but a thick blanket of silence so quiet that your inner voice is loud and clear. And you have no choice but to listen to what it has to say. *All that you seek on the outside*, it whispers gently, *is already within you*. Like safety, goodwill, faith. Trust. Maybe not good weather. Camaraderie. Peace. Many of those things you thought you had to learn to live without. Even beauty. Now you look up and the world appears entirely different to your eyes. There’s snow. It doesn’t matter how much. Or how little. You can still savour its existence. --- *Last week's image info: The structure with the poster declaring '*[*magic's back*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-magics-back/)*' is located in Toronto Islands. We saw it as we rode our bikes towards Hanlan's Point. So look for it in that direction when you go there.* ### tales for dreamers: magic's back URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-magics-back/ Last updated: 2024-11-29T14:50:59.000Z Magic is back! It has been coming back, letter by letter, spell by spell, one enchantment at a time. This is great news because the world could do with a little bit of magic once more. People have been waiting eagerly to see how this new magic will work, and what magical changes it will bring. The’ve been guessing and betting, laughing and gossiping, imagining and conjecturing, all of which feels quite magical in itself. It’s been several weeks now, and things have gone back to how they used to be before the sign appeared on the wall. The sign is still there. No one takes much notice of it anymore. Those who glance at it dismiss it as a silly prank. No harm done. If only someone had asked me, I’d have revealed to them the most obvious truth. That real magic never announces its arrival. --- *Last week's image info: Last week's tale '*[*jewels in the water*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-jewels-in-the-water/)*' is set on Lake Ontario as seen from the edge of the gardens of* [*Paletta Mansion*](https://www.palettamansion.com/about)*. It's one of my favourite places to go on a walk to.* ### November Newness: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-november-newness/ Last updated: 2024-12-23T12:08:39.000Z I turned a year older and wiser earlier this week! As is wont to happen on occasions such as these, and thanks to the spectacular, full-house event I had last week at the local library where I gave my first talk as an author, I've been taking a long and hard look at my body of work. I primarily started writing, way back in 2007 actually, because I wanted to tell great stories. Over the years, I've gone in many different directions, mainly blogging and writing poetry. Off late though, I've been wanting to come back to the kind of writing that truly informs everything else for me: writing fiction. That is one big reason why I've resumed writing and posting [*Tales for Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/), short wanderings into whimsy and wonder, every Friday morning over on the website. To bring everything else to align with my main goal, I'm also changing how I present *Monthly Missives* to you. We'll begin with *On Writing*, a section bearing book- and writing-related news to keep you updated on what I'm writing and when to expect my next book. Then will come *Tales for Dreamers* so you have new short fiction to indulge in while you await the next book release from me. This will be followed by *Life, Unadulterated* in which I'll still share anecdotes and musings on just about everything else, but I'll (try to) keep this brief. If and when I have something to say that merits a long post, I'll publish it as a separate piece on the website and point you to that. There will still be a *Books You May Love* section with a focus on one or two books that really stood out for me that month. Life is short and we all have limited time. I want to continue making these missives valuable for you to read in the midst of the busy lives we all lead. --- ### *On Writing* I'm close to finishing a new novel! Hurrah! It's a fantasy read with an element of romance. It's the first full-length novel I've written since I published [*Erased From Existence*](https://books2read.com/erased-from-existence), a YA paranormal mystery, in the summer of 2022! But I won't be releasing the new book just yet. You see, I was in the midst of writing the first book of a fantasy/sci-fi duology, when one of the secondary characters wanted his own story to be heard. Who am I to refuse what the muse offers! Thus began the writing of *'A Life of Purpose/The Making of Alexi'* (still a working title), which is a touching tale of the transformation of a carefree young man into a restless seeker. It won't make sense for you to read it until you've at least read the first book of the duology, which is still a work-in-progress! Do you see my dilemma?! I hope to have these stories — the original duology plus this additional tale — ready for you to read by spring/summer 2025\. 🤞🏽 --- ### *Tales for Dreamers* Do you remember *'*[*a way out for the werewolf*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-way-out-for-the-werewolf/)*'*, a tale of a werewolf that shape-shifted and found itself within the confines of a supermarket? In the weeks that followed, my meanderings led me to where the creature had turned up. And he had a very interesting story to tell! Read the sequel, *'a new place, a new life',* and three other enchanting tales—featuring a witch in a yacht, hands protruding from a wall, and a rather innocent-looking, placid lake with dark secrets lurking beneath its surface—in the collection [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-november/)! [![collection of images featuring a werewolf prop, sculpted hands on a wall, a moored yacht, and sunlight sparkling on lake water](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/11/TfD_Nov-2024.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-from-november/) --- [Love my writings? Consider a paid subscription starting at $3/month.](#/portal/account/plans) --- ### *Life, Unadulterated* These past few weeks have been extremely busy. First there was Diwaloween, what with Diwali and Halloween falling on the same day this year! See my attire for that day? A salwar-kameez topped with a bat poncho. ![image of me in a salwar-kameez with a bat poncho to celebrate Diwaloween](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/11/2.-Diwaloween.jpeg) See the bat ears perked up? Following that, I was deep into preparing for my talk at the library: *Myths & Realities of Self-Publishing*. More than 70 people turned up! The organizers had anticipated an audience of 30 initially and had to expand capacity twice to accommodate all that interest. People most certainly came because of the topic, but they left feeling seen, informed, amazed, and entertained by the end of those 90 minutes. So, mission accomplished! If you'd like to download my presentation and the handout all attendees received, you'll find them at the link below. [Myths & Realities of Self-PublishingDigital downloads from the BurlLitFest workshop![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/Header_v2-1.png)](https://thedreampedlar.com/bpl/) Then it was my birthday. My age is a symmetrical number now, and my 44 falls right in between D's 8 and my dad's 80, so I'm loving the mathematical harmony of it all. Little D had chosen for me a lovely LEGO set, the Tiny Plants collection, and we had a ball building it. KrA got me an amazing productivity kit from [Minimal Desk Setup](https://shop.minimaldesksetups.com) including a sleek metal pencil! Never knew an everlasting pencil was a thing. And I got myself Brianna Wiest's *The Pivot Year*, which I've been savouring a page a day. We devoured Black Forest cake, and it was a great birthday even though it fell on a Wednesday! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/11/4.-Tiny-Plants-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/11/5.-The-Pivot-Year-and-MDS.jpeg) Birthday gifts! The eventfulness of this month has made me realize that I actually love being busy. I'm way more productive and efficient, not to mention happy, when I'm juggling a lot of things and getting them done, starting with writing stories first thing in the morning as soon as D leaves for school. Speaking of which, have you seen those memes in which children write funny, unexpected answers in their homework or school tests? Turns out little D has his own contribution to make to the collective genius of children around the world. ![my child's math classwork in which he responded to a question with the answer 'Because I did the math.'](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/11/1.-Math-work.jpeg) And isn't there so much to love about a teacher who responds with a smiley-face? --- ### *Books You May Love* With all that was going on, I turned to Charles Todd for some comfort reading. I read two books from their Bess Crawford series: *A Casualty of War*, and *A Forgotten Place*. In both these stories, Todd masterfully examines the plight of soldiers, many wounded, having lost a limb or more, left to fend for themselves after the war has ended. Forced to return to their old lives but no longer able and *'useful'* as they had once been, they lead lives of desperation. Very few writers have been able to depict World War I and its impact on people with such empathy as Charles Todd does. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/11/6.-A-Casualty-of-War.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/11/7.-A-Forgotten-Place.jpeg) --- That brings us to the end of November's missive, dear Dreamer! In the weeks to come, I'll retreat deep into the writing cave, emerging only to read, hang out with KrA and D, and send you these monthly notes. As we're headed into the holiday season, I hope these coming weeks bring you a lot of joy and love even if they become stressful and overwhelming at times. Because nothing in life exists without its antithesis. \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: jewels in the water URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-jewels-in-the-water/ Last updated: 2024-11-22T14:00:59.000Z The jewels in the water are rising to the surface. They were hidden there aeons ago by the sun and the moon and the stars. No one remembers why. And if you ask the sun and the moon and the stars, they too may not always be willing to tell you why. But when they do feel like talking, they sometimes let slip that they didn’t want these jewels to become objects of possession and desire. It doesn’t matter. Let bygones be bygones. Now, the jewels tucked away in seabeds and ocean floors, long forgotten, are rising to the surface. From a distance, they sparkle golden in the sunlight. As you get nearer, you’ll see they’re of all colours and hues. Even colours that are yet to be named. Some say the jewels are rising to let people know there is plenty to go around. There’s no need to hoard, no need to take more than you need. There’s enough and more for everyone. But others say it’s to lure the greedy ones in, the ones who try to take more than they need. So when they reach out to grab more jewels than they ought to, the precious stones drag *them* down to the depths instead, where they’ll remain pinned to the ocean floor under the weight of their own greedy desires until the end of time. --- *Last week's image info: The yacht in the tale '*[*liquid wisdom*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-liquid-wisdom/)*' was moored in Toronto Islands, probably by Hanlan's Point Mooring Wall or thereabouts, if I remember correctly. We spent KrA's birthday this year riding bikes on the island. The unusual name had to inspire a tale, didn't it?* ### tales for dreamers: liquid wisdom URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-liquid-wisdom/ Last updated: 2025-10-24T15:11:24.000Z The witch will see you now. She lives in the yacht, or so it’s believed, but she’s rarely there. And when she is, she never answers to visitors she doesn’t much care for. But she will see you now. She will answer any questions you may have. She will also answer the ones you’re too afraid to ask. Even the ones you should have asked but it never occurred to you to do so. It’s alright. Fret not. You're here now. And that's what matters. Her answers are fluid. Like underwater garble. They may mean something or they may mean nothing at all. They could mean anything you’d like them to. Her words may change your destiny. Or they may do nothing of the kind. They’d mostly make perfect sense when *she* utters them. But when you try to repeat or rephrase what she said, you’ll find yourself at a desperate loss for words. She’s clever that way. Giving you the truth in liquid form, so you may never quite grasp it. You can only watch it pass you by. --- *Last week's image info: The werewolf from the department store three weeks ago turned up on the front porch of a lovely home down Belvenia Rd in south Burlington in last week's tale,* [*'a new place, a new life'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-new-place-a-new-life/)*!* ### tales for dreamers: a new place, a new life URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-new-place-a-new-life/ Last updated: 2024-11-08T14:00:59.000Z I found him, at last. The [werewolf](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-way-out-for-the-werewolf/) from the department store! I’d heard the rumours — how a kind and rich benefactor had come along and rescued the creature from the department store. The werewolf graces the porch of a house that looks lovely and well-kept from the outside. He smiles at me as I approach him. There’s a flicker of recognition in his eyes, and it makes me wish I had been the one to rescue him. I wish I had had the means to do so. “I remember you—” I say, at the same time he says, “I remember you—” We smile. We already know what the other is going through, so we let the words rest for a bit. He’s not shackled to anything, I’m amazed to see. He stands here of his own accord. Probably has been since the day they brought him home. The owners have even put a mat for him to stand on, perhaps to keep his feet from turning too cold in the dead of the night. “They’re kind to me, you know?” he says at last, not quite meeting my eyes. “I understand,” I say. What I really wish to ask, but don’t, is this — *Is that a good enough reason to stay confined?* “I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “But isn’t that what we’re all looking for? Love? Kindness? Empathy? Isn’t that what we all desire? To be seen? To be heard? To be validated?” “I suppose so,” I reply. And I mean it. Even though I know that to seek all of these things from others is a trap in itself. I wish the werewolf could understand he need not remain shackled for the sake of love. But then, who am I wish for others what they may not want for themselves? “I’ll come by tomorrow,” I say. “Maybe I’ll see you then.” “Maybe,” the werewolf replies. The next morning, he’s gone. The porch is empty, save for those yard waste bags. Now that Halloween is over, perhaps he’s been dismantled and put away in the basement. To be stored in obscurity for an entire year. My heart sinks at the thought. I turn away in despair, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. But then I catch a glimpse of gigantic paw prints on the dewy grass, leading away from the house. They disappear where the front lawn ends and the concrete sidewalk begins. My spirits soar. I look up and down the quiet suburban street. Deserted, as always. The ones rich enough to live here spend all their time either at work or on vacation. And then I hear it. A very distant howl. Far enough to sound more like a coo, less like a wail. I doubt anyone else noticed it. It was a weekday morning, after all. Farewell, my friend. I wish you a life of adventure. Maybe you’ll find others like you and know, in your moments of doubt and dark despair, that you made the right choice. --- *Last week's image info: The sculptured hands in last week's tale, '*[*need a hand?*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-need-a-hand/)*', adorned a wall behind the desk at the entrance to a lovely breakfast area in InterContinental Montreal!* ### tales for dreamers: need a hand? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-need-a-hand/ Last updated: 2024-11-01T15:57:27.000Z There is no dearth of hands here when you’re in need. The wall offers hands of all … well, I was about to say hands of all shapes and colours and sizes, but upon closer observation, it is evident that the only difference between these hands lies in their gestures. Still, these hands and their gestures are not cast in stone. You could assume a certain flexibility, I suppose. The outstretched palms seem to be in need of something. What would you give them? A coin? A gemstone? A secret you’ve never shared with anyone until now? Your hand, perhaps? Some others seem to beckon you. *Come here*, they say wordlessly, or so it appears. Perhaps they have a story to tell you, a word of advice or a word of caution to offer. Some people may take offence at being summoned with the crook of a single finger. Are you one of that sort? I suppose I am; in my world, I’ve seen only folks who consider themselves superior signal that way to others they deem beneath them. I don’t buy into such discrimination; but such is the way of the world, whether I choose to live by its rules or not. But let us not forget, these hands are obviously from a different world. Perhaps it’s best to ask them if they really meant any offence before taking any! And then there are those closed fists. I wonder what they conceal? What they’d reveal? There’s only one way to find out. Pick a hand and take it in yours. And see how it responds. Just be warned. Nobody has tried that out … yet. --- *Last week's image info: The prop in* [*'a way out for the werewolf'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-way-out-for-the-werewolf/) *was in the local Costco. It has since disappeared from there, and I've been looking for it ever since. I think I'm quite close to finding it. Perhaps I'll let you know next week.* 😉 ### Happy Diwaloween! 🪔👻 URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happy-diwaloween/ Last updated: 2024-10-31T15:56:39.000Z > **Happy Diwali!** > **Happy Halloween!** > **Happy Diwaloween! Happy Hallo-Diwali-ween!** So much to celebrate on this strange and delightful day of festival mash-up. Here's to celebrating light and darkness together! That's me in my Indian salwar-kameez with a bat cape over it and my trusty running shoes that I wear with everything unless it's snowing and the roads are icy! Also, do you see my bat ears? ![picture of me wearing a salwar kameez and a bat cape on top to celebrate Diwali and Halloween together](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/49.-Diwaloween_v2.jpeg) Me! Dressed for Diwali & Halloween! ### October Optimism: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-october-optimism/ Last updated: 2024-10-27T07:00:43.000Z The big news this month that I must tell you right away is that I've been invited to speak on self-publishing at the Burlington Public Library's literary festival next month. This is the first time (I think) I'm presenting my thoughts and insights to an audience as an indie author! After all these years of listening to many stalwarts speak and learning from them, it feels amazing to be able to do my bit in helping others along on their own journeys. So if you're in or around Burlington and have the time, mark the date! 💡 [***Myths & Realities of Self-Publishing**](https://attend.bpl.on.ca/event/11581629) at Central branch, Burlington Public Library, on ***Sunday, 17 Nov, 11 AM-12:30 PM** Let me know if you're planning to come, because I'd absolutely, absolutely love to see you and spend some time with you in person! --- Another first for me is that one of my titles, *Dying Wishes*, now sits proudly on a shelf in the library in the Local Author Collection! All ready to be borrowed and read, if you have a BPL library card! [![A paperback copy of Dying Wishes by Anitha Krishnan in the Local Author Collection at the Burlington Public Library](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/1.-Dying-Wishes-in-library.jpeg)](https://burlington.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S194C464888) Dying Wishes @ Burlington Public Library! *Dying Wishes* is a contemporary fantasy novel set in Burlington and inspired by South Indian folklore. It was a finalist for the *2023 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in the Speculative Fiction* category. The lovely folks at Kobo even did a wonderful interview with me at the time, which you can read [here](https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/06/08/rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize-2023-kwl-author-spotlight-on-anitha-krishnan/). My child, D, was barely two years old when I started writing this story. One day he asked me about God and what happens after we die, and I didn't know how to answer him. I didn't want to feed him my beliefs and, worse still, I was undergoing a crisis of belief myself! I had grown skeptical of the practices and traditions that my own parents followed, the ones I had accepted without questioning as a child. And even though my parents didn't impose any of their beliefs on me as an adult, everything I had believed or subscribed to while growing up came unravelling when I was a new parent myself. Thus began the tale of seven-year-old Ananya, the only child of a single mother who's handed the short end of the stick by the very Gods her mother stoutly worships. In Ananya's own words ... > *When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life.* > *For thirteen years now, I have served as a Harbinger of Death, coaxing dying wishes out of mortals so that the God of Death may grant them moksha, liberation from the cycles of birth and death.* > *The man about to die this evening claims he has nothing to offer me. He is dying a content man, a rarity in our world.* > *But when the God of Death arrives to lead his soul away, the man changes his mind about dying and flees, surreptitiously planting on me an enigma.* > *I only know I cannot trust any God with this secret. And that I will pay an unbearable price for this concealment…* Come celebrate this little milestone in my writing journey with a 50% OFF on [*Dying Wishes*](https://payhip.com/b/powBr) over on my ebook store, Dream Pedlar Books! (This offer is for email subscribers of *Monthly Missives* only. If you're not a subscriber yet, sign up [now](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup/free)!) > *And if you need a little more convincing, a dear reader recently wrote in after she watched the Netflix show Kaos, a modern-day re-imagining of Greek mythology.* > **"There were sooo many parallels and moments I thought of your writing,"* she said, in reference to Dying Wishes.* I wrote this book to explore my own thoughts on childhood and motherhood, on being an immigrant from India and making Canada my home, and on faith and spirituality. It became, quite literally, a quest for belonging across different worlds. So grab your copy, and tell me what you think of the story! --- Incidentally, I want to talk about community and belonging today. My thoughts on this are still evolving, and in fact what I'm about to say below is in complete contradiction to what I shared just [two months ago](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-august-affections/) upon my return from India. I hope this piece can help you reflect on what community and connection mean to you and turn into an ongoing exploration and discussion. ### On community in fiction vs. community in the real world So, I've been obsessed with friendship and community (or mostly the lack thereof) for decades now. I thought I was the kind to seek deep, meaningful connection, and I took great pride in that self-image I held for a long time. I've been quick to put off small talk as insignificant and pointless. And I believed that friendship between two people meant you trusted each other with your deepest, darkest secrets and counted on each other to have your back all the time. ![a group of friends sitting on a ledge and looking out at a water body with silhouettes of hills in the distance and a cable car ride](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/2.-Friendship_duy-pham-Cecb0_8Hx-o-unsplash.jpg) a group of people. friends? community? or actors in a photoshoot? | Photo by[Duy Pham](https://unsplash.com/@miinyuii?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/people-holding-shoulders-sitting-on-wall-Cecb0%5F8Hx-o?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Last month, in a moment of adulthood, it occurred to me that this was the fictional-world fantasy of relationships. There's a saying among writers: > Reality is how the world is. Fiction is how the world should be. We are drawn to stories of great courage and bravery, where love and friendship triumph over evil, where justice and hope prevail. Unless we're reading a tragedy, of course. Even so, a tragedy is a tale of loss incurred in the pursuit of a noble cause. The reason we're drawn to these stories is because these values and ideals, which we hold so dear, are often at odds with what we see in reality. Because the real world is made of imperfect human beings like us, and make no mistake, we too are quite often the villain in somebody else's story. --- ### On seeking community as a new parent My obsession with community grew significantly after D was born. Every parenting expert was talking about how modern-day parenting in nuclear families was an exercise in insanity; they were all insisting that having that elusive 'community' was the key to raising emotionally healthy children. Cue for panic to set in. Because it was just the three of us here in Canada, with family being far away in India. In those early days, I opened my doors to all, sometimes even strangers, inviting them over, naïvely assuming that if I gave what little I had, what little I could—my time and attention and affection—I'd get in return some of that friendship and community I was desperately hankering after. Naturally (and mercifully, I now realize), few people took me up on those invitations, leaving me to worry that I was doomed to live a life of isolation, devoid of the kind of close friendships I read about in books and watched on Netflix. ![an adult woman and a small child on a boardwalk pier on a body of water with hills in the distance](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/3.-New-parent_micah-hallahan-twOEQbdE3v8-unsplash.jpg) isolation or solitude | Photo by [Micah Hallahan](https://unsplash.com/@micah%5Fhallahan?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-and-girl-walking-along-concrete-dock-surrounded-by-body-of-water-twOEQbdE3v8?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Then the pandemic set in. It came as a great relief to me because now I had a genuine reason to give up my disastrous and failed attempts at finding a community to belong to. In 2020—21, when two local authors got together to compile a book of essays on the pandemic, I wrote a piece titled *'Finding Self-Love in the Time of Coronavirus'* (obviously a play on the title '*Love in the Time of Cholera*'. Check out [page 97](https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AH%2DJG26mdRosghs&id=8F2D93EAFD8B6BA3%2145246&cid=8F2D93EAFD8B6BA3&parId=root&parQt=sharedby&o=OneUp) in this PDF version of the book, [*Writing The Rollercoaster: Stories of Riding Out the Pandemic in Burlington*](https://writingtherollercoaster.com/submission-guidelines/).) In that piece, I wrote: > *It took me a pandemic and the innate wisdom of my 4-year-old to understand that the most important relationship we can nurture in our lifetime is with ourselves. How we love and value ourselves shapes how we perceive the outer world and our place in it.* > *Socialization then simply becomes the ability to present our true, authentic selves to the world and embrace everyone for who they are.* > *It has little to do with whether or not we have friends and playdates, birthday parties and backyard barbecues.* > *It has everything to do with the ease with which we become our own best friend under all circumstances, irrespective of any external achievement or lack thereof, so that authenticity, and not desperation, drives our decisions and relationships.* > *\~ An excerpt from 'Finding Self-Love in the Time of Coronavirus'* But sometimes the lessons we learn are short-lived. As soon as schools resumed in full force, I was once again back on the hunt for a 'community', this time among other parents whose children attended the same school as D. Eventually I had to acknowledge the fact that just because D has forged a good friendship with another child, it didn't mean that the respective parents have to become good friends too. I now understand that I could have a lighthearted conversation with another parent at pick-up, but that wasn't going to translate into dropping in at each other's place over the weekends anytime soon. But I railed against this reality for far too long. It seemed to me a strange way to live. And my failed attempts at connecting in the way I thought was meaningful only made me feel more and more terrible about myself. I started to think that perhaps I wasn't wealthy enough or influential enough or popular enough for other parents to want to befriend me. But what tormented me the most was the fear that D would pay the price for my 'failure' and grow up without a network of friends or a support system to rely on. --- ### On understanding what this quest for community was really all about ![a parent's hand holding a baby's tiny fingers](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/4.-Why-community_aditya-romansa-5zp0jym2w9M-unsplash.jpg) baby fingers tugging at a parent's helpless heartstrings | Photo by [Aditya Romansa](https://unsplash.com/@adroman?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/person-holding-babys-index-finger-5zp0jym2w9M?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Last week, I met a friend for the first time since university. I had last seen her more than 20 years ago, though we've stayed in touch somewhat through a common Yahoo group that then became a Facebook group and is now a WhatsApp group. Right after uni, she had moved to the US for further studies and had lived there all this while, until she moved back to India two years ago. Naturally, we got talking about 'community' and life in North America vis-a-vis life in India. We both shared how neither of us had ever wanted to be part of any large group of Indian friends who got together and celebrated festivals together, which is what most immigrants seem to do. I mean, if I only wanted a large group of Indian friends, I'd have stayed in India. I was always driven to meet people from other places and learn about their lives. Our differences and similarities never cease to fascinate me. Nevertheless, every time I saw people in large groups, FOMO would hit me hard and I'd worry I had gone down a completely wrong path in my life! Apparently, my friend felt the same way too. The next day, it occurred to me—and I hastened to write to her—that I had been so fixated on having a network because I'd always been worried about who'd help little D in an emergency. But when I thought about it, I realized that I do have a number of people I can call when in need, even though these are not the people I reach out to for day-to-day tasks or even for deep, meaningful connection! This realization fell on me like a ton of bricks. > *That not all friendships are equal, nor are they meant to be.* > *That all kinds of human interactions, ranging from casual to intimate, are a way of affirming each other's humanness.* > *That to trade one for the other or to consider one type of friendship or interaction better/worse than the other actually robs us of the ability to relate to the world at large in a healthy way.* --- ### On appreciating and cherishing the different kinds of human interactions we have A couple of weeks ago, we got the call that every parent dreads. A call from school informing us that D had fallen in the playground at recess and had a head wound that wouldn't stop bleeding. KrA and I rushed him to the hospital, where a very friendly doctor named Frank tended to D. In the course of our conversation, Frank mentioned that when he studied medicine at university, he initially went into medical research. But then he realized that he missed the social aspect of interacting with people, so he chose to become a practising doctor instead. We had a lovely interaction with Frank during the 20 or so minutes we spent with him. There were jokes about children's haircuts and other random stuff. We're not going to become bosom friends—heck, I'd probably never even see him again in all my life—unlike in a fictional world where a chance encounter leads to something else and makes for an incredible story. But the fleeting nature of such an interaction does not make it any less significant, and certainly doesn't take away from the joy and delight of sharing a moment in space and time with another person, even if our paths never cross again. ![four women holding drinks and laughing](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/5.-Interactions_elevate-oRl7BoX7QCE-unsplash.jpg) a moment of connection | Photo by [Elevate](https://unsplash.com/@elevatebeer?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/four-women-talking-to-each-other-holding-clear-drinking-glasses-while-standing-near-wall-with-graffiti-during-daytime-oRl7BoX7QCE?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) There was a time when, driven mad by my desperate desire for companionship and community, for acceptance and belonging, I refused to look at and say *Hello* or even smile at people I'd pass on my almost-daily walks along the bike path. Perhaps it was the helplessness I felt at that time in my alone-ness, but I derived a certain sense of power in having the choice to look elsewhere and ignore a stranger on the street. In refusing to put in the effort to acknowledge their existence, I naïvely thought I was preserving my own. After all, why should I be the one to validate their existence when my own felt far too small and insignificant? One day, some ex-colleagues of KrA came down from Toronto to visit him, and they went out to the beach for an afternoon of barbecue. The first thing they noticed was how friendly people in Burlington were. They were taken aback by the fact that a stranger passing by could flash a smile at you and acknowledge you, make you aware of your own beautiful existence on such a lovely afternoon by the beach. > *"The small joys of running into an old co-worker or chatting with the bartender at your local might not be the first thing you think of when imagining the value of friendship—images of more intentional celebrations and comforts, such as birthday parties and movie nights, might come to mind more easily.* > *But Rawlins says that both kinds of interactions meet our fundamental desire to be known and perceived, to have our own humanity reflected back at us.* > *“A culture is only human to the extent that its members confirm each other,” he said, paraphrasing the philosopher Martin Buber.* > *“The people that we see in any number of everyday activities that we say, Hey, how you doing? That’s an affirmation of each other, and this is a comprehensive part of our world that I think has been stopped, to a great extent, in its tracks.”* > *\~ An excerpt from* [*The Pandemic Has Erased Entire Categories of Friendship*](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/01/pandemic-goodbye-casual-friends/617839/) *by Amanda Mull in The Atlantic.* ![chef in a small food stall smiling at a customer from behind the counter](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/6.-waiter_lan-pham-slyyeNC6qzY-unsplash.jpg) the company of strangers | Photo by [Lan Pham](https://unsplash.com/@lanipham?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-standing-facing-man-sitting-on-barstool-slyyeNC6qzY?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Some people we know are super interesting, they may have great stories to tell and amazing experiences to share. Interactions with them leave us feeling a little wiser, a little more open in our minds. But we may never know what their deepest desires and fears are, because they may never want to share that, and that's okay. Then there are others who are reliable when it comes to matters of daily living. Like a Macedonian neighbour I had who didn't speak a word of English but kept offering D snacks and treats, and was happy to collect our mail when we traveled. There are others too, like the parents I see while picking up D from school, and our conversations revolve mainly around our children and their activities. There's neither the time nor the inclination sometimes to get to know each other on a more personal or individual level. And finally, after railing against this all these years, wrongly labelling it as a 'lack of community', I'm beginning to see that it's okay. Conversely, I did manage to connect with one such parent of a child in D's class. D and M do not play with each other, but M's mom and I forged a bond irrespective of that. She was on maternity leave last year with her second child, and we often got together for coffee in the afternoons when our children were at school. Then her maternity leave came to an end, and she went back to work. My work has ramped up too, and getting together for coffee on a weekday afternoon without the children to look after has become a luxury of the past we're no longer able to indulge in. It was beautiful while it lasted, even if only for a brief season. Thinking that this friendship would have been more significant had it endured for longer is folly. It erases the beauty of what was in the mistaken belief that something deeper and longer-lasting would have been more life-changing or mattered more in some way. ![silhouette of a group of young men atop an SUV parked by the seashore looking out towards the ocean](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/7.-friends-in-fiction_marvin-meyer-ZdsfrjOXThY-unsplash.jpg) what friendship in fiction looks like | Photo by [Marvin Meyer](https://unsplash.com/@marvelous?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/group-of-people-riding-suv-during-daytime-ZdsfrjOXThY?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) > *In fiction, all these different characters are condensed into a single person or a small, tight-knit group, bound by the same cause, completely enmeshed in each other's lives.* > *But life is not fiction. And when we fail to appreciate the is-ness of life, its messiness and heartbreaks, the ebb and flow of people and relationships, we run the risk of chasing a fantasy, which is always a pursuit in vain.* It has also been liberating to realize, in the same vein, that I don't have to be everything for everyone as well. I too play these different roles—being a mentor to someone, a confidante to another, an acquaintance to yet another person, a villain in someone else's life, or just a familiar face to countless others—and that is really all we can manage, given our limited time on this planet. We simply cannot (and absolutely need not) be everything to everyone we meet. --- ### On remembering and trusting in the wisdom of turning inwards rather than looking outwards for connection We tend to highlight individualist cultures (such as those in the West) as selfish and are quick to laud collectivist cultures (such as those in the East) as far more communal and collaborative. But in the course of that once-in-20-years conversation with my friend from university, we couldn't help but remark how here in North America we know many people who volunteer, participate in communal projects, and [contribute](https://www.thespec.com/life/home-and-garden/you-can-t-eat-grass-burlington-s-ken-welch-is-passing-joe-s-gardening-lessons/article%5Ff0b4dc5a-eec9-5578-8222-b126ec4b9839.html) to society. And how India too is quite often a place where it's every man or woman for themselves, many people playing their respective roles in large groups (especially families) driven by their dysfunctional patterns (like people-pleasing or being overly nurturing) or out of a sense of disgruntled obligation. In my early years, I grew up in a gated community where playdates were not a thing but the children sought each other out to play while the mommies (most of whom didn't go to work) ran their households and got together and chatted and the daddies went to work and earned a living. > *But you see, everybody knew everybody else's business.* > *There was also a lot of gossip and drama, both among the group of adults as well as among the group of children, as is wont to happen in large groups.* > *People were more prone to gossip and whine about others than actually look to solve any problems they had with the person in question. My wise friend from uni calls this 'trauma-dumping'!* > *I now see that it was merely a crowd, and we called it community, for what it was worth.* Which makes me question why we (perhaps it's only those of us living in the west as I do) are inclined to believe that living in a community is the panacea for all our mental health issues. Perhaps, because the grass appears greener on the other side? ![woman sitting by a waterfront in solitude](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/7.-solitude_toni-reed-BmwEhjQBmyU-unsplash.jpg) quiet contemplation | Photo by [Toni Reed](https://unsplash.com/@trfotos?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/silhouette-of-person-sitting-on-bench-near-body-of-water-during-daytime-BmwEhjQBmyU?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) > *I say this not to diss one type of life/society/culture nor to approve of the other, but having spent nearly equal parts of my life in each of these two extremes, trying and sometimes finding but more often failing to find some sort of a happy middle, I have to concede that maybe the answer lies not in the outer constructs of society.* > *The only place we can really turn towards is inwards.* > *Unless we are whole and connected to ourselves, we'll always look towards external relationships—romantic love, friendship, family, community—to fulfil us.* > *And naturally that's going to disappoint, especially since the other person is looking to us to do the same for them, fulfil their unmet inner needs.* > *It is only when we put in the effort to grow and own ourselves wholly, that we can even begin to find others, similarly self-assured, to share a few moments with us on the ride.* Shel Silverstein's [*The Missing Piece Meets The Big O*](https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/02/12/the-missing-piece-meets-the-big-o-shel-silverstein/) explains this in a fascinating way. There's a wedge-shaped missing piece, sitting alone and "waiting for someone to come along and take it somewhere." It thinks it can't roll by itself because of its sharp corners and angular shape. It meets a lot of 'someones', each misshapen in their own way, each missing some part of themselves, only to realize that trying to fit together with them is almost always futile in the long run, even if at first it felt as though they'd make a really good match. Then, wonder of all wonders, comes a piece without any missing pieces! It calls itself the Big O. > *“I think you are the one I have been waiting for,” said the missing piece. “Maybe I am your missing piece.”* > *“But I am not missing a piece,” said the Big O. “There is no place you would fit.”* > *“That is too bad,” said the missing piece. “I was hoping that perhaps I could roll with you…”* > *“You cannot roll with me,” said the Big O, “but perhaps you can roll by yourself.”* What a lesson in personal growth! And equally, what a lesson in setting boundaries! Read the book over at [The Marginalian](https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/02/12/the-missing-piece-meets-the-big-o-shel-silverstein/) to see how the rest of the story unfolds. ![person jumping atop a mountain against the backdrop of mountains and a valley](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/8.-joy_peter-conlan-LEgwEaBVGMo-unsplash.jpg) joy in solitude | Photo by [Peter Conlan](https://unsplash.com/@peterconlan?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-jumping-on-green-mountains-LEgwEaBVGMo?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) So write to me and let me know what your thoughts are and what your experiences have been in the pursuit of community in your part of the world. It's a universal theme we can all relate to, no matter what our views and opinions are. --- ## Tales for Dreamers I have four lovely tales, all Halloween-themed, and you can find the collection [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/halloween-hang-ups/). These stories feature carved pumpkins, a talking mask, a werewolf in a supermarket, and mysterious neon handprints. [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/10/Tales-for-Dreamers---Oct-2024.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/halloween-hang-ups/) --- ## Books You May Love I'm realizing only now that I haven't read much this month. The days have gone in meeting friends, attending events at D's school, preparing for Diwali and Halloween (which fall on the same day this year!), and also in watching more Netflix than usual, so reading fell by the wayside. I did read a YA book, [*I kissed Shara Wheeler*](https://www.caseymcquiston.com/i-kissed-shara-wheeler), by Casey McQuiston. In this tale, Chloe's rival for valedictorian, Shara Wheeler, kisses her and then simply disappears, leaving behind clues for Chloe and two other schoolmates to find. There was a mystery element to it, and the cast is very diverse, and it was a fun read overall in a month that was rather busy with life stuff! --- Well, so this has perhaps been my longest missive so far, dear Dreamer! Thank you for staying with me this far. Sometimes I learn something about life and it splits my head open in such a way that I have to share it with you, in the hope that somewhere in those words you too will find the encouragement to look at your own life and jettison what no longer works for you while embracing what does. Next month, I turn a year older! And I have a fairly good idea what I'm getting myself for a birthday present. I'll tell you all about it in November's missive. And don't forget. If you'll be in/around Burlington on Sunday, 17 November, come hang out with me at the [library](https://attend.bpl.on.ca/event/11581629)! We'll talk writing, books, publishing, life! Just like we do in these missives. Until November's end then, Anitha ### tales for dreamers: a way out for the werewolf URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-way-out-for-the-werewolf/ Last updated: 2024-10-25T13:00:50.000Z The werewolf is howling mad. He didn’t expect to shape-shift and find himself trapped in a department store of all places on earth. That too, for public display? Tsk. Tsk. But now he’s chained to this spot. People gawk at him, and pet him as though he were a dog. It all drives him mad, and he howls even more loudly, which makes everyone think it’s a cool gimmick and that the werewolf would look awesome on their front lawn as Halloween decor. But he costs three hundred bucks, and not many are certain he’s really worth that much. Even if he were, they couldn’t afford him anyway. As is wont to happen in tales like these, a kind and rich benefactor finally came along. He fell in love with the werewolf enough to buy him, haul him out in a pick-up truck, and plant him on the front lawn of his own house. It’s not quite the woods, but it’s definitely a step up from the department store. The werewolf can hear the howls and growls of other werewolves and monsters similarly planted to grace other front lawns in the neighbourhood. It makes him feel less lonely. Perhaps some day they’ll all get together and plan a grand escape. For now, he’s content to be here and not inside a closed department store. Even if he’s still chained to a spot, the wolf can at least breathe fresh air, see the stars in the night sky, and howl at the moon. These remain some of the simple pleasures of life that he truly cherishes. --- *Last week's image info: I don't recall exactly but the pumpkins in '*[*unexpected faces*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-unexpected-faces/)*' were most likely part of a large, grand exhibit at the* [*Royal Botanical Gardens*](https://www.rbg.ca)*. Every October, RBG hosts* [*The Great Pumpkin Trail*](https://www.rbg.ca/things-to-do/by-season/special-events/pumpkin-trail/) *with hundreds of beautifully and artistically carved pumpkins on display in the woods. It's become an annual family tradition for us to walk through the woods in the dark, admiring the Halloween decorations!* ### tales for dreamers: unexpected faces URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-unexpected-faces/ Last updated: 2024-10-31T18:44:59.000Z When the carver started carving the pumpkins, he didn’t expect to find faces hidden in there. Human faces, that too. But as the paring knife dug into the fruit, the wielder intending to carve a jack-o-lantern or a crow or a witch, the faces began to emerge. Some were angry. Some seemed happy. Some appeared relieved to have been found at last. “How did you get in there?” the carver asked. “That doesn’t matter,” an angry face replied gruffly. “The more pertinent question is how do we get out of here now?” “How?” the carver asked. “What kind of a fool are you?” the angry face hissed. “If we knew how to get out, would we still be in here?” The carver didn’t like being spoken to rudely. He had half a mind of thrusting the knife in that angry face and mutilating it. He’d have done it too, but one of the smiling pumpkins spoke right then, “Please forgive our mate. This life of imprisonment has been especially difficult for him.” The carver grunted, far from being assuaged. “Doesn’t give him the right to bark at a fella. That too one who’s trying to help.” “I understand. That was not at all acceptable,” the friendly pumpkin said in a voice that was calm and sweet. “Please forgive us.” The carver, still a good man at heart, turned his attention to the sweet-voiced fruit and asked, “So you don’t really know how to get out?” “No,” the pumpkin let its voice fall. “The witch who put us in never revealed how to escape. Every Halloween, we keep our eyes peeled to see if we can spot her, beseech her somehow to let us out. No luck, so far.” The face sighed, and the carver was overcome with pity for the poor being that was trapped inside. “It’s alright,” he said, leaning over and gently patting it on its head. “We’ll figure out a way together.” He brushed the face, attempting to remove any debris that might mar its beauty. Something like a tongue—or perhaps it was a hand, who could tell now?—shot out of the pumpkin’s mouth and jerked the unsuspecting carver into it. It took less than an instant. There were no witnesses. No trace of the crime. Not even a cloud of smoke. Later that night, the witch slipped out of the pumpkin with the smiling face. With a flick of her fingers, she coaxed her black cat out of the pumpkin with the angry face. “Funny how these silly humans fall for the good cop, bad cop trick every single time,” the witch muttered, licking her fingers. “Well,” the cat said lazily, twirling his tail, “they’re the ones who invite us into their world every year.” Chuckling, they hopped on to her broom and disappeared into the night sky. --- *Last week's image info: The yellow face in '*[*the voice of the mask*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-voice-of-the-mask/)*' appeared on a tree along a path that runs beside Nelson Community Centre and joins the Centennial Bike Path. It is still there. I don't know who put it there, but every time I see it, I usually pause for a moment to see if it will actually say something to me. It hasn't yet.* ### tales for dreamers: the voice of the mask URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-voice-of-the-mask/ Last updated: 2024-10-11T13:00:13.000Z The mask burst forth from the young tree overnight. Since then, it hasn’t stopped talking. It calls out to every passerby but most ignore it. They do stop to gawk at it, because … why not? A mask peeping unexpectedly out of a tree is eminently gawk-able. That kindles some kind of sympathy in you, the kind-hearted soul you are. So you decide to stop and listen to what the mask has to say. First it tells you that you’re going to run into trouble this evening, but it also gives you some tips on how to avoid bad luck. It shares random things like the next time your basement will be flooded, or how long your current relationship will last, or when and where you’ll see your first ghost. It also tells you that you’ll have a close brush with death in the coming months, but luck will be on your side and you’ll escape entirely unharmed. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to run away from the mask after hearing all these predictions of catastrophe and disaster. But the one important thing that the mask doesn’t tell you is this: Most people actually can’t hear its voice. And the ones who can? They’re already doomed. --- *Last week's image info: The gorgeous, glowing wall of neon handprints in* [*'messages from beyond'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-messages-from-beyond/) *is located inside Planet Laser in Oakville.* ### tales for dreamers: messages from beyond URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-messages-from-beyond/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:40:25.000Z It began as a prank at first. Jessie’s idea it was, to leave a trail of shimmering hands on the black wall that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. Naturally, we all tried to talk her out of this madness. “You don’t want to go around raising the dead!” “What if they come after us?” “Best to stay away from them.” “Don’t wish to meddle in affairs we know nothing about.” “We’re not even supposed to *look* at the wall, let alone smear paint on it.” But, as happened every time Jessie came up with a mad idea, I was the only one who went along with her while the other children ran back to their homes. They promised not to tell on us, though. Jessie and I hauled a large bucket filled with a glowing green paint that looked like gooey muck. Jessie didn’t tell me where she got it from, and I didn’t ask. We pressed tentatively, at first. Our handprints glowed. Then faded into the black wall. It was like magic. When nothing else untoward happened, we let loose. Dip. Press. Lift. Watch it vanish. Repeat. And then the first blue handprint appeared. Then disappeared. Jessie smacked a green hand on the wall. A blue print appeared almost immediately in response. Right next to hers. Thus the game began. One print from our side. One from theirs. A green one. Then a blue one. We’ve been at it for several months now. The other children don’t even call us to come out and play with them anymore. They knew we won’t. The wall is our favourite haunt. Both Jessie’s and mine. We’re glued to it. Almost. Sometimes the green and blue handprints overlap. Ours and theirs. That is when the messages come through. They are priceless. It’s tricky to make it happen. Sometimes it can take days. There’s no other way to communicate and strategize and perfectly time an overlap. But even the smallest of overlaps, the briefest of touches, is enough to let a message slip through. And that alone makes all the effort worth it. > ✨ 🎶 *Loved this story? A spooky tune renders it even more haunting in audio.* > ✨ For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! --- *Last week's image info: The post-it in* [*'the unexpected demands of a shopping list'* ](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-unexpected-demands-of-a-shopping-list/)*was lying on the Centennial bike path by the parking spot behind the Nelson soccer field.* ### September Shimmers: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-september-shimmers/ Last updated: 2024-09-29T07:00:21.000Z There's nothing like September's back-to-school-and-work regularity to shake me out of the whimsies that a good summer break brings. Where [last month](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-august-affections/) I thought I'd simply drown in homesickness for the rest of my life and never resurface, mercifully this month saw me joyfully back at the writing desk once more. Which is why I have many exciting updates to share, especially in the ***Tales for Dreamers*** section! So grab a cuppa, settle yourself in a comfy place, and read on. --- Firstly, a very cheerful welcome to everyone receiving their first *Monthly Missive*! While I mostly let the software elves carry out the tricks they do to ensure you receive these emails, I do take the time to read every new member's name and imagine an invisible line of light and warmth connecting human-you to human-me. I am glad our paths have crossed, and I hope we will bask in each other's company for as long as we can. --- I suspect most of you already have a copy of my short story, ***A Benevolent Goddess***. [![Ebook cover of A Benevolent Goddess by Anitha Krishnan featuring a woman with eyes closed and arms outstretched](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/09/5.-A-Benevolent-Goddess.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/SpectacularGiveawayforSpeculativeFiction/x7ix3ldbmg) If not, here's another chance to grab a free copy until October 15, while it's part of an **ongoing promotion over on BookFunnel** where several authors have teamed up to offer their works to new readers for free for a limited time. [Spectacular Giveaway for Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and other Speculative Fiction!Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon.ico)![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/header.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/SpectacularGiveawayforSpeculativeFiction/x7ix3ldbmg) One book in particular caught my attention. Titled ***28-day Grimdark Affirmations*** by **BardLyre**. To say that I love this book/journal is an understatement. Utterly grim. Utterly dark. Subversive. Highly imaginative! [![Ebook cover of 28-day Grimdark Affirmations by BardLyre featuring the face of a monstrous creature ](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/09/4.-28-day-Grimdark-Affirmation-2.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/SpectacularGiveawayforSpeculativeFiction/x7ix3ldbmg) As the name suggests, it's written in the form of an affirmation journal, except, as the author says, > *"This isn’t your average daily journal filled with empty affirmations and pastel promises of perpetual happiness. No, dear reader, this is where you’ll find solace in the shadows of the hopeless."* I've since gone on to read and love BardLyre's novel, *Darkhelm*, the first book in her [*Tales of Shattered Glass*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQL7JDB8) duology. It's an epic, grim dark, LitRPG fantasy in which the main character, Lady Darkhelm, is a Knight of the Road, who travels from village to village, hearing people's complaints and delivering justice. When she is charged with the protection of a young boy, her job invites dangers unforeseen. Who knows? You too might find your next favourite author in the promo! Take a look, and let me know which other books in the [promo](https://books.bookfunnel.com/SpectacularGiveawayforSpeculativeFiction/x7ix3ldbmg) catch your fancy. --- Although we're now well settled into the routine of school and work, the transition from summer to back-to-school had its undeniable share of tears and fears. **Transitions** are hard. They bring forth a lot of emotions to the surface. If we refuse to recognize and name them, they disappear into the garbs of busy-ness and over scheduling. Endless activities to fill our calendars with, so we can drop into our beds exhausted at night, having escaped the peril of actually feeling those uncomfortable feelings. A neighbour of mine saw her youngest child start Junior Kindergarten this year. A day of both her kids away at school for the first time, and her mind was already guilting her into getting up and attending to the myriad tasks on her to-do list now that she had ample time on her hands. Her predicament reminded me of the time when D was about to start at a half-day toddler program many years ago, and my heart broke into a million pieces. And I thought I had to somehow put all that time to 'good' use. My heart goes out to past-me, and to any parent feeling the pressure of major transitions in their children's lives. [the gift of timeThe phone call came last summer, shortly before I had completed my last course for the degree I was pursuing. There was a spot available in the Infant Room of a daycare that had opened only the previous autumn. We had put ourselves on the waitlist after a visit in![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/The-Gift-Of-Time_o.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-gift-of-time/) So when my neighbour reached out to me a couple of weeks ago, wondering how she could get more efficient in her use of all this newfound time, I had no practical tips to offer her. I could only offer her a listening ear and a comforting silence. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking of my own experience from these past few years of watching D grow. Because the truth is, after all these years, I've given up on trying to achieve efficiency. > *Life is always messy! The more I try to control it, the messier it gets.* So instead of aspiring for efficiency, I only value the practice of being calm and patient and understanding when things get out of hand. Then it doesn't seem to matter how things have gone, if I've been calm and compassionate throughout whatever is happening. Only later did it occur to me that I'd been paraphrasing the teachings of the late monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. I've held on to these words for comfort and reassurance ever since I heard them for the first time several years ago. > *We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time.* > *But that is not true. Our time is first of all to be.* > *To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving. And that is what the world needs most.* > *\~ Thich Nhat Hanh* So, how has September been for you, dear Dreamer? Have you too had to face a transition of your own recently? If so, how did you go about it? Write to me and let me know. --- ## Tales for Dreamers So, the big news is this: Instead of a single tale this month, I've got several new tales for you! 💡 [***Tales for Dreamers**](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) is back as a weekly offering of wonder and whimsy! **Every Friday morning**, a new short fantasy tale paired with an image is posted on the website. This has been a fun project for me ever since I started writing fiction more than a decade ago, and I'm thrilled to [resume](https://thedreampedlar.com/an-announcement-tales-for-dreamers/) it once more. There are five tales in all this month. There's *'*[*the bangle-seller's song*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-bangle-sellers-song/)*'*, *'*[*the fall dilemma*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-fall-dilemma/)*'*, and *'*[*this way up*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-this-way-up/)*'*, all of which I was very thrilled to write. Another tale, [*'the unexpected demands of a shopping list'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-unexpected-demands-of-a-shopping-list/) is one I love for how quirky and whimsical it is. But *'*the children are gone*'* is the one that takes a special place in my heart. [tales for dreamers: the children are goneWhat memories does your neighbourhood park hold?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/2.-the-children-are-gone.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-children-are-gone/) Read them all, and tell me which one(s) you loved! --- ## Books You May Love After feeling utterly incapable of diving into fiction last month, I turned to an author whose works, although set in the time of WWI, have comforted me and seen me through times of inner turbulence. [Charles Todd](https://charlestodd.com)! I went to the library and grabbed two books from his Bess Crawford mystery series. Reading these books finally pulled me out of my stupor of nostalgia and homesickness, and I simply couldn't stop disappearing into more fiction. And because I had such a lovely time reading a wide variety of books, I went and wrote an entire post on them! Along with some wonderful excerpts from some of these books! [books you may love: September 2024Murder mysteries, historical fiction, spiritual non-fiction, and thrillers!![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/nick-hillier-IEkMMvdZFc0-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-september-2024/) --- That brings us to the end of this edition of Monthly Missives, dear Dreamer! This was edition # 30! I've been writing these monthly posts for two and a half years now. All those who've been with me right from the start as well as the ones who're climbing aboard just now, I thank you for being with me on this ride! September also marked the month in which KrA turned a year older. We spent a lovely Sunday at Toronto's Centre Island, which has inspired several *Tales for Dreamers* I've written since. So keep an eye out for those! Before I leave, I must share with you something funny that happened with Alexa this month. > *One evening, I asked Alexa about the weather forecast for the night and she gave me an absurdly low number, 11 or 12 degrees Celsius or something like that. (We had a brief cold spell last month.)* > *I gasped and said, "Oh my God!"* > *Alexa dutifully responded, "I couldn't find that name in your contacts list. Do you have their number?"* Until next month, dear Dreamer! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: the unexpected demands of a shopping list URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-unexpected-demands-of-a-shopping-list/ Last updated: 2024-10-10T15:49:59.000Z The shopping list seemed innocuous at first. There were gift cards to be bought. And bags of a specific size, although an alternative size was thoughtfully provided. A pair of loafers and a jacket were to be returned but the items in question were nowhere to be seen, so nothing could be done about those. But once the cards and the bags were bought and placed beside it, the list began to spout new demands. First it sought a reunion with its owner who had so carelessly discarded it by the roadside. Perhaps that was an accident, nothing intentional, nothing personal, we tried to explain, and it was mollified somewhat. Still, the list insisted, the items had to be delivered to its owner. We promised we’d do our best to seek them out and deliver their goods. Then the list asked if it could come along with us. It didn’t care to be stamped upon by careless passersby, nor did it want to be tucked into the rubbish bin. But we had no need for it, we said without thinking, then immediately regretted it. Even though it didn’t have a face to reveal its emotions, the list folded in on itself in despair. *I was useful once, you know*, it said. *Just … not anymore.* We knew what that felt like, so we said to the list we could take it with us but it’d have to spend the rest of its days in the attic, alongside other articles of mostly sentimental and historical value. The list gladly agreed. It only asked to be tucked carefully inside a book, preferably one of fantasy fiction, a really good one, so it could lose itself in a story and never have to resurface into the real world. Of course we knew what *that* felt like. We were only happy to acquiesce. --- *Last week's image info: A shop near my parents' place in Guduvancherry in southern India had all these lovely bangles on display in the window. It's such a common sight there, but felt like a rarity to my eyes, that explosion of colours, which inspired* [*'the bangle-seller's song'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-bangle-sellers-song/)*.* ### books you may love: September 2024 URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-september-2024/ Last updated: 2024-09-24T22:59:24.000Z Following a period in which I was unable to read after having returned from visiting family in India, I turned to my usual favourite author. [Charles Todd](https://charlestodd.com)! Originally a mother-son writing duo, now the mother has passed away, and the son carries on the legacy. Their Bess Crawford and Ian Rutledge mysteries, set in the period of WWI, have always been comforting reads for me, so I turned to the former, not quite ready to face the inner demons of the latter. Crawford is a nurse who served in WWI, but one of the tales - *The Cliff's Edge* \- is actually set in the aftermath of the war. I've been reading this series out of order and realized belatedly that *The Cliff's Edge* is the last book so far, although Todd does have plans for another book to come out in the next year or so! Once I read these two books, my heart and mind were wide open to reading fiction once more. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/09/BYML_Sep-2024.jpg) Next I picked up [*The Wealth of Shadows*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746685/the-wealth-of-shadows-by-graham-moore/) by Graham Moore, and was blown away! A historical fiction based on real characters and incidents, *The Wealth Of Shadows* tells the story of a clandestine team in the US Treasury Department and their attempts to thwart the Nazis in WWII using the one weapon they could wield: money! The Americans are in talks with the Brits on how to stop the Nazi juggernaut by economic means, and Ansel Luxford, the protagonist, has the following conversation with Keynes (yes, the economist, Joseph Maynard Keynes!). > "You asked what value really is," Keynes continued. "And I am telling you: It is Good. The Good life. Good health. A Good time. Happiness and human flourishing—that is value. Our lives are so short." > He paused for a moment, as if pondering the frailty of his body. The state of the bacteria that he'd said was filling his heart. > "Immortality is unattainable and God is, at best, indifferent to our suffering. We have these few days above the ground, and how we spend them—in joy or pain, in miserable toil or in the fulfillment of meaningful work, surrounded by people we loathe"—he glanced to White—"or enveloped in the warmth of people who love us"—he glanced in the direction of Lydia's bedroom—"is the only thing that matters. That's value. The function of the economy is not to make a bunch of numbers add up to x or to y, to make some line on some graph achieve a neat curve. It is to produce as much Good as possible. The job of economists—we dismal scientists, as they say—is to study how me might create the most Good." > \~ An excerpt from *The Wealth of Shadows* by Graham Moore After reading this amazing book, my luck continued unabated as I managed to lay my hands on a copy of Irish mystery writer, Tana French's latest work, [*The Hunter*](https://tanafrench.com). Set in the Irish countryside, it picks up from where her previous book, *The Searcher*, left off, but is not necessarily a sequel and can be read on its own. I've read every single one of French's books; the way she portrays her characters, sketching them tantalizingly, slowly, deliberately, is sheer genius. It makes them come alive, and when the story is over, I miss them terribly! Next came *Outrageous Openness* by [Tosha Silver](https://toshasilver.com), which is a light but not at all frivolous attempt at encouraging us to get out of own heads and allow life to unfold for us on its own. I'm not sure how I chanced upon this gem of a book, but its short chapters make for lovely, brief reminders to not hold on so tightly to events and situations, to let go and see what ensues. And then I slipped into the utterly insane brain-space of [Riley Sager](https://www.rileysagerbooks.com) (a pseudonym), who writes thrillers with a strong hint of the paranormal. I first read *Middle Of The Night* in which the protagonist, now in his 40s, returns to his family home in a North American suburb from where his friend disappeared after a night out camping in the backyard when they were barely 10 years old. The story unfolds in dual timeline, which makes it even more gripping. But the protagonist's view of life in the suburbs was so hilariously described at one point that I have no option but to quote it here! > Most suburbs run with the precision of a Rolex, and Hemlock Circle is no different. Mondays are trash day, during which everyone wheels their hulking bins of garbage to the curb in the morning and drags them back to the garage in the evening. The same is done with the recycling every other Friday. > Tuesdays are when the landscaping crews arrive, swarming the cul-de-sac in ear-splitting cacophony. Lawn mowers, weed whackers, leaf blowers. Especially leaf blowers. If suburbia had an official sound, it would be the agitated whir of compressed air blasting across patios and driveways, clearing them of any cut grass blades or stray leaves that dare to rest on their surfaces. When the leaf blowers cease, the resulting silence feels momentarily unnerving. Too quiet. Too abrupt. > \~ An excerpt from *Middle Of The Night* by Riley Sager As soon as I finished this book, I needed to read another of Sager's works, and I picked up *Home Before Dark*. And wow! This one was even more mind-blowing. The protagonist, Maggie Holt, comes to live in a haunted house she inherits when her father dies. She intends to renovate it and sell the place. But it so happens that her father had written a horror memoir called *'House of Horrors'* recounting the family's encounters with malevolent spirits in the house. All throughout her life, Maggie has held on to the firm belief that the book was all based on fiction. But her experiences at the haunted mansion begin to unfold in ways eerily similar to the story in the book, and eventually all hell breaks loose. This riveting book is written from the point of view of Maggie and is interspersed with chapters from her father's memoir! I absolutely loved the book, and now I have to, have to, have to read the other works of Riley Sager! Here's a [YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oafEbOIwnK8) in which the narrator dissects and ranks her Riley Sager favourites! Sager has quite the fan following! And rightly so! So, all this has made September one lucky month for me when it came to getting back into reading fiction! In fact, I've been taking a book to read when I go to pick up little D from school! A book in my hand, always! Do any of these works interest you? Have you read any of them? Write to me and let me know! ### tales for dreamers: the bangle-seller's song URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-bangle-sellers-song/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:43:28.000Z Bangles for one, bangles for all. Bangles to clink and tinkle, each one has its own call. There are bangles for the young maiden, to grace her slender wrists. There are bangles for young boys too. No one shall be denied a bangle in my shop. There are bangles for married women. Symbols of union and marital bliss. Bangles in colours to match every garment you own. There are bangles for widows too. Yes! After you’ve broken your bangles at the feet of God and lit your partner’s funeral pyre, after you have grieved and shed every last tear, come to my stall. I will give you new bangles to wear. New bangles for new beginnings, for a new journey, for new adventures. Every time you wave your arms in excitement, the bangles will tinkle merrily. Loud companions in conversation. Bangles to make your wishes come true. Bangles to remind you of your faith. Bangles to keep your dreams alive. Bangles for the maimed. Bangles for the limbless ones. There is a bangle for everyone. If you have a heart that sings, rest assured, I will have a bangle for you. > ✨ 🎵 *Listen to the merry tinkling of the bangles in the audio version of this story.* > ✨ For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! --- *Last week's image info: The lovely maple tree, whose leaves are engaged in a debate in* [*'the fall dilemma'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-fall-dilemma/) *is located on the campus of Nelson High School, just by New Street.* ### Spectacular Giveway for Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Other Speculative Fiction URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/spectacular-giveway/ Last updated: 2024-09-16T17:37:37.000Z I've teamed up with a bunch of authors to share with our collective audience some amazing books! [Spectacular Giveaway for Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and other Speculative Fiction!Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon.ico)![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/header.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/SpectacularGiveawayforSpeculativeFiction/x7ix3ldbmg) I have a cherished book too in this collection - my much loved [*A Benevolent Goddess*](https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x7ix3ldbmg) \- but I also wanted to draw your attention to some works that really caught my eye and I think you'd love them too! **28-day Grimdark Affirmations** by **Bardlyre** ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/09/4.-28-day-Grimdark-Affirmation-1.jpg) I mean ... how intriguing is the title! And when I look into the book, it's hilarious! Although a grimdark book is supposed to make you weep, this one is giving me tears of laughter! *Week One: Embracing The Darkness* begins with a handy tip like this ... > *“Embracing the darkness is about cultivating a mindset of anger and grudging annoyance towards the small, everyday irritations that often go unnoticed during the adventuring life. It discourages you from finding anything charming and stops you from accidentally savouring simple pleasures that bring happiness.”* > *Excerpt From 28-Day Grimdark Affirmation Awakening Journal by Bardlyre* Now you've surely got to read the rest of it, innit? **Hitopadesha and Beyond: Ancient Tales for Modern Times** by **Kalki** ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/09/1.-Hitopadesh.jpg) This is a collection of fables and folklores from the ancient Sanskrit text, *Hitopadesha*, and the author is offering an excerpt of eight tales from this book as part of the promotion. Check it out! **Blue Water** & **The Glass Wheel** by **Anna Cackler** ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/09/2.-Blue-Water-4.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/09/3.-The-Glass-Wheel-1.jpg) I'm quite intrigued by these covers and that's what drew me to these books. They're on my TBR list, and I can't wait to dive into them. There are many, many more books in the promotion, from a group of authors whose works I'm discovering and enjoying for the first time. That's the beauty of reading. So many voices. So many stories. So many new ways of looking at life! The promo runs from Sep 15 to Oct 15 only! Go, take a look! [Spectacular Giveaway for Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and other Speculative Fiction!Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/icon/favicon.ico)![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/thumbnail/header.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/SpectacularGiveawayforSpeculativeFiction/x7ix3ldbmg) ### tales for dreamers: the fall dilemma URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-fall-dilemma/ Last updated: 2024-10-10T15:53:05.000Z The leaves aren’t quite able to make up their mind as to whether or not fall is already here. Some have already unleashed their inner fire, permitting themselves to be painted in those bright reds, yellows and oranges that only they can flaunt in style. Others are being more cautious, taking it one day at a time. They’re still green, the colour they had worn all summer. They’ve not tired of it yet. *Besides, the sun is still warm*, they point out. *But he’s losing his strength*, the others argue. *He no longer burns like he did in the summer months. His warmth is soothing to the touch, which means he’s losing the battle to winter.* *All the more reason for us to stand by his side in his last days of glory*, the loyal leaves maintain. *It won’t make the letting go any easier*, a particularly red one warns. *Summer’s on its way out, and there’s nothing any of us can do to change that.* *Who said we want to change the turn of the seasons?* the green ones explained. *We simply wish to linger until it’s finally time. Until it’s finally the end*. *And what good will that do? Holding on. A swift exit is the cure for heartbreak.* The red leaf that had been particularly vocal broke off from the branch and drifted gently down to the ground. The green leaves sighed. *It’s not a breakup. We simply think it’ll give the sun some comfort to know that we didn’t desert him before summer took its last breath.* --- *Last week's image info: The Strathcona Park is the scene of my tale,* [*'the children are gone'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-children-are-gone/)*. It's a lovely, calm and serene place, but it's true there are rarely children playing there.* ### tales for dreamers: the children are gone URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-children-are-gone/ Last updated: 2024-10-10T15:54:32.000Z All the children are gone. No one can recall when they were last here, at the park. Last summer? Or the one before that? A decade ago, perhaps? More likely a generation or two ago, the wizened old man says, and that is the truth. The last of the lot grew up too fast, he explains. So fast that by the time they’d grown up, they didn’t have enough memories of their childhood to want to have their own children. Even the ice-cream truck stopped coming aeons ago, he notes. But the slides are clean. The structures are devoid of rust and the cobwebs of disuse. Occasionally, the swing creaks in the middle of the night. Laughter erupts as the seesaw bounces up and down. There's a whoop of glee alongside the whoosh of a little body down the curvy slide. But no one has spotted any children here in a long time. Whoever it is the old man hears must be a fiction of his imagination, he’s certain. Because all the children are gone. Long gone. And so have their ghosts. --- *Last week's image info: The tale* [*'this way up'*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-this-way-up/) *features a small hill by the Centennial bike path across from the baseball diamonds behind Nelson High School. It's a popular place to go sledding when it snows.* ### tales for dreamers: this way up URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-this-way-up/ Last updated: 2024-09-05T15:53:14.000Z Everybody can see the way up. Everybody wishes they could go up and touch the face of the clouds in the sky. Few actually want to climb up though. The excuses they make are many and varied. From not knowing how steep the hill is, to not knowing where it leads, to having no idea what obstacles might leap out at them along the way. Like the dew-soaked grass that would make their shoes wet. Or the coyotes that are surely hiding behind that line of trees, waiting to pounce and attack. The only ones who climb up are the young ones who haven’t yet learnt to make excuses and the old ones who’ve become acutely aware that life is really too short for excuses. Their reasons to climb up are different, though. Although many won’t admit it aloud, the old ones do secretly hope for a glimpse of the heavens when they’re at the top. Whatever they see from up there, they usually come down content and at peace, pleased with their ability to climb at their age. The young ones simply run up to the top without pausing to wonder why. Once up there, they lie down on the grass—who cares if it’s dewy-wet and muddy?—and roll down the hill with squeals of triumph and joy. None of the climbers realize that the sky and her clouds are watching them, taking much delight in the happiness of these old and new humans on the land below. And this is the joy the sky and the clouds seek to fill their paradise with. --- ### an announcement: tales for dreamers URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/an-announcement-tales-for-dreamers/ Last updated: 2024-08-27T20:51:10.000Z More than a decade ago, inspired by the works of Neil Gaiman and Erin Morgenstern, especially her flax-golden tales, I started writing short fantasy tales inspired by images of the ordinary and extraordinary. Back in 2011, the [idea](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-hello-dreamer/) for this was laid. I started writing the tales in 2012 or 2013, posting twice every week. This was on another website I had at the time. But after a while, I scaled back to a weekly routine, and then six months later I discontinued writing these tales, telling myself they weren't good enough despite the fact that I had been slowly building an audience that seemed to love these stories and looked forward to each new tale. In 2014, I resumed writing them when I had moved to Canada, just as I was about to start a rigorous MBA program. Naturally, writing these tales fell by the wayside after a few months. Then more recently, in 2022, I decided to take all the old tales and offer them on a paid subscription basis. This experiment lasted until the end of 2023, and now all the tales are [available](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) on the website for everyone to read. I've been thinking of these tales again. I've been writing more of them quietly, for my private enjoyment. I'm almost afraid to resume putting them out there, given my three previous failed attempts at doing so sustainably. Little did I know back then that this is a rite of passage for all creatives. Creating at first with gusto, only to feel crippling self-doubt sooner or later, sometimes enough to abandon all efforts and jump ship. But in all these years of writing, I've come to realize one thing. The fear never goes away. The doubt never goes away. But instead of letting them stop me, I've been learning to ride this journey with fear and doubt as my faithful companions. Because the only way out is through. I didn't know this back then, but after all these years of writing, I think I can safely point to the writing of these tales as one that continues to give me endless joy. Readers have also loved these tales, which is why I'm once more taking the bold decision to announce their resurgence. > ***So every Friday morning at 9 A.M. ET, a new tale for dreamers (***[***#talesfordreamers***](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/)***) will be published on the site.*** New tales will go up beginning this Friday! August 30\. Although this date has a private significance for KrA and me, I chose this day simply because I just wanted to start posting these tales instead of spending more time thinking about it and wondering about it and making it all too important and pompous-sounding rather than simply writing and sharing these tales, which is just all that I want to do. This time, I wish to approach the writing and publishing of these tales with more joy and compassion than with the fear and angst and ego and ambition that fuelled me in the past, only to crash and burn too soon. I hope you'll feel the magic therein too! ### August Affections: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-august-affections/ Last updated: 2024-09-24T15:01:08.000Z It's hard to believe it's still summer in these parts because it's been raining like monsoon and has become cool as autumn this week. It's 5 A.M. and 11 degree Celsius on a day in mid-August in Burlington, Ontario, as I write this. We've only just returned from being away in the UK and India, a journey that entailed eight flights and visits to four cities in a span of five weeks. I'm yet to process the trip; even though I was acutely present for every moment of it, soaking up and savouring all the sights and sounds, all the love and all the food, it feels like a grand dream that has somehow slipped away. And now, sitting at my desk in my office room in this all-too-familiar house in Burlington, I'm left wondering if this trip really happened or if it was all simply one long hallucination. I had thought that going back to India after 11 years would be somewhat of a culture shock for me. On the contrary, coming back to the suburbs of Ontario has jarred my being in unexpected ways. It's not even been five days, and the sudden lack of community and organic connection make me want to hightail it back home. Unable to do that, I've been spending time on reddit asking questions like "Why is it so hard to find connection in the western world?" I found a lovely answer that resonated with me and I share an excerpt of that below: > *Socializing in the West has also been synonymous with "performing" as well - we feel like we need to be entertaining or worth the fun in order to socialize.* > *Socializing is an EVENT. It's not just a part of life. Every time we socialize, we need to have "news" to share, otherwise....why bother?* > *We have to have interesting conversations in order to be bothered to be around people. We have forgotten that most of life is mundane and we don't want to share that mundane part of us all the time.* > *\~ From a comment on a* [*Reddit thread*](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAskReddit/comments/9p5ua2/why%5Fdoes%5Fit%5Fseem%5Fthat%5Fwestern%5Fsociety%5Fhas%5Fsuch%5Fan/) *by username vanBeethovenLudwig* I had completely forgotten about how easy and natural it was to reach out to and connect with people in India, and how contrived it has always felt here. I definitely miss my family and friends back home, and that longing will haunt me for a long time. But instead of letting this missive turn into a grieving of sorts, I'll share with you images of some unexpected finds from that beautiful country. --- The first thing I noticed was how beautiful the airports are. So tastefully decorated to showcase local culture and craftsmanship. ![a bronze idol of a dancer surrounded by plants at the Chennai International Airport](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/1.-Chennai-Airport.jpeg) ![a sculpture of fishermen pushing a boat into the waters](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/2.-Chennai-Airport.jpeg) ![a large painting of three women welcoming visitors with a plate of aarti](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/3.-Ranchi-Airport.jpeg) These stone sculptures are breathtaking works of art. ![a stone sculpture of a chariot](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/4.-Stone-Sculptures-1.jpeg) ![stone sculptures of gods and goddesses](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/5.-Stone-Sculptures-2.jpeg) Temples, one found in almost every street corner down south, are abodes of calmness and serenity. ![distant view of a temple from 1,000 BC](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/6.-Temple.jpeg) ![gopuram of ISKCON temple in Chennai](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/7.-ISKCON-Temple.jpeg) Our Gods love colour and are wildly imaginative! ![statue of baby Krishna being carried in a basket](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/8.-God.jpeg) ![statue of Kamdhenu](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/9.-God.jpeg) Architectural aesthetics can be found in the zoo as well. The shark-shaped structure houses an aquarium. ![shark-shaped aquarium building](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/10.-Aquarium.jpeg) Even the neighbourhood Pizza Hut has a flair for pleasing interior decor. ![wall decor inside Pizza Hut](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/11.-Pizza-Hut.jpeg) India still loves Michael Jackson! He takes centerstage at the entrance to a cinema hall in a mall. Oh, the tales my brother used to spin to me about MJ back when I was a trusting child! Perhaps I should share those in next month's missive! ![Ornate image of Michael Jackson in an Indian mall](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/12.-Michael-Jackson.jpeg) Colourful bangles of all shapes and sizes at a shop window to lure customers in. ![colourful bangles in a shop window](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/13.-Bangles.jpeg) And lastly, the quintessential beach. My mom and D having a ball in the waters of the Bay of Bengal! ![my mom and little D at the seashore getting wet in the water](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/08/15.-Beach.jpeg) --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### transience, and you This is a poem I wrote many years ago. I had an unexpectedly complicated pregnancy with D, so my parents came to stay with us in Australia to help out. They left when D was around 3 months old. By then, they had spent a good six months with us, and when they left it was as though someone had drilled a giant hole in my heart and left it endlessly bleeding. That's when I wrote these lines. And even though this time I'm the one who left, the feelings of grief and longing remain the same. [transience, and youI walked with you from room to room watched your every step with all my heart sauntered up every lane and alley and street corner beside you, stitching memories together to rein me in, to keep me from falling apart when you’d be gone, for I knew you would![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/29.-Transience.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/transience-and-you/) --- ## Books You May Love I've read nothing in these past several weeks. I didn't need to escape into a fictional world; real life itself has been vastly entertaining and enjoyable. Why would I disappear into the pages of a book when I had so many near and dear ones to share stories and have heartfelt conversations with? I did go to the local library almost as soon as we returned and got myself a bunch of books, but I seem to have no inclination to read them. But one book I'm looking forward to is [*The Hallmarked Man*](https://www.therowlinglibrary.com/2024/06/11/the-hallmarked-man-release-date-what-we-know-so-far/), the 8th book in the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling). Too bad its release date remains unknown! So, what have you been reading this summer? Do you have any recommendations that will pull me out of my stupor of homesickness? --- Time to bid adieu, dear Dreamer! But, before I forget, I must mention that my title, [*The Land of No Reflection*](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection), is part of an indie book sale this weekend and can be found for 99c across all retailers. Take a look at the *Narratess Indie Sale*! It's an annual event that takes place in August. This year, it's running only for the August 24—26 weekend. Which means tomorrow's the last day! There are more than 370 books to peruse, many for free, many highly discounted. Go, take a look! [Visit the Narratess Indie Book Sale!](https://indiebook.sale) Hopefully by this time next month, the routine of school and work and life would prevail over the feelings of homesickness and nostalgia and restore some semblance of sanity in my life. In the meantime, write to me about your summer. How have these past couple of months been? I hope there's been plenty of sunshine and laughter and joy in your lives. Looking ahead to what the next month brings! \~ Anitha ### July Jewels: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-july-jewels/ Last updated: 2025-01-13T23:52:06.000Z A journey, and a story of a journey _This post is for subscribers only._ ### June Jollies: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-june-jollies/ Last updated: 2024-06-30T07:00:28.000Z 💡 ***Programming note:** *I'm travelling for a bit to spend time with family this summer, so July's missive will depart from the usual format. It'll be brief, and contain something a little different. Heartfelt musings will resume with full gusto in August!* What a month of celebrations June has been! My little one, D, turned 8 this month, while my father turned 80! I'm already tickled pink by the mathematical connection between those two numbers. Furthermore, I'll turn 44 later this year, so that mathematical symmetry with me being exactly in the middle, an identical 36 years apart from my father and my son, amuses me immensely. My parents also celebrated 50 years of marriage this month. It's insane to even contemplate this! They celebrated the day by heading back for a visit to the very temple they were married in all those decades ago. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/06/Amma-Appa-1.jpeg) My parents celebrating 50 years of togetherness! While I don't have a picture from five decades ago handy, the next best thing is this family photo from 1982\. Here are my parents in their 30s, and my brother a gorgeous 7-year-old. I was not even 2 years old then! How I wish I could go back in time and give toddler-me the tightest hug ever! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/06/From-1982.jpeg) My parents, my brother, and little me! Sometime in blurry, colourful 1982! As always, these milestones compel me to stop and take note of how fast time is a-flying. You'd think one would get used to it after all these years, this relentless passage of time, its indifference to our wishes for it to slow down so complete and so absolute that it's almost cruel. But with each passing milestone it's just as astounding, just as bewildering, and we once again find ourselves shaking our heads and asking the question: How did all that time go by so fast? > *Perhaps the more pertinent question is, what do we intend to do with whatever time we have left? Fully aware that none of us really knows how much time we have?* That's a question we all have to answer for ourselves; no one else can tell us what to do or how to be (despite their best, well-meaning and mostly unsolicited attempts to do so!) All I know is there there is no time for mucking around. There never was, in fact. And the sooner we can wrap our heads around this truth, the sooner we can shed what no longer serves us and focus on what truly matters. --- In an attempt to make my latest collection of short stories, [*Your Mother's Nightmares*](https://books2read.com/your-mothers-nightmares), more available to readers, I've been publishing the six stories in the collection individually. They're already up on various retailer platforms. So now you can pick and read a tale that speaks to you the most, and then see if you wish to indulge in the rest of the collection. 💡 Don't forget! For welcoming me and my writings into your life, you already have access to one of the stories, [**Hide-and-Seek*](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-hide-and-seek/). It is my favourit-*est* tale from the collection, for reasons I explain in a note to readers at the end of the book. The paperback version is also available for [purchase](https://books2read.com/hide-and-seek-a-short-story). [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/06/YMN-Hide-and-Seek_1800-x-2700_ebook-Cover-11.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-hide-and-seek/) The other five tales are - [*The Party Across The Street*](https://books2read.com/the-party-across-the-street) - [*A Suitable Colour For A Ghost*](https://books2read.com/a-suitable-colour-for-a-ghost) - [*Memory Games*](https://books2read.com/memory-games) - [*The Goldilocks Zone*](https://books2read.com/the-goldilocks-zone) - [*The Gift Of Time*](https://books2read.com/the-gift-of-time) Which one will you choose to read first? --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### the guardians of time These musings on the passage of time reminded me of this tale I had written many years ago. I think I took this picture in Montréal but I can't be sure. (If there's one other thing about the passage of time that astounds me more than anything else these days, it's my sheer forgetfulness!) [tales for dreamers: guardians of timeTime has been allotted two guardians to ensure he gets up to no mischief. But how well does this arrangement really work?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/09/45.-guardians-of-time.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-guardians-of-time/) --- Another delightful occurrence I must share with you this month was that my poem, *A Snow Avatar*, happened to win first place in its category in the annual writing [competition](https://www.bpl.on.ca/news/writingcontestwinners) organized by my local library, the Burlington Public Library, last month. Here it is, for your reading pleasure! #### A Snow Avatar **I do not wish to become a star when I die.* **Let me become snow instead* **so the snow clouds may carry me wherever they please.* **Even when I tumble to the ground from dizzying heights* **a million flakes, a billion flakes,* **I will do so gently.* **So pure and clean will I be,* **you will not have the heart to trample on mine.* **I will wait for the lone child to come and press their cheeks to me,* **to make snow angels and bring them to life by the magic of their touch,* **to make snow balls to hurl into the air,* **to pack and roll me into a snow-person or a snow-bear.* **I will not mind a carrot-nose or button-eyes or twig-arms.* **Proudly will I stand* **until the spring sun thaws me* **into a shapeless mound,* **melts me, softens me,* **so I can slink through the earth,* **make the slow, deliberate journey* **to the roots and the seeds waiting for my call,* **and whisper in their ears,* **"Wake up! Now is the time to bloom."* --- ## Books You May Love Reading has fallen a bit by the wayside what with the weather being so glorious out there and all I want to look at are the blue, blue skies and the white bunny clouds drifting past. Still, I did manage to read. Books are where I go to seek comfort and solace. Books are where I find respite from the relentless demands of life. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/06/2.-The-Amish-Wife-1.jpeg) I had previously read Gregg Olsen's [*The Hive*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52734671-the-hive) and found it a very imaginative and gripping read. I picked up [*The Amish Wife*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175532363-the-amish-wife) not knowing it was a true crime tale. This is how I ended up reading a true crime book for the first time! In this, Olsen investigates the suspicious death of a pregnant wife and mother, Ida Stutzman, of the Ohio Amish community in a barn fire in 1977\. Apparently, Olsen wrote on this incident in an earlier work, *Abandoned Prayers*, which I haven't read. I was quite fascinated by how Olsen details this investigation with great empathy for everyone involved. He holds the Amish community in high regard and portrays their lifestyle with much respect. He also shares the trials and tribulations of the investigative process: people refusing to talk, folks shutting doors on his face, long journeys made to no avail, all of which made it a very fascinating read for me. I forgot to note down the exact words but at one point Olsen remarks upon how the Amish are loathe to gossip about others in their community. He contrasts this with how the world at large often seems to thrive on gossip and tearing down other people at unbelievable speed and recklessness. A true crime story reads very different from a thriller, obviously, and I'm now curious to explore this genre more. Any recommendations? ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/06/3.-The-Centaur-s-Wife.jpeg) [*The Centaur's Wife*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54416508-the-centaur-s-wife) by Amanda Leduc is a breathtakingly beautiful story! It's rather impossible to describe this book briefly; it has two interweaving tales. One centres around an apocalypse in the present time brought about by a meteor shower that the protagonist Heather wakes up to right after the delivery of her twin girls. The other is an ancient story in which a centaur falls in love with a woman and prays to the mountain he lives on to transform him into a human being, so he can marry the love of his life. Except, when she gives birth, three tiny centaurs emerge from her womb, terrifying her, and she wishes to have nothing to do with them. Heather and the three centaurs share a connection through the mountain that overlooks the city, the mountain that has not been affected by the meteors. It is a complex story of loss and of survival. Throughout the book, Leduc has scattered fairytales of her own making, which made it an even more beautiful read. It is a wildly imaginative tale, but then that's what made it so engrossing. And so I did what I always do when I fall in love with a book so much. I went and wrote an entire post inspired by it. [why growth is not antithetical to enough-nessAn unexpected lesson on growth mindset learnt from The Centaur’s Wife![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/06/39.-pema-gyamtsho-PANYR2-Asb4-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/why-growth-is-not-antithetical-to-enough-ness/) If you'd like to purchase a paperback copy of the book, take a look at a Toronto-based indie store promoting the analog life, [Young W](https://www.youngw.ca). Run by my friend, Elena Woo, Young W is a place to explore the beauty of the offline world. In her beautiful and whimsically imaginative venture, Elena invites us on a journey into a life of beauty filled with books and poetry, adventures in theatre and culture, and an immersion into visual and performing arts. [Home - Young WDiscover a flourishing offline life.![](https://i0.wp.com/www.youngw.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/cropped-fvcn-logo2.jpg?fit=192%2C192&ssl=1)Young W![](https://www.youngw.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/yw-go-analog-de.jpg)](https://www.youngw.ca) Young W stocks several amazing [books](https://www.youngw.ca/product-category/books/). That's how I came to know of [*The Centaur's Wife*](https://www.youngw.ca/product/the-centaurs-wife-by-amanda-leduc/) and could immediately trust it'd be an emotionally satisfying and enriching read. While you're wandering there, take a look at my own novel, [*Dying Wishes*](https://www.youngw.ca/product/dying-wishes-by-anitha-krishnan/), whose paperback version is lucky to have found a place in Young W's catalogue. I feel so stoked to see it listed beside the beauty that *The Centaur's Wife* is. --- Well, we're on the brink of July, dear Dreamer! Half the year has already slipped past. Another half is ripe for the taking. This is not to say that we must run ourselves into the ground by filling every moment of our days with goals and achievements in order to have something to show for it all in the end. The only requirement is to bring our utmost presence and attention to whatever we do. I'm choosing to slow down and do a whole lot of nothing else as I spend time with family for a few precious weeks this summer. The more intentional and present we are in the choices we make in our day-to-day lives, the less space there is for envy and FOMO. And it doesn't even matter what we choose to do — work, rest, play, travel, run errands, feel our feelings, do nothing, pluck stars from the skies, howl at the moon. That is how we can let go of everything else and live fully in the moment at hand. Au revoir! \~ Anitha ### a snow avatar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-snow-avatar/ Last updated: 2024-06-23T19:50:32.000Z Every year, the local library hosts a writing contest. [Write Here. Write Now.](https://www.bpl.on.ca/writenow) They usually provide a theme word and ask that submissions in various categories include that word. This year's word was 'journey'. I hadn't intended to participate in the contest this year, busy as I was with other goings on. Towards the end of May though, it occurred to me that this one poem I had written a long time ago would probably make a suitable entry for the contest. So I pulled it out, formatted it, and sent it off. Then completely forgot all about it until I got a call from the library last week, informing me that the poem placed [first](https://www.bpl.on.ca/news/writingcontestwinners) in its category in the 18+ age group. How amazing is that! Here's the poem for you to enjoy! > ***A Snow Avatar*** > I do not wish to become a star when I die. > Let me become snow instead > so the snow clouds may carry me wherever they please. > Even when I tumble to the ground from dizzying heights > a million flakes, a billion flakes, > I will do so gently. > So pure and clean will I be, > you will not have the heart to trample on mine. > I will wait for the lone child to come and press their cheeks to me, > to make snow angels and bring them to life by the magic of their touch, > to make snow balls to hurl into the air, > to pack and roll me into a snow-person or a snow-bear. > I will not mind a carrot-nose or button-eyes or twig-arms. > Proudly will I stand > until the spring sun thaws me > into a shapeless mound, > melts me, softens me, > so I can slink through the earth, > make the slow, deliberate journey > to the roots and the seeds waiting for my call, > and whisper in their ears, > "Wake up! Now is the time to bloom." ### happy 8th birthday, D! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happy-8th-birthday-d/ Last updated: 2024-06-20T16:56:40.000Z D turned 8 today! This passage of time, this particular date to mark yet another revolution around the sun in his lifetime, never fails to take my breath away. It feels me with awe, and also with a deep sense of nostalgia. Awe for how we're always growing, even when we don't realize we are. And nostalgia for how quickly time is passing by, even though so often it feels as if we're stuck in the same place doing the same things over and over again. But no, something is always changing. Always shifting. Perhaps the shift is taking place on the outside. Perhaps on the inside. Everything building up to something far more momentous and life-changing than we can ever imagine. My dad turned 80 years old just a few days ago. That's yet another milestone I'm still not able to fathom in its entirety. Sometimes it feels as if these things are happening to someone else. To some other version of me. Because I — this version of me who's writing this post — sure as hell don't know what the mother of an 8-year-old ought to look like, what the daughter of an 80-year-old man ought to be like. Yet, if I were to think a little more, I know that I already know the answer deep within. > *What should be is what already is.* > *Who I should be is who I already am.* D has chosen to have a day of relaxation for his birthday. He decided to have his favourite foods: chocolate cereals for breakfast (usually a Wednesday morning affair with Thursday mornings being eggs, and he decided to swap the two this week), rice, *daal* and veggie for lunch, and a trip to Boston Pizza for dinner. He knew that first thing in the morning he wanted to make the stuffies that came in a make-your-own teddy bear kit. And that is what we did. Playing beyblades, then heading out for a game of soccer with KrA, then watching BeyBlades on Netflix after lunchtime — this is how he wishes for his day to unfold, and this is exactly how it has been unfolding. We have friends coming over this afternoon to indulge in some ice cream cake together. Such a perfectly lovely plan for such a perfectly lovely day. Yet, all morning, I've been feeling that we ought to go out somewhere, do something *special* on this *special* day. Something Instagram-worthy! Simple and relaxed just doesn't seem to cut it anymore, does it? D vetoed all plans to go for a walk by the lakeside. He said he was perfectly content to stay at home. Who am I to invalidate that? --- D's 4th birthday fell in the middle of the pandemic. One of our family friends came over to wish him — staying outside the house at a distance, as was required back at the time — and the mother asked D, "What is your plan for the day?" D looked at her solemnly and said, "Today, I'm going to spend the whole day playing cars with my mom and dad." --- I cherish that for D, even now a special birthday means spending time with us, doing everyday things like playing with us, having long silly conversations, doing nothing, doing something on occasion if he feels up for it. Sure enough, we did have a party for his school friends earlier this month. D has also been shopping for toys using money he's been saving since his last shopping trip at Christmastime. It has been a month of celebrations, if you were to look at it that way. We did have plans to go to the beach this morning, but there was a thunderstorm last night which negated those plans. It's amazing how the child has the capacity to accept and make the most of whatever comes his way. He takes after KrA in this regard. I'm the one who needs a little time to get used to the fact that things won't always go my way — this is a skill I've been working on ever since D came into my life. It's also amazing how comfortable he is in his own skin, with his own choices. I suppose we all were like that right at the beginning. And then we lost our way, and it has been an endless homecoming ever since. It does get easier and more automatic with time. Thank you, D, for coming into my life. Time spent with you has been one of the greatest treasures I've enjoyed in this lifetime. How lucky KrA and I are! On your birthday, we wish for you to remain true to yourself, the kind, generous spirit that you are, while also exploring and growing in many ways! Much love to you, always. ### why growth is not antithetical to enough-ness URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/why-growth-is-not-antithetical-to-enough-ness/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T23:48:06.000Z I've been reading [*The Centaur's Wife*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54416508-the-centaur-s-wife) by Amanda Leduc, a fantasy novel in a post-apocalyptic setting featuring centaurs and humans. Magic and catastrophe in a book. To say I love this book is an understatement. I'm only halfway through reading it, savouring it a page at a time. The writing is gorgeous, the story tugs at my heartstrings, and I absolutely absolutely love the slow pace at which it unfolds, heartbeat after heartbeat, with several short tales of magic interwoven with the larger story. I'm at the point where we learn that the main character, Heather, and her father climb up a forbidden mountain behind their village. It is believed that centaurs and monsters roam on the mountain. Heather is 12 years old when they climb up. She has a damaged leg. Her father is nothing but supportive, and he encourages her to climb. While up there, they happen to see a centaur. Heather's father immediately reaches out to the magical being and asks if it can cure Heather, which comes as an unexpected request to the 12-year-old who had thought that her father had always been OK with her disability. > "Hello," her father breathes. The tone of his voice makes Heather think of church. > "Hello," the creature breathes back. She sounds excited but also afraid. Her voice is sweet and clear and strange. Heather feels frightened but also electric—*The stories*, she thinks. *The stories are true*. She glances at her father and she can tell he's thinking the same thing. He gets up from the rock and takes several small careful steps forward, then reaches out and puts a hand around the creature's wrist. > "What are you?" her father asks. > The creature blinks. "I am ... a centaur," she says. > "Centaur," he repeats. Then he nods. "Help us," he says. "Help my daughter." > The shock of his words is like slimy ice in her veins. Her father turns to her and smiles reassuringly, reaches for her with his other hand. "You made it all this way, Heather-Feather," he says. "Now just think what you'll be able to do when your legs don't hurt anymore." In a later chapter, we get to understand what Heather thinks of her father's request to the centaur. > *Help us*, he had said to the creature. *I know you can heal her*. > So she hadn't been perfect, or strong. Not really. Not enough. > .... > *Just think what you'll be able to do when your legs don't hurt anymore.* > Because climbing halfway up a mountain hadn't been good enough, hadn't ever been good enough, no matter what he had said. > .... > *No one walks like you, Heather-Feather. That's something to be proud of.* > Until it wasn't. Until he'd wanted her to walk like everyone else. Granted Heather is a 12-year-old with a good-or-bad or white-or-black outlook towards life, unable to allow for contradictions to coexist. But when I read these lines, it rang so true to the thoughts I often have in my head when I receive feedback, to the reactions I see in D sometimes when we give him a suggestion, to what I learnt in my first week as an international student in Canada exactly a decade ago, that I had to pause and come here to make sense of it all. Because the instant Heather saw her father reach out for a cure, she was quick to believe that his acceptance of her and her disability had been a lie. Because, reasoning it from her point of view, if he had truly accepted her for who she was, why would he be tempted by the possibility of a cure? --- ## Not black doesn't necessarily mean white. Let's not forget the shades of grey and all the other colours in between. ![a grey elephant splashing mud on itself](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/06/40.-karim-manjra-DVW3cfoBNZM-unsplash.jpg) Countless shades of grey | Photo by [Karim MANJRA](https://unsplash.com/@karim%5Fmanjra?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/grayscale-photography-of-elephant-DVW3cfoBNZM?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) The more I think about it, the more I realize that all this while, I had completely misconstrued what contemporary pop psychology has to say on self-worth, enough-ness, self-acceptance, or on any other topic for that matter. > If 'doing' does not define our worth, then surely 'not doing' is the antidote to our miseries, isn't it? Except, when we fall into the state of 'not-doing', why does it leave us feeling so unfulfilled? > That's a classic example of black-and-white thinking. I had completely missed the nuance that the opposite of *'doing'* is not *'not doing'*. > Instead, I now see that the *'doing'* that is talked about refers to the *'doing'* that tends to come from a place of greed and discontentment, which leaves us feeling even more so despite all our accomplishments. > Whereas, the opposite of it is not *'not doing'* but rather *'doing'* from a place of contentment and fulfillment, from a place of confidence and faith in ourselves and how our lives unfold. Because when you see the spiritual gurus of today who preach this wisdom, they themselves 'do' a lot. It's a vastly different quality of 'doing' than the ones many of us indulge in. When I first arrived in Canada exactly a decade ago, it was to pursue an MBA degree at a reputed school in a reputed university. Before the general orientation programs for all students started, the school organized a week of orientation for international students alone. This was great because most international students were new immigrants, so to be put in a group with each other allowed many of us to communally solve common problems such as housing, friendship, logistics of settling in a new place etc. that everyone was facing. One of the things I remember from this week is a session in which one of the program directors talked about cultural differences between Canadians and international students. He said (and I paraphrase, my memory obviously having shape-shifted in the last 10 years), > Never help a Canadian without being asked to. If you do so, they'd feel that you consider them incapable of the task they're attempting. I have to ask my Canadian friends here. Is this really true? I didn't find this to be true in my experience, but again many of my friends are well-travelled and from many different parts of the world, so I reckon they're more accommodating of behavioural differences arising from differences in cultural backgrounds. Even back then my reaction to this statement was one of surprise and shock. Over the years, I've come to notice a few things. - In general, people didn't offer to help unless I specifically asked them. When I did, they helped me readily if they were able to. Consequently, I learnt to speak up more and ask for help when I need it. - For a while, I also became the kind of person who resented help when it was offered unasked for. Because I started to believe that this offer to help was an indication of my incapability. Unfortunately, KrA was the victim of this change in my stance. He'd help me with something, only for me to go ballistic on him instead of thanking him for his efforts. - On occasion, I'd find someone who's eager to help. More recently, my response to that has been of immense gratitude. It reminds me of my days in India when help was given without me even having to ask for it. KrA's aunt who once stitched a rip in my *salwar kameez* one afternoon without asking me. I'd have let the rip grow and grow until the garment was no longer wearable and then thrown it away or finally gotten around to stitching it or getting it stitched. This act of unasked-for-generosity touched me deeply. My sister-in-law who bought me a perfect-sized handbag seeing how I was carrying around my backpack even if all I needed was just my purse. My mother-in-law who makes a special dish for me as I'm the only vegetarian in the household. ![bearded old man holding a board saying 'Seeking Human Kindness'](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/06/41.-matt-collamer-8UG90AYPDW4-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Matt Collamer](https://unsplash.com/@breakyourboundaries4?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/man-holding-card-with-seeking-human-kindness-text-8UG90AYPDW4?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Now that I'm older and wiser (at least I like to think that I am), I understand the wisdom of allowing people to complete a task they're struggling with as well as the wisdom of offering help. They are not really contradictory. It's the same as allowing a butterfly to emerge from its cocoon on its own, and it's the same as tending to a bird with a broken feather until it heals and can begin to fly again. There are no hard and fast rules here. > But an offer of help need not be misconstrued as a blemish on one's self-worth or ability in any way. An offer to help is simply that — an act of generosity on the part of a human being looking to connect with us. > It says more about the thoughtfulness of the person offering help, and nothing at all about our ability or inability to execute a task. > If we feel capable of finishing a task in that moment, we can politely decline the offer. If we feel we need help, we can be grateful for the fact that assistance appeared when we needed it and accept it for the gift that it is. ## The potential for growth/improvement need not imply not-enough-ness. It need not set us out in the pursuit of perfection. D has been learning to play the piano for the last six months. Initially, the lessons were easy, progress was quick and evident, and he was motivated enough to practice everyday without needing any reminders on our part. Off late, the lessons have been getting harder. More nuanced. It's boring for him to try the same sequence of notes over and over again, so getting to the piano to practice has been harder, less frequent, and something he now seems to need reminders for. To be clear, learning to play the piano was not a decision we forced upon him. It's something he was keen to take up. But learning a new skill takes time and deliberate practice. Does that mean we're not enough because we haven't acquired a skillset yet? Far from it! I think sometimes we tend to use the armour of 'I am enough' to keep ourselves from facing difficult situations. Maybe not intentionally so, but I know I've fallen prey to this kind of thinking more often than not until I realized what was happening and consciously worked on changing this attitude. Enough-ness is not at odds with striving. When 'striving' becomes a problem is when it comes from a place of lack and with an eye on the reward without regard for the process involved. Enough-ness does not equal stagnation. Just as contentment does not equal complacency. In our obsession with words, we often lose the essence of the message. > As Lewis Holmes says in his book, [*The Greatness Mindset*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63428581-the-greatness-mindset), > You are enough and becoming more! > ... Instead of measuring our accomplishments to see if we are really enough, we need to flip it and just say the effort itself reveals our worth. Simply put, working towards a goal need not mean that we're coming from a place of lack or not-enough-ness. We can be content with who we are, and still strive to see if we can rise up to new challenges. We can be happy with all that we've achieved so far, and still feel the need to add more value to this world. And if we don't feel that drive, that's OK too! So long as it's not coming from a place of shying away from difficult situations. ![man rock-climbing ](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/06/42.-juan-goyache-i5fm-qNXoys-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Juan Goyache](https://unsplash.com/@goyache?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/person-in-blue-denim-jeans-and-black-shoes-standing-on-gray-rock-i5fm-qNXoys?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) ## Presence vs Potential > A seed is a seed. It doesn't lament its seed-ness. But if it says, "It's enough that I'm a seed," it will never grow into the flower or the tree that it's meant to be. We can look at ourselves as seeds, ever-growing, ever-changing. The mistake we tend to make is that we're always looking at other flowers and wondering when we'd possibly become one too. And in that longing, we begin to despair our current state of being a seed. It's the difference between running towards the finish line versus running away from a bear that's chasing us. In both scenarios, the action is the same: running. In one scenario, we're running towards something. In the other, we're running away from something. And that difference determines the quality of our run. As clinical psychologist and conscious parenting coach, Dr. Shefali, [said](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-desire-for-greatness/) in a recent podcast, > Start celebrating the small wins instead of focusing on the potential grand wins that may never come! This is not to say that we don't strive to do our best. We can celebrate our little progresses, instead of lamenting that one big final goalpost that always seems to be far out of sight. We can celebrate our being a seed, then a stalk, then having leaves unfurl from our stem, then the buds that begin to form and eventually blossom. Maybe we'll never reach that final stage of being a flower in full bloom. Perhaps a squirrel will trample upon us or a rabbit might come and chew our heads off. (Which is what happened to our tulips this spring, so none of them bloomed.) But that's OK. Because we'd have enjoyed being a seed, a stalk, a leaf, a stem ... whichever part of the journey we progress through, we'd have made the most of it and celebrated our efforts and progress in that stage. So here's to a summer of being enough and also of blooming and evolving, and celebrating each step of this never-ending journey of growing and becoming more and more of ourselves. ![butterfly chrysalis in three stages of evolution: a new green one, a transparent one, and a butterfly that has emerged](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/06/43.-suzanne-d-williams-VMKBFR6r_jg-unsplash.jpg) Always evolving | Photo by [Suzanne D. Williams](https://unsplash.com/@scw1217?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/three-pupas-VMKBFR6r%5Fjg?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) ### May Memories: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-may-memories/ Last updated: 2024-05-26T07:00:01.000Z This month marks exactly 10 years since KrA and I first arrived in Canada. We've spent much of this decade in this country, except for a brief 1.5-year jaunt to Australia where little D arrived. We returned to Canada when he was 7 months old. Looking back now brings up a lot of the confusion and dismay we encountered back then when we first set foot on Canadian soil. As we had moved from the pristine efficiency of Singapore, Toronto appeared like a rather shabby has-been at first sight. It also didn't take us long to understand that while Canada is reputedly a 'friendly' nation, there's a stark difference between 'friendliness' and 'friendship'. One doesn't necessarily lead to the other. The realization that my parents in India were now 10 hours ahead of us and no longer a mere 3—4 hour flight away made my spirits sink even lower. Our first visit to Niagara Falls was yet another disappointment. I had only ever seen pictures of the falls and had mistakenly believed that I'd find myself surrounded by natural beauty on all sides; little did I know that an entire little town of entertainment had sprung up all around the falls, the cacophony of its bustle drowning out the roar of the falls. But there was one welcoming feature that stood out to me and made me marvel every single time. Each time I stepped into a subway car, I was amazed at the diversity of people there. To hear so many different languages spoken around me, to see folks from various backgrounds was something that stood out as uniquely Canadian to me. Yet, among all the places we've visited and lived in around the world, Toronto was probably the first place I've wished to run away from almost as soon as I had landed here. Turned out that the beautiful mountains and wilderness I thought I'd find here were several hours away in the western provinces. Ontario, on the contrary, was all plain flat land, mile after mile, with tiny hills attempting to pass for mountains on occasion. I had signed up for a two-year academic program and KrA had secured a job transfer, so leaving immediately didn't feel like a viable option. But we did the next best thing. At the end of my first year of study, we went on a 3-day-long train journey across the Canadian heartland. My heart expanded and grew feather-light at the sight of the mountains of British Columbia. ![view of a range of distant mountains under a blue sky with white clouds](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/05/1.-BC-mountains.jpeg) British Columbia I didn't want to come back to Toronto after that glorious but all-too-brief dip into natural beauty. Luckily, I landed a summer internship with a company in Montréal and off we went gallivanting for a 4-month stay in Quebec. That was one of the best summers we had. I made a lot of friends quickly at the workplace. Putting my French language skills to use always gave me that high of connection with the locals. Mont Tremblant quickly became our favourite weekend getaway spot. In fact, we were in Montréal this past long weekend on a short trip, which was D's first visit to the first Canadian city I fell in love with. ![interior of the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal featuring sculptures of Jesus Christ and various saints under an intricate dome](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/05/2.-Notre-Dame-Basilica-1.jpeg) Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal When that summer of my internship drew to a close, we flew off to Sydney, Australia where I had signed up to spend a semester on an exchange program (in my continuing bid to run away from Toronto). At the time, I had no inkling we'd come back a year and a half later with little D in tow! That grey cloud that had haunted me since the day I first set foot in Toronto came back to hover above my head once more. But this time, parenting and writing came to the rescue and kept me from getting completely unmoored. We moved to Burlington shortly after I graduated from the University of Toronto with an MBA degree and a handful of amazing friends I cherish to this day. (M and H, you know I'm referring to you two here! 🤗) Looking after D, and turning to writing as a means of self-expression were the balms my soul needed. In D's presence, the local beach and the neighbourhood parks became places I could fall in love with. Taking a ride in the local bus became an adventure. Turned out that playing in the snow in the front yard could be as fulfilling as a hike up Mont Tremblant if only my heart could see it that way. The mountains of the west still called to me. It was only when we went back to British Columbia a few years later with little D that I began to see the futility of holding on to my hiraeth. [the happiness that was neither in the mountains nor in the Teslathe oft-repeated folly of looking for happiness in every place other than the only one it cares to reside in…![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/Grouse-Mountain_Edited.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-happiness-that-was-neither-in-the-mountains-nor-in-the-tesla/) It hasn't been an easy ride these past 10 years. There were several personal and professional setbacks, which eroded my confidence and caused me to question every decision, doubt myself at every turn, and riddle myself with worry about the future. In fact, the first three decades of my existence seem relatively charmed and kissed by luck and ease compared with how this past decade has been. It was a classic example of erroneously believing that I'd find lasting happiness in some external event, only to chase it and find that the shiny object had long lost its lustre and had stolen mine too in the process. In that sense, this has also been a journey towards contentment and fulfillment, towards finding myself, even though I was mistakenly looking outwards for the most part before I began to turn inwards. And in that I see what a blessing these past several years of living in Canada have been. I feel so lucky to be here, in this land of seasons and diversity, of relative ease and comfort, not to mention the roots that I have begun to inadvertently lay in this little charming city of Burlington. > *And because contentment doesn't mean stagnation, even now I have the desire to move, to wander, to explore.* > *I no longer seek a home or fulfillment outside; I've come to see that my home is in my heart, within me at all times.* > *Yet I have no intentions of settling down in one place for too long, like dust gathering on a windowsill. The world is too vast and too beautiful for that.* --- What about you? How has life changed for you in these past few years? Have you crossed any milestones recently in the journey of your life? Write to me and let me know! --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### the door Gods I wrote this tale long ago, back when I was still living in Singapore. If I remember correctly (and I'm not sure I do), I took this picture at the Asian Civilizations Museum there. It was around that time that I started to wonder about death and loss and uncertainty. And that showed up in all my writings. Even though it would take a pandemic to help me see that there are never any guarantees. [tales for dreamers: the door godsWhen you meet the Door Gods, tell them you are my friend. And they will let you through.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/24.-the-door-gods.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-door-gods/) --- ## Books You May Love The sun is out, which means I've had little time to read this month. I do have two half-read books, which I can write to you about. [*The Covenant of Water*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180357146-the-covenant-of-water) by Abraham Verghese is an expansive, multi-generation tale set in south India, spanning the decades before India's independence, focussing on a vast array of characters, both Indian and British. I had only read about half of it, savouring each page as I went along, before my loan period was up and I had to return it to the library. Now I wait to borrow a copy again to finish the rest of the story. Another book I've picked up is [*The Girl In The Eagle's Talons*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75523433-the-girl-in-the-eagle-s-talons), Book #7 of the *Millennium* series featuring Lisbeth Salander, *The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo*. This one's written by Karin Smirnoff, and even though the reviews are mixed, I'm loving it so far. Most reviews seem to compare this book with the rest of the series, and I don't recall having read beyond Book 1 back in the day. So I'm enjoying Smirnoff's novel, and will go on to read the rest of the series, I'm sure! Additionally, if you're looking for some fantasy and sci-fi books to read, check out this promo over at BookFunnel. Several authors have teamed up to offer heavy discounts should you choose to purchase their books directly from their stores! This promo ends on 31 May, so take a look! [Sci-fi and Fantasy books Direct from the author!Support Your Favorite Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors Directly and Save!![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/p14zlkw05j/header.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/may-fantasy-sci-fi-direct-from-the-author/otukg4x0rk) [Head over to BookFunnel for fantasy and sci-fi reads!](https://books.bookfunnel.com/may-fantasy-sci-fi-direct-from-the-author/otukg4x0rk) --- I'm looking forward to June. D will turn 8 next month! And we have another milestone birthday coming up in the family, which I will tell you about in next month's missive. This upcoming time of the year is when I feel the passage of time most acutely. When school closes for the summer. When D turns a year older. When the lazy days of summer remind me of those days of D's early childhood, when our calendars were mostly free of appointments and our schedules were dictated by the simple human needs to eat, sleep, and play, to love and laugh, to live and breathe. \~ Anitha ### the desire for greatness URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-desire-for-greatness/ Last updated: 2024-05-24T22:09:49.000Z I haven't opened my WIPs in over a week now. I'm thoroughly enjoying this break from writing fiction and trying to earn a living from doing so. Although, technically speaking, those two are entirely different endeavours. But, especially in the past couple of years, they've become inexplicably intertwined in my head, and I'm not able to do one unless it is accompanied by the other. Meaning, I've gotten into this mindset that I can write books only if they can yield me a living. That writing books that no one reads (ok, that maybe 1 or 2 people other than me read) is not worthwhile. That I need to have a large catalogue of books to make money. What ended up happening was that I couldn't take a break without feeling guilty. On days when I hadn't added to the word count in some way, I'd start to feel as though I'll never get to the goal. Although making a full-time living from writing is a vague goal at best, because even if I did earn a pretty penny for one month or one year, there's no saying how the next month or year would turn out. Unlike being a salaried employee wherein you know how much you'd earn in a given pay check, even though holding on to a job is also not so much of a guarantee these days. Although there's likely more stability on that front than on the publishing side of things. Anyhow, I digress. But turns out I haven't been able to balance writing and monetizing it as well as I was hoping to. Or maybe I haven't given myself a long enough timeframe, but somehow mixing arts and finances has only led me to burnout and frustration. So much so that I've been so happy to not open my manuscript and work on it. This break has been good. Much has been happening on the life front, and I expect this summer to be extremely busy too. So writing fiction is one of the things I'm going to have to let slide. For me, it requires headspace that I don't have currently. I could make room in my head to write but then that seems to leave little room to hang out with D and engage with him fully and with presence. I know what I value more, and it's interesting that I'm finally able to make this choice without feeling guilt or overwhelm, without 'should'ing myself or comparing myself with peers who seem to be able to juggle ten times more things with that much more ease. There's something else I've come to realize. In this pursuit of a large readership or a pay check, I've been holding on to the belief that my efforts don't matter unless it has a great impact. And despite all my spiritual learnings and experiences, I've turned to looking outwards for that validation. But the truth is I have the best writing experience when I'm in the process of it. At that time, it doesn't matter whether someone will read my words or not. The very fact that I expressed myself in this way had nothing to do with whether anyone else will read this or not, but entirely to do with that act of expression. It's only in the aftermath, when I've released my work to the world, that I start to judge its merit based on how many people have bought it and read it, how many 5-star reviews it has received, what the readers are saying about it. All that has simply toxified the entire experience, eliminated the joy of writing. My writing and parenting journeys have so many parallels it's almost uncanny. Just as I was thinking about my efforts and the 'potential' I'm always trying to reach but that forever seems out of reach, my favourite conscious parenting coach, Dr. Shefali, has released a [podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82iCGfiT0EQ&list=PL2XqdIHEq2myj9NQeyNmNQ4dTn9%5FDMN8g) addressing this same issue that we face when it comes to our children. Our deep desire for them to reach their 'potential'. If you watch the video from 21:09 onwards, you'll know what I mean. As Dr. Shefali says, > *Start celebrating the small wins instead of focusing on the potential grand wins that may never come!* It's the same for me. Instead of focusing on the 'potential' of making a career out of writing books, I can start celebrating the fact that I love writing and that I show great intrinsic motivation in writing and publishing stories I love. I have made the outcome (earning money) so important that I've crippled my own joy of writing, coming from a sense of lack and shame. So here's to letting go of grand expectations and celebrating what's in front of me, right here, right now! ### remnants of a past life (note 7): letting go of what no longer works URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/remnants-of-a-past-life-note-7/ Last updated: 2024-05-16T18:11:05.000Z It's been three months since I wrote one of these [#remnants of a past life](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/remnants-of-a-past-life/) posts. Clearing out had slowed down in the meantime, but this morning KrA and I set about putting away our winter gear now that it appears the warmer weather is here to stay. With all the clutter gone, the closet in the entryway feels so open and pleasing to the eyes. I feel like I can breathe easier now. It always feels that way when a task weighs heavy on my head but it takes me a few days to actually get around to doing it. > *An unfinished job almost like a desperate ghost that keeps on haunting me until I attend to its needs!* In the meantime, much decluttering has been happening, just not all of them were tangible objects. ### letting go of an object: the bakfiets and childhood memories One of the things I managed to pass on after many years of sitting on it and merely thinking of passing it on some day was our much cherished bakfiets! ![a bakfiets (Dutch cargo bike) parked in front of a soccer field](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/05/33.-bakfiets.jpeg) a ride to remember We bought this in late 2018, shortly after we moved to Burlington. I didn't have a car driving license then, so this seemed like a great means to ferry Dhruv around and take him to the local parks and play areas. Little D, a little more than 2 years old then, never took to a stroller. But he had a ball of a time sitting in the basket in the front, and we had amazing and delightful conversations during our bike rides to places far and near. We are so lucky to live near the centennial bike path, and we rode on it almost every day except when it rained and in winter. This creek beside Elwood Road was one of our favourite spots to pause and watch the water and ducks and squirrels. D called this spot the 'rusty bridge', which is what it essentially is. ![Little D sitting in the basket of a cargo bike parked on a rusty bridge, looking out over a creek.](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/05/34.-D-on-bakfiets.jpeg) a place to pause and reflect We got the bike serviced in March, which was another adventure in itself, as the shop we had bought the bike from said they no longer had a technician to service the bike. Then began the hunt for another person who could help, followed by a bike ride to that service centre, and getting the job done. (Btw, if you're in the area and are looking for an excellent bike technician, I highly recommend George Lusa at [Bent Rim Cycle](https://www.bentrimcycle.com). He was clear and upfront about what he could/couldn't do, and his prices are extremely reasonable.) After that we put it up on Kijiji and now the bike is in the home of a lovely young family who has a 2-year-old, the same age that D was when we got the bakfiets. So bye-bye, lovely bakfiets! Thank you for giving us such wonderful memories. --- ### letting go of a habitual feeling: self-criticism and regret As I was clearing out our winter gear this morning, the first few thoughts that entered my mind were one of criticism. *Good Lord! Why do we have so much clutter?* *How come we have so much garbage?* *Why can't I keep things organized?* *Why didn't we get around to doing this earlier?* I even found an entire basketful of receipts dating back to 2022, which caused another barrage of similarly critical thoughts to erupt. And then I wondered, aren't I cleaning these out now? Why am I cursing myself for not having done something that I'm attending to dutifully now? Could I approach this task joyfully? Feel some pride at finally getting around to doing the work instead of cursing my past self for not having been able to do it? I've been reading [*This Book Won't Make You Happy: Eight Keys to Finding True Contentment*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58495651-this-book-won-t-make-you-happy) by Niro Feliciano. She talks about shifting from the expectations that our 'should' statements impose on us. Instead of saying, "My house should be cleaner," if we can think "I wish my house were cleaner," or "I'd like a cleaner house," we release ourselves from the imprisonment of expectation that the first statement confines us in. The latter statements expresses the same desire while also acknowledging and allowing for the limited resources of time, attention and energy we all have as human beings. Catching myself in the moment and shifting my thought patterns made decluttering a very pleasant task indeed! --- ### letting go of a friendship: standing up for ourselves There's a new kid on the block. At first, we were excited when we saw them move in two months ago. They have a child the same age as D, so imagine how excited we were at the prospect of finally having a friend in the neighbourhood for little D! Even before D had met the child, he said to me, "I think he and I will be best friends for as long as he stays here." Everything was great for the first 2—3 weeks. D and that child (let's call him C as that's the letter his name begins with) used to get together to play every evening. D would eagerly come back from school and wait for C to come back so they could play together. And then things started to go downhill. Every time D would say 'No' to something, C began to retaliate angrily. Calling names. Threatening. Shouting. Once D had a new robot toy he wanted to share with C. When C came home, he started to run the toy into walls, on the carpet, on D's beyblade stadium, despite D's repeated requests to not do so. Finally D forbade him from playing with the toy. C threatened to leave and go home. And guess what?! D was perfectly fine with that. He simply said, "OK." That must have surprised C, because he tried another tactic. He turned around and said to D, "You know what? I really want to play with that toy. But you're not letting me do that. That's why I'm leaving." And darling D stood his ground and quietly said, "Sure. OK." C had no choice but to leave. ![Scrabble letters arranged to read 'Courage does not always roar.'](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/05/36.-brett-jordan-GpxF3KeZy8A-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Brett Jordan](https://unsplash.com/@brett%5Fjordan?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-wooden-blocks-on-white-table-GpxF3KeZy8A?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) A lot of C's rude behaviour was taking place in the absence of grown-ups. Luckily for us, D would come back home and share with us what transpired. (I'm so grateful our child considers us safe havens to turn to.) It caused us to have a lot of conversations with D around what constitutes a healthy friendship. We also tried not to intervene too soon in order to give D a chance to stand up for himself, which, I'm proud to say, D did. And when C's mean behaviour would continue, D would call out to us for support. I always tell him he has a 'quiet courage'. He's not a loud child. He's very tolerant and accommodating, but he's also discerning and reflective, all qualities that came in handy over the past several weeks. More often than not, after an outdoor play session with C, D would come back feeling bad about something C said or did. The day before yesterday, a third child (J) in the neighbourhood joined D and C. He seemed nice, but C was at his rudest behaviour with D. Finally, D decided he didn't want to play with C anymore. We also decided to have a conversation with C's parents—KrA ended up talking with C's mom briefly about the child's rudeness. As KrA says, "Our lives were just fine two months ago before C came along. Sure, he didn't turn out to be a good friend. We can put this behind and move on. Our lives will be just as fine in the future too." I think I slept really well last night for the first time in several weeks, knowing that D had made a good choice to stay away from a bully. Yesterday we saw C goading J into chasing after a moving truck on their scooters and trying to tap it while the truck was still in motion. I'm very happy for my child to have nothing to do with that kind of reckless behaviour. --- ### letting go of a dream: writing and productivity This is probably the hardest one for me to write about, which is why I'm coming to this right at the end. I've been struggling to write for a while now. May has been particularly difficult, as we've had several errands to run, appointments to keep, not to mention the above trouble D was facing with the bully in the neighbourhood. Being unfazed and serene no matter what's happening around us is an ideal we try to achieve. For the most part, I was able to remain unfazed and serene when helping out D. But it does take effort on our part. Effort, thought and reflection on KrA's and my parts, as parents. Time to pause and breathe and gather courage for the disappointments that came our way and up our strength to carry out the myriad tasks we had to. For a long time, I tried to keep my morning writing hour and space isolated from the goings-on outside, but I had to eventually admit that I'm only human. The anxieties that kept me awake at night, worried for my child, did take its toll on me, come daytime. Even though I opened the manuscript and stared at it for half an hour, it just couldn't hold my focus on most days. Instead of giving myself guilt over not being able to write, I decided this morning that I'd take a break. D has a 4-day weekend coming up starting tomorrow, and we have friends visiting and some travel plans, so trying to force myself to write when so much is going around us was a sure recipe for emotional outbursts. ![clusters of balloons flying away in a blue sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/05/37.-ankush-minda-TLBplYQvqn0-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Ankush Minda](https://unsplash.com/@an%5Fku%5Fsh?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/balloons-flying-in-the-sky-TLBplYQvqn0?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) I've been thinking recently — we consume art and the works of great artists stir something in us, inspire us to be more kind and empathetic, loving and compassionate, towards others and also towards ourselves. Creating art also serves the same purpose, isn't it? What's the point of writing if having so many things on my plate causes me to lash out at KrA or feel resentful every time I pick up D from school, solely because I haven't been 'productive'? The instant I told myself I could take a break for a few days, an entire season even, I felt immense relief. It was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I can now enjoy what the next few days bring without the burden of guilt that I haven't been able to write. Everything has its season of flourishing and prospering. And if there's anything I've learnt from the events of the past few weeks, it's this: > *Patience—the ability to wait in acceptance and surrender, in faith and trust—eventually paves the way ahead.* ### money matters, and happy mother's day! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/money-matters-and-happy-mothers-day/ Last updated: 2024-05-13T02:36:51.000Z It's 9:30 in the evening, way past when I shut down the laptop for the night, unless I'm binging something on Netflix, of course! 🙄 I was almost tempted to not post anything this week, but an unexpected thought had popped into my head last evening and I remember wanting to record it. So, here we are! Firstly, happy Mother's Day to all those celebrating! As Dr. Shefali says, you don't need to have children to be a mother. The act of mothering is that of showering love and affection on the people around us. So I look at today as a day to celebrate this act of nurturing. Motherhood has changed my life in ways I couldn't even have imagined. Little D has constantly inspired me to be a better version of myself. He's the reason I started writing long-form fiction in the first place. Thank you, D, for coming into my life! ❤️ --- Coming back to that unexpected thought, I was telling KrA yesterday, "What if I just stopped trying to make money from my books?" I don't know what put the idea in my head, but I do know how sick I've been feeling about this entire hustle culture that has sprung up around writing and the creative life in general. Over the past few years I had completely bought into some kind of strange belief that unless my books were selling and making any money, there was no point writing. Which is such a sad approach, really. A very myopic, capitalist approach. The instant I thought of decoupling creativity from finances, I felt a load lift off of my chest. I felt as if I could breathe a whole lot easier! I'll write more on this later and I'm keeping this short as I'm ready to fall asleep right now, so I'll leave you with this thoroughly apt quote from Elizabeth Gilbert's *Big Magic*. > *To yell at your creativity, saying "You must earn money for me!" is sort of like yelling at a cat; it has no idea what you're talking about, and all you're doing is scaring it away, because you're making really loud noises and your face looks weird when you do that.* > *\~ Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic* ### unexpected lessons learnt from an indie author conference URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/unexpected-lessons-learnt-from-an-indie-author-conference/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T01:22:34.000Z I've just returned from the [Toronto Indie Author Conference](https://torontoindieauthorcon.com), the first of its kind held in Canada. I don't think I've been to a writers' conference before this. I've attended conferences in my past life as a journalist, but other than in writing workshops and on FaceBook groups back in the day, I haven't really gotten together with a bunch of other writers, especially indie writers, looking to connect with each other and figure out how to monetize their writings. I came away with two major takeaways (among several others, of course, but these are the ones that will stay with me for a long time to come): - **Expert advice does not necessarily apply to beginners.** Many of the experts in today's industry are those who found great success during the Kindle gold rush and are building off of that. Which means much of the strategies and tactics that they use today are based on the fact that they have a huge backlist that they built during the heydays of ebook publishing. Which means that for a beginner like me, as much as I'd love to do all the seemingly amazing stuff that people are doing to market, promote and sell their books, none of those tactics are likely to work for me unless I have a reasonably large catalogue. Moreover, the market today is very different than what it used to be 10 or 5 or even 2 years ago. Someone with a larger backlist or writing in a different genre may have a completely different experience than another writer with a different-sized backlist and/or genre. Experts can only share what has worked for them given their circumstances and the kind of people they are. We often make the mistake of assuming that what worked for someone else will work for us too. This is not to say that we shouldn't try out different things. We need to make conscious choices about how we wish to spend our time and resources, and experience will be a better teacher than anything else. Which brings me to my next key takeaway. - **People who do more almost always have a lot more time and resources at their disposal.** It was mind-blowing to hear how some authors run their six-figure and seven-figure business. It was equally enlightening to realize that they have a team they've painstakingly hired and trained to run certain aspects of their business — be it marketing or running ads or even something as small as formatting and uploading books on various platforms. It's easy to assume that one person does it all and pressure ourselves to do the same. Indeed, they may have done it all in the beginning, until they had seen enough success to be able to start outsourcing elements of their business that they didn't wish to spend time and effort on so that they could focus more on those aspects they enjoy executing. At this stage, it becomes a matter of understanding that a lot of wheels need to keep spinning in order for them to remain financially successful. So then they prioritize and decide which aspects they'd like to keep and which ones they'd like to outsource. But for someone merely beginning, on one hand it feels very tempting to try out all these shiny new tricks. We even begin to buy into the belief that we need to do all those things in order to sell our books. And that's where the trouble begins. When we try to singlehandedly execute all the tasks that would ideally take a team of 5—6 people to execute. One of the wonderful folks I met at the conference is a marketing assistant to a big-name author. She's also a writer herself. She said, "I always have to remind myself that my boss has me (to market and promote his books). But I don't have another me for myself. I have to do that work myself." Which naturally limits how much time and effort she can ideally invest in juggling writing and marketing her own books. I remember going down this rabbit hole of wanting and trying (and failing) to do it all when D was barely six months old and I had to finish up my last semester of studies at UofT. It wasn't until a kind friend pointed out to me that I could see how badly I was trying to keep up with others who had more resources at their disposal — a nanny to look after their child or family to help them with stuff or even just a trusted support network of friends. I've come away from this conference realizing that I've been putting the same pressure on myself. Trying to do a whole lot of things all at once when in fact I'd have been better off writing more books. One of the most useful nuggets of wisdom I've gleaned from Dean Wesley Smith over the years is that beginner writers are always in a hurry. We publish a book or two, most likely out of passion, then start to worry that no one's reading our works, then we sink either time or money or both in promotional efforts to grow our audience. Even if we do manage to attract more readers, we don't have enough books to keep them interested and in our ecosystem for long. It's only a matter of time before they're off to find something else to read from some other author. --- Going to the TIAC was a great eye-opener for me. Instead of coming back with the usual list of all-the-things-I-want-to-do, I've come back this time with a determination to scale back on many of the things I'm doing. I've come back with the realization that many of the things I'm doing are not helpful right now. I only jumped onto the bandwagon that other authors — with significantly larger backlists and writing in different genres — have been doing and advocating. Well, lessons well learnt. 😊 --- I realized I have yet another takeaway to share. And it's this. - **Even successful authors are only human beings.** I sometimes make the mistake of believing that (financially) successful people must be made of something special. Something in their essence must be causing them to be so determined and persistent. But, turns out they are just human beings who pursued what they loved doing and happened to be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and make the most of the opportunities that came their way. For every such lucky person, I'm sure there are countless others who didn't get lucky. Only, we don't get to hear their side of the story because they are not the ones called on stage to share their experiences. The other realization I had is that no matter how warm and welcoming someone may have appeared on their YouTube channel or over a Zoom call, they could very well be less so in a large room full of people. Conversely, someone who may have across as standoffish over a Zoom call could very well turn out to be super helpful and encouraging in person. I also had the opportunity to share learnings from my own experiences in trying to be a full-time author over the past few years. Perhaps that merits another blog post in itself. --- I'm so glad I had all these experiences at the TIAC. It has helped me reevaluate my own journey, what I've been spending my time on, and what would actually be a better use of my time. Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch suggest the practice of asking ourselves WIBBOW? WIBBOW = Will I be better off writing? Almost always, the answer is YES! ### buy direct and support authors! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/buy-direct-and-support-authors/ Last updated: 2024-05-01T14:13:13.000Z May has officially begun! We're having a wonderfully foggy morning, giving me the perfect excuse to not do anything remotely work-related and muddle about in brain fog instead. Just kidding. I love my work, and having just gotten out of a phase of burnout, I feel like I'm ready to go-go-go all over again! > Many of you know I've recently just set up my PayHip store. Dream Pedlar Books! Check it out [here](https://payhip.com/DreamPedlarBooks)! 🥳 To celebrate this, I've teamed up with a number of other fantasy and sci-fi authors who also have their own independent stores and are running discounts on their store for the entire month of May! [Sci-fi and Fantasy books Direct from the author!Support Your Favorite Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors Directly and Save!![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/p14zlkw05j/header.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/may-fantasy-sci-fi-direct-from-the-author/otukg4x0rk) Check it out! Maybe you'll find a new author, or one whose works you already know and love and wish to read more of. Buying direct from authors is sort of like supporting a small business. I have nothing against large corporations — they provide employment to thousands of people and are much needed to keep our economy going. Alongside, we also have small businesses looking to offer something different, something that may absolutely blow your mind, yet something that may not be for all. And if you'd like to support that, the above promo is one way of doing it. Take a look! ### the work is never truly finished. URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-work-is-never-truly-finished/ Last updated: 2024-04-28T19:13:02.000Z Until a few months ago, I was trying to navigate this creative life with a goal-oriented mindset. Aiming for a certain number of words a day, a certain number of books a year, a certain amount of monthly/yearly income ... For a long time, I thought that my job was to set things up so that these processes and systems would run smoothly on their own. As though someone else, not me, would be responsible for their execution. I'm not sure what put that idea in my head. One of the things that comes to mind is an authors' group I used to be part of back in the days when I was on social media. The [20BooksTo50K](https://www.facebook.com/groups/20Booksto50k/) group over on FaceBook. It was an excellent resource and a great community space where several authors shared what worked for them and what didn't, which proved to be extremely valuable insights for others. You only had to ask a question, and you'd find countless helpful answers from various perspectives. The idea behind 20BooksTo50K was that back then (a decade ago now, when the self-publishing industry had only just taken off, and perhaps this is true even now, I don't know), but the basic premise was that if you had one book, you'd need to sell several thousand copies of it to earn 50K a year, a full-time living. Conversely, if you had more books, say 20, you'd only need to sell that many fewer copies per book to get to that income level. Essentially, the more books, the greater your chances of increasing your income without having to drastically widen your readership. I completely agree with the idea of this. What I didn't expect was my subconscious response to this goal. I had inadvertently latched on to the magic number of 20, and simply couldn't wait to finish writing that many number of books so that I could sit back and relax and enjoy my life as a full-time author. I didn't realize right away that this was the attitude I had cultivated. It was only in hindsight that it became apparent to me. But I remember feeling impatient with myself. I'd set high writing targets, feel frustrated on days when I couldn't meet them, and constantly feel as though I'd never reach this goal of completing 20 books and earning a full-time living. (By the way, there are authors who have 100+ books and still don't earn anywhere close to that 50K. Conversely, there are authors who have far fewer books and have seen greater financial success. There really is no correlation or equation, except for the probability that the more books you have, the greater your chances of selling an increasing number of them.) Anyhoo, ever since I set my eyes on that 'finish' line of 20 books, I couldn't wait to reach it. In the process, I grew frustrated with the daily work of writing and couldn't bear the thought that I'd have to keep doing this day after day after day until ... until when? I had no answer to that either, which only added to my overwhelm. I'd ask KrA countless times, "How long do I have to keep doing this?" As though someone were holding me hostage and forcing me to write. By focusing on the outcome, by demanding that my process of writing yield something more than the pleasure of writing itself, I had completely lost all joy and delight in writing. It was the saddest thing to happen. The saddest realization. Even more startling was the observation that most of us tend to adopt this kind of a mindset without realizing it. Not merely in our work, but in parenting, in life itself. The 'once-I-get-past-this-milestone' approach. It doesn't help that these structures of goalposts and milestones are imposed upon us by society and culture. Once the little one begins to go to school. Once the middle-grader begins high school. Once he/she finishes high school and gets into university. Once he/she gets a good job. Once he/she gets a promotion. Once he/she has a certain amount in their bank. The work doesn't end with the crossing of these milestones. There are more challenges to face, more problems to solve. But in always looking ahead, we lose sight of what's in front of us. No wonder I found myself in burnout for much of last year. Writing had become a chore and it seemed pretty pointless to keep at it without knowing when I'd finally be able to stop. Sometime earlier this year, when I started setting up my own online store over at [PayHip](https://payhip.com/DreamPedlarBooks), I had the chance to spend some time with the works I had already written and published. It brought back to memory not how many copies of each book I had sold or the glowing reviews that kind readers had left or the less-than-stellar ratings they may have received. It brought back to memory the sheer joy of writing. Looking at all those works filled my heart with great pride and joy. To be reminded that I had indeed spent a lot of time at the writing desk, ploughing through all the doubts and fears and letting the story unfold of its own accord, to be reminded that the worth of my writing is not the income it does or does not generate was a relief. It's only natural, only human, for us to want to be seen and heard, to want our creative works to be read and appreciated, to know that the endeavours we spend so much of our life on are making a difference in someone else's life. Even though we are not entitled to the fruits of our labour, it is only natural that we desire them. It was just baffling that I was so caught up in that desire for a particular outcome that the very act of creativity had become something to dread and feel anxious about. When I focus on the present moment and the sheer joy of writing today, now, in this moment, simply for the sake of writing, everything else ceases to matter. Obviously, I'm very lucky that I don't *need* my writing to sell and put bread on the table, and I can't speak for those who are in that situation. My point is, after I finish writing today and progressing on other activities like formatting my books, uploading them on various retailer platforms, etc. etc., the work is not done. Tomorrow will be another day, and there will be more stories to write, more to format and upload, more promotions to participate in, yet another newsletter to send. Things will fail, things will stop working. A website you rely on will run into technical difficulties, and you'll have to wait for that to be resolved. The work is never completely done. There's always more to be done. We can either respond to this fact with overwhelm and anxiety, a sense of dread that this is how every single day of the rest of our lives would likely be. Or we can tap into the joy we felt at the very beginning when we first ventured out on our creative paths. When I first started writing, I remember thinking that I'd love to do this and only this every single day for the rest of my life. Looks like my wish has indeed been granted. Although for a while in between, it had started to feel like a curse. Because, in chasing everything else peripheral to it, I had lost sight of the joy of writing itself, I had ceased to be content with the act of creativity itself. Now as I've been making my way back to that place of joy and delight, it helps to remember that I've already arrived at the destination I had set my eyes on when I had first started writing: to be able to do this every single day. Now it's up to me to make the most of my stay in this destination, however long that may last. Your turn now. What future milestone are you waiting to cross so desperately that you've lost sight of the amazingness of this moment? ### April Allure: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-april-allure/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T22:52:01.000Z Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar turns 2 years old today! 🥳 The very first edition, [April Alchemy](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-april-alchemy/), went out two years ago. Since then, composing this note to you every month has become a sacred ritual for me, filling my days with much joy and beauty. And I have you to thank for it. How lucky I am that our paths crossed! How lucky for me indeed that you're still here, lending a patient ear, writing back to me your thoughts and words, and keeping this conversation going! I hope you too continue to find much joy and delight in receiving these letters every month. --- On a slight aside, if you'd love to have these heartfelt conversations in person, I'm attending the [Toronto Indie Authors Conference](https://torontoindieauthorcon.com) on 4—5 May! I'm volunteering both mornings, so I should be quite easy to spot. If you're in/near Toronto, come on over and let's grab a cuppa and talk about all things books and writing and life! --- To celebrate this milestone of Monthly Missives, I have a big announcement to make and a heartfelt gift for you. The big news is that [Dream Pedlar Books](https://payhip.com/DreamPedlarBooks) now has its own online store for all my ebooks! Yippee! [![watercolour illustration featuring silhouette of a woman sitting at a desk with a laptop, typewriter and books surrounded by images of ideas](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/04/2.-Fantasy-Author.jpg)](https://payhip.com/DreamPedlarBooks) A lot of work went behind the scenes to get this up and running, and I'm thrilled I could share this with you in today's missive. Take a [look](https://payhip.com/DreamPedlarBooks) and tell me what you think! I feel so proud when I see all my works up there. In the last six years, I've written and published 2 novels, 2 novellas, 2 short stories, 1 collection of short stories, and 1 book of poems. Incidentally, I intend to publish another collection of short stories and another book of poems in the coming months, so that should make it a-mathematically-appealing 2 eggs in each of the above baskets! 💡 Here's a gift for you: Use the coupon code DREAMPEDLAR30 to get 30% off any ebook on my store. The sale will last until May 31. [Visit Dream Pedlar Books!](https://payhip.com/DreamPedlarBooks) (Print copies of my books are not available on my store, but you can find them on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.) --- Also, I have a new book out! > **Your Mother's Nightmares: Six Troubling Tales** ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/04/9.-Your-Mother-s-Nightmares.png) > **The worst is not what happens.** > **The worst is what every mother fears *could* happen.** > Imagination collides with maternal fear in this bold collection of troubling, twisted tales from a fiction writer who isn’t afraid to plumb the often terrifying emotional depths of the motherhood experience. > A party across the street lures a trusting three-year-old into an adventure, but thrusts his mother into a nightmare. > A mirror offers the gift of more time, something every parent longs for, but what will it take in return? > A mother erases her seven-year-old’s painful memories to leave him with the impression of a perfect childhood. Only, it leads to imperfect consequences. > Teeming with the unthinkable, this collection of six never-before-seen short stories tugs at every mother’s helpless heartstrings, coaxes out her deepest and darkest fears for her children, and presents them in the guise of fantasy fiction so that her nightmares won’t come true. > Stories included are *The Party across the Street, A Suitable Colour for a Ghost, Memory Games, The Goldilocks Zone, Hide-and-Seek\*,* and *The Gift of Time.* The ebook is available from [*Dream Pedlar Books*](https://payhip.com/b/SfQvj) (remember to use the code DREAMPEDLAR30 for a 30% off) as well as on all the usual [retailer platforms](https://books2read.com/your-mothers-nightmares). Paperbacks are available from [Amazon](https://books2read.com/your-mothers-nightmares), and will soon be available at more stores. (\*As a subscriber, you already have [*Hide-and-Seek*](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-hide-and-seek/) available to read for free on this website.) --- Coming to this month's contemplation, I had been feeling like quite the imposter in attempting to share my thoughts with you. I've waded through this month feeling mostly annoyed and triggered, snappy and dysfunctional at times. All the books I've read, the meditation and journaling I've done, the blog posts I've written — none of those could help ground me emotionally in those difficult moments. Turns out that intellectual knowledge doesn't always translate into practical wisdom when most needed in the face of a difficult moment. The only way I could cope was by reading. Disappearing into an entirely different world altogether. Which is how I stumbled upon Hermann Hesse's *Siddhartha*. Sometimes, when I'm very lucky, I read a book that reminds me of how and why I fell in love with writing in the first place. *Siddhartha* was that book for me this month. It was first published more than 100 years ago! You've probably already read it. Many times over. I had no idea it existed until earlier this week. And I had to read it immediately. ![statue of a Buddha resting his head on his knee against a blurred backdrop of a window overlooking a garden](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/04/2.-wilsan-u-aiUIs74ejx8-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [wilsan u](https://unsplash.com/@wilsanphotography?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/gold-buddha-sitting-statue-aiUIs74ejx8?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Hesse was a German-Swiss writer, but *Siddhartha* is a novel set in ancient India and Nepal. A young Siddhartha and his friend Govinda leave home to become samanas (ascetics) in search of spiritual enlightenment. In their wanderings, they meet the Enlightened One, Gautam Buddha. (Siddhartha and the Buddha are two different characters in this tale; it can be confusing at first for those who know that Siddhartha was also the name of the Buddha.) While Govinda immediately seeks to join the Buddha's fellowship, Siddhartha is not entirely convinced he'd learn much from the Buddha's teachings. In fact, Siddhartha claims that the Buddha's '*Teaching about the overcoming of the world, about deliverance*' is itself creating a small gap that '*shatters and abolishes the whole eternal and unified law of the world*' which forms the crux of the Buddha's teachings. In response, the Buddha says: > *"You have heard the Teaching, O Brahmin son, and good for you for pondering it so deeply. You have found a gap in it, a failing. May you continue pondering it.* > *But be warned, you who thirst for knowledge, be warned about the thicket of opinions and the fight over words. Whether beautiful or ugly, wise or foolish, opinions are unimportant, anyone can follow them or reject them.* > *But the Teaching that you have heard from me is not my opinion, and its goal is not to explain the world to people who thirst for knowledge.* > *Its goal is different: its goal is deliverance from suffering. That is what Gautama teaches, and nothing else."* In response to which Siddhartha says: > *"Please, O Sublime One, do not be angry with me. I have not spoken with you to fight with you or to fight over words. You are truly right: opinions are unimportant.* > *But may I say one thing more? I have never doubted you for a moment, I have never doubted for a moment that you are the Buddha, that you have attained the goal, the highest, which so many thousands of Brahmins and sons of Brahmins are journeying to reach. You have found the deliverance from death.* > ***It came to you from your own seeking, on your one path, through thinking, through meditation, through knowledge, through illumination. It did not come through a teaching!*** > ***And — this is my thought, O Sublime One — no one is granted deliverance through a teaching! You cannot, O Venerable One, impart to anyone, tell anyone in words and through teachings what happened to you in the hour of your illumination.*** > *The Teaching of the illuminated Buddha contains a great deal, it teaches many how to live righteously, avoid evil. But there is one thing that the so clear, so venerable Teaching does not contain: it does not contain the secret of what the Sublime One himself has experienced, he alone among the hundreds of thousands.* > *That is why I am resuming my wandering — not to seek a different, a better teaching, for I know that there is none; but to leave all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal alone or die."* ![ascetic sitting by the banks of a river in India](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/04/4.-hardik-sharma-UBgZ-Xd4p3A-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Hardik Sharma](https://unsplash.com/@hardikhi?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-person-sitting-on-a-dock-looking-at-the-water-UBgZ-Xd4p3A?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) I wept when I read these lines. And I've read them over and over again in the last couple of days. Both in my parenting and writing journeys, I've more often than not looked to the opinions and insights of others for guidance, only to turn away in disagreement. More often than not, I've followed my own inner voice, but that has often brought along a truckload of self-doubt and a nagging worry that I must be doing something wrong. This past year, however, I've been feeling a very strong aversion to looking outwards. For you see, even the so-called experts seem to contradict themselves. Or their actions are not in sync with their words. Or they adopt a 'my way or the highway' approach. Or it appears as if they're doling out the same advice they've been regurgitating for years, almost as though to convince themselves of its validity. I hadn't yet found the confidence to walk away and focus on my path. Not for lack of trying. I'd go away for a while, then come back to the same circles—especially when I stumbled or encountered an obstacle—worried that I may have missed out on some crucial nugget of life-changing wisdom while I was gone. *Siddhartha* seems to have given me the permission to move on. We outgrow teachings. We wander from our paths. But coming back, over and over again, is what makes all the difference. In the novel, Siddhartha walks away from the Buddha and leads a life of materialistic pleasure for several years. At first, he's able to navigate the material world without being too affected by it. It's only a matter of time before he gets used to the luxuries and comforts and falls into the same traps of desires and longings that have lured much of humankind for ages. Eventually, he grows disillusioned with that too. There's much more to the story than I'm letting on here, but in the end, Siddhartha once more encounters his childhood friend, Govinda. Govinda asks: > *"... I know you have not followed any teacher. But have you not found, if not a teaching, then certain thoughts, certain insights that are your own and that help you live?"* Siddhartha replies: > *I have had thoughts, yes, and insights, now and then. Sometimes, for an hour or for a day, I have felt knowledge in me the way we feel life in our hearts. There were a number of thoughts, but it would be hard for me to communicate them to you.* > *Listen, my Govinda, this is one of my thoughts that I have found: *Wisdom cannot be communicated. Wisdom that a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish."** > *"Are you joking?" asked Govinda.* > *"I am not joking. I am telling you what I have found. *Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. We can find it, we can live it, we can be carried by it, we can work wonders with it, but we cannot utter it or teach it."** ![white statue of Buddha against a dark background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/04/6.-mattia-faloretti-jbrR_ESWK2A-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Mattia Faloretti](https://unsplash.com/@mattiafalo?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/white-buddha-statue-on-body-of-water-jbrR%5FESWK2A?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Isn't this reminiscent of Rumi's verse "What you seek is seeking you"? So, dear one, what is it that you're always looking outwards for? Whatever it is, it is not out there. Not in the books. Not in the words of saints. Not in those getaways and escapades that culture so carefully and convincingly curates for us. It lies buried deep within the shadows we all carry within ourselves. Can we plumb those depths, no matter how terrifying it may be? --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### when dragons forget they can fly I wrote this tale back when we were living in Singapore. After the grand Chinese New Year celebrations one year, we found a dragon prop tucked under a bridge alongside some construction debris behind a netted fence. The sight of that seemingly forsaken dragon sparked this tale. I thought it went well with todays' missive: what happens when we forget that what we seek is already within us? The original image was too blurry to be used, so Microsoft Copilot in Bing came to the rescue once more. Enjoy this little tale! [tales for dreamers: when dragons forget they can flyThe dragon does not wish to fly. She doesn’t say so but we know who’s to blame for her affliction.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/04/45.3-when-dragons-forget-they-can-fly.png)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-when-dragons-forget-they-can-fly/) --- ## Books You May Love After reading *Siddhartha*, I almost didn't feel like mentioning any other books this month. But then that completely belies the fact that I did enjoy reading these books tremendously. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/04/1.-A-Killing-of-Innocents-copy-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/04/2.-Payback-in-Death-copy-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/04/3.-Identity-copy-1.jpeg) *A Killing of Innocents* is the latest in Deborah Crombie's beloved mystery/police procedural series featuring Scotland Yard detectives, Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James, and a vast range of recurring characters whose personal lives play out in the background. It was an excellent read, and I've loved all of Crombie's books in this series so far. The one thing that really made this book [special](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-march-2024/) to me was that Crombie dedicated this work to the late Caroline Todd (of the Charles Todd duo). It was like seeing two of my favourite people meeting each other in some distant part of the world, and that made my heart sing a happy song! Nora Roberts' books are wildly entertaining, so I picked up another one in her *In Death* series, which is a futuristic police procedural that now has well over 50 books! After that, I looked up one of her (countless) standalone books and got my hands on *Identity*, in which a young woman, Morgan Albright, becomes a victim of an identity theft and narrowly escapes being murdered. Her best friend and housemate is killed instead. Morgan moves back to her family home to live with her mother and grandmother and looks to rebuild her life. But the swindler/killer is still after her and only just biding his time until he can finish the work he had started, but couldn't complete, because she was the one who got away. --- Alas, it's time to bid goodbye, dear Dreamer! But before I do so, I do have one more little jewel to share with you. You remember the eclipse that was all the rave until just a few weeks ago? And now the world has moved on from it as though it never happened? Well, we happened to be on the path of totality! And we watched the entire spectacle right from our backyards. Well, our friend's backyard about a block away for a shared experience. It was definitely one of the most surreal things I've ever seen. The sky was an indescribably cool blue. The chill in the air was unearthly. Everything fell silent when the moon blotted out the sun for a little over a minute. ![diamond ring during total solar eclipse](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/04/Eclipse-copy.jpeg) And then the moment passed. The air grew warmer, the sky brighter, and the birds began to chirp once more. Perhaps with great relief, as though something unpredictably terrible had happened, and they couldn't be happier to leave it all behind and carry on. Perhaps with great sadness, that something so beautiful was also so ephemeral, and had gotten over far too quickly. Perhaps with great wonder even, a sense of being gobsmacked, a "What just happened?" moment, knowing that it cannot be fully captured and conveyed using words or images. Like wisdom itself. \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: when dragons forget they can fly URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-when-dragons-forget-they-can-fly/ Last updated: 2024-04-26T12:24:14.000Z We asked the dragon what she was doing behind the fence. She was waiting, she said. Waiting to be transported to her next destination. Couldn't she simply fly, we asked. No, she didn't think so. Well, she hadn't flown in a very long time, so she couldn't quite remember how to go about it anymore, she said. No one can forget how to fly, we insisted. Just as people didn't forget to walk or swim or ride a bike, even if they hadn't done it for decades. That's not how it goes with flying, the dragon reasoned. We couldn't argue for none of us had ever flown before nor did we know anyone who could fly. (Except the birds, but they have long stopped sharing their secrets with humans, so there was no way we could verify the dragon's claims.) We urged the dragon to try and fly. Nah, she dismissed. It probably involved too much effort, so she couldn't bothered to try, she said. And anyway, she was scheduled to be transported to her next destination, the events crew should be here anytime now. They'd dismantle her into small blocks, box them up, and piece her together again when they'd arrive at the next destination. Didn't that hurt, we wondered. To be broken down like that? It did, she admitted, but at least this way she knew she'd soon be whole and in one piece again. As long as she avoided the hazards of flying. ### coming to the Toronto Indie Author Conference? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/toronto-indie-author-conference/ Last updated: 2024-04-24T21:12:24.000Z You lovely peeps, who so graciously spend some of your time on my website, I have some amazing news for you. Canada's having its first ever indie author conference in Toronto on the May 4—5 weekend! Two full days of presentations, meeting other indie authors (mostly Canadian), and learning and sharing and making new friends! Even thinking about it has me on cloud nine right now! I'm also a volunteer at the event, supporting speakers on the morning of Day 1 and helping out at the registration desk on the morning of Day 2. So if you're reading this and are in/near Toronto, come on over! If you're already coming, say Hello to me and we can have a lovely conversation about all things books and writing and life! All the details about the conference can be found in the link below. [Home - Toronto Indie Author ConferenceCentral YMCA at 20 Grosvenor Street Join Us in Toronto, May 4-5, 2024 Are you an independent author navigating the complexities of the publishing business? Do you dream of transforming your passion for writing into a thriving author business? Don’t miss this opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of Canadian indie publishing’s first author![](https://torontoindieauthorcon.com/favicon.ico)Toronto Indie Author Conference - Making a career in a challenging Canadian publishing landscape![](https://torontoindieauthorcon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/TIAC-Logo-1.png)](https://torontoindieauthorcon.com) See you there! ### the one I fight with the most ... URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-one-i-fight-with-the-most/ Last updated: 2024-04-21T21:40:22.000Z ... needless to say, is myself. This self-publishing journey has brought me face to face with my deepest fears. And over and over again shows me how awful it is to get swept away by all those terrors, wasting time worrying about all those what-ifs and should-haves or shouldn't-haves. I woke up this morning grumpy, as has been the norm for much of this month. Writing has been slow, and publishing a collection of short stories has been taking longer than I wish it would. And I know I'm trying to hasten the process, trying to rush through it all, so that someday at last it would all be done and I can heave a sigh of relief. I don't even understand this feeling because I love to write. Or rather, I used to love writing ... But ever since having tied the measure of my writings with how much they earn me, I've become a wreck. The thought of waking up and attending to the manuscript is not a happy one ... it makes me wake up feeling pissed and angry and annoyed and uncertain, all the time questioning myself if I should even be in this profession. When I'm not feeling annoyed or anxious about writing, I'm worried about other things happening in the world around me. The neighbour who has put her house up for sale. The other one who has separated from her husband. The child who was unwell early last week and hasn't come to play with D in a while. None of these are my problems. Yet, I make them so. I imagine taking D with me and going up to the child's house and knocking on their door and asking if they're OK. My imagination takes me on wild twisted lanes. Maybe the child is injured. Maybe they've had a surgery! Gasp! Maybe the child has contracted some wild, unheard-of, infectious disease and by the very act of taking D with me to knock on their door, I'd have exposed my own little one to that same infection! Maybe the lady who has separated will put her home up for sale and new neighbours will move in. Maybe they will demand to use our extra car parking spot, which we used to lease out to the ex-husband who left, although he did terminate the contract in writing. (And yes, I was smart enough to get them to sign a written contract in the first place, but evidently not smart enough to keep these scary thoughts at bay). > *My imagination serves me best when I put in fiction. In real life, not so much.* It conjures up so many end-of-the-world scenarios that I just end up feeling overwhelmed and terrified and paralyzed into action ... which increases the probability of that end-of-the-world scenario (*aka* I'll never make any money from my books) ever so slightly. Isn't that the very definition of self-sabotage? So the objective for this week is to get back on track. By that I mean, focusing on writing and publishing, not forgetting that I'm still in the early stages of my business, the R&D stage, so to speak. We do have one new errand to run during the week, but otherwise it's the usual routine. I often say that my areas of focus are writing, and self-improvement (especially as a parent and in my relationship with KrA). Yet, when I look at the amount of time I spend on everything else, it is insane. My words and my actions are in stark contrast with each other. Anything that involves writing, parenting and being with KrA takes importance. What I need to remember is not to spend time on other people and events not in my control! - Worrying about irrelevant things like why D's classmate's mom [ignores](https://thedreampedlar.com/begging-to-belong/) me when she feels like it, - imagining that a friend of mine and another might be meeting up and having playdates for their children without involving D or me, - worrying that I might feel judged by family when I meet them later this summer, - worrying that I may never make enough money from my books, - feeling envious about other writers who 'appear' to be having a thriving business, - worrying that I'm not playing by the rules — for instance, not being on social media and not caring to write this post in the form of a bullet-pointed article with a catchy title such as "*5 Things you must stop doing to become more productive*". I don't think life can be described in an equation, and I don't write that way either. Yeah, all of the above and many more I haven't listed here are certainly not what I wish to waste my precious life on. So what are you wasting your time on? Other people and their opinions? Your own imaginations of what's going to happen in the future? What would you rather be doing instead? Our time is precious. Our time is limited. Let us spend it on what matters to us, and not squander it on anything else. ### in this creator economy, individual creators need not mistake themselves for organizations. URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/in-this-creator-economy-individual-creators-need-not-mistake-themselves-for-organizations/ Last updated: 2024-04-14T22:04:53.000Z A popular author I follow on YouTube recently announced the launch of her subscription service on [Ream](https://reamstories.com). As is wont to happen, I began to wonder if that's what I too *need* to do in order to be successful in the current market and economy. This thought cropped up, notwithstanding the fact that I did indeed experiment with offering a subscription-based service last year and found it didn't align with how I worked. I was also on the verge of joining Ream, having had an insightful conversation with one of its co-founders, Michael Evans, who's absolutely lovely to interact with. But shortly before I did, I knew it wasn't the right thing for me and I informed him accordingly. His response was nothing but encouraging and completely accepting of my decisions. I still have the privilege of being one of their founding authors if I ever join them, but for the time being, I accept that a subscription-based model is not something I wish to execute again in the near term. Yet, that doesn't stop me from wondering about its allure (the promise of recurring revenue) and whether I should push myself to do it. In the quiet of my mind, in the sanctity of this space, I know and trust the best choice I can make for me, given who I am, how I work, and how much time, support and capability to work I have. Amid the noise of the world outside, it feels scary to choose the contrarian path. This dilemma has been cropping up, not only in this instance of offering a subscription-based model, but also when it comes to the countless other things that authors, especially independent authors, could potentially do today. - set up their own store, - sell not only books but also merchandise based on their brands, - attend conferences, - promote and advertise their wares, - maintain active social media channels for the entertainment of the masses (because writing books for people's reading pleasure is not enough), - execute in-person sales, - keep track of their revenues from myriad sources, - file taxes, - while also not forgetting to write stories, design covers, and publish books in the first place. The options are endless. The choices are many. And that is extremely exciting! But the last time I worked in an organization—I was a commodities journalist—there were different departments responsible for executing each of the above roles. And these departments had multiple-employee teams to carry out these tasks. > *When did we come to mistakenly believe that we, as individuals, somehow needed to carry out all these tasks, which takes an entire organization to execute?* Over these past few years of writing and trying to make a living from it, I've come to see how the industry has inadvertently encouraged practices that are unsustainable to say the least. --- ### The indie author and the start-up mentality The term 'authorpreneur' has a cool ring to it; we're not just creatives, we can also (supposedly) make a living from our creative work. I used to think an indie author is equivalent to a start-up. I'm beginning to rethink the accuracy of that analogy. Like a start-up, we do begin with a small idea that we are excited about and hope to put it out into the world and find an audience for it. That's where all the similarities end. 1. Unlike a start-up, we're writing in isolation. It's not a team of members working together, sharing the ups and downs of the journey, and invested in the success of the venture to (more or less) the same extent. 2. There is no seed funding/VC backing from an external source. We dip into our savings, rely on our day jobs or a partner with a full-time job, to fund our enterprise, which means, keep paying the bills while we're earning nothing in the present moment. 3. It's mostly a one-person venture, and we are required to don all the hats that would take entire teams in large organizations to do so. No wonder so many of us begin to question our sanity after that initial high of writing and publishing our first book (or first few books) wanes. --- ### The indie author as a content machine Subscription is all the rave now. Or perhaps it has always been, since Patreon has been on the scene for longer. I understand its allure. It gives patrons a way to support an author/creator consistently, and gives creators the chance to earn an almost predictable monthly revenue. Taking away the uncertainties of an inconsistent revenue stream can certainly be helpful in letting a creator focus more on creating beautiful content instead of worrying about the latest marketing or advertising gimmick to indulge in to be able to pay their bills. But if the onus to keep churning out all that content remains on a single person, that sounds like a recipe for disaster. It's demanding the creator to be the CEO and a junior-level employee and all other workers in between at the same time. Even when we expand the team, the content creator still needs to invest time and effort in providing oversight/guidance/input and make strategic decisions while also creating content alongside. There's a constantly increasing investment of time and money to be made by the creator. Personally, I found that I couldn't handle having so many things on my plate and try to keep them all going all the time. Too many balls to juggle and keep in air constantly! --- ### The indie author as a business owner Recently, author coach Becca Syme wrote the following over on Threads: > *As a writer, I did not get into this to start a small business. Or run e-commerce websites. I started writing because I want to write. I am less and less interested in doing things that require me to run businesses instead of write.* > *In 2024, more writing. Less businessing.* > [*\~ Becca Syme*](https://www.threads.net/@becca%5Fsyme/post/C1fGZWoOCXb) An immediate counter-argument to this is that one can't be a full-time author/creative these days unless we treat this endeavour as a business and take the steps to make it a profitable venture. If we look at other small businesses, they usually start with a product that they offer to the market. An increase in demand for that product leads to expansion of the team, and subsequent addition of more products. A book is not quite like that. Not anymore, at least. It probably used to be that way in the times of the Kindle gold rush. Now in a saturated market, where discoverability seems to depend on countless factors that no one can list entirely for certain, it appears as though an author could write for decades and not find success in terms of sales, while another author could hit it right out of the park with just a handful of books. Publishing is poker, is a truism that many authors in the industry have come to reckon with in recent times. --- ### The indie author as a single human being In all this madness and mayhem, it has become easy to forget that we are only human, that our time and resources are limited, no matter how much we wish to rail against this truth, no matter how much we wish it were otherwise. As much as I'd love the whole world to read and love my books — or at least hope for as wide an audience as is possible — there's really only so much I can do in terms of marketing and stuff without it taking too much time away from writing and publishing. The one thing I really love though is connecting with readers. Some have become close e-friends, and we exchange emails regularly. That human connection is something I truly cherish. --- All this is not to say that any one way of being a full-time author is better or worse than the other. There are countless ways to be an author these days. The choices are endless. But our time and resources are not. We really have to choose what to invest our time and attention on. Often, we won't see results unless we've stayed on our chosen path for a reasonably long period of time. How long that should be, no one can tell. When you should pivot, that too no one can tell. There are really no rules in this ~~business~~ endeavour. No guarantees. Except for one: the writing is its own reward. Otherwise we wouldn't be doing all this in the first place. ### begging to belong URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/begging-to-belong/ Last updated: 2024-04-06T20:34:50.000Z Picking up D from school at dismissal time can sometimes become a nerve-wracking thing for me. D has a classmate whose mum can be a little moody. It's funny because she'd ask me for all kinds of favours — like putting down my name as her daughter's emergency contact on school forms, or asking me to sign a CRA form for her that no family member can sign. Yet, the very next day she'd look right past me and not even say *Hello*, even if I'm giving her a big, wide smile. It's a weird dynamic. I often remind myself that people are doing the best they can in the moment. At the same time, I can't help but feel triggered by this kind of unpredictability, because I'm human after all. --- This also reminds me of a time when a close friend of mine from university days ghosted me in the years that followed on several occasions. Once, I was visiting Houston for a month. She lived there, and we made all sorts of plans to hang out and do stuff. We met up once, and after that I only ever got her voicemail. Years later, when we reconnected on of our university WhatsApp groups, she said that she was battling depression at the time and had taken off to her brother's place in NJ or somewhere else. Understandable. Still, hurtful. This time when we connected, we got back to chatting frequently. Until she got triggered again. She was railing against a political figure, and I was telling her that there are all sorts of people in this world. When we expect people to think/behave like we do, we're only setting ourselves up for disappointment. This triggered her too and marked the end of our rekindled friendship once again. I later learnt that she had even been to Canada in the years since, just a suburb away from where I now live, but hadn't reached out to me. Understandable. Not so hurtful anymore. It hurts really badly the first time. Not so much the next time. --- Almost 20 years ago now, a very close family member made his way out of our lives. He and his wife had their own reasons, but the grief it gave my parents was terrible. They made their way back into our lives about a decade ago, but since then it's been a relationship on a rather shaky footing. Periods of closeness followed by unexplained silence for a long time. Promises to stay in touch, followed by the passage of weeks in which we'd get no responses to our texts or calls. With all these experiences I've come to realize that this kind of instability in the behaviour of others, especially close friends/family, affects me a great deal. I'm high S (stability/steadfastness) in the DISC personality profile, meaning any disturbances in the environment around me affects me significantly and hampers my ability to create, to love, to laugh, to live in the moment. Of course, the world around us is changing all the time. Over the years, I've come to learn some techniques to soothe myself and process my feelings. Journalling, deep breaths, meditation ... all these have been helpful. Yet, when I encountered brusqueness yesterday while picking up D from school, it set me back. It hit me unexpectedly, and I went in a tailspin. I was quite upset all evening, snapped at little D for no fault of his, and decided I didn't want to follow through with any of the plans we had made for the weekend. Of course I felt very differently when morning came and KrA hugged me. I couldn't help but reflect, though, on how I got derailed last evening. Well, I'm only human, after all. This need to be accepted and to belong speaks to our sense of safety in far-reaching ways. And that's alright. Yet, nothing is permanent. Not our Zen state of being. Not the brilliant sunrise or sunset. Not a single season. Not the unbridled joy in our hearts at the sight of blue skies and white clouds. Not the sadness at receiving unkind behaviour from another. Not the feeling of safety that comes from good company. Nor the sense of instability that comes from it lack. ### March Magic: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-march-magic/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T22:52:26.000Z March has been a wild month! In more ways than one. First, it was the weather. There were a couple of balmy days mid-month, so much so that the ski hills up north had to cease operations for a couple of days. Then it went and snowed a week later as though it was Christmastime once again, and little D got to fly down the sledding hill in the neighbourhood for only the second time this season. The other thing that had me unexpectedly reeling a little bit is this: > *The Dream Pedlar's audience is growing in leaps and bounds! Hurrah!* Several new readers have joined this community in the past few weeks. Obviously, that's cause for celebration like never before! 🥳 💡 Welcome one, welcome all! Thank you for allowing my written word into your hearts and souls, into your lives! And now I'm also a little flabbergasted. Until now, I wrote these musings for a small community of mostly family and friends, people with whom I've actually sat down and had long conversations over endless cups of coffee and tea on these very topics I write about — our fears and longings, feelings and emotions, the contradictory desires for family and independence, being human, being vulnerable, life, the Universe and its mysteries. Now I'm suddenly fearful that these topics may not be *'adequate'* enough or *'valuable'* enough to a wider audience, even though I've been writing and blogging for almost two decades now in some form or the other. ![gold and white masquerade ball mask](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/03/vlad-hilitanu-kEqcai34ce4-unsplash.jpg) hiding behind a mask | Photo by [Vlad Hilitanu](https://unsplash.com/@vladhilitanu?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/gold-and-white-masquerade-ball-mask-kEqcai34ce4?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Maybe that's the problem of only *'knowing'* people by their names and email addresses on a platform like this. It's easy to forget we're all human. Flawed. Ever-evolving. Driven by our fears and longings. Living and viewing our lives through the unique lenses of our beliefs and behaviours shaped over our lifetimes. Occasionally peeking through others' lenses to see if they too feel the way we do, and to reassure ourselves that we're not alone in this constant upheaval called *'life'*. As Alberto Manguel said, > *Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.* So, buoyed by that thought and likening 'books' to the 'written word', I'm going to do what I always do — write about the stuff I feel deeply about — and hope some of it will resonate with you too. So grab a cuppa and read on! --- I've been thinking about 'entitlement' these past few days. Not in the usual way the word has been bandied about in recent years. In a blog post on AI (without getting into a debate on AI here), contemporary author Talena Winters wrote something that has stayed with me ever since: > *Am I upset that other authors are using generative AI to help them do things they could pay me to help them with?* > *Not at all. First of all, because *I’m not entitled to anyone else’s money (something many artists raging on social media would be prudent to remember)*.* > *\~* [*Talena Winters*](https://www.talenawinters.com/wintersdayin/2024/2/24/finding-my-voice) Replace the term 'anyone else's money' with 'success', no matter how you define it, and you'll get to the gist of my message today. We tend to look at hard work and success as analogical to cause and effect. "You worked so hard you totally deserve to succeed/be happy," is something we'd say to encourage someone. "Well-deserved," is what we say to someone when their efforts yield the results they've been seeking. Somehow, we've forgotten that while hard work may be a prerequisite to success, it does not make us *deserving of* or *entitled to* that success. It does not even *guarantee* a favourable outcome. --- ![an ant carrying a leaf across a barren path](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/03/vlad-tchompalov-dQkXoqQLn40-unsplash.jpg) working hard | Photo by [Vlad Tchompalov](https://unsplash.com/@tchompalov?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/ant-bite-carrying-leaf-dQkXoqQLn40?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) In my childhood, many well-meaning adults often said to me, "You just work hard, don't worry about the results. That will come of its own accord." They were mostly citing variations of this phrase in the Bhagavad Gita: > *You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work.* > *\~ The Bhagavad Gita (Easwaran's Classics of Indian Spirituality)* I suppose this phrase in its unadorned form would have come across as a harsh truth to a child or a teen who's constantly told that the only way to excel in academics is to work hard. "Are you saying all those late-night studies may NOT give me that coveted first rank or gold medal? What sacrilege!" So that famous line from the Gita got twisted into a form that appealed to me and made a lot of sense in a cause-effect way. 'Work hard, and the results will come.' Which in turn got even more twisted to mean, 'If you're not seeing the results you want, it means you're not working hard enough. Or smart enough.' It was impossible to not buy into these beliefs in an ever-prevalent carrot-and-stick culture. It was then time to turn outwards and seek other successful people and their advice on how to succeed, because obviously I wasn't doing the right things in the right way. If only I could find the silver bullet, I'd finally figure out how to make things work in my life. (This probably explains why I loved math at school until we began studying probability and everything ceased to make sense.) Desperate people like me, muddled by the inherent whimsies and uncertainties of life, have kept the self-help and how-to economy booming. That has been my small but not insignificant contribution to the world in the past several years. I suppose I must consider myself very lucky that my first conscious awareness of the uncertainties of life came about only a few years ago. In the midst of the pandemic, as it were. [story of a vaccination, and of sadness - my everlasting companion and guideI’ve just returned home after getting my first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the only vaccine currently available to adults 40 years or older who do not fall in any of the priority or high-risk categories as detailed by the Ontario provincial government. I suppose I’ve been truly lucky to![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2021/06/dawid-zawila--G3rw6Y02D0-unsplash_o.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/story-of-a-vaccination-and-of-sadness-my-everlasting-companion-and-guide/) Like for many others, the pandemic was the first time I was forced to grapple with the truth that had been waving its hands in front of my face all along. That life comes with no guarantees. That there is no recipe or formula for success. That what worked for one person may very well not work for you, simply because you're not in the same situation, simply because you're a completely different person altogether. It's only in recent times we've begun to wise up to these nuggets of wisdom. Which brings me back to the original phrase from the *Gita* on hard work and success: > *You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work.* 💡 So my question to you this month is, where in your life are you holding on to the mistaken belief that just because you put in the effort you are entitled to an outcome of your liking? I'm guilty of this in more ways than one. - I've written and published 8 books so far. Why aren't I a bestselling author yet? - I cooked an excellent meal today. How dare little D scrunch up his face and say 'Ewww', having barely tasted a morsel? - I worked so hard and so well these past couple of years. Why didn't I get a promotion this time? I so deserved it. - I spend so much time and effort crafting this newsletter every month. Why isn't every reader gushing over it? 😉 The list is evidently endless. --- ![image of a hand throwing a large black dice into the air against a blurred background of neon lights](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/03/erik-mclean-C3T8KTZxTFM-unsplash.jpg) what are the odds? | Photo by [Erik Mclean](https://unsplash.com/@introspectivedsgn?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/persons-left-palm-about-to-catch-black-dice-C3T8KTZxTFM?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) The trouble with confronting this truth is that we may be tempted to veer to the other extreme and become too despondent and indifferent to the task on hand. Why bother? Why waste all our time and effort on this, when we can't even tell whether this will yield any result or not? That's where the 'process, not outcome' mindset comes into play. As long as I can enjoy the process of writing, I can (ideally) weather the external disappointments that come in the form of lack of visibility or sales despite my best efforts. Even so, fears and anxieties about not being able to grow my book sales in the future have often kept me from making the choice to write in the present. I've let years go down the drain this way, I admit. > *It's getting better when each day I make the choice between letting the day go waste because of fear of an uncertain future versus doing what I can possibly do today for the potential of a different future.* If I don't create today, I wouldn't have any books to sell in the future. But if I do move the needle today somewhat, no matter how minimally, there's still a slightly greater-than-zero 'chance' of my books doing well in the market after they're released. It's still only a chance, never a guarantee. > *Yet, uncertainty does mean possibility!* > *This is liberating and terrifying in equal measures!* (Looks like I'm getting a grasp on probability after all. 🤭) Besides, at the end of it all, the present moment, and what we do with it, is all that we can count on. Everything else is illusory. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### underwater gods When I first started to write [*Tales for Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) almost 13 years ago now, I mostly used images from the Internet, ensuring proper attribution and often writing to the photographers for permission to use their images. Over time, many of these images have disappeared or the original creators have limited permissions for reusing these images. I have a bunch of stories that I took down from my website, hoping to find appropriately licensed images to pair them with. A few weeks ago, I started playing around with Microsoft Copilot in Bing, which uses Dall-E to generate AI images. Some of the results were astounding. I've used one such image to bring to you a decade-old tale that would have otherwise remained in a file on my laptop for eternity. [tales for dreamers: underwater godsEveryone knows it’s impossible to spot an underwater God. But nobody knows why.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/03/44.2.-underwater-gods-copy.png)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-underwater-gods/) --- ## Books You May Love I read a handful of books this month, but there are many stories about these books that I must share with you. So here's an entirely separate post dedicated to the awesome books I read in March. All of them were delicious murder mysteries! [books you may love: March 2024March was a month of reading amazing murder mysteries.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/03/julien-paoletti-InbrvPARzM4-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-march-2024/) --- It's Easter Sunday. If you're celebrating, I hope you have a lovely time. Even if you're not celebrating, I hope you're having a good time, wherever in the world you are. In parting, I will leave you with a conversation I once had with a friend. I can't remember what we were talking about but I remember saying, "Sure, let's give this a shot. We're all going to die anyway. Might as well live while we're alive." The amazing friend that he was, he paused, looked at me and said, "We don't try to live a good life because we're going to die anyway. We live because we have this beautiful life to enjoy while we're alive." I wish for us all to imbue that spirit of engagement, involvement and enjoyment in all that we do in our lives. \~ Anitha ### books you may love: March 2024 URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-march-2024/ Last updated: 2024-03-26T18:39:31.000Z March has been yet another month of amazing reading. I've returned to old favourites, sometimes without realizing it, at other times deliberately seeking them to soothe and comfort myself. ![hardback copy of The Mysterious Case of The Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett featuring a pair of disembodied angel wings against a dark blue background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/03/1.-The-Alperton-Angels.jpeg) For some reason, before starting to read [*The Mysterious Case of The Alperton Angels*](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61157639), I turned to the back of the book to read about the author, Janice Hallett. Her face looked familiar, and among her list of published works was a familiar sounding title. [*The Twyford Code*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58451313-the-twyford-code). And sure enough, I had raved about *The Twyford Code* in last [May's newsletter](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-may-mayhem/)! This is what I had written: > *The Twyford Code* by [Janice Hallett](https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Janice-Hallett/185128688) is written in the form of audio transcripts of iPhone recordings made by Little Smithy, who served time in prison and is looking to re-establish a relationship with a son he didn't know at first he had. > He's also solving the mystery of the disappearance of a teacher he knew in high school as well as trying to decode messages left by an author of children's books; these messages are rumoured to lead to a hidden treasure! > This delightful mystery is full of codes and puzzles. It's hilarious in some places and heart-warming in many others. It's also about great friendship and loyalty, and that seems to be the biggest draw for me these days. Not to mention the completely unexpected twist after twist after twist that Hallett delights us with in the last several pages! Similar to *The Twyford Code*, *The Alperton Angels* is told through the medium of emails, text messages, WhatsApp chats, police records, newspaper clippings, and so on. In this story, Amanda Bailey is a true crime author who's investigating an 18-year-old crime involving a cult called The Alperton Angels who had brainwashed a teenage girl into believing that her newborn was the Anti-Christ. On the night they were to sacrifice the baby, members of the cult die in what appears to be a suicide pact, and the baby and the mother disappear. Now that the baby is turning 18, Bailey sets out to find out where they are and to solve the mystery of that evening 18 years ago. I loved this book. It was crazy, dark, twisted, hilarious in places. At the end of the book, Hallett talks about the real-life true crime author who inspired her to write this story. I won't reveal more details because it may spoil the ending of the book. It was such a great read. I've got more of Hallett's books on hand to devour in the coming weeks! --- ![hardback copy of Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein by Anne Eekhout featuring a portrait of Mary Shelly](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/03/2.-Mary-Shelly.jpeg) [*Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75302287-mary-and-the-birth-of-frankenstein) by Anne Eekhout. I have no words to describe this haunting, atmospheric tale that kept me on edge at all times. I fell in love with this book, but I managed to read it very slowly, a few pages a day. Partly because I just wanted to be with each passage a little longer and I didn't want the book to end too soon. Also, partly because Mary's emotions rang too true for me to bear them all at once. Dutch novelist, Anne Eekhout, has reimagined what Mary Shelley's youth might have been like and what may have fed her imagination, propelling her to write Frankenstein. Set in a dual timeline, we see Mary as a 15-year-old motherless girl sent to live with her father's acquaintance in Scotland in order to heal from a skin condition. There she meets the daughter of the family, Isabella Baxter, with whom she falls in love. Both share a mutual love for Scottish lore, myths and monsters. One day they come across a real monster, which causes the lines between reality and imagination to blur for them. We also see Mary in her early twenties as the wife of Percy Shelley. She has lost her daughter in infancy and now has a son. The Shelleys often socialize with Lord Byron and his companion, John Polidori, in Switzerland, where they spend evenings drinking and planning to write ghost stories. I loved this book. The prose and the depth of Mary's feelings as a young girl, as a mother, as a motherless girl, as a parent who has lost a little one, as a woman whose husband has a lover, were very moving. This book is full of love and loss and longing. It touched me deeply. --- ![hardback copy of A Cruel Deception by Charles Todd featuring a bridge over water at twilight](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/03/3.-A-Cruel-Deception-1.jpeg) ![hardback copy of The Shattered Tree by Charles Todd featuring a nurse walking into the misty woods](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/03/4.-The-Shattered-Tree-1.jpeg) After reading a particularly moving book, I find myself returning to familiar comforts. I've often raved about Charles Todd and his Inspector Rutledge series of mysteries set in the WWI era. Todd also has another series set in the same time period, featuring Sister Bess Crawford. She gets into a lot of mysteries entailing missing soldiers and soldiers with dark secrets in their past. In [*A Cruel Deception*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43309522-a-cruel-deception), the war is almost at an end. Bess is sent on a personal mission to France to locate the missing soldier-son of a Matron at the London headquarters of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service. She does locate Lt. Lawrence Minton, only to find him bitter and addicted to laudanum. In an attempt to unearth the incident that drove him to addiction, Bess has several escapades of her own. [*The Shattered Tree*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27213184-the-shattered-tree) was another exciting book. In this one, Bess herself is injured and is convalescing in Paris, where she runs into a soldier she had briefly encountered in her line of duty. She had heard the soldier cry out in German, which leads her to believe he may have been a spy for the enemy. She's determined to find out who he is and what his past entails, which makes for a riveting murder mystery. I love all of Charles Todd books. They are truly comfort reading for me. The mysteries are entertaining and exciting, and the characters are realistic. I miss them after I finish reading their story. --- ![hardback copy of A Bitter Feast by Deborah Crombie featuring a country road in an English village](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/03/5.-A-Bitter-Feast-1.jpeg) After reading the two Bess Crawford books, I was looking up Charles Todd on the Internet. Charles Todd is a mother-son duo, and the mother (Caroline Todd, which itself is a pseudonym) passed away a few years ago. I came across a post that another author, Deborah Crombie, had written when she learnt of Caroline Todd's passing away. The name, [Deborah Crombie](https://www.deborahcrombie.com/index.php/the-books), sounded so familiar. When I looked up her works, I was so delighted to find she's the author of the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series of novels, a pair of detectives based in London. They start out as partners and quickly fall in love and get married and have a huge family and friends as the series progresses. I had come across Crombie's books back in 2018 and had torn through all 17 of them on my Kindle, one right after the other, during May—December 2018, as my Kindle account faithfully shows me. Imagine my delight when I found out that she had penned two more books in the interim! I immediately got my hands on [*A Bitter Feast*](https://www.deborahcrombie.com/index.php/the-books?view=article&id=68), book #18, which involves a charity luncheon at the lavish home of Melody Talbot, Gemma's colleague, in the English countryside, and of course a murder to boot. I'm currently reading book #19, *A Killing of Innocents*, and there's something else special about this book that I will tell you next month. --- So that's my book loot for this month, dear Dreamers! Books are seriously amazing things! I feel so lucky that I get to live in Burlington; we have the most amazing library here. It's where I go to write. It's where I go to calm down on especially unhappy days. It's where I go on days when life feels futile. I go there to see the endless rows of books and remind myself how we all love stories, and even if it is impossible for me to read every book in the world, I'm still moved and shaped by the countless books that I do read. > *“A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people—people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.”* > *\-E.B. White* ### tales for dreamers: underwater gods URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-underwater-gods/ Last updated: 2024-08-25T22:50:20.000Z Not all gods live in the heavens. Countless have their abodes on earth. Some others are banished to underwater depths, where no living creature, whether with or devoid of faith, knows to pray. The Earth Gods largely outnumber the Sky Gods. The latter are understandably the most sought after and people always look up to the heavens when they remember God. The former are so many in number and so commonplace now that people have had to pick favourites; which gods grant their wishes and which don't, which ones are reputed for speedy answers to their prayers and which ones aren't. But not many know about the Underwater Gods. Sometimes a diver or two loses his way in the waters and wanders into the cathedral. Often he returns with a cast of hundreds, and the cathedral is photographed and marvelled upon. Replicas are built on land, stories of faith are woven around it, and tourists pause to be overwhelmed by the possibility of underwater worship. Sometimes people go down in search of God. Usually they end up being distracted by the dazzling colours of underwater life and return to the surface believing they have found God. Whenever there are visitors, the gods freeze themselves into little statues adorning the arches of the cathedral. They make no sound, no movement, and hold their breath until the visitors have left. If you ask them, they'd tell you discomfort is the little price they pay to preserve their privacy. They know that if they remain hidden, people will soon stop looking for them. --- ### A rare mid-month update: How I fell in love with the fantasy genre URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-rare-mid-month-update-how-i-fell-in-love-with-the-fantasy-genre/ Last updated: 2025-07-25T14:40:09.000Z It's not yet time for the Monthly Missive! That will make its way to you in exactly a week from now, which is incidentally the last day of the month. Today's note is one of those rare mid-month updates I send to inform you of a limited-time promotion of one or more of my books. But it's also doubly special this time for reasons you'll see below. --- Firstly, my short story, [*A Benevolent Goddess*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/moraldilemma/lq0gx3vctv)*,* is still available to grab for free until the end of this month as part of [*The Hero's Dilemma*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/moraldilemma/lq0gx3vctv) promotion over on BookFunnel, where a number of fantasy authors have come together to offer some of their best works for your reading pleasure. [The Hero’s Dilemma: fantasy and science fiction where the characters have to make hard choices!Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/pa242xrw3j/header.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/moraldilemma/lq0gx3vctv) --- Another short story of mine, [*Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God*](http://books2read.com/Mrs-DSouzas-Dispute-With-God), is also available for free for the next five days only as part of a promotion being run by the International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (IASFA). [Available now at your favorite digital store!Mrs. D’Souza’s Dispute With God: A Short Story by Anitha Krishnan![](http://books2read.com/static/images/favicons/apple-touch-icon-180x180.png)Universal Book Links Help You Find Books at Your Favorite Store!AUTHORS![](https://books2read-prod.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/ubl_book_images/display_image_wx3Sg85)](http://books2read.com/Mrs-DSouzas-Dispute-With-God) You can also access other fantasy short stories that are part of the IASFA's promotion this month from March 24—28. [Fantasy Short Stories | IASFAThe IASFA Fantasy Short Stories promotion runs from March 24-28\. Please click on a cover to learn more and access the download link. If you access this page…![](https://iasfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/cropped-IASFA-Logo-SMALL-270x270.jpg)IASFARob Mc![](https://b1544337.smushcdn.com/1544337/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/cure-for-nel-2021-600-1-360x570.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)](https://iasfa.org/mar24/) --- But, to me, the most exciting part of this promotion is that **I had the opportunity to pen the introduction to the IASFA's newsletter this month!** If you're already on their mailing list, you'd have seen it. Not to worry if you aren't on their list, because I share the introduction with you here. However, if you love being introduced to a wide range of science fiction and fantasy authors and their works every month, you can always sign up to their [newsletter](https://iasfa.org/newsletter/). So grab a cuppa and sit back to enjoy the little story of how I came to fall in love with the fantasy genre, first as a reader, and then as a writer. --- ### how I fell in love with the fantasy genre **(my write-up for this month's IASFA newsletter)** > Isn’t it funny how we spend our lives looking for something only to realize it has been with us all along? > Growing up in India in the 80s, my childhood reading interests ranged from western children’s adventures and teen sleuth mysteries (*Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators*) to Indian literature, including animal fables (*Jataka Tales* and *Panchatantra*) and stories based on the Hindu epics, *Ramayana* and *Mahabharata*. > My knowledge of the latter came through a wildly popular series of comics, titled *Amar Chitra Katha*, whose founder, Anant Pai, was reportedly shocked to discover in the 60s that Indian children were well-versed in Greek and Roman mythology but couldn’t answer questions pertaining to Indian epics in a quiz that aired on national TV. > As a child, I devoured these comic books but kept my feet firmly grounded in reality. No god would come to my rescue if I forgot to do my homework! > The first time I really lamented the absence of magic in real life was when I finished reading the first *Harry Potter* book at university. I turned the last page and promptly set about crafting a feather-shaped cut-out bearing the words, *Wingardium Leviosa*, desperate to somehow hold on to that breathtaking magic in real life. > Then I fell in love and got married, and that hunger for something otherworldly was sated. Temporarily. > Until I read Neil Gaiman’s *Neverwhere* and *Anansi Boys*, and could no longer walk down the streets without wondering if, even hoping that, some supernatural being would leap out at me around the next corner, consequences be damned. > Then Erin Morgenstern burst onto the scene with her [*flax-golden tales*](http://erinmorgenstern.com/writing/flax-golden/), weaving stories of fantasy and whimsy paired with photographs of ordinary life. Magic once again erupted into everyday life and I devoured her weekly offerings like a hungry ghost. > Later, when I moved to North America, I spent a considerable amount of time seeking that magic in its suburbs. In vain. > I turned to writing fantasy fiction as a salve for my disappointment. My initial attempts at short stories felt like cheap imitations of the works of Gaiman and Morgenstern. > But I kept writing, and unexpectedly, the gods of my childhood started creeping into my stories. I was worried their tales wouldn’t find an appreciative audience in North America, except among the South Asian diaspora. > Then, in an act of true magic, a dear friend pointed me to Christopher Pike’s *Thirst* series, formerly *The Last Vampire*. > Pike’s incorporation of Hindu philosophy, his depiction of Lord Krishna, and his formidable protagonist—a 5,000-year-old vampire named Sita (a Hindu goddess) in 1990s America—were so fantastic and wildly imaginative yet so respectful of Hinduism these books made me fall back in love with the very gods I had resisted writing about. > This is what fantasy does best. First, it shows you the magic that already exists in your life. Then it gives you the courage and permission to claim it for yourself. --- And that, my lovely readers, is what I wanted to share with you today. Incidentally, both the short stories of mine that feature in the promos I mentioned above, [*A Benevolent Goddess*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/moraldilemma/lq0gx3vctv) and [*Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God*](http://books2read.com/Mrs-DSouzas-Dispute-With-God), have something to do with the gods and goddesses I read about in my childhood. I hope you'll make the time to read these tales as well as the many others that feature in these promotional offerings, and find much delight in doing so. I'll be back next Sunday with this month's missive. Until then, happy reading! \~ Anitha ### growing by subtracting URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/growing-by-subtracting/ Last updated: 2024-03-15T00:14:53.000Z I'm in the throes of a strange illness — there's a lot of fatigue and body ache, weakness and chills, but no fever that I could tame with Tylenol or Advil — so what I wish to write feels raw and true to me. I want to add a disclaimer that I may feel differently tomorrow, but I think that's just out of habit, out of years of doubting my own wisdom, because it is at times like these, unencumbered by the noise of the world outside that my heart speaks its truth loud and clear. So here are the things I wish to drop from my daily habits, from my life in general. ### tracking my daily word count I no longer write to a set word count goal. I've moved to a time-block goal, aiming to sit at the desk for 2—4 manuscript time blocks (30 minutes of spending time in the manuscript, as author coach Becca Syme puts it) on work days i.e., days when little D is at school. I do check my word count achieved at the end of it and note it down on a lovely printable monthly calendar from [BigLifeJournal](https://biglifejournal.com/collections/all). On days when I haven't written, I give myself a heart sticker instead, reminding myself to be kind about it all. I don't anything with this data, though. I rarely ever go back and map that data to see how I can improve and where. I already know what my writing process is like; I just have to accept that I am indeed conscientious enough to sit down and write on days that I can and that it's ok to have days when I'm not able to write. So there really is no point tracking my word count. --- ### buying more and more books on StoryBundle or on Kickstarter, or even downloading free books! Sometimes I go crazy and just buy books from other indie authors in the spirit of supporting them. But I don't actually get around to reading them. What I read are the books I bring back home from the library. Paperbacks and hardbacks. Indie writing off late seems to have completely moved in the direction of fast-paced and wildly entertaining tales. While these are great, I also love the slow, meandering works I often pick up from the library. Still ... I rarely ever go back and re-read a book. And the ones I have on my Kindle from wherever I may have accumulated them, mostly sit unread. I download a bunch of them, without even really knowing the title or the author, and they disappear into some sort of an oblivion on the device. I have access to a lot of books already. I don't need to stockpile more. There will always be plenty of books to read. --- ### putting my books out there for free I'm currently participating in two promotions — one is [*The Hero's Dilemma*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/moraldilemma/lq0gx3vctv) to build my newsletter over on BookFunnel throughout this month, and another is one being run by IASFA for 5 days later this month. I'm not really sure of the merit of giving away my books for free. I read in some other writer's blog about how we indie authors pay for services to give our books away for free in order to find potentially new readers. Is that a good strategy? I don't know. I don't think so. Not in the long run, at least. When I see how I treat the books that I download via free promos (basically forgetting their individual existence and not ever getting around to reading them), I don't think this is a good strategy for me to follow. So anyhoo, after these two promotions, I'll focus on writing and publishing my works instead of announcing too many free promotions in a year. --- ### taking workshops on the craft of writing I'm an intuitive writer. I can't explain to you my process. Nor can I dissect another writer's process or plot and map how they followed a particular structure or didn't. All of that goes over my head and simply makes me worry that I'll never be able to get the hang of this writing thing. Besides, every time I learn about a 'rule', I find a book that simply flouts all rules and still grasps my attention and interest. Anyone trying to teach writing is essentially teaching how they have understood it. It need not necessarily be the way I understand or appreciate it. Instead of trying to force-fit others' teachings into my brain, which simply seems to want to reject all of these, I think I'd learn a lot more if only I wrote a lot more. --- ### worrying about making money from my writings This is probably the most important one. I was thinking back to the time when I got into writing, inspired by the writings of Neil Gaiman and Erin Morgenstern. Making money was never the objective. Just as how reading their tales touched something deep inside my soul, I too wanted to tell tales that would touch the hearts and souls of many readers. I came to it from a spirit of service, of sharing. Of creating tales and delighting readers. Money, fame, status ... those were hardly in the picture back then. Somehow trying to chase that by looking at this writing journey as a business has been very difficult. It has come at the expense of joy and delight in writing. It has come at the expense of writing itself. How many days have I lost to cursing this endeavour as a waste of time simply because it didn't show any promise of yielding riches in a timeframe that was convenient to me?! Every time I turn around and ask KrA, "Is it alright if I never make money from my writing?", he gives me the same, steadfast answer. "Of course," he says with a wide, compassionate smile on his face. So there ... I am indeed very lucky that we have been able to pare down our needs and simplify our life enough to make do with KrA's salary, giving me the freedom to write and publish. Let me not ruin it by demanding it make me money or by imprisoning myself into some made-up rules of productivity and output. One thing I'd do well to remember is that quote from the Bhagavad Gita: You are entitled to your actions, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your labour. Just because I spend time and effort writing stories doesn't mean the world owes me a dime. The act of writing is its own reward. That was true in the beginning. I've somehow strayed from this truth along the way. I'm now finding my way back to the only nugget of wisdom that matters. So much in this industry is out of my control that I'm better off writing, publishing and investing a certain amount of time and effort to expand my audience without devaluing my work. --- ### other things I've already let go of: social media and trying to submit short stories to magazines Both are too time-consuming to justify the (lack of) results/rewards at this point in time. --- I'm a hard worker, I know that. I also know that I will not work when D is at home; he's this young for only a certain number of years, and I don't wish to look back and feel that I spent all that time away from him. When he's around, I love spending time with him and I feel so lucky that I am indeed able to do so. I cherish these slow, relaxed days, which do us both a world of good. So here's to letting go of the above-mentioned un-necessities from my days and from my life. May this pave the path for more writing and more publishing and more family time, the only three things that matter to me. ### waiting for 'the end' URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/waiting-for-the-end/ Last updated: 2024-03-11T23:58:36.000Z School has been off for March break since Friday and D's at home this week. As happens so often when he's around, I just like to hang out with him and I set aside work for the most part. After the last three days of having fun, I felt the itch to go and write. Not so much an 'itch' but that constantly nagging worry that if I didn't add words to the manuscript, I'd never be able to make money from my books. I made up my mind to go to the library, so I could write without distraction. KrA took D out to play, and I made my way out before they came back. My mind came up with a thousand reasons why this was a bad idea. No one's at home, so why not just sit at home and write? Why spend time and effort getting dressed to get to the library? Eventually, I did get out, knowing that I needed space to focus, which would be impossible once KrA and D got back. All the way from parking the car to getting to my favourite spot in the library, a part of my mind kept going, "I don't want to do this." "Why can't I take a break?" "Why can't I just hang out with D when he's got school holidays?" ... while another part kept counter-arguing, "It's alright," "Only 30 minutes. Just be done with it." "It won't take long. Let's finish this thing and get out of here." > *As though I was executing a solo heist, something that I needed to do quickly and run away and never have to do again in all my life.* > *I have to shake my head and ask myself, How has it come to this?* There was a time when I was so enamoured with writing fiction that I simply kept at it. Obviously that time has long disappeared into the past, and whatever memories remain, I'm pretty sure I'm romanticizing them all. Still, the thrill of writing a tale, of feeling satisfied with simply writing 'The End' and not worrying about what other people thought of it, was as precious as it was fleeting. The desire to make a living from writing came after I wrote my first long*ish* piece of work, a novella, shortly after D was born and I wanted to find a way to 'work', feel useful, feel productive, while also being a stay-at-home mom. That first book paved the way for a longer work — Dying Wishes — which was also a joy to write, as far as I can remember. What I can't remember is when that joy of writing came to be superseded by the disappointment of not selling, not earning money, not gaining visibility in the marketplace? When did that fear of not selling books turn into full-blown financial anxiety, which kept me paralyzed from creating in the first place? Nowadays, I can't help but wonder how long I have to keep writing before reaching some ill-defined financial goal? How long do I have to spend my days like this? When will this end? This question has permeated into every aspect. When will school break end? When will tomorrow's doctor visit end? When will this summer trip we're planning get over? When will this day end? It's as if I'm going through the motions hoping that one day it will all end, hoping that one day I'd do it all for one last time, and then I can rest at last, not worry about having to keep on at it. It's terrifying that I've come to view almost every aspect of life like this, feeling as if I can't do this 'living' thing anymore. Don't worry — I'm not at all suicidal. I'm simply terrified at how I've been getting through the days off late, languishing, feeling less and less excited about present moments and even future plans, feeling overwhelmed about all the work that needs to be done, feeling as if this never-ending to-do list will simply remain never-ending! --- I'm not alone in feeling this way, it's easy to tell simply from the countless coaching and mindset (and manifestation!) programs that have sprung up in this industry, notwithstanding the fact that those who teach these courses themselves openly succumb to burnout and doubt and despair just as often as the rest of us. I read a very interesting quote recently, and I'm only paraphrasing it here: > *It's only in my profession (of the arts) that you get paid much more to talk about it than to actually practise it.* Too bad I can't remember who said this or where I came across this quote. I read it very recently and I remember reading it aloud to KrA, who burst into laughter when he heard it. Because it's so true. As a form of art and craft, writing has been dissected in so many different ways, as though everyone is trying to figure out that unsolvable mystery at the kernel of it all. What makes for a good book? What counts as great storytelling? But all these are lenses through which people view the world. The author of a particular plot structure, as well as those who buy into this, are simply viewing the world of writing based on the framework of that structure they've come up with, the one that helps them understand this art form in a way they can describe and replicate. Having a formula gives us a feeling of certainty, even if there are a thousand different formula in the marketplace now. Because the alternative is so scary. What if we can never finish writing a book? What if, having completed one book that was well received, we're unable to write another one like that? What if we can never replicate our success? What if we never find success in the first place? What if success remains elusive to us all our lives? --- Over and over again I keep coming back to this realization, that so much of life is simply out of my control. The only thing I have right now is this present moment and what I do with it. Do I spend this moment lamenting past decisions, feeling terrified about an unknown future, hopelessly wishing life was otherwise, anything other than what it is now? Or do I spend this moment building a strong relationship with myself, focusing on the steps I can take now, on the quality of time I spend writing or hanging out with KrA and D? This is a constant practice. It's not a few-minutes-a-day practice of meditating or journaling, although those tools do help throughout the day. It's how we show up for ourselves each moment, the decisions we take — am I going to spend the next 24 hours worrying about something that's about to transpire then or am I going to focus on the task on hand right now and re-evaluate the situation in 24 hours from now? > *The most important spiritual growth doesn't happen when you're meditating or on a yoga mat. It happens in the midst of conflict — when you're frustrated, angry or scared and you're doing the same old thing, and then you suddenly realize that you have a choice to do it differently.* \~ Unknown (I've found this quote on the Internet in so many different places but have been unable to locate the source. If you ever find it, please let me know.) So here's to no longer looking forward to 'The End' but to enjoying the process in the interim, no matter where it leads or what the outcomes are. ### the hero's dilemma! free fantasy & sci-fi books in march URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-heros-dilemma/ Last updated: 2024-03-01T15:19:18.000Z Isn't life full of choices and dilemmas? All the what-ifs and could-have-beens? Does your character have to make a hard decision? Is there no right answer? Stuck between a rock and hard place? Does the story not pull its punches, but instead forces them to choose? If you like stories like these, then check out the collection a group of us writers have put together. Novels and short stories. Samples including a few chapters. Entire ebooks. There's a wide assortment, and you'll surely find something to suit your taste. [The Hero’s Dilemma: fantasy and science fiction where the characters have to make hard choices!Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/pa242xrw3j/header.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/moraldilemma/lq0gx3vctv) These books are available only until the end of this month! Don't wait to get your copies! [Get fantasy & sci-fi books that make you reflect and wonder! March 1-31 only!](https://books.bookfunnel.com/moraldilemma/lq0gx3vctv) ### remnants of a past life (note 6): the value of the ordinary and mundane URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/remnants-of-a-past-life-note-6/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T00:45:43.000Z It's been a few weeks since my last phase of [decluttering](https://thedreampedlar.com/remnants-of-a-past-life-note-5/). Illness, a busy week sprucing up my website and getting backend things in order ahead of an upcoming promotion (whee!), and getting back deep into the writing cave this week with much joy; all these have kept me occupied. --- Meanwhile, we're going to have new neighbours once again. Almost two years after long-time owners of the townhome in front of ours [moved](https://thedreampedlar.com/an-apprentice-to-sorrow/), their friends who took up residence there are now [leaving](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-limitations-of-language/). They've left in fact. As of this morning, much of which I spent by my window, spying on their comings and goings. The house was mostly empty last night. No one stayed there. Their car park spots were empty. Jana's husband (the elderly father of the household), came by this morning to carry out leftover items and dump them in the back of his Dodge Caravan. He placed the bulk items in the yard. Then he sat on the stairs inside, the door ajar, looking around. What was he contemplating in that nearly empty house? Did he think of his friends, the previous owners, John & Natasha? John has since passed away. Was he remembering him? Or was he merely content to sit there, in waiting, accepting this move as yet another inevitable transition of life, having seen countless of them in his lifetime? Soon his elder son came in a van and hauled the bulk items into it. One last check of the house, then they locked it, and father and son drove away in their respective vehicles. --- Coming back from that aside ... this morning KrA and I were out on our walk, and as we've been doing these past few days, we slipped into feeling a little lost and lonely in our lives, filled with longing for our families and loved ones so far away. (Much of this has to do with the fact that my parents' plans to visit us in summer have fallen through, and the disappointment hurts.) This time we decided to end our conversation a little differently and decided to make the most of what we do have right now instead of moaning about what we don't or fantasizing about all the could-have-been*s* and the could-be*s*. That put us back on the path of decluttering once more. There's a single item (I won't name it now) that we've been meaning to sell or pass on for the past 2—3 years at least. And we just haven't gotten around to doing it. It requires some sprucing up and we were undecided for a long time what to do: spruce it up and then sell it, or try to sell it as it is with the caveat that it'd need some work before it can function as good as new. After we came back from our walk, I started looking up places nearby that could help us spruce up this item. I first reached out to the store we'd bought this item from six years ago, only to learn that their technician has left and they can no longer undertake the necessary work. A little more digging around and now I have an appointment for Thursday morning to meet with someone who could possibly help me. That's a great start! And I'm excited to see what Thursday brings. --- I wanted to share all this to say that ten years ago, or even five years ago, I'd have gone through this process feeling (i) we should have done this sooner, or (ii) what kind of losers were we that we couldn't get around to this, or (iii) why did we even get this thing in the first place? look at all the hassle it's giving us now ... so on and so forth. Essentially cursing the effort we need to put in right now to make something happen. In fact, that's what we did and that pretty much stopped us in our tracks. Which is why that thing is still with us, waiting for us to make up our minds as to how to pass it on! But you know what — THIS is life. Things breaking down. Fixing things. Getting things fixed. Reaching out to people to schedule an appointment. Cleaning our homes. Decluttering. Throwing out the garbage. Cooking a wholesome meal. Shopping for groceries in order to cook a meal. These are the mundane and ordinary things that make up our life for the most part. I blame all these self-help gurus who've proliferated in the past few years for ruining the value of the ordinary things in life. With their slogans such as 'Seize the day' or 'Live an extraordinary life' or 'You're meant for more than this' or 'You deserve much more than this', we've all fallen into the trap of thinking that a simple, ordinary day spent working hard to earn a living in order to provide for our family is something to feel despondent or even ashamed about. Culture makes it sound as if the only exciting way to live is if we're taking flights to all sorts of places across the globe, signing multi-million/billion dollar business deals, clinking cocktail glasses with the who's who of society. But behind those moments of limelight are the countless failed negotiations, the people reached out to, the emails sent, the days filled with meetings, days spent hunched over the computer figuring out the next best strategy ... none of which are probably even half as exciting as what we see on the outside. --- One of the things that mindset coaches often suggest to change our lives is to start by cleaning up our space. First, our wallet. Then, our closet. Our room. And so on. I'm finally beginning to see the wisdom in this. When we get down to the doing the dirty work, we are no longer afraid of it. We are no longer overwhelmed by the thousand random and completely unexpected things that come up in the process of trying to resell/pass on one single piece of item. This is what it means to take responsibility for our lives. If there's clutter lying in a room, it's our job to go there, dig through it, sort what's required and what's not, decide what to keep and what to throw, and proceed to act upon those decisions. I heard this saying a long time ago: > Those who cannot look after the small things cannot be trusted to look after the big things too. If we cannot attend to the small annoyances that nag us in our everyday lives, we're simply not capable of attending to the countless small and big annoyances that will definitely crop up when we undertake larger projects. We may delude ourselves into believing that we'd show up as very different people, as some fantasy all-powerful version of ourselves, when entrusted with the big opportunities and responsibilities. KrA and I sometimes fall prey to the delusional thinking that if only we had a newer build, a nicer house, we'd feel like caring for it better than we care for our current home. But that's not true. At the first sign of trouble, we'd start to whimper and crumble, instead of automatically rolling up our sleeves and getting to work, a skill that only gets better with practice. It is in repeatedly tackling the mundane and the ordinary that we begin to find the extraordinary. Without this practice and insight, even if given the extraordinary, we'd find ourselves reducing it to something worthless anyway. So here's to feeling gratitude and taking pride in where we are in this present moment. It's all part of a journey. And it doesn't matter where that journey takes us. What matters is how we respond to the life situations that come to us? Can we show up as the best versions of ourselves even in situations we're inclined to dismiss as mundane and ordinary? Can we see how priceless these experiences are even if culture dismisses them as a waste of our precious lives? Here's to embracing the ordinary moments of our lives and showing up to these moments with deep presence and complete involvement! ### Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/mrs-dsouzas-dispute-with-god-released/ Last updated: 2025-02-25T17:35:52.000Z I have a new fantasy short story out! It's titled *Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God*. [![ebook cover of Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God featuring a blue-faced portal and silhouettes of people walking through it](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/8.-Mrs.-D-Souza-s-Dispute-with-God-1.jpg)](https://books2read.com/Mrs-DSouzas-Dispute-With-God) > *Two things were annoying Mrs. D’Souza. One, the fact that she was dead. And second, the line of dead folks waiting to meet their Maker was insufferably long and impossibly docile.* > > *Restless and teeming with questions, she decides to take matters in her own hands and sets out to find God. Not a big deal, really.* > > *Except for one small thing. How do you seek someone when you don’t even know what they look like?* This is a story very close to my heart. It began with the idea of a strong woman who has died and gone to an in-between place where she finds people waiting to meet God. But she insists on seeing him at the earliest, and creates a lot of ruckus in the process. Fantasy. Questions about death and life. And a God. All the thought-provoking elements you've come to expect from my writings find full expression in this tale. Both the ebook and paperback are available on Amazon. They will go up on other retailer platforms soon. [Get your very own copy of Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God!](https://books2read.com/Mrs-DSouzas-Dispute-With-God) ### turning inwards: the true north URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/turning-inwards-the-true-north/ Last updated: 2024-02-25T18:37:07.000Z I'm a little terrified of saying this out loud, but in all these years of writing I keep coming back to this one undeniable truth: that I have to listen to my own voice and my own wisdom over the clamour of others' loud opinions. This sounds like sane advice, one that I shouldn't be worried of stating out loud, but what my inner voice is telling me is that reading and writing stories help me improve my craft far more than any courses or workshops or motivational videos out there. And so I'm making this decision to turn away from all discussion 'about' writing to focus on the writing itself. --- Let me explain this a little more. At around this time last year, I [quit](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-most-important-thing-i-learnt-by-quitting-social-media/) social media. I have since recreated my account over on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/thedreampedlar/) just to maintain a presence on the Internet in case someone goes looking for me. (And a long-lost friend did reach out and reconnect over the holidays, so that turned out to be a grand decision anyway!) I rarely head over to Instagram though, I don't even have the app on my phone, so I'm happy to maintain this minimal presence without much engagement. The reason I quit social media was because in the months preceding that decision, I used to mindlessly make my way to FB — even before I'd realize it, my fingers would type face... and auto-fill would do the rest. Once there, I'd check my feed, check any updates on the different writers' groups I was part of, and I'd leave only once I was satisfied there wasn't any important, life-shattering update and discussions on it that I may have missed out on. It was a very mindless and time-consuming act. 5 minutes of FB inevitably meant 1 hour, even if there was nothing remotely interesting going on. Even after I deleted my accounts, my fingers would automatically type face... when I opened the browser. It took a few days to overcome that habit. I find myself in a similar pattern now. 1. Every morning, I check the blogs of certain writers I follow. Most days, there's nothing interesting. On occasion, there may be a nugget of wisdom. But in anticipation of those rare nuggets, I keep heading over to their websites with daily regularity. When there's nothing new — or just promotional info — I come back feeling a little deflated, more lonely than before, and definitely less confident about sitting down and writing. 2. There was another writer as well whose blog I used to follow religiously. Until one day, I dared to express an opinion he didn't like and he blasted me in a response comment, then went on to write a post the next day deriding my opinion at great length. Naturally, I went there one last time to say something along the lines of "My words were misconstrued. Perhaps this is too limiting a medium to discuss this topic at length." I never went back. There's no excuse for treating another human being meanly. 3. I also used to check email every so often with a little desperate addiction, until I decided to put off doing until the afternoon. Still, there are many days when I reach for the phone or check email to make sure I haven't missed anything important. 4. Off late, I've been spending a lot of time on YouTube, with great longing, waiting for an author I follow to post a new video on one of their two channels. They do post once a week on both of their channels, and their videos are great. But truth be told, after I've spent 30—40 minutes watching their videos, I don't feel any more good or certain about my process. In fact, I just feel sad at the time I could have spent writing or reading instead. So these are just a few examples of the kinds of addictions that have crept into my days in lieu of social media. I don't regret the time I spend reading a good book. Of course, when that reading time comes at the expense of writing time, then it doesn't feel good. It's the same with writing workshops or classes. 1. A lot of the technicalities discussed just go over my head. 2. Or I can understand them in the context in which the instructor is explaining them but then I fail to see/apply the same rules/suggestions to my own work in progress. 3. And then I come across a great book in which none of these rules are followed and that book turned out to be amazing anyway. When someone asked this question of a very senior and successful writer I used to follow, the latter's response was "Clearly that author did something that kept you hooked. Study them and see what they did. Remember there are no rules in writing." Well, if there are no rules, then what are instructors trying to teach? 4. In many workshops, the only feedback I've received has been something along the lines of "This is great. You understood the concepts well and were able to apply them in the assignment." That again leaves me with little clues as to what to do when I'm on my own. 5. Then I look at the books I wrote before I got into doing workshops and classes, and see that many have 4-star or 5-star reviews! --- Given these contradictions, I keep coming to the same conclusion over and over again. That all I need to do is sit down and write. It's an art. It's subjective. Some may like it. Some may not. There is no formula to ensure that my next book will have the same effect on readers that my previous book did. Even if I did write exactly the same way every single time (although I have no way of analytically describing how I write, so there's no way to tell if I replicated something or not the second time around), people change all the time. Their interests and maybe even the amount of time they have to spend on reading change all the time. Heck, I don't read the same kinds of books all the time. Even if an author has 20—30 books in a series, I don't necessarily read all of them. Writing and reading are such capricious things, how can we nail them down with the precision of a mathematical formula? --- Yet, I'm terrified. I've decided to only focus on writing my words and publishing my works. Instead of spending time on others' wisdom and opinions, on their experiences, on their views of the industry and how it's changing, on how they approach their craft, I'm really better off spending my time writing to learn more about myself, my work and my process and reading to learn more about storytelling alongside. I suspect the reason they share their insights too is to clarify their own world-view of this life and work they find themselves in the midst of. I definitely feel scared to turn away from all this because I still worry there may be some magic pill on the outside that I'd find if only I kept looking. Like how I used to scroll through FaceBook. Or check email. Or check other writers' blogs to learn what worked for them and wonder and hope their processes would work for me too. It's scary to let go of this addiction. What if, unmoored, I drift away into a darkness of my own making? But staying addicted hasn't been helpful either. So maybe it's time to think differently. For many months now, every time I introduce myself as an author to people I meet, I'd add a disclaimer that it just feels like an indulgence, a hobby I'm squandering my time on, because it doesn't seem to be yielding any monetary results. Sorry, dear writing, for the kinds of dismissive words I've used about you. That was only my own insecurity speaking. It's not an indulgence. It's not a hobby. It's a way of spending my precious, limited time on earth in a way that fulfils my soul. And given that my time is limited anyway, aren't I better off tending to my soul and creating my words instead of scourging for a false sense of fulfillment, that too only temporary, in other's words? I am still uncertain. But just because I'm uncertain, doesn't mean I'm wrong. To borrow from a phrase I heard recently, "Make a decision, and make it the right one!" --- So this is what I've decided. To focus on writing my stories, publishing them, and trying out ways to reach new audiences. To cut out the voices and opinions of others 'about' writing and their process. To trust my own self when it comes to the art and craft of writing. It's as simple as that. If only I can remember to not get distracted. If only I can remember to pull myself back on to my path whenever I get distracted. That's pretty much the definition of living an intentional life, isn't it? > *If I lose my direction, I have to look for the North Star, and I go to the north. That does not mean I expect to arrive at the North Star. I just want to go in that direction.* > *\~ Thich Nhat Hanh* The late monk said the above in the context of compassion. I think it applies to pretty much anything we wish to do intentionally and consciously. There. Now that I've written this down and given myself the gift of disentanglement and clarity, I can set out on my path. I wish for you too the same clarity of vision that will keep you true to yourself and keep bringing you back to the path you're on. Much love! ### February Fervour: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/2024-newsletter-february-fervour/ Last updated: 2024-02-25T13:18:09.000Z Hello, Dreamer! I know you weren't expecting this — I wasn't either — but I have a new little book out! It's a short fantasy story titled *Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God*. How fun and intriguing is that?! [![ebook cover of Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God by Anitha Krishnan featuring silhouettes of people walking into a blue-faced portal](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/3.2.-Ebook-cover-for-website_resized-3.jpg)](https://books2read.com/Mrs-DSouzas-Dispute-With-God) > *Two things were annoying Mrs. D’Souza. One, the fact that she was dead. And second, the line of dead folks waiting to meet their Maker was insufferably long and impossibly docile.* > > *Restless and teeming with questions, she decides to take matters in her own hands and sets out to find God. Not a big deal, really.* > > *Except for one small thing. How do you seek someone when you don’t even know what they look like?* Both the ebook and paperback are currently available on Amazon. They'll go up on other retailer platforms in the coming months. [Get your very own copy of Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God!](https://books2read.com/Mrs-DSouzas-Dispute-With-God) --- The reason for this unexpected but entirely delightful release is that the March edition of the *International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors* [(IASFA)](https://iasfa.org)'s newsletter will contain an introduction written by none other than yours truly! I was super thrilled when the opportunity to write a note to the IASFA's audience came up late last year and jumped at it right away. In it, you'll read all about how I came to write fantasy fiction, how Indian gods, the *Amar Chitra Katha* comics I read growing up, and my favourite authors—Neil Gaiman, Erin Morgenstern, and Christopher Pike—influenced my life and writing journeys. ![pair of black boots atop a flight of blue steps with a poster for Flying Lessons in front](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/bee-felten-leidel-fNtkyfhbaSw-unsplash.jpg) a dash of magic in everyday life | Photo by [Bee Felten-Leidel](https://unsplash.com/@marigard?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/pair-of-black-shoes-fNtkyfhbaSw?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) --- The IASFA is also running a promotion of free fantasy short stories during March 24—28\. *Mrs. D'Souza's Dispute with God* will be featured in the collection. As the promotion period will end before it's time for March's Monthly Missives, I'll send out a short reminder on the 24th. Make sure you're signed up to receive *'News & Updates'* in addition to *'Monthly Missives'*. Alternately, if you'd prefer to only receive the *Monthly Missives*, you can update your subscription preferences accordingly. I've created a little page to guide you on how to make these choices and changes. Check it out! [setting your subscription preferencesAll you need to know to manage which emails you receive from The Dream Pedlar!![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/8.-updating-subscription-preferences_debby-hudson-7XC4teSHtzo-unsplash-2.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/setting-your-subscription-preferences/) --- February has been a mixed month for me. Despite my exhortation in [January's missive](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-january-journal/) to focus on the process and not the outcome, I've been having much trouble following my own advice. I've been feeling the passage of time too acutely to shrug off that sense of urgency such witnessing tends to bring. It's only February, and some of the parents I know have already signed their children up for summer camps in July-August. Some of the camps are already full. Meanwhile, we're still ~~shovelling~~ scraping from our driveways whatever small amount of snow fell last week. It's as if we can no longer afford to spend a season without looking ahead to the next one (and the one after) and preparing for it. So much of the present moment is spent in service of future events that it's hard to not get caught up in either anticipation or anxiety. This makes me want to avoid thinking about the future entirely, let alone plan for it. Which, in turn, makes me realize that what I'm really afraid of is making the 'wrong' decisions. As I was telling my dear friend and bringer of all good things into my life, H, earlier this week, we wish to have a bit of a slow summer, allowing D to spend his days without any agenda, instead of filling up all his weeks with either camps or travel, as most other families around us seem to be doing. When I'm talking with other parents, all my certainty goes out of the window and FOMO shows up roaring wildly. But when I come back and spend some time in the quietude of home, shutting out the noise of the world outside, I once again grow confident and comfortable with the choices we originally made. The following quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson kept coming to mind: > *To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.* But how? How does one remain true to oneself when we're constantly being buffeted by the high winds of others' opinions and choices? ![dandelion florets blown away by the wind](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/2.-saad-chaudhry-YNM4KStg78I-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Saad Chaudhry](https://unsplash.com/@saadchdhry?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/shallow-focus-of-white-dandelion-YNM4KStg78I?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) --- Fortunately, I have an answer to that question this time! Many of you know I'm a big fan of the [BigLife Journal](https://biglifejournal.com), which is an excellent resource for children (and adults too) to develop a healthy attitude and mindset towards life and its challenges. The founder, Alexandra Eidens, runs a weekly podcast for adults with useful mindset tips. In her latest [episode](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ICybGDVGcH9rHdjQYm5Jc?si=d305ae9c182d4740), she shared a quote: > ***Make a decision, and make it the right one.*** > *This simply means that once you've selected your choice, decide it is the right one.* In her latest newsletter introducing the podcast episode, Eidens shared the following: > *We get so caught up in thinking about what we could be missing out on, that we overlook the goodness we've got right in front of us.* > *It's like we're *programmed to believe* our current situation could always be better.* > *We all can learn to enjoy what’s in front of us, the life that we have right now...even if it's not exactly what we dreamt of.* > *Because even if what's in front of us is NOT what we want for our future, it still has the potential for growth, joy, and happiness.* > *So rather than being daunted by the fear of missing out, we can remember *that it’s not so much which choice we’ve made - it’s more about the depth of our experience, and how much we are present in it.** > *\~ Alexandra Eidens, Founder of BigLife Journal* So that, my lovely readers, is the secret to being satisfied with our choices in life. --- How has February been treating you, my lovely ones? Two months into 2024! Are you feeling the passage of time like I do? Have you come up with your own genius ways to cope with it all? Write to me and let me know! You know I always respond to your notes. ![fountain pen and cap on a sheet of paper with cursive writing with black ink on it](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/3.-alvaro-serrano-hjwKMkehBco-unsplash.jpg) Write to me, and I will always write back. | Photo by [Álvaro Serrano](https://unsplash.com/@alvaroserrano?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/black-and-silver-fountain-pen-hjwKMkehBco?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### the ghosts are leaving This is a brand new tale I wrote just a few days ago! I took this picture from my favourite place on earth—the grounds of Paletta Mansion—overlooking Lake Ontario and facing the factories of Hamilton exhaling into the early morning air. How I've missed writing these tiny tales! There are too many stories swirling in my head, and too little time in which to tell them all. There I go again, wishing time would slow down, come to a halt even, and keep me bound to this very moment of happiness. (Now you know why the ghosts are leaving! 🤭) [tales for dreamers: the ghosts are leavingThe ghosts are leaving. But when they’re gone, who will haunt you?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/43.-the-ghosts-are-leaving.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-ghosts-are-leaving/) --- ## Books You May Love Once again, I've had to resort to writing a separate post to list out the amazing books I read this month. One book that deserves a special mention here is *The Museum of Failures* by Thrity Umrigar. A tale of an Indian-American immigrant's dilemma, of family secrets, of the Parsi way of life, all beautifully woven into a heartfelt and touching novel. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/3.-The-Museum-of-Failures.jpeg) I have written about this book and the others I read over here. [books you may love: February 2024A thriller, a mystery, and a heart-warming story of immigration and family secrets![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha Krishnan, the Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/anna-hunko-ajE5goOGzZc-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-february-2024/) --- Time to part again, dear readers! Do you have any special plans for Leap Day? I have none so far; I'd probably spend it doing what I love most — writing and hanging out with D and KrA. The older I grow, the simpler my needs are. Below is a list of what I cherish in life. (Especially, daytime naps!) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/The-real-luxuries-in-life-3.jpg) I wish for you all that you cherish and value in your life too! Until our next rendezvous \~ Anitha ### books you may love: February 2024 URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-february-2024/ Last updated: 2024-02-22T17:23:56.000Z I didn't read as much in February as I did [last month](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-january-2024/), still I'm opting to have a separate post about them because I wanted to share an excerpt from one of the gems I read. ![paperback copy of I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/1.-I-am-pilgrim-copy-1.jpeg) [*I Am Pilgrim*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18144124-i-am-pilgrim) by Terry Hayes is a spy-thriller tome of a book that took me several days to savour. It's a story of many seemingly disparate stories intricately woven together. The blurb of the book says it best, so I will leave you with that. > A breakneck race against time...and an implacable enemy. An anonymous young woman murdered in a run-down hotel, all identifying characteristics dissolved by acid. A father publicly beheaded in the blistering heat of a Saudi Arabian public square. A notorious Syrian biotech expert found eyeless in a Damascus junkyard. Smoldering human remains on a remote mountainside in Afghanistan. A flawless plot to commit an appalling crime against humanity. One path links them all, and only one man can make the journey. *Pilgrim*. Such an exciting book to read. So many different characters from so many different nations and cultures. What a thrilling and entertaining read it was! --- ![paperback copy of Naked in Death by J. D. Robb](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/2.-Naked-in-Death-copy.jpeg) The [*'In Death'*](https://www.goodreads.com/series/41029-in-death) series by J. D. Robb (a pseudonym of Nora Roberts) is a murder mystery/police procedural series of 58 books and counting, set in the near future. Roberts started writing them in the 1990s and set them in the year 2058 at the time. There's flying cars, real coffee has become a luxury, and such other quirks that set this world slightly apart from our own. In this first book, Lt. Eve Dallas is called to investigate a string of murders of escorts. She has run-ins with some very powerful folks, and it all makes for one highly entertaining story! --- And now the book I loved so much this month, because it helped me make sense of my own conflicting emotions as an immigrant in North America, pining for a homeland yet despising aspects of it at the same time. ![paperback copy of The Museum of Failures by Thirty Umrigar](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/02/3.-The-Museum-of-Failures-copy.jpeg) *The Museum of Failures* by [Thrity Umrigar](http://umrigar.com) tells the story of Remy Wadia, an Indian-American from a Parsi background, who goes to Mumbai in the hopes of adopting a child only to find out that his mother has been unwell and hospitalized without his knowledge, not to mention a huge family secret she has kept from him his entire life. Over on her website, Umrigar talks about the inspiration for her book. > The idea for creating a protagonist like Remy Wadia, a successful Indian-American immigrant who is haunted by his past, came to me while watching the 2019 movie, *The Farewell*. After a teary parting from her beloved grandmother Nai Nai in China, the main character, Billi, leaves with her parents for the airport, to make their way back to New York. They watch as Nai Nai stands outside her home waving them goodbye. Leonard Cohen’s great hymn of solace, *Come Healing*, plays in the background as Billi sobs her way to the airport. > *The splinters that you carried* > *The cross you left behind* > *Come healing of the body* > *Come healing of the mind* > Has there ever been a more poetic description of immigration, its pull and push, its promise and its punishment? And does one ever stop carrying those splinters in one’s soul? Can the body and mind ever truly heal from what, in some ways, is the most counterintuitive thing of all—leaving behind those you love? > I felt that scene in my bones, on my skin, my tears merging with those shed by the characters on the screen. I remembered anew that searing pain of leaving behind family and friends, that heaviness with which one departs for the airport, a rending that never gets easier, that hollow feeling of the divided self, transplanted in new soil, yes, but also rooted in another. > I didn’t know the plot to *The Museum of Failures* at that moment. But I carried that feeling with me out of the movie theater and thought that I would perhaps try and capture it in a book someday. > \~ Thrity Umrigar, Why I wrote *The Museum of Failures* It is with this same tender and heartbreaking touch that Umrigar weaves the story of Remy and his parents. The aspects of Parsi life woven into the narrative were warm and inclusive, and it was such a delight to read it all. Off late, I've been wishing we hadn't moved away from India in the first place. My brother and I grew up in India at a time when the most coveted path for growth and success was to secure a degree in engineering and go to the US for higher studies and the promise of a great life. In hindsight, I really wish we had been taught to enjoy the life we had, the family we had, listen to our own true voices, instead of being taught to look forward to *'getting away from it all'*. Because now I really miss my parents, but trying to make a move back to India, a country I haven't even visited in more than a decade now, and making decisions for little D and his schooling and childhood in an completely new place feels so daunting I try not to think about it. Not that I think living in the western world is without its flaws. People are people everywhere, driven by fears and desires. And the places that once called themselves 'developed' and delegated many other nations to the forever 'developing' quota have repeatedly shown us the cracks in their facade. I'm forever caught in this dilemma. On one hand I try to feel grateful for the life we have here. On the other hand, I also feel miserable, being away from my loved ones. For me, being with family has always held great importance (until people start being mean and unkind towards each other in their words and deeds, which is somewhat of an accepted norm in Indian families, although I can't bear that kind of family dynamics anymore!) It's the reason why I moved back from the UK to India back in 2007, because I just didn't like being away from KrA. Anyhoo, I'm rambling. But now you'll understand why this excerpt below from The Museum of Failures resonated with me a great deal! > Remy sighed. "It's the same thing in the US right now, boss," he said. "Everything is 'America first'. They act as if the rest of the world doesn't exist." > "Well, *that's* not exactly new. Remember when we were kids we used to joke that Americans knew more about outer space than about other countries?" > Remy nodded. When he'd arrived in America in 2003, he had been amazed by the display of American flags everywhere, even at car dealerships, and had found such jingoism mortifying. Two years earlier, he'd read about the horror of 9/11 in the *Times of India*, and he'd felt the same outrage as the rest of the world. He'd understood the groundswell of patriotism that gripped the US in the aftermath of the attacks. But in the weeks and months that followed, it became obvious that the tragedy was being used as a cudgel to beat up the weak — the attacks on Muslims and Sikhs in New York, the brown-skinned civilians bombed back to the Stone Age in Afghanistan, and later, the fantastical invasion of Iraq. But what was happening in America today was something Remy could've never foreseen. > Despite it many blind spots, he'd never imagined the US as anything other than extraordinary, unique, the Alphonso mango of nations. Now, for the first time, it seemed ... ordinary. He now lived in a country riven by the same tribalism and hatreds that haunted lesser nations. He had always seen American democracy as a giant oak tree, with roots that went more than two hundred years deep. But it turned out the roots were shallow, held in place by custom and good manners, and all it took to lay them bare was one man who refused to play by the rules of civility and democracy. > \~ *The Museum of Failures* by Thrity Umrigar It's an amazing thing that works of such beauty and deep authenticity exist and are easily accessible in our times. It's easy to slip into a more beautiful world by simply opening up the pages of a heart-touching, soul-stirring book. Thank you, Thrity, for writing such a lovely book. It was a much needed balm for my aching soul. ### tales for dreamers: the ghosts are leaving URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-ghosts-are-leaving/ Last updated: 2024-02-13T17:14:21.000Z The ghosts are leaving in hordes. They are gathering from all corners of the world, corners they’ve spent haunting for aeons, corners where people either learnt to co-exist with them or ran away from, leaving the unpredictable ghosts to their spooks and haunts. Together, they’re making their way away from this world. If you ask them where they’re off to, they’d look vexed, because they don’t really know. But your question will only make them want to get away from here faster. If you ask them why they’re leaving, some may pause briefly to answer your question. “It’s not safe here, anymore,” a little one says. It’s a new ghost, not yet accustomed to the ways of ghosts, let alone that of humans. It doesn’t know fear yet. “Why not?” you ask. “I don’t know,” the ghost shrugs, stumbling a little as its guardian pulls it along in a terrible hurry to get away from this world, from you. “Who will scare us then if you leave?” you persist. The guardian-ghost whispers something to the little one. The little one then turns to you and giggles, “Mommy says you’ve got demons in your own minds for that. You don’t really need us anymore.” ### the trouble with following your own path URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-trouble-with-following-your-own-path/ Last updated: 2024-02-02T13:00:32.000Z The biggest trouble with following your own path is brutal self-doubt, I find. This has been coming up for me in a couple of ways off late. Firstly, as unbelievable as it sounds, several summer camps are already open and up for registration. So parents are scrambling, trying to book their children into camps where their little ones' friends are going. I've been caught up in this frenzy too for the last couple of days. Until D came, patiently heard all the suggestions I was making, and simply said that he didn't care to go to any summer camp this year! WHAT?! Eventually he agreed to consider signing up for half-day sports camps at least, so he'd get some physical activity seeing as KrA and I are unable to provide that kind of physical workout. But only for four weeks. Of the more than 3 months of summer holidays he'll have. 🤷🏽‍♀️ "I don't like being away from home for the full day," he says. At times like these, I feel so so blessed that our home and work life is set up the way it is. With KrA being able to work from home, and me having the ability to be flexible with my schedule, it's really a blessing and a privilege that we're able to accommodate D's need for free-play time to pursue his interests outside the formal structures of school and camps. Yet, there's always that nagging doubt in my head. "Are we doing enough for D?" "Is he doing enough?" "Shouldn't he be pursuing more activities?" "Are we setting him up for success in later life?" "Are we squandering opportunities we ought to be pursuing now to give him an edge as he grows up?" This has sadly become the dilemma of our times. There's this insane pressure to enrol our children in as many activities as possible. It's also to do with the fact that most households have two working parents, very likely both of them working outside the home, and with two or more children to plan for. There's no really option for them but to enrol their children in as many camps as possible before it's all sold out. But ... and this is the reason I consciously chose to be a stay-at-home mom all those years ago ... a rushed lifestyle filled to the brim with activities and constant travelling is not what we want for D. Nor for ourselves. Last term, we made deliberate choices to keep extra-curricular activities to a minimum, so we ended up having our Sundays free. We also didn't take up social invitations to meet anyone on Sundays. And that one day of rest, without any agenda on the plate, ended up being quite rejuvenating for all of us. This term, however, even Saturdays and Sundays have some activities scheduled (because some of the seasonal activities we were looking for D to pursue were sold out, leaving us with only Sundays as an alternative). The constant showing up to events/lessons has been taking its toll on us. So we're determined to not repeat this mistake after March break. Sadly, that FOMO tends to rear its head over and over again. Especially when we parents get together at dismissal or at birthday parties and talk about the endless number of things everyone is doing — from lessons and games to vacations. It's hard to not feel that we ought to be doing all those things too. As always, I turn to Dr. Shefali for her wisdom on this. In one of her videos, she addresses the question that every parent has — what if their child has an untapped potential to excel in a particular field but is never exposed to it in the first place? In all her wisdom, Dr. Shefali assures us (and I paraphrase) that > *Mozart would have found a way to become Mozart no matter what.* The wisdom of this is so simple. If on the one hand we feel our child may be destined for great things, then we can also trust on the other hand that his life will unfold accordingly, ushering him/her towards and/or bringing those experiences to him/her that would enable the child to express their full potential. But, more importantly, perhaps the greatest gift we can give our children is in accepting the vastly ordinary nature of our lives and to be at ease and at peace with that, rather than propelling them in pursuit of greatness, which is almost always an ego trip that we parents are riding and has very little to do with our children's talents and joy anyway. --- The other thing that got me thinking about the trouble with staying on our path is a conversation KrA and I had on our morning walk today. I love my morning walks with KrA. Even though when we fight I threaten him that I'll stop walking with him, I cherish these moments with him too much to ever give it up as long as we both are able and healthy enough to keep going on these long walks. It's also the time when we're able to converse without being distracted by screens or D or by plans to be made and things to be done. Anyhoo, KrA's company announced a round of lay-offs today. Fortunately, his job was not impacted in this round. But in the nearly 3 years that KrA has been with the firm, it has announced as many or more layoffs. We were mulling over this hire-and-fire culture in North America. KrA pointed out how companies, which began to see massive growth during the pandemic, hired a lot of staff to rake in as much profit and market share as they could. And when growth plateaued or declined, they resorted to layoffs. Obviously, human beings have become disposable commodities here. The conversation then led to the wisdom of hiring sprees during short-term booms, knowing well that they'd lead to layoffs in a downturn. Isn't it wiser then to adopt an approach of steady growth? And we realized that even if a lone company in North America decided to pursue the wiser, more sustainable path, they'd be under severe pressure to follow the trend, especially when not doing so means leaving a lot of money on the table in the short term. KrA cited the case of Nintendo whose senior management took pay cuts in a downturn instead of resorting to lay-offs. Their rationale being that job uncertainty doesn't create a conducive environment for workers to be creative and do their best work. Apparently, this is the culture in Japan. How's that for leadership and setting examples and upholding employee morale during difficult times? If a single company in North America were to adopt this attitude, they'd be bucking the trend here. Imagine all the investors screaming at the CEO for not getting them their money's worth! --- The freedom to follow our own path brings with it tremendous challenges and causes us to doubt ourselves at every turn. Especially when we don't see the kind of results others are getting, especially in the short run. It's as if we have to run on this wild, mad belief that the choices we make are the best for us in the long run, even if there's no evidence to back that up in the short term. Requires some suspension of belief, innit? Yet, all it takes is one look at D and the simplicity and strength of his convictions, the kindness and generosity of his heart, and his tenacity in pursuits that matter to him ... and I remain convinced that staying true to ourselves, who we are and what we value, might perhaps be the most difficult thing we do in our lifetimes. But therein lie the most opportunities for our personal and spiritual growth. --- I've made unconventional choices when it comes to career and parenting. Heck, even when it came to marriage. I married KrA at a time when marrying out of caste/state was frowned upon. In hindsight, these were some of the best decisions I made. Even if I let go of any future outcomes or long-term results, I find that my best days are the ones spent aligned with my values, tending to what matters the most to us. Now if only I can remember this whenever I am beset with doubt on this journey of life. --- This quote by Brianne Wiest is what I'd like to keep in my heart as I forge ahead with this newfound wisdom as a writer and a parent and a partner. > *Sometimes you get what you want. Other times, you get a lesson in patience, timing, alignment, empathy, compassion, faith, perseverance, resilience, humility, trust, meaning, awareness, resistance, purpose, clarity, grief, beauty, and life. Either way, you win.* ### remnants of a past life (note 5) URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/remnants-of-a-past-life-note-5/ Last updated: 2024-01-31T19:53:47.000Z Sometimes, decluttering is not just for the objects gathering dust in the basement or the attic. Oftentimes it's got to do with clearing out stuff and thoughts that clutter our day-to-day spaces and life. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/15.-Pile-of-books-2.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/16.-Pile-of-books.jpeg) I returned to the library a total of 20 books today, all unread. These books have been lying not on the shelves but on the very daybed you see in the pictures. This daybed is in my workroom. I didn't realize it but seeing all those unread books piling up had begun to irk me. Book hoarding is one of my addictions. Earlier (about a decade ago), I used to buy books. When we left from Singapore, we decided against carrying our book collection. By then, I was a Kindle addict. I only carried with me a few treasured paperbacks — Neil Gaiman's works, *The Night Circus* by Erin Morgenstern, and a handful of other titles. While I don't buy as many books now, every time I go to the library I fill my bag with several new titles. All with good intentions of devouring them. But there are only so many hours in a day. And if I'm not careful, reading ends up taking place at the expense of writing, and that's not a happy place for me. So anyhoo, the books had been piling up. I've been sick the last couple of days, just coughing and getting body chills, feeling super tired and unable (unwilling) to think much. I haven't gotten to the writing desk in almost a week now. But this morning, I was determined to start clearing the decks, in the hopes that I'd be able to get back on track tomorrow. Even though I haven't recovered, I'm quite sick of waiting to get better. Also, I needed some fresh air and a change of scenery. Under such circumstances, what better place to head to than the library? --- I don't know if it's do with me being sick, but for the last few days I've been in an awfully negative thought spiral. What stalls me from consistently writing fiction is this nagging worry that I'd never make enough of an income from books. I'd have a good 2—3 days of writing, then that thought would sneak back into my head. And down into a negative spiral I'd go. > *What's the point of this?* > *This is so hard. This is taking so much time.* > *What if this book I'm writing doesn't sell?* > *What if I never make money from writing?* > *What if I spend the rest of my life writing and never make decent money from it?* > *What a waste of time and effort all this would end up being? It feels like an indulgence. I should just get a real job, even if it's one with minimum wage, and forget about writing completely.* And then I'd somehow hit rock bottom, find myself on an upward spiral, get back to the writing desk and build momentum, and feel good about my path for the next few days. Until the next seed of doubt plants itself in my head and down with it I go into the murky depths of despair and desperation. Conventional wisdom has it that when you have more books in your inventory, the odds of sales and earning increases. Then I'm suddenly bogged down by the worry that if writing this one book is taking so much time and effort, and bringing with it so much anxiety, how would I ever live through writing several more? This is what I was referring to in my [newsletter](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-january-journal/) for January, which I sent this past Sunday. (In case you didn't know, [*Monthly Missives*](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter/) is a free newsletter and packed with musings on the creative life.) Anyhoo, this is the dread I was mentioning, the dread I feel when it's time to show up for work, and how that paralyzes me, prevents me from writing, and feeds more fuel to the anxiety that I'm not writing fast enough to be able to make some kind of income from this profession. What a tangle! I do know what the problem is. It's to do with me worrying about the outcome so much that I'm not able to stay focused on the process. Which continues to derail the process and adversely affects the outcome even more, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then how do I continue to motivate myself to keep going, when I'm not seeing the kind of results I hope for? I don't have an answer to this question. Vaguely, I can remind myself that I should focus on the process, not on the outcome. But without striving towards (which means, expecting) a reasonable outcome, investing a lot of time and effort in the process feels like a waste ... like an indulgence ... But the other way to look at it is — one is in the present, the other is in the future. And only one of them really exists in this intersection of space and time. Because when tomorrow itself isn't guaranteed, why am I terrifying myself and squandering precious moments today on imaginary happenings in a distant future? Ephemeral! My word of wisdom for the year. How quickly I forgot that too! --- Now, when I manage to get the thought of the future (and hence, outcome) out of my head, how do I motivate myself to make the most of today? What if I can tie the outcome to the process? What if the outcome is the execution of the process itself? And not the bells and whistles we attach to it, especially the bells and whistles that come from the outside world in terms of views, likes, sales, 5-star ratings and reviews? Not even the bells and whistles we generate internally in terms of how productive we were, how good or bad the product of the process turned out to be? The more time I've spent in the writing industry, the more I can see how subjective it is. Everything is made up of the opinions of others — ratings, reviews, what makes a good story, what makes a good blurb, what makes a good book cover ... every single thing seems to be riding on the collective opinion of the world outside, which in turn is often shifting and quite turbulent. How could I, a small human being, one among millions and billions, possibly influence that? Whether or not people like my writings, whether or not they take the time to let me know, whether or not they'd spread the word about my works to others ... there's no way for me to influence or engineer or manipulate that. Yet, how easily do we blame ourselves when we don't get the results we want, when we don't get the results we're told we'd see if only we worked hard enough and never gave up? How easily do we convince ourselves that we didn't get our desired outcome because we didn't work hard enough and gave up when the going was tough? --- Maybe we are chasing the wrong outcomes. Money. Fame. Status. Prestige. **Maybe what we need to focus on is crafting an intentional day.** I'd say — an intentional life — but that feels like a huge, vague, nebulous thing. I think I can focus on one day at a time. > *A day in which I make choices about work and life based on my values, on what matters to me.* > *A day spent writing and parenting is a great day. A day spent alive and healthy is a great day.* > *Just because my books aren't being read by millions doesn't make them any less worthy. Just because we live an ordinary life doesn't make it any less valuable.* I'd sometimes say to KrA, "A good day for me is one in which I haven't shouted or been angry or anxious. Isn't that too low a bar to settle for?" Actually, it is quite a high bar and, in fact, one of the very few meaningful ones to me. I often realize the value of that goal and outcome only when I overlook it and end up an emotional wreck. So here's redefining my primary goals and outcomes for the year: - Writing and publishing my books. - Spending a lot of fun time with D and KrA. Everything else is really secondary, and not worth distracting myself from my primary goals for. (Phew! Nothing like decluttering and blogging to gain a little clarity on life. 😅) ### January Journal: Monthly Missives from the Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2024-january-journal/ Last updated: 2024-01-28T08:00:40.000Z Hello, lovely Dreamers! How has January been for you, lovely ones? I honestly thought we had another week to go before newsletter Sunday, until the calendar showed me that by this time next week we'd have already segued into February! Time's been a-fleeting. So here I am, on this lovely Friday morning, penning this note to you with much delight. It's raining outside. It's been foggy for the last few days. We've only had one considerable snowfall so far this season; it was earlier this week and allowed D and me to spend an hour after school that evening, flinging snowballs at each other. By the next morning, much of the snow had begun to turn into slush. It feels as though everything has become unpredictable these days. Or perhaps they always were, and we're only now noticing these changes with alarmingly increasing frequency. Which is why this routine of spending a day towards the end of the month writing to you has become even more precious to me than ever before. It's one of the steady, joyful things I look forward to with a periodicity that is rarely to be found in anything else these days in a constantly turbulent world. Thank you for granting me this gift! --- ![open book, a pen and a coffee cup on a brown wooden table](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/1.-yannick-pulver-hopX_jpVtRM-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Yannick Pulver](https://unsplash.com/@yanu?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/open-book-on-brown-wooden-table-hopX%5FjpVtRM?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) I've been deep in my writing cave for most of this month, ever since D went back to school after the winter break. I've been gaining momentum on a manuscript that saw many false starts over the last couple of years. Since October, I've been making steady progress on it. Earlier this month, I thought I'd be writing 'The End' pretty soon. Until the plot twisted all of its own last week and now it appears I'm only one-third of the way through! I'm really excited about this because I haven't written a long book since [*Dying Wishes*](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/) was published almost three years ago. I love immersive stories, both reading and writing them. But this also means it's going to be a bit of a wait until this book is completed and readied for publication. I'm going as fast as I can. In experimenting with my writing speed and the hours I spend at the writing desk, I've found that I'm able to sustain momentum over the long run when I adopt the steady approach of the tortoise rather than the staccato approach of the hare. But whenever there's news on the publishing front, you will be the first to know, as always! Thank you for your patience. --- Alongside this change in my writing habits, I've also been treading a massive mindset shift in how I view tasks. Somehow, over the past couple of years, I had been approaching most tasks (with the exception of sleeping) with an attitude of 'Just get it done', rather than preparing to immerse myself in it for as long as it took. There's a standing joke that writers often share with each other; it's a quote attributed to the late American poet, Dorothy Parker (although there's also a lot of debate on whether this attribution is correct). > *I hate to write, but I love having written.* This attitude seeped into almost everything I undertook: writing, cooking, even spending time with D, school drop-offs and pick-ups. I'd come to dread doing those things unless an external deadline loomed upon me and forced me into action. And I'd heave a sigh of relief when the deed was done, and feel relieved that now, at last, I could try to find something more 'fulfilling' to devote my time and attention to. But what these 'fulfilling' things were, I had no clue. Because at one point of time, writing, reading, and spending time with D and KrA were what defined a perfect day in my life, a day well spent doing what I love. ![image of a person's hand holding a pen over a paper containing a checklist](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/2.-glenn-carstens-peters-RLw-UC03Gwc-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Glenn Carstens-Peters](https://unsplash.com/@glenncarstenspeters?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/person-writing-bucket-list-on-book-RLw-UC03Gwc?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) What I couldn't understand was how the very things that I used to love so much — especially writing and spending time with D — had devolved into much-dreaded items on a to-do list of duties and responsibilities that needed to be checked off at the earliest. > *And then, what?* I didn't know. *And then, what?* When I began to ask myself that question — And then, what? — the lack of a convincing answer was reminder enough that this is it, this is what my life is, a string of moments of writing, reading and spending time with KrA and D and laughing and whooping with delight. Not something that happens in the aftermath of having written, of having spent time with family, of having gotten through the chores of the day. > *Because at the end of a long day, what we do is sleep. At the end of life, what awaits us is death.* --- Much of that sense of urgency, of getting things done and moving on to the next item on the list, comes from seeing how fast the world is changing around us. There's always that nagging thought in my head that I should be writing more, publishing faster, reaching my milestones sooner, or else I'd fall too far behind and never be able to catch up. (With whom? Again, no answer there.) Ironically, that kind of thinking itself is what freezes me in my tracks and keeps me from making progress. Being able to shift my focus away from the outcome and towards the process itself has taken a burden off of my shoulders. Which is why, this time around, I'm not feeling the usual sense of urgency to write faster and finish the book soon, but I'm able to enjoy the process of discovering the story and bring my best writing skills to it. Paradoxically, this way I'm being way more productive on a monthly basis than I've ever been in the past, even if on several days in a given month I feel I haven't done all that I wanted to. ![woman leaning out of a car window and enjoying the wind on her face on a road flanked by mountains](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/3.-averie-woodard-5d20kdvFCfA-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [averie woodard](https://unsplash.com/@averieclaire?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-riding-on-vehicle-putting-her-head-and-right-arm-outside-the-window-while-travelling-the-road-5d20kdvFCfA?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) It is the age-old wisdom of not waiting for some grand future event to transpire before we can begin to appreciate the seemingly mundane and ordinary moments of our day-to-day lives. Then the ordinary itself somehow becomes extraordinary. --- > *Today, like every other day, we wake up empty* > *and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study* > *and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.* > *Let the beauty we love be what we do.* > *There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.* > *\~ The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, 1995* --- Does this resonate with you? Are there spaces of your life where you find you rush through, sometimes with resentment, because there are more important tasks awaiting your attention? Reckon you could take each moment of life as worthy in itself, give it your full attention, no matter what you're doing, no matter how long it takes, instead of viewing it as a hurdle to overcome, or as a stepping stone to some later point in space and time? --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### memory exchange I wrote this tale a couple of years ago, when D was smaller and an eager partner to explore places like this one, the site of the image that inspired the tale below. He's still just as eager, but with school and other activities, our explorations have dwindled somewhat. The [Freeman Station](https://www.freemanstation.ca) was built in 1906 and continued to operate until 1988\. We've never seen anyone in the tiny building there that's supposedly a museum, but it's also been grand having the space to ourselves to explore and leave tracks in the snow. [tales for dreamers: memory exchangeYou are permitted to share your memories at the Memory Junction. Which ones will you reveal? Which ones will you conceal?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/24.-memory-exchange.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-memory-exchange/) --- ## Books You May Love I've been devouring books. Reading like there's no tomorrow. I've completely cut out Netflix from my days, and that has given me so much time for reading several amazing works. Because there are so many great books to share with you this month, I've dedicated an entire post to it. Lots of amazing fiction, and even an utterly endearing picture book for adults! Come take a look! [books you may love: January 2024I usually have a Books You May Love section in my monthly newsletter. Since this month’s section is enormous, it merits its own post! Happy reading!![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/radu-marcusu-mbKApJz6RSU-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-january-2024/) --- Why does newsletter time have to zip past so quickly? Before I go, I must share with you another new development in my world. I've been spending so much time in front of the screen writing, I've been looking for ways to occupy myself off-screen when I'm not writing. I've finally gotten around to decluttering! I've been clearing out stuff that I had been hoarding for years. Traditional Indian wear that I had long outgrown but couldn't bring myself to part with for more than a decade. D's stroller and high chair, both of which we hadn't used in the past five years at least! Decluttering can be an intensely emotional experience, dredging up memories and feelings from the depths of our subconscious. It's also been an exercise in reframing. In shifting perspectives. So I've been doing what I do when I need to regain some clarity and sanity in the midst of a demanding process. I've been blogging about my adventures with decluttering. They are all titled and tagged as '[remnants of a past life](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/remnants-of-a-past-life/)'. (In case you're wondering, my trips down memory lane were mostly responsible for my choice of story for the *Tales for Dreamers* section in this month's edition!) I must bid goodbye now. I shall return with more salve to soothe your soul next month. Until then, please keep Rumi's words close to your heart. > *Let the beauty we love be what we do.* Much love, Anitha ### books you may love: January 2024 URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-january-2024/ Last updated: 2024-01-26T19:46:23.000Z I've been inadvertently making a shift in my reading habits. I haven't touched my Kindle in months! I've only been reading paperbacks. I didn't even notice this until a few weeks ago when I downloaded ebooks from an author whose project I had supported on Kickstarter. But when I began to read one of them, I couldn't bear to stare at the Kindle screen for longer than a few minutes. I read the story to its conclusion and loved it, but I haven't felt like going back to reading on the Kindle ever since. I don't know if this shift in reading habits has been the reason I've read so many amazing books this month. Well, whatever it is, I need not dissect it in an attempt to craft a replicable formula to read more! I just love reading, and I love sharing all these amazing books with you! ![hardback copy of The Forbidden Territory of A Terrifying Woman by Molly Lynch](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/1.-The-Forbidden-Territory.jpeg) [*The Forbidden Territory of A Terrifying Woman*](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62336871) by Molly Lynch is a look at how ecological collapse affects the life of a married woman and mother, Ada. Mothers around the world are disappearing. A few of them return, with no memory of what happened to them when they were gone. One evening, Ada too disappears. She too has no recollection of what happened and why she left, but it most certainly had something to do with the way our planet is being abused by humanity. I loved the premise of this book. It puts into beautiful words the fear I've had ever since D came into my life: What will the earth be like, what will life be like, by the time D grows up? The book touched me in many ways. Lynch describes Ada's feelings very intensely and powerfully. Even though the book doesn't answer the question — who can? — it made me feel less alone in my anxiety about the future of our planet and the kind of world we are leaving for our children. ![hardback copy of Inheritance by Nora Roberts](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/2.-The-Inheritance.jpeg) [Nora Roberts](https://noraroberts.com) is one of the most prolific authors of our times. [*Inheritance, Book 1 of The Lost Bride Trilogy*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65213377-inheritance), was a recent release and the first book by this author I've read. It's a wildly entertaining book. Graphic designer, Sonya MacTavish, finds her fiancée cheating on her with her cousin, and she calls off the wedding she had been making preparations for. A few months later, as she's rebuilding her life on her own terms, she finds herself having inherited a sprawling Victorian mansion on the Maine coast left to her by an uncle she didn't know she had. Turns out her inheritance also includes ghosts who've been living in the mansion for centuries, seemingly bound to it by a curse. It was a fast-paced read. The book ends in a cliffhanger, so now I'm eagerly looking forward to the second instalment in this trilogy! ![hardback copy of No Plan B by Lee Child and Andrew Child](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/3.-No-Plan-B-1.jpeg) Isn't [Jack Reacher](https://www.jackreacher.com/us/) a household name? Wasn't there a movie with Tom Cruise playing Reacher, and more recently 2 seasons of a show with a much larger Alan Ritchson playing the main character on Prime Video? I did know about the books by Lee Child themselves, but it wasn't until this month that I picked up a copy of *No Plan B* from the library shelves. It was my first Reacher book. Apparently it is book #27 in the Reacher series. I tore through it. Supremely entertaining and suspenseful, weaving multiple storylines involving several characters, it was gripping and highly entertaining, like I suspect all Reacher novels are. In this one, Reacher witnesses a homicide, which is ruled death by suicide. He runs after the killer and sees something he's apparently not supposed to. His investigations lead him to a prison in Winson, Mississipi, while the folks who run that prison certainly don't wish Reacher to be anywhere near it. Lots of action in the book. I don't think I've read an action book until now. I even watched the first season of Reacher on Prime Video after reading this book. I can see the appeal. In a world where people are bogged down by possessions and a daily, mundane life, Reacher is symbolic of the ultimate freedom of life. He travels throughout the US in greyhound buses carrying nothing but a toothbrush and an ATM card that he uses to withdraw money as he needs; he's an ex-Army person and lives on his pension as his needs are very minimal. I was once told that 'Fiction is how the world should ideally be.' The Reacher books definitely echo that. There is something very satisfying about reading a story in which the bad guy eventually gets caught and the good guy gets to do it on his own terms, rules and laws be damned. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/4.-AGGGTM.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/5.-Good-Girl--Bad-Blood.jpeg) OMG! How come I didn't come across Holly Jackon's young adult murder mystery series — [*A Good Girl's Guide to Murder*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40916679-a-good-girl-s-guide-to-murder) — before now? In the first book in the series, Pip Fitz-Amobi, a senior at school, wants to investigate a cold case for her final year project. Five years ago, a schoolgirl named Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. But Pip believes Sal is innocent and wishes to prove it under the guise of her final year project. In the second book, *Good Girl, Bad Blood*, Pip runs a podcast based on her exploits in the first book when one of her friends' brother goes missing. She uses the popularity of her podcast to investigate his disappearance. I loved both these books so much! Jackson uses a variety of materials to craft the story — Pip's journal entries, transcripts of her interviews with suspects and witnesses — all of which make for a very interesting read. Oh, and in the process, Pip and Sal's younger brother, Ravi Singh, end up dating. There's something refreshingly endearing about young adult tales. The rashness and recklessness of youth, their nothing-can-stop-us attitude, and of course the promise that the mystery will be solved — all of this makes for one grand, adventurous escape from the unfairness and monotony of day-to-day life. I've just got the third book in the series, *As Good As Dead*, and I can't wait to start reading it! ![hardback copy of Am I Overthinking This by Michelle Rial](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/6.-Am-I-Overthinking-This-.jpeg) [*Am I Overthinking This?*](https://www.michellerial.com/am-i-overthinking-this) by Michelle Rial — I picked up this book on a whim, not knowing what to expect. I leafed through it while I was waiting for one of Dhruv's activity classes to get over. Boy! What a delight it was to go through this book at leisure. Rial uses visuals — mostly graphs and charts and Venn diagrams — to humorously illustrate the day-to-day anxieties of modern life. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/6.1.-AIOT-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/6.2.-AIOT-1.jpeg) And one of my all-time favourites ... ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/6.3.-AIOT-1.jpg) It's a delightful book to flip through with a mug of coffee or hot chocolate or tea in one hand. So there, those are the amazing books I've managed to finish reading this month. If you pick up any of these to enjoy, let me know, will you? And we can share all that we love about these beautiful creative works! ### remnants of a past life (note 4) URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/remnants-of-a-past-life-note-4/ Last updated: 2024-01-26T17:54:45.000Z Wheeeee! Finally, the job is done. Finally, finally, I cleared out the Indian clothes — mostly salwar kameezes — that had been lying in storage for more than a decade and that I had long outgrown. --- So, let me begin at the beginning! Although I'm not really sure what the beginning really is. All I know for certainty is that, at least since 2014, the year we moved to Canada, I've not had much opportunity to wear traditional Indian clothes. For a few years preceding that, when we were in Singapore, I did enjoy wearing my dressy salwar kameezes quite often. I could wear them to work. I'd wear them on our Sunday evening temple visits. But since we moved to Canada, I've had little use for them. The last I wore them was perhaps during a Diwali party in 2014\. I even lent one of my suits to a classmate. After that we went to Australia for a bit, and we put all those clothes and many other things in a storage unit here, paying some 100 bucks a month for the next couple of years to store stuff we didn't have any use for. The mind is truly boggled! When we moved to Burlington, we had space in the basement, so we didn't need to keep paying for a storage unit to house our stuff. We brought all the boxes and dumped them in the basement instead. Where it has all stayed for the last six years. Occasionally, we'd rummage through the boxes. Usually searching for traditional wear on the occasion of Diwali. And coming away disappointed, because they had grown too tight. Yet, I kept them mainly because I didn't know where to dispose off Indian clothes. I didn't want to put them in a donation box, because if there's no market for it, the thrift store is likely to dump all these clothes in the landfill anyway. I've often dreamt of putting them all in one suitcase and hauling them to India to dump them at my parents' place and ask them to pass them on there. I also looked up how much it would cost me to ship a carton full of clothes to India. Canada Post gave me a quote of $500! Even the clothes themselves are not worth that much. In my latest newfound obsession with decluttering, I looked up reddit forums to see where people in GTA (Greater Toronto Area) took to donating their Indian wear. And I came across [Talize](https://talize.com), a thrift store. Both their Mississauga and Brampton locations confirmed over phone that they accept donations of traditional wear. Buoyed by this find, I set about tackling the more difficult part of the decluttering. Readying the clothes I needed to pass on. --- I approached this task on [Tuesday](https://thedreampedlar.com/remnants-of-a-past-life-note-2/), high on the joy of having passed on D's stroller and high chair on [Monday](https://thedreampedlar.com/remnants-of-a-past-life-note-1/). I had anticipated it to be a bit of an emotional journey, and that helped me in a way. So many feelings came up. As I pulled out each suit, I remembered the joy of going shopping with Mom, back in Pune mostly, and buying several unstitched sets of cloth. Then we'd go to a tailor, who'd measure me, ask me to choose a neck pattern, and promise to deliver the stitched suits within two weeks or so. Appa would happily stand outside the store on these occasions, waiting patiently for Amma and me to finish our purchases. He'd then come in to whip out his credit card or wallet to pay for our indulgence. 😊 It was always a joy wearing new clothes. This is one thing I've missed from India. Access to so many varieties and colours of clothes. I've struggled to find good quality, colourful and reasonably priced clothes outside of India. [Laura](https://www.laura.ca) is the only place I go to now to buy tops here in Canada. It has lots of colours and designs. Feeling the soft fabrics in my hands, cottons and silks, admiring the intricate embroidery, brought on a strong feeling of nostalgia. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/10.-Salwar-Kameez.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/11.-Salwar-Kameez.jpeg) Look at all those grand colours! Because, alongside all those feelings of joy, I also remembered how rural I used to feel in my lovely salwar kameezes when I was in the company of anyone who was wearing jeans and tops. I don't know why I used to feel that way, but the shame and embarrassment I felt at loving something I felt was so rural, so traditional, was pretty intense. Funny really. A friend of mine once decided that she wouldn't have babies simply because it was expected of her to have one after marriage. I said, "Isn't that also a way of succumbing to stereotypes?" Reckon that's how it was for me. I loved Indian suits yet I also rebelled against them because they were upheld as symbols of modesty and propriety. --- I also added to the donation set three sarees, all of which were made of this very fine, translucent material — chiffon, I think — which just doesn't wear well on me. Two were from KrA's side of the family, gifted to me on my wedding and on a later occasion, so I had been reluctant to pass them on. But seeing as they'd never get worn lying in a box in the basement, I cleared them out too. --- I was a little nervous about driving up to Mississauga all by myself on the highway. I had mistakenly assumed this would be the first time I'd drive by myself on the highway, without either KrA or D for company. I was wrong. My first solo highway drive was to Hamilton, many years ago, in a pre-pandemic world, when I had gone in search of a Buddhist meditation centre there. Last summer, D attended two weeks of summer camp in Hamilton, and that saw me driving to and fro for drop-offs and pick-ups. Yet, I was very unsettled since last evening. Naturally, I didn't get to the writing desk this morning. As soon as the morning traffic had cleared, I made my way to Talize Mississauga, allowing Spotify to play a medley of songs for me to listen to on the way. Once there, I simply placed the four bags of Indian clothes into the donation box outside the store. Down they went into the bin, ready to be taken out and put up on display in the store, where hopefully someone would like to buy and use them as fondly as I did. I went into the store to see what it was like. It was insanely huge! Impossibly high ceilings made the area look even more spacious. Countless clothes were very neatly organized on rails. There must have been more than a couple of hundred such rails of clothes throughout the store. They also had purses and handbags, shoes, scarves, and whatnot. I located the rails of Indian clothes and was very happy to see it was well-stocked. A kurta was selling for $9.99\. Deed done, I got back into the car and came straight back home and enjoyed a lavish lunch of rice and rajma that KrA had cooked in the morning. Then came up here to record this. --- I still have to discard blouses of sarees that no longer fit me. I have many cherished sarees but I've sadly outgrown most of the blouses. Even unravelling the outer rows of stitches hasn't loosened them enough to fit me. But I was too tired this morning to try them on and see which ones fit and which don't. I probably have less than 10 blouses, so that can be a task for another day. Who knows? Someday, when I go to India I could take these sarees along and buy well-fitting blouses for me. Or perhaps I'd feel like indulging in shopping with Amma for old times' sake, buy fabrics for salwar suits, and get them stitched. --- The joy is not in those clothes I passed on today. The joy is not even in the memories they evoked. The joy is in my having experienced those beautiful moments of connection with my parents and myself back then. The joy is in this very moment of life that I am experiencing right now. The only moment that makes up reality for that instant, which is how long it lasts! ### remnants of a past life (note 3) URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/remnants-of-a-past-life-note-3/ Last updated: 2024-01-24T19:28:41.000Z Today's been a rather domestic kind of day. Writing was surprisingly hard this morning. Even body doubling didn't help. I pushed myself to sit through a half-hour sprint, managed to get a few words in, then got away from the screen after that. Then a walk with KrA through the icy slush that all of yesterday's snow has now turned into. Then a trip to the Indian grocers' to buy vegetables. Then cooking. Okra and bottle gourd on the menu this evening. Now here to record this snippet of my life. Tomorrow I intend to undertake a bit of a drive to dispose off some items I sorted yesterday. I've put them in a carton but I'll need to break them into smaller bags to make it easier on my back (which behaves these days as though it belongs to someone twice my age). Let's see how that goes. I like to finish a job 100% in one go. But the one I'm currently doing will require a couple of trips or more. It's not going to happen all in one day. I'm learning to cultivate patience, not frustration. Decluttering can also be a heavily emotional work, especially when it comes to stuff we've been holding on to for sentimental reasons for more than a decade. Going through them brought a lot of memories and emotions, some nice ones, but not all of them were pleasant. Regret. Grief. Wishing things had transpired differently. Wishing I had shown greater appreciation for what I had then. Wishing I had been happier. Wishing I had known how to. Sometimes I wish I had been kinder or the other person had been so. Well, I can't control the other person, so then I turn on myself and start wondering if I could have been more compassionate, felt less threatened, didn't feel the pressure to prove myself and seek approval and validation. But now I see, I did the best I could at that point in time. So did the other person. Now that I know better, I really ought not to be judging my past self from the vantage point of my present self. So onwards. Tomorrow, I'll make the trip and come back here to tell you all about it. *To be continued ...* ### remnants of a past life (note 2) URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/remnants-of-a-past-life-note-2/ Last updated: 2024-01-23T18:27:25.000Z I think this happened when I was in Grade 1 (or 1st standard, as it was called in India where I grew up). I hated going to school. Every morning, my mother would drop me and wait with me at the assembly line, like most other parents did, and leave when the assembly was about to begin. Her imminent departure always left me in tears. One such morning, I wrapped the *pallu* of her saree around me and refused to let her go. My class teacher came over to me and said, "Do you wish to wash clothes and dirty dishes for a living when you grow up?" "No," I said, those being household chores that maids undertook, not the people living in the house themselves. "Then get in line," said the teacher. I obeyed her, fearfully, tearfully. To provide a little more context, growing up in India we had maids for every chore you could think of. To sweep and mop the house. To clean the toilets. To wash clothes and hang them to dry. To wash the dirty dishes. While it was mom who cooked, you could get the maid to cook too. (I grew up in a time where most middle-class women were still stay-at-home moms. All that changed with my generation.) My teacher's implication was that if I didn't go to school, then I'd end up doing menial tasks like being somebody's maidservant. That was considered way down the success ladder and no way would any respectable, school-going child aspire to something like that. Naturally, in a culture like that, I grew up with a strong disdain for household chores. My attitude was that someone as well-educated as me, topper of my class, gold-medalist, and awardee of so many certificates for excellent performance, ought to devote my time and attention on solving bigger problems in the world. Not on keeping my household in order. There'd be other, less educated people to do those lowly tasks. Obviously, this kind of thinking landed me in a lot of trouble! When KrA and I moved abroad, where maids were not as easily and inexpensively available as in India, we struggled with learning how to look after our household. I moaned a lot about having to do chores around the house. They were essential tasks to be gotten over with as quickly as possible, to make space for more important, more world-changing stuff. Only a couple of years ago did I gain a radically different perspective on household chores. I think it was in Julia Cameron's The Artist Way that I found this perspective. Or perhaps it was somewhere else. But I clearly remember the writer saying something along the lines of this: > *Cleaning your kitchen shelves is an act of self-care. Purging and organizing helps create a clean kitchen for you to enjoy cooking* and *baking in, to* nourish *your body.* Those lines blew me away. I had never looked at the acts of cleaning my home or cooking or doing the laundry and folding clothes as acts of self-care. I had always considered them an utter waste of my time and an insult to my supreme intelligence! --- Strangely, when little D came along, my brain turned upside down and I couldn't fathom a more important task than looking after him. In fact, I remember my mum telling me of a remark that a family friend had apparently made at my brother's place (after his child was born): "You all are so highly educated and yet here you are, changing a child's diapers." I promptly said to my mom, "But that's the most important thing. Looking after your child." For me, changing D's diaper, dressing him, feeding him — these were never tasks to be rushed through and gotten over with. I rarely ever looked at my phone while nursing him. I used to have a lot of conversations with him, or sit together in companionable silence. Those are still some of my most beautiful memories of D's infancy. It was not easy to shed that prejudice though. In the initial years I spent with D, even though I loved being with him and would never have chosen otherwise, I was always beset by the nagging thought that I was wasting my time and that I should be doing something more productive and useful in life. That thought came back in a more dramatic fashion more recently when I was convinced that I had to spend more and more time writing in order to have more books in the market and increase sales and income, and that I had to sacrifice family time to achieve this. There are only so many hours in a day, after all! I came to resent weekends and school holidays, because naturally I wanted to spend time hanging out with D whenever he was around, and in the same breath I'd be overcome with anxiety over all the work I was not doing but ought to have been doing instead of 'wasting' time at home. Fortunately for me, I feel like I'm coming back to my senses now. Being with KrA and D has always been very important for me. I now have a schedule that honours this while also allowing myself plenty of time to write in a consistent, sustainable fashion. The illusion that I could write more if only I had more time is simply that: [an illusion](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-addiction-to-struggle/). Now that I've taken up a new hobby of decluttering, I had the time today to revisit my past attitude towards this essential task. Like every other menial chore, I kept putting it away, thinking that I was somehow too good for it. Now that I've gotten into the thick of it, I can see what an ego-busting exercise this is. --- I didn't sleep well last night. I fell asleep beside D at 8 PM, too early for me, so I woke up at midnight and couldn't go back to sleep until about 4 AM. I managed to squeeze in a WhatsApp chat with mom in the dead of the night. Yet, I managed to push through my 2 writing sprints for the morning. When I wanted to give up halfway through the second sprint, I went looking for the [Heart Breathings Writing Community](https://heartbreathings.com/heart-breathings-writing-community/) and managed to join the last 20 minutes of a live sprint being hosted by one of the volunteers. That body doubling was amazing for me, and I raced through those 15 minutes I was earlier struggling with, with much ease. It has been snowing all morning, so we couldn't head out on our morning walk. I reckon we'll finally get to use our shovel after all for the first time this season. So I sauntered down to the basement and continued rummaging to take stock of item #2 on my list of stuff to be passed on. Lot of emotions. Lot of processing. Lot of letting go. And plenty of freedom and joy to be found in the process. So before I leave for today, let me tell you how much I've come to love doing household chores. Oh, what joy lies in touching tangible things, something other than the keys of my laptop, and in creating clean uncluttered spaces! As long as I don't have to do them too often, because I am someone who gets bored very easily, very quickly! Which is why decluttering is the perfect hobby for me. There's always a new bunch of items to be dealt with every so often! *To be continued ...* ### remnants of a past life (note 1) URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/remnants-of-a-past-life-note-1/ Last updated: 2024-01-22T20:12:22.000Z I don't have a hobby. Writing *used to be* my hobby back when I had a day job or when D was a little infant. But now writing is what I do for a living, so I no longer consider it a hobby. Reading, also, I don't consider as a hobby even though I read a whole lot. Reading makes me a better writer, so I put the two in the same basket of learning and improving my craft while deriving great fun and enjoyment from it. When D is at home, I hang out with him. (Or worry about not working and moan about having to hang out with him and not being able to write. 🙁) When D is away at school, once I've gotten my writing and reading done, I'm usually mostly wasting my time on the Internet. Reading what other writers have written, listening to what they say on YouTube videos, wondering how to improve my productivity so I can write more and sell more. Or checking email a hundred times. Like I said, wasting time on the Internet. I've started many things — paint by numbers (I bought a series of six small paintings and D took such great interest in it, he finished four of them in a single day! KrA finished one that day. And the one that I had started, I'm yet to complete it!) I started to hand-knit a blanket for D two years ago. He's been growing, and I feel I'd never be able to build a large enough blanket, so that too is a suspended project. I once bought a cross-stitch kit. It didn't hold my interest for long, and eventually I put it in a donation bin. What else? Last year I tried my hand at gardening, and realized I didn't care much for it either. The weeds are way too persistent and resilient for me to be able to keep up with them! KrA did the bulk of the work, and I reckon it's something he's looking forward to this year as well. I'm happy to assist him (in the most minimal way possible.) I cook. Occasionally. KrA is the main chef at home, keeping us all well fed. Once in a while, usually for Wednesday dinners or the occasional weekend meal, I saunter into the kitchen to cook and not just to eat or make coffee. I don't care much for 'making' more things. There are already plenty of material things in the world, and apart from writing and publishing books (even if both ebooks and paperbacks), I don't feel drawn to creating more material things to let run amok in this world. But off late, I've been feeling depressed about the sameness of life, the monotony of the daily grind. It's all been a bit heavy, dragging me down. We deep-clean our home once every fortnight. Cleaning the bathroom is my domain. I love it when the toilet goes back to being sparkling clean. It is a very satisfying feeling. But I don't intend to undertake this cleaning more often though. So coming back to having a hobby, I didn't want anything that involved screens and kept me isolated either. I felt the need to work with something real, something tangible, something in which I could get to talk to people, in person, in real life, even if only for a brief period of time. And then an idea struck me last evening. --- I don't know where the brilliant idea came from, but I decided to head to the basement and start decluttering. Not right away. Not all in one go. But slowly. One little thing at a time. There were two sets of items that came to mind that I've been wanting to dispose of ... I've been wanting to clear them out for the past seven years or longer! I came up with a plan for how I'd spend this day after my morning writing sprints and walk with KrA. When we came back from our walk this morning, KrA made his legendary fried rice, while I enlisted his help to bring up (1) D's stroller and (2) his high chair, which have been sitting untouched in our basement for as long as we've lived in this house! The stroller was a generous gift from KrA's brother when D was born. D made good use of it until he was about 4 months old. After that, he refused to be caged in it and instead chose to view the world from the vantage point of my arms. Wrapped in a sling, we'd go for long walks together, and his tiny head would bob this way and that, as he took in the sights and sounds of the world around him. We made good use of the high chair until D was about a year and a half or so. We certainly didn't use it when we moved to Burlington, almost six years ago now. D used to climb on to the barstools at the kitchen island instead. We brought them up from the basement. I wiped everything down. Both were in pretty great condition; the stroller especially was as good as new, not having been used much. ![A stroller and a high chair ](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2024/01/6.-D-s-stroller-and-high-chair-copy.jpeg) D's Bugaboo Bee 3 stroller and high chair. Thank you for the good times. ❤️ After lunch, KrA loaded them into the car and I drove up to Once Upon A Child, where they inspected the items and paid me some cash for them. On the way back home, I went to the bank and deposited the money in an account we recently opened for D. Back home now, with a great sense of accomplishment. And also a little sadness, at this transition. --- We don't expect to have another baby in this home. Even though I used to wish otherwise until very recently — that longing for another child would simply pop up out of nowhere — it's a decision that I've come to accept over the years. I'm not getting any younger. Besides, knowing my own bandwidth and how much I could possibly manage, I've come to accept that looking after D and providing him with a happy childhood is the best I can do. I'm grateful for him; he was after all a child we hadn't planned for. And he was the best baby ever; never any fuss or tantrum. I remember being a wonderfully conscious parent to him, especially in his younger years. But over the past couple of years, I really haven't been very kind, neither to myself nor to KrA or D. I complained a lot. Moaned about my in-laws a lot. I'd message my mom in the middle of the night and rant to her about how unfair it was that I didn't have a job and an income and that we had to look after D all by ourselves, so far away from relatives, in a place where we didn't have any real friends. And somehow in those messages, I'd end up yelling at her and blaming her for my tough circumstances. I really don't know who I had become. This person with no joy, nothing to look forward to, not interested in anything except making money. Except that kind of thinking only kept me paralyzed from writing more and with greater joy. --- I used to moan a lot to KrA about how we've got all these jobs to do around the house, clean up our home, fix stuff, get rid of clutter. And my default stance was always that he ought to be doing the bulk of the stuff because he was the salaried one after all, whereas I earned only as much as I wrote and sold, which meant that I ought to be devoting every waking hour of every day writing and selling my books and ignoring every other aspect of my life, and I'd be able to do that if only he'd get his act together, and so on and so on. You can imagine how encouraging that pep talk was for KrA. --- These past few days, something has been shifting in me. I no longer want to be the person pointing fingers at others, wishing that other people in my life were different, blaming myself and everyone else for this stuck-*ness* I've been feeling for a long, long time. I recently came to [realize](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-addiction-to-struggle/) that aiming for two writing sprints in the morning is a sweet spot for me right now in my creative life. Any less, and I don't feel I've made much progress. Any more, and I find I pushed myself way too hard and end up needing the next couple of days off (which would only make me more mad about all the missed time and opportunity). This leaves me with a lot of time to do stuff. And I'm taking on things I've never done before. D's baby gear was one set of items I wanted to pass on. There's another set of items that's waiting for my attention. I've had these things for more than a decade now, mostly in storage much of this time. When I've gotten around to passing them on, hopefully in the next few days or couple of weeks, I'll come here and write about it. *To be continued ...* ### the addiction to struggle URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-addiction-to-struggle/ Last updated: 2024-01-19T19:21:19.000Z Over the past few weeks, I've settled into a great routine of waking up in the mornings and hanging out with D, helping him get ready for school, then sitting down to write after he leaves, then heading out for a walk with KrA, lunch, a slow afternoon spent reading or doing admin work or blogging, then heading out to pick up D from school, spending the evening with him, dinner and winding down for the day. It's a great routine. One that's been sustainable for me, in that I'm making small, steady progress writing-wise on an almost daily basis. Of course, things look very different on weekends or on holidays when D is at home and the priority is to spend more time with him than on work. So, what's the problem? The trouble is this: because the going is so good, because I'm having such a wonderful time doing all the things I love on a daily basis, it feels as though I ought to be doing more. It's as if unless I'm struggling or working hard, I'm not going to see 'success'. Funny, innit? --- To give you an example, I've decided to stick to focusing on getting in 2 manuscript time-blocks (MTBs), as author coach [Becca Syme](https://betterfasteracademy.com) calls them, every morning. These MTBs are for half an hour each. Essentially, I'm writing 'only' for an hour a day. I usually manage to get 1,000+ words written during these two sessions. Previously, I've tried to get in 4 MTBs each day, aiming for a word count goal of 2,000+. But after a productive day like this, I find that I'm unable to write much the next day or the day after. And it takes me 2—3 days to even get back to the manuscript in full flow. Getting 2 MTBs in works reasonably well on most days. Some days it's a bit of a push, but enough to keep the momentum going and not too much that it'd cause burnout. Plus it also leaves me with ideas to come back to the next morning. I've gotten to this place after the last few years of trial and error. This seems like a sweet spot, at least for the time being. But there's always this nagging feeling that I ought to be doing more. Now I spend an hour a day writing. If I can spend 2 hours or even 3 hours, imagine what doubling or tripling my daily output can do! It would get me to my goals twice or thrice as fast as it's taking now! The problem with this line of thought is this assumption of mathematical linearity we tend to make. This assumption that if 1 hour of writing = 1,000 words, then 2 hours should equal 2,000 words, 3 hours should equal 3,000 words and so on. But that is simply not true. Depending on where we are, we all operate at different levels of working capacity. And it doesn't necessarily increase linearly with time. This is the equivalent of saying that if 1 hour of walking is great, then 2 hours of walking should be doubly great, 3 hours should be triply so, and so on. We all know that's not true, and even if we manage to hit those levels of productivity on one day, that doesn't mean we can sustainably replicate it everyday. I reckon we all manage to understand physical exhaustion really well, but when it comes to mental exhaustion we think it is simply a matter of pushing through. I've come to see that that's the kind of misguided belief that lands us in trouble quite often. Trying to do too much too quickly. I wonder where this sense of urgency is coming from? --- I used to have this nagging thought that if I didn't spend 6—8 hours a day writing, like some prolific writers are known to do, then somehow I'd never 'make' it, or that I'd fall behind, or that I'm not a real writer. Some productivity gurus like to claim that if we treat our writing like any other 9-to-5 job, we ought to be spending 8 hours at the desk every day. Well, I've worked in 9-to-5 jobs, and I've found that I'm not 100% productive for the entire 8 hours I spent in office. There are lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, (cigarette breaks, back in the day), coffee chats, meetings, responding to emails, following up with someone on something. So all in all, if I managed to get in 2—3 hours of focussed work amid all the other mayhem at office, that would be considered a great day. --- There was this false belief that if things were going great, then I wasn't really working hard enough. I wasn't pushing myself far enough. I was taking it too lightly. And at this rate, I'd never be able to achieve the kind of successes I wish to. Funny, isn't it? When I started out writing fiction full-time, all I wanted was to spend my days writing and reading and spending lots of time with KrA and D. Now that I'm actually getting to do that, it feels as though this is not enough. As though my days should be filled up with more — more writing, more publishing, more marketing, more promotions, more sales, more income. More. More. More. Even when I've seen that pushing myself to do more actually backfires and reduces my daily output in the long run. I'm no longer the person I was in my 20s, who could work 16—18 hour days and didn't need to be present — physically, mentally and emotionally — for another human being in my life. --- So this is one area I need to be mindful of. If it's fun and easy, that doesn't mean it's wrong or inconsequential. That doesn't mean I have to change things up and make it harder for myself. I suppose I've struggled mentally for so long that I've sort of gotten addicted to it. Instead, I can simply bask in this equilibrium I've arrived at after many years of trial and error, and keep at it, at least for a few months or so, until I'm really ready to/need to level up. This balance of ease and joy in my work and parenting had been elusive to me for years. Now that I've found it, I don't need to squander it by deeming it inadequate. Once I've built my writing muscles strong enough to maintain this current pace sustainably, then I can challenge myself to step up to the next level. And there really is no rush to do so. So think about it. What is it that's already working for you, but you're not able to see it for the blessing it truly is? ### what is the point of it all? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-is-the-point-of-it-all/ Last updated: 2024-01-19T00:19:41.000Z "What is the point of it all?" The first time I asked this question aloud was when I was in my final year at University, working towards completing my project to secure a joint Bachelors' and Masters' degree in Chemical Engineering. This was way back in 2004. I posed this question to my project advisor. Poor fellow. He was caught unawares. I don't remember his reply, but I remember the look of befuddlement on his face. "What is the point of it all?" Two decades have passed, and I've been asking myself this question ever since. Every time this question popped up in my head, it marked the beginning of a decline, of a change to something new, somewhere new, where it would subside for a bit. Only to pop up all over again after a few weeks or months had lapsed. Over the past couple of years, I've asked myself this question about my writing as well. I didn't quite find a satisfactory answer until very recently. --- Over on [The Creative Penn](https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2024/01/15/facing-fears-and-writing-unique-characters-with-barbara-nickless/) podcast, author and interviewer Joanna Penn recently interviewed fellow author, Barbara Nickless. Penn asked Nickless, *"One of the things that comes up a lot for fiction writers is—Should I be doing something “better” with my time than writing fiction?* *And this came up for a lot of us in the pandemic. It was like, oh, my goodness, should I just go and train as a doctor or nurse or carer or something? So how do you deal with that feeling of, you know, is this enough for the world?"* Barbara's response to this was absolutely stellar! *"I grapple with it every day. Is what I'm doing useful in any way?* > *And no matter what you're writing, you're offering something to someone.* > *Whether it's an escape, whether it's a new way to look at things, whether it's an understanding of somebody and their life that you didn't understand before.* *It all adds to this great human collective, I guess the Jungian collective unconscious, that allows us to support each other."* --- Something else also happened as of this morning that made me see the 'point' of writing and expressing myself through the written word. I got a chance to speak with my cousin and my aunt, following the unexpected passing away of my dear Uncle, [Sekhar Chitappa](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-reminder-of-the-ephemeral-nature-of-life/), two days ago. I wrote about last seeing Chitappa nine years ago. Incidentally, that was also the last time I met/spoke with my cousin and aunt. After all those years, we reconnected over a WhatsApp video chat this morning. Surprisingly, they mentioned that they had read my post on Chitappa and were deeply touched by my words. Turns out my mom had read the post and shared it with them. So firstly, Mom, I had no idea you visit this website. (If you're seeing this, thank you. And I love you and Appa so much! ❤️) Secondly, I'm glad they found some solace and relief in those words I had typed to process my own sadness. This turn of events so easily answers that question that used to keep nagging me: "What is the point of all this (writing/insert any activity you love here)?" > Any expression of love has the capacity to touch another heart and soul. That is all I ever intended to do with my writings. It was lovely reconnecting with them and sharing some memories of Chitappa. I spent most of my childhood in Thane (near Mumbai), far away from the south of India where most of my relatives lived. Every time Chitappa travelled from Bengaluru towards Mumbai or beyond, he would come bearing very precious gifts — cassettes with recordings of Tamil jokes and songs. Back in the days when the Internet was not even a thing, these cultural memorabilia of the native land and mother tongue my parents had left behind served as a salve to their souls. My dad even labelled those cassettes with his brother's name. I'm glad I got to talk to my cousin and aunt. Of course, we all made promises to stay in touch more and connect more often once they return to the US, and I truly intend to do so. Even if we speak only once a year, that's way more often than letting nine years slip by without a word to each other. So don't worry Chitappa. In your absence, the loved ones you leave behind will come closer to and support each other, and bask in the bountiful memories of your humour and zest for life. ### a reminder of the ephemeral nature of life URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-reminder-of-the-ephemeral-nature-of-life/ Last updated: 2024-01-16T17:55:33.000Z In the days leading up to the new year, I chose a word of wisdom for the year: EPHEMERAL. [a word of wisdom for 2024!Choosing a guiding word for 2024![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/12/106.-stephane-mingot-wj6pxssHjvc-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-word-of-wisdom-for-2024/) This guiding word was for me to remember how fleeting our lives are. Sometimes, it's really hard to reconcile the day-to-day pettiness we engage in with the larger, broader view that life is fleeting and will come to an end for all of us. But trying to remember the transient nature of it all helps maintain perspective. It helps us be more loving and more gentle, both with ourselves and with others, as we get entangled in the day-to-day-ness of life. I'm bringing this up today because one of my paternal uncles died. I received the news earlier this morning (it was evening in India where he passed away). He was 71\. He was the youngest of five siblings, my dad being the eldest. Like with many relationships, we had seasons of closeness and seasons of drifting apart. During the years I lived in Bengaluru (Bangalore back then) with my parents, around 2004—2007, meeting with Sekhar Chitappa became an almost weekly routine. His was a larger-than-life presence. Full of humour and wry observations about everyone and everything around him. A lover of music. Of culture. Of astrology. His curiosity and thirst for knowledge knew no bounds. He was also a lover of people. Although his temper was legendary too. I was on the receiving end of one of his tirades when I was about 10 years old. I don't even remember what provoked him back then. It's great that now we have a different understanding of emotions and how to manage them in ways that are not hurtful to us and to other people. The last I met him was more than nine years ago. In December 2014, I reckon. I met him, his wife and their daughter (my cousin) in their lovely home in California. It was a lovely gathering. They were meeting KrA (my partner) for the first time. Little D hadn't arrived by then. My brother and sister-in-law were there too. Their daughter too hadn't arrived in our lives by then. It was a fun-filled evening, with food and laughter and family. Relationships are not perfect. Death, the loss of a loved one, makes us feel, although temporarily, that we ought to make a greater effort to reach out and stay in touch. Today, I feel that this visit by death simply makes me want to be a better person in my day-to-day life. In the way I show up in my dealings with D and KrA. In the way I show up for myself, in my writing, in life. If I can look back at the end of each day and assure myself that I did the best I could, treating kindly the people I came across, that alone is enough. Everything else—all the material stuff—is even more transient than I am. Rest in peace, Chitappa. Of course I wish I had more moments of fun and laughter with you. Of course I wish family relationships were not fraught with the drama they tend to entail. Of course I wish we had met more often, spent more time together. But boy! How lucky I am to have been your niece in this lifetime! How lucky I am that our paths crossed as often as they did, just the way they did! The Gods are surely lucky to now have you in their midst. ### free sci-fi books for one day only! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-sci-fi-books-for-one-day-only/ Last updated: 2024-02-27T20:08:13.000Z If you read on a Kindle, you're in luck. For today (2 January) only, a number of science fiction authors are offering their amazing books for free on Kindle no matter where you are in the world! [Load Your Kindle With SF on January 2nd, 2024 | IASFAOn January 2nd, see all the titles that you can download for FREE on this one-day extravaganza! You can use the ala carte method or you can use the easy one…![](https://iasfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/cropped-IASFA-Logo-SMALL-270x270.jpg)IASFARob Mc](https://iasfa.org/load-your-kindle-with-sf/) This promotion is brought to you by the [International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors](https://iasfa.org), which does a lot of great work in bringing together authors and readers in these two genres. If you're not already on their mailing list, now's a great time as any to jump in. But for today, if you're a sci-fi fan, grab these books for free! I've already got a bunch of them downloaded to my Kindle and will get started on them tonight. I'm eyeing *Outliers* by Kate L. Mary to begin with. Take a look at the list and let me know which one you're going to begin with. Here's the link again - [Load your Kindle with SF on Jan 2!](https://iasfa.org/load-your-kindle-with-sf/) Happy reading! ### happy new year! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happy-new-year-2/ Last updated: 2024-01-01T16:18:08.000Z I love new beginnings! Even though I'm spending today like I've spent most other days this past week—writing, reading and spending time with D and KrA—because that's Heaven for me, it's still a new start. A fresh new morning. A new beginning. And I love it. As I said in my newsletter that went out [yesterday](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-december-delights/), the last Sunday of the month incidentally being the last day of the year too ... > ... what I wish for you and for me, for us all, > is a year of taking life as it comes, > responding to it to the best of our abilities, > and trusting that is enough. > **Happy New Year!** ### December Delights: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-december-delights/ Last updated: 2023-12-31T08:00:28.000Z Hello, Dreamer! How exciting it is that this missive has arrived in your inbox on the last day of the year! It's mid-December as I'm writing this. School will be out for the winter break tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to spending time with little D and my partner KrA, taking a break from work and taking the time to rest and recharge. As I think about the new year, the excitement of the holidays leading up to it, the promise of a new year coupled with all those warnings about how New Year's resolutions are doomed to fail, something from many years past has been coming to mind. Almost twenty years ago, KrA gifted me an iPod shuffle, pre-loaded with many of my favourite songs. I remember being thrilled at first to have such easy access to my favourite music. But the initial excitement quickly gave way to dismay as I realized that I wasn't in control of which song would play next. "It's so random!" I moaned. "But that's the point," dear wise KrA replied. ![assortment of colour pencils](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/12/Random_pierre-bamin-dnGgAIRNnsE-unsplash.jpg) Random | Photo by [Pierre Bamin](https://unsplash.com/@bamin?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/color-pencil-lot-dnGgAIRNnsE?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) Standing on the precipice of a new year, I can't help but think of my very first iPod shuffle as an analogy to life. We don't know what's going to come next, we have no control over what's going to happen next. Who knows what 2024 will bring? Who knows what even tomorrow will bring? But ... that's kinda the point, isn't it? KrA was focused on the delight of the iPod playing a favourite song I may not have heard in a long time, whereas I was focused on the disappointment that would ensue if I were fixated on listening to a particular song and had to click past several random songs to get to the one I wanted at that moment. (On an aside, one could argue that at the end of it all, the iPod still had all my favourite songs in it, whereas life deals us both good fortune and blows. To that, I'd say that no song remains a perennial favourite. We grow and change and evolve, and so do our tastes and likes. So a long-ago favourite could very well sound clichéd and silly in the present moment.) I've struggled with this uncertainty and this fear of not knowing for a long time, and have actively sought ways to cope with it. Meditation. Keeping a gratitude journal. Making a plan. Visualizing. Focusing on what's in my control (my actions) and what's not (the outcomes). But the one thing that has been most effective at helping me keep perspective is remembering how fleeting all this is. How brief our lives are. How quickly a lifetime flashes by. How our lifespans of 50/70/90 years, however long we have, are not even a blink of an eye when compared to how long stars have been ablaze in the skies, how long life has flourished on earth. How our individual existences are like blips in time. Here now. Gone the next instant. > *And so I have a guiding word for the year:* > EPHEMERAL [a word of wisdom for 2024!Choosing a guiding word for 2024![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/12/106.-stephane-mingot-wj6pxssHjvc-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-word-of-wisdom-for-2024/) For one thing, the word *sounds* beautiful to me. I love how it feels in my mouth when I say it out loud. Moreover, when I look at my days and at life through this lens, I find myself worrying less about outcomes but focusing more on the moment I have right here and now, for its own sake, not as a means to some end that may or may not materialize. --- What about you? What are your hopes and dreams as you step into 2024? Are you too inspired to come up with a word or a phrase to guide you through the next year? Write to me and let me know, and we'll encourage each other on this journey. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### all in a year's work On this last day of the year, I invite you to revisit an old favourite and a timely read for this time of the year. I wrote this more than a decade ago and it remains a favourite amongst all those who've read it. [tales for dreamers: all in a year’s workHave you ever wondered how the months came to have a rather unequal distribution of days?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2021/12/23.-all-in-a-years-work.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-all-in-a-years-work/) ### wish chimneys This year, I also bring to you another brief tale. On wishes and desires. On second chances and the freedom of choice. On new beginnings. [tales for dreamers: wish chimneysEveryone knows about presents sent down chimneys on Christmas eve. Did you know you could also send undesirables up the same way on new year’s eve?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/11/9.-wish-chimneys.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-wish-chimneys/) --- ## Books You May Love December has been a great month for reading. I picked some gems from the library and was treated to an incredibly vast variety of stories. This is probably the longest *'Books You May Love'* section you've received from me in a while. After having devoured the delight that was [*The Sea Elephants*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-sea-elephants-by-shastri-akella/) by Shastri Akella, I fell into a bit of a reading slump. Nothing seemed to hold my interest, so I turned to an old favourite. I returned to Charles Todd, but this time I chose not an [Inspector Rutledge](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-ian-rutledge-series/) mystery but a book from the author's Bess Crawford mystery series. Crawford is an English nurse serving during World War I, so I returned to the familiar haunts of Todd's writings, only from the perspective of a new and delightful character. ![Hardback copy of A Bitter Truth by Charles Todd](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/12/1.-Bess-Crawford_Resized-1.jpeg) *A Bitter Truth* is the third book in the [series](https://charlestodd.com/charles-todd-collection/bess-crawford-series/), I found out belatedly, but that didn't take away from the delight of reading it. Crawford is back in London from the war in France on a Christmas leave, but is compelled to make a trip to Sussex to help a woman who turns up at her door. Naturally, a murder takes place at the woman's Sussex home and Crawford is embroiled in it. It was an exciting read, and I'm happy that there's so much more of Todd's writings to return to whenever I find myself wondering what to read next! ![Hardback copy of None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/12/2.-Lisa-Jewell_Resized.jpeg) Lisa Jewell is another favourite author of mine! Imagine my delight when I got my hands on [*None Of This Is True*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62334530-none-of-this-is-true)! It was packed with suspense and a deep sense of foreboding ran throughout the book. I couldn't help but tear through it. In this one, Alix Summers is a podcaster who interviews successful women and their struggles en route to success. While celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at a pub, she meets a woman called Josie Fair, who is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday that very evening. Josie tries to meet with Alix again later and proposes that Alix interview her for her podcast. Josie promises her life story is intriguing, and Alix is unwittingly drawn into the web that Josie weaves, blurring truth and fiction. ![Hardback copy of Mister Magic by Kiersten White featuring an old television screen against a pink background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/12/3.-Mister-Magic-Resized.jpeg) > "Your favourite childhood television program feels like a fever dream." That is how *Mister Magic* by [Kiersten White](https://www.kierstenwhite.com) begins. And from thereon, the entire book reads like a fever dream. I don't even know how to describe this book; reading it was like being on one wild acid trip. It begins with thirty-something-year-old Val, whose father dies, and at whose funeral two men turn up and claim that they all used to act in a children's show decades ago before an accident brought the show to a halt. The only trouble is Val has no recollection of any of this. Yet, she agrees to go with the two men to reunite with the rest of the cast for a podcast that's set to be recorded about the show. It is a dark fantasy, a horror book, not outrightly horror but deeply unsettling and terrifying. It beautifully addresses many larger themes around childhood, parenting and societal constructs. At the end of the book, the author mentions that the book was inspired by her experience of trauma in leaving a a religious group that she had to follow as a child. Many parts of the book resonated with me deeply, and I share below one such excerpt. > Javi holds out his drink. "May we recover from how bad our parents fucked us up, and never find out how badly we're fucking up our own children." He takes a long swig. > Jenny laughs, but it's not the bright bray of earlier. It's low, gasping and bleak. "Oh, I know exactly how I'm fucking my girls up, because I'm making them into me. I look at them and I love them so much I want to eat them whole, and also they're such little shits I want to strangle them. And they don't care about either feeling, because they don't care about my feelings, because I'm not a person to them." > Marcus has one arm across his chest, his hand on his own shoulder, cheek resting there. "No one tells you how hard it is to be a parent, but they also never tell you how terrifying it is. My ex has our son half the time and I spend every minute he's gone vaguely panicked about whether he's sad or scared or hurt, and I don't know about it and can't help him. And then when he's with me—" He pauses to take a long drink before continuing. "When he's with me, I sometimes count down the hours until he's gone again, because at least then I know *what* I'm afraid of. When he's with me, I'm still afraid and I don't know why. Or how to be what he needs. What he deserves." > Isaac nods. "Are you ever terrified you're not protecting them? That there's something obvious, something easy you should be doing, but you haven't done it and they're going to suffer because of it?" > Jenny gestures to the night around them. "The fact that we're out here in the middle of the desert trying to unearth our own childhoods rather than taking care of theirs is probably all the answer you need. Bad mom. I'm a bad mom." > \~ *Mister Magic* by Kiersten White It's a thing of beauty, this book. ![Hardback copy of Yellowface by R. F. Kuang](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/12/4.-Yellowface_resized.jpeg) Ooh, and then I also read the book that everyone's been talking about off late. *Yellowface* by [R. F. Kuang](https://rfkuang.com). You've probably already read it or know the premise by now. When successful Asian American author, Athena Liu, dies in a freak incident, her struggling peer, June Hayward, a white woman, steals Liu's recently completed manuscript about Chinese labourers in World War I, builds on it and passes it off as her own. Hayward reaches the dizzying heights of success and also faces intense backlash on her brazen act of cultural appropriation. The novel is written entirely from Hayward's point of view. Kuang's writing is so amazing that I could sympathize with Hayward's perspective, I could understand the delusional arguments she uses to convince herself that her deeds were not wrong, not really. It was a wildly entertaining read, and as an author whose mental dialogue reflects much of June Hayward's, it was also a deeply satisfying read for me. So those were the amazing books I read this month, and even as I write this I'm in the midst of reading yet another spectacular book. I can't wait to write to you about it in January's missive! --- Well, dear Dreamer! How is it that time has a tendency to fly when I'm penning this missive to you? How is it that 2023 has flown by, and 2024 is already knocking on our doors, determined to find its way into our lives? Thank you for taking the time to read these monthly missives. I am very grateful for the space you allow me in your inbox and in your thoughts. As we slip from one year to the next, what I wish for you and for me, for us all, is a year of taking life as it comes, responding to it to the best of our abilities, and trusting that is enough. So here's to a year of not trying to *hack* life into submission or predictability. Because when we let go of our ideologies of how life *should* be, we're in a far better place to remain open to what life has to offer us. Sending much love and wishes of joy your way! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: wish chimneys URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-wish-chimneys/ Last updated: 2023-12-29T02:00:17.000Z On the last day of the year, everybody gets a chance to discard whatever they do not wish to keep. It can be anything. Big or small. Old or new. Most people bring the presents they received during the festive season but do not much care for. Conversely, many people bring all the stuff they have too much of and could do with a lot less of. Clothes that no longer fit them. Accessories they don’t use anymore. A few bring invisible possessions. Regrets. Desires. Memories. Dreams gone sour. Longing for all they wanted but couldn’t manage to acquire during the year. Whatever you bring, you get to toss it into a fireplace. It is no bigger than a large box but somehow it consumes everything you throw in and instantly transforms it into a wisp of smoke, which travels up a tall chimney and tumbles into the heavens. (Funnily enough, it is the same chimney down which the gift-bearer slides once every year, in the dead of the night, bearing presents that people write to him for. It is said that the smoke of discarded things gives him plenty of hints as to what people want, or don’t want.) Either way, you walk into a new year, lighter and freer than you had felt all of last year. --- ### tales for dreamers: the un-knowing URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-un-knowing/ Last updated: 2023-12-22T02:00:04.000Z A long time ago, I walked down this path and felt like an ignoramus for not knowing your name. For not knowing whether or not you’d flower, whether your leaves would be broad or small. I am back here now, still ignorant, but not wanting to know anymore. For what I know ceases to amaze me. I close my eyes and run my hands on your bark, gnarled yet gentle. I touch your leaves hanging low, dewdrops still glistening on them like jewels that stealthily descended in the night. I need no names to feel you, I need no words to breathe, to be, to simply be with you, to love you. I must go now. I know where the path leads, but let me pretend I have forgotten, so I can be filled with the thrill of discovery. Let me come back here every morning, without anticipation, so the sight of you will surprise and delight me, over and over again. ### tales for dreamers: the beginning of an idea for a meditation workshop URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-beginning-of-an-idea-for-a-meditation-workshop/ Last updated: 2023-12-15T02:00:24.000Z “What are you doing?” “Nothing.” “What are you looking at?” “Nothing.” “What are you thinking?” “Nothing.” “What are you waiting for?” “Nothing.” *Nothing* is an utterly exasperating answer, so I decide to ask nothing for a while. The little creature stands there for over an hour, watching the waves roll towards him, lick the soles of his boots, and crawl back to wherever it is they came from. Occasionally he turns back to make sure I’m still there, guarding him as I promised I would. It is only a quick glance that he affords me, and he turns back once more to whatever it is he was doing. “What are you doing?” “Nothing.” “What are you looking at?” “Nothing.” “What are you thinking?” “Nothing.” “What are you waiting for?” “Nothing.” How is that even possible? I’ve had countless thoughts run through my head in this short while. But, wait a minute! If the little creature could stand here and enter a space of nothingness, perhaps this is a good place for me to meditate and be still. Wow! What an exciting idea! I guess I need to think a little more about it. ### a word of wisdom for 2024! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-word-of-wisdom-for-2024/ Last updated: 2023-12-13T14:24:26.000Z I love words. I'm a writer after all. Sometimes I love the shape of certain words, how they appear in written or printed format. Sometimes I love how they sound and feel in my mouth. Sometimes it's the meaning of the word that makes a lot of sense to me. I've tried several words in the past. Gratitude. Wisdom. Inner worth. None of them have really stuck. None of them have fit well. But this year I've managed to find a word that has already been helping me stay sane through the ups and downs of life. > The word is: **EPHEMERAL.** Ephemeral. Ooh, how I love the way the 'f', 'm', 'r' and 'l' sounds all follow one another so quickly, rolling and tumbling into the preceding sound swiftly enough to create this beautiful word. But equally importantly, I love the meaning of the word. It's such a great reminder that life is fleeting, life is transitory. We are all here for what is literally a blink of an eye for the cosmos. Our lifespans of 70/80/90 years, whatever we are blessed with, however long we are lucky to have, are really a blip in time if we pause to look at it. Remembering that helps put so many things in perspective. > Ephemeral It reminds me of how valuable this day is. It also reminds me that in the larger scheme of things, it won't matter if I spent this day achieving something or not; what matters (to me) is whether or not I moved through this day with gentleness and wisdom, whether I've been a source of solace and comfort or a reason for stress and consternation to myself and the loved ones I'm with. It reminds me, whenever envy arises, that I'm doing my best and that every one of us had different paths to purse in this lifetime. As long as I show up each day and do the best I can in that given day, I am succeeding. It reminds me that the past and the future do not matter in this present moment. The present moment is all there is. If I'm geared up, I can plough on and add more words to the manuscript and make plans for the future so that I can look forward to it optimistically. If I'm struggling, I can pause and rest. It won't bring my writing career crashing down. I can trust that the pace at which I'm moving is just right for me. There is no urgency. There is no falling behind. It reminds me, when I feel I'm not able to accomplish things fast enough, when I feel overwhelmed about putting in all this hard work day after day, year after year, for the next several years, that that time will also go in the blink of an eye. It reminds me, whenever I'm feeling low or in doubt, that this feeling too will pass and that I'd do well to be kind and gentle to myself in this phase, so that when it passes I'll be roaring to go again! Everything is ephemeral. In the grand scheme of things, nothing is life-altering, except death. It reminds me of YOLO - you only live once. But that doesn't mean we have to do everything in this one single lifetime. Living a good life is as much about letting go of what doesn't serve us as it is about focusing on what matters to us in our lives, what matters on a daily basis. For me, the answers are clear: writing, reading, being with KrA and D, responding with care and kindness to those who reach out to me, including myself, and remembering how fleeting all this is. So that I'm not caught up in the grief of what's lost or what's not mine but can rejoice in what I have, in what dreams are waiting to come true for me, without clinging to anything. So that's my word of wisdom for next year. *Ephemeral*. What's yours? ### tales for dreamers: bootprints in the snow URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-bootprints-in-the-snow/ Last updated: 2023-12-08T12:47:55.000Z So many prints in the snow. How will I tell which ones are yours? It’s simple, really. I will look for the ones that go not in a straight line, but meander like an explorer’s. The ones that go up to a snowman, make several circles around him, now indistinguishable, and eventually lead away from him. The ones that traipse innocently into a puddle of snow-ice-slush, then emerge muck-filled on the other side. The ones that abruptly appear atop snow-capped rocks, and disappear without warning, as you hop on and off the slippery walls. The ones that are so endearingly small, only for a season though. The ones that finally disappear into a snow angel, now so exhausted from all the play I must scoop you into my arms and carry you home. Too bad your boots leave no prints on air. ### judgement come full circle URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/judgement-come-full-circle/ Last updated: 2023-12-07T14:01:08.000Z A few years ago, when we had just moved to Burlington, D was two years old and at home with me. We had enrolled him in a Montessori toddler school but it didn't work out, so we pulled him out after a month. For several months we were at home (before D started attending another pre-school two mornings a week), having the time of our lives — exploring the local parks, going to children's activity centres — despite the constant nagging thought at the back of my mind that he 'ought' to have more playdates and playmates. We had lovely neighbours then — John & Natasha — an elderly Macedonian couple who were kind and great company and their presence was a timely reminder for me that life is best when it's simple. Once John said to me that it would be good for D to be at daycare with more children around than at home with just me. I remember how that remark stung because I took it quite personally. All of it felt like a personal failure, me being a stay-at-home mom, D not liking it at the toddler school, D missing me and home too much to enjoy school. I was convinced I was inflicting permanent emotional damage on my child. Enough time has passed now and I'm able to look back at my past self with more compassion, revisit John's words in the spirit they were delivered (a sharing of advice and guidance rather than rebuke or castigation), and understand that we were all doing the best we could given the circumstances. John & Natasha sold their home to their son and [moved](https://thedreampedlar.com/an-apprentice-to-sorrow/) to Macedonia two summers ago. John has since passed away. Their home is now occupied by their friends, J and her family. J has two granddaughters, one two years old and the other just a few months old. Her son and his family live in another home a short distance away, but every morning he comes over to drop his older daughter at J's home. J spends her entire day caring for her older granddaughter. Every time they see us, they step out and wave to us and we wave back to them. Yesterday, D and I were returning from school. J stepped out of her home and greeted us with her granddaughter. The first thought that crossed my mind was this: shouldn't the child spend more time around other children?! Would you believe it? I was quite shocked to hear my mind echo the same words and judgement that John had meted out to me all those years ago. Nothing right or wrong about it. Just an observation. And the sudden realization that for that split second of judgement, I had completely forgotten my own experience and isolation as a new mom back in the day. It's funny how we can lament something (being judged) only to turn right back around and do the same thing we claimed to despise (judging others). I'm so human. 😊 I'm only glad that I didn't blurt out my thoughts unnecessarily to J. ### tales for dreamers: a captain's dilemma near the seashore URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-captains-dilemma-near-the-seashore/ Last updated: 2023-12-01T02:02:11.000Z The shore is in sight but the Captain is a tad reluctant to dock his vessel. It often happens, this reluctance to step off his ship and jump on to the shore, especially after a long voyage of several weeks and months spent looking for that very shore in the first place. It used to confuse his crew at first, but not anymore. They are used to seeing their Captain caught in the throes of such dilemmas. It is an innate part of him, they have come to see. It is the way he must grapple with the contradictions of life. He laments that to set foot on land, he must leave the waters behind. It is like leaving a part of him behind, like a limb, or his heart. They know better than to reason with him, for logic and feelings belong to entirely different realms that share no boundary whatsoever. But he doesn’t impose his quandary on them, and for that alone they are grateful. They hop into the lifeboats and make their way to the shore, leaving the Captain alone aboard the ship to decide when he’d be ready to dock. They wish they could do something to make him see sense, but with time they too have learnt that this is something the Captain must tackle by himself. This shift from longing to finding, from seeking to seeing. As much as they’d love to, they know they can’t accompany him on all his journeys, especially not the ones he has to undertake by himself, for himself. No matter how well he steers his ship, sooner or later the voyage must come to an end. Only then can a new one begin. ### goal-setting for 2024: manifestation of a vision or detachment from outcomes? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/goal-setting-for-2024-manifestation-or-detachment/ Last updated: 2023-11-29T16:18:03.000Z We're nearing that time of the year we all think will be the big 'reset'. The entire year changes on January 1st, and we naively believe that this particular movement of the clock's hands will change us too, irreversibly, painlessly, effortlessly. It's impossible not to get swept up in the momentum, the fantasy of a wondrous magical change, the promise of a clean slate or a blank new notebook, when all around us people and businesses keep trying to convince us that this is the magic pill we've been waiting for all our lives. I approach January 1 with plenty of enthusiasm but also a lot of caution; having written and published several books, I know all too well the beginning energy of something new. I also know all too well how that energy tends to dwindle with time, as we get to the messy middle, and wonder what in the first place had seemed alluring or attractive about this project/story/manuscript in the first place. I no longer set goals for an entire new year — it's too long a period for me to fathom and plan for realistically. Over these past few months, I've gotten into the habit of taking some time every Sunday afternoon in order to plan for the week ahead. I've also become more realistic, accepting that on days when D is at home, I most likely won't get much fiction writing done unless I head to the library in the morning and get some writing sprints in. Writing makes me happy, and when I'm a happier, fulfilled person, I'm also a happier and more fun mother to hang out with. I also incorporate plenty of rest days, so I'm not swinging between the two extremes of excellent productivity and long periods of no output at all. But these pertain to my activities on a day-to-day basis. What I wish to write about here today is the long-term vision that experts tell us ought to underpin our daily activities or pursuit of a goal(s). --- ## My trouble with planning for the long term Have you heard the catchphrase: *Everything begins with a vision*? Businesses and individuals are encouraged to cultivate a long-term vision for their lives/careers and motivate themselves to take daily action in the pursuit of that vision. In this context, *'manifestation'* and *'visualization'* are terms that have been bandied about a lot in recent years. For as long as I can remember, since my early 20s at least, I've loved the idea that we can create our own realities with adequate vision for the long run, daily action and persistence through short-term obstacles. The idea that we simply need to be focused on our long-term goals and not let short-term setbacks distract us from our path was both liberating and empowering to me. But off late, I've been questioning this line of thought. Far from feeling empowered, this attitude feels akin to wearing blinkers and ignoring reality in the pursuit of our goals or vision. ### *An empty vision board* One tactic that experts constantly talk about is about having a vision board and filling it up with images of whatever you wish to 'manifest' in the future: your dream car, your dream home, etc. They ask you to be very specific about what it looks like, down to the finest detail. I've never had a vision board. I don't have particularly strong preferences for material things. If you were to ask me to describe my dream home, I'd probably only say something that's bright and has lots of natural sunlight coming in through many windows with a view of something peaceful, like a lake or a mountain or an ocean ... I can't even choose from among these many options. In fact, I'd prefer a kaleidoscope of these views, if I could. Monday, facing the ocean. Tuesday, turn the house so it looks at the snow-capped mountain peaks. Wednesday, elevate it so I have a view of the valley below. My vision board is doomed before I've begun to even set it up, haha. Conversely, a cousin of mine knew exactly what her dream home should look like when she was in her 20s. White walls with a red roof. That was her specification. I mean ... I love white walls with a red roof ... but I also love red brick walls with a black roof that KrA seems to love. So you see, vision boards have never really been my thing. ### *An abstract vision board of feelings, perhaps?* But experts take it one step ahead and suggest that what we hanker after is not the thing itself but how having it would make us feel. Perhaps we believe that possessing that material thing would bring us feelings of freedom, of independence, of power, of generosity, of abundance. So the trick, apparently, is to feel that way already, and the energy of feeling that way is bound to attract that object into our material existence. And I think this is also where I stumble. Because I don't really want a house by the beach or a mansion with a well-manicured front lawn that looks impressive in photos. I mean ... sure it'd be nice to have those things, but it's not what I wish to spend my life working for. ***What about the uncertain future ...*** Not to mention that after years of working hard to be able to buy a house in a much sought after zip code, perhaps one day you may be forced to evacuate it because of a crazy wildfire tearing through the mountains your window looks out at. ***... versus the more real present moment?*** So what is it I really wish to do with my life? > How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. \~ Annie Dillard If I were to honestly answer that question, I can only answer it in terms of how I wish to spend my days: writing, and enjoying the ordinary moments with KrA and D. Literally, that is all I wish for in my days. It's something my days are already full of. > *Yet, having what I want, knowing that I already have what I want doesn't seem to make me feel content or relaxed or 'having arrived' if you will.* ### *When the merit of process is hitched to the outcome* It's as if I've got to turn this into something bigger, something better, something more 'successful' perhaps in terms of number of books sold, revenues earned, or some such thing before I can truly feel content and at ease with my life. It's as if writing and enjoying writing everyday does not matter unless (or may matter more only if) I wrote a bestseller. It's as if spending time with my child every day does not matter unless (or may matter more only if) we were doing something special, something extraordinary, like skiing down the Alps instead of spending this afternoon, watching Pokémon on Netflix, because he's unwell and resting at home. > *I had unknowingly hitched the significance or utility of the process to the outcome.* > *If the outcome was 'grand' enough or 'spectacular' enough, then the process was justified.* > *Without the promise of a spectacular outcome, the process alone was not sufficient reason to engage in it.* > *Or at least, that's how I had come to view life and its ordinary, everyday moments.* It's rather a sad way of looking at life, really. Because life is, at the end of the day, made up of largely ordinary, everyday moments no matter how much media and culture may try to convince us otherwise. --- ## Pondering over the wisdom of the Gita I've been reflecting how my focus on the outcomes have come at the expense of finding joy and fulfilment in the process. - Writing fiction had become a chore in the past few months when I kept checking the sales I was (not) making. The anxiety of not making a full-time living from my writing (yet) kept me from engaging in it wholeheartedly. It led to me waking up several mornings at 2 a.m., my heart thudding with anxiety at not earning an income and indulging in what feels like a hobby at best. - Days when D was at home away from school had also started to feel like an imposition. Instead of being able to enjoy the time I was given to spend with D, I was silently resenting how much time ordinary, mundane parenting was taking away from writing, from other things in general, although if you were to ask me what 'other things' I'd rather be doing, I'd come up empty. Off late, I've been considering that oft-quoted verse from the Bhagavad Gita. There are many variations, depending on the source, but the one that I've come to resonate with the most is this one from [*Gita Daily*](https://gitadaily.com/be-detached-from-results-not-goals/): > You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your action. In the past, well-meaning elders often rephrased this and quoted this verse as: *Do your duty with utmost sincerity and God will take care of the rest.* The implication being that as long as you worked hard, the Universe will conspire to get you to your favoured outcome. I used to find a certain charm to this way of thinking; it used to imbue in me an optimism that I otherwise struggled to find when encountering setbacks or obstacles or when 'success' seemed to have eluded me for far too long. But off late, I've struggled to hold on to this kind of faith too. In a world full of uncertainties, it seems more prudent and practical to come to terms with the fact that while we'd like to treat our lives as a chess game — the player with the best strategy and the best moves wins — it's more often like a game of poker, i.e., you could play your best game and still not win because of factors wildly beyond your control, as Rachel Friedman says in her book [*And Then We Grew Up*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-and-then-we-grew-up-by-rachel-friedman/). > I think it's simply frightening to accept and admit that much of life and what happens to us are quite simply not in our control. Such a thought is utterly depressing, to say the least. It makes us wonder why then should we put in any effort if it's all going to be like a game of crapshoot anyway? This reminds me of a dialogue I once heard in a Bollywood movie. The guy and the girl are in an appliances store where they have the opportunity to enter into a lucky draw to win a refrigerator. The girl says, "What's the point? I never win anyway." To which the guy responds, "Well, if you don't enter the lucky draw, you are guaranteed to not win. But if you do enter your name, there's always a chance, no matter how small, for you to win." And this being a movie, she does win the refrigerator at the end. This is not me encouraging you to spend the rest of your life buying a lottery ticket every day in the hope of winning it someday. But there is wisdom in putting in the effort towards doing what you love even though the results are never guaranteed. ### *Short-term focus in service of the long term* When the future is utterly unknown, we can feel very disempowered and discouraged. Which is why the wisdom of the Gita to forego any claim on results, or the fruits of our labour, seems to speak to me a lot these days. Yet, the Gita does not dissuade us from taking action. On the contrary, the Gita urges us to be involved in action and not shun it. In the face of all these questions, I find that the best way ahead for me is to focus on the practice for its own sake. Be it the practice of writing, or the practice of parenting. It's definitely easier said than done. I can spend days writing but that constant worry, that not knowing whether this will amount to anything or not, continues to eat away at my spirit. And I think this is what I'm doing wrong. Instead of focusing on the practice for its own sake, I let anxious thoughts about the future derail me. Sure, I could envision a great future and keep working towards it, but after a few months or years of working and not seeing the kind of results I'd like to see as fast as I'd like to see them (because outcomes depend on countless other factors in addition to the work we put in), it can feel very difficult to hold on to that vision of something promising in the future. Just as surely having anxious thoughts about the future is doomed to leave me paralyzed and reluctant to take any steps in the present moment. Of course, I don't wish to squander the present moment either because that is a guaranteed way of not effecting any change in the long run. > It is when I focus on a daily practice, for its own sake, that I find the greatest joy and fulfilment. This is not to say that I don't have daily or weekly planners. I sure do. These help me keep my tasks organized, prioritize which story to write and which book to publish in time for an upcoming promotion and so on. But that is pretty much the extent of my planning. A long-term planner helps guide the tasks I need to focus on today, this week, or this month. And what I hope to achieve in the long run is, in turn, guided by how I choose to spend my days. --- To adapt a passage from the Gita Daily, What role does detachment from results play in all this? Results often depend on factors beyond our control. Attachment to results will make us worried about things beyond our control and thus distract us from the thing in our control: the work at hand. Moreover, elation on getting results and dejection on not getting them both will distract us ... *from the joy and fulfilment of undertaking the task on hand for its own sake in this present moment, in the here and now*. --- ### *What about when doubt derails us?* This is the other piece of the equation that tends to derail me. Even if I know that I wish to focus on writing, there's always a lot of distractions, things to try out to see if we can achieve our parameters of success faster. It's like this: I tend to drive at the speed limit or at the most 10km/h above it. But when I see others speeding past, it makes me feel that I should be speeding too, that my time is precious too and I shouldn't be wasting it driving slowly when I could in fact be driving faster. Or perhaps I should switch to the other lane because, look, that one's going faster! Author coach, Becca Syme, recently posted a note on 'The Small Things' over on her [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/posts/small-things-93568150). > We need to practice what we know to be true, more often, instead of trying to learn more new things. > \~ Becca Syme This was a timely reminder because I had gone down the path of mulling what I should be doing differently in 2024, whereas in fact the answer is that I don't need to be doing things differently. I just need to reaffirm my commitment to the path I've set out on and commit to staying on that path or coming back to it when I drift away. --- ## And so, here is my goal for 2024! > To write and parent in the here and now, because both are tasks I enjoy and love to fill my days with, > and to not give in to anxious thoughts about the future, which is unknown anyway, > but to lean in to the present moment and respond to life in the here and now, while keeping my focus on the two practices that matter to me the most. ### November Notes: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/2023-newsletter-november-notes/ Last updated: 2023-11-26T11:17:16.000Z Hello, Dreamer! The first snow flurries of the season are drifting down from the skies as I write this on this Friday morning, thinking of the month gone by and what unexpected blessings it brought my way. November has been a month of celebrations. First came Diwali. There were days of lighting *diyas* and sparklers, feasting on mouthwatering *barfis* and *gulab jamuns*, dressing up in *sarees* and *kurta-pyjamas*, and regaling little D with tales of our childhood Diwalis. Shortly after that came my birthday. For three days, every meal included a portion of Black Forest cake and a serving of Lay's Classic Potato Chips, a combination of sweet and salty that sounds utterly incongruous but turned out to be everyone's favourite at home. Now it's Thanksgiving Weekend in the US, and even though Canadian Thanksgiving came and went in early October, it's fun to join in the celebrations all over again. Any excuse to count our blessings is a good one. And the first thing that came to mind was the numerous responses I received to my newsletter last month. [October Odyssey: Monthly Missives from The Dream PedlarPondering the contradictions of life…![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/10/Feature.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/2023-newsletter-october-odyssey/) Many of you wrote to me after reading about my aunt and one of my last memories of her, a painful one marked by my own fears and parsimony. I am very grateful for every one of your messages, and I am overjoyed that you took the time to read, reflect and respond. Thank you for giving me your precious time and attention. I'm sharing below a couple of the beautiful messages I received. --- Long-time reader and supporter of my writings, my dear friend M, shared these wise words and kindly agreed to me sharing her wisdom with you: > *Do I feel the way you feel, that there isn’t enough, absolutely do.* > *But that’s where I surround myself with people older and wiser than me, who have been on this journey and remind me we don’t need a lot to get through life.* > *It is a learning process.* Dear M, thank you for sharing these words. Ever since you wrote to me, I kept coming back to your words often in moments of doubt and despair, and they've always served as a useful reminder of what really matters. --- Another long-time reader and dear friend, Kiten, wrote to me: > *Sometimes, especially to loved ones or special ones in your life, even for community, you may want to give away some (not all), just enough to fill your heart and be content.* Thank you for saying this, Kitty. Your words made me realize that giving can truly make our hearts sing! It is a wonderful feeling indeed, to be to able to give, however little or much, and rejoice in our ability to do so. And when we don't feel like giving, it's quite likely a sign that we're not feeling secure in ourselves or in our life circumstances. The closing of our hearts serves as a useful pointer to the fear or anxiety that underlies the inability to give. --- I'm so touched by these words of empathy and encouragement I received that I wanted to share a few more thoughtful lines with you all. For years, I've maintained a diary of sorts, noting down beautiful and thought-provoking lines, words that inspired or moved or encouraged me in some way. In recent years, I've come across many words and lines of wisdom in works of fiction as well as non-fiction. So I thought how wonderful it would be to fill up this newsletter with some of those writings of wisdom! I hope you love the lines below too. ![pink flowers on long grass](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/11/kien-do-NjT4O7WYmwk-unsplash.jpg) stepping into time for contemplation | Photo by [Kien Do](https://unsplash.com/@kiendo?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/selective-focus-photo-of-pink-petaled-flowers-NjT4O7WYmwk?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) --- > *Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.* *\~ Aeschylus* I first read this in *The Running Grave: A Cormoran Strike novel* by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling), which was an excellent read! To provide a bit more context in which Strike quoted the above line from Aeschylus, he's in a conversation with Amelia, the sister of his ex-wife, Charlotte, who is the subject of their discussion. > *Once they were alone again, Amelia said, 'She was always so ... unhappy.'* > *'Yeah,' said Strike. 'I know.'* > *'But she wouldn't ever ... there was a — a darkness in her.'* > *'Yeah,' said Strike, 'and she was in love with it. It's dangerous to make a cult of your own unhappiness. Hard to get out, once you've been in there too long. You forget how.'* > *He drank some more of his rapidly diminishing pint before saying, 'I once quoted Aeschylus at her. "Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times." Didn't go down well.'* --- > We meet our destiny on the road we take to avoid it. > \~ The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella --- > *"It's frightening to come right up to the thing you've spent your life desiring. What if it doesn't solve all the problems you thought it would?"* *\~ Sally in* [*The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-stolen-book-of-evelyn-aubrey-by-serena-burdick/) *by Serena Burdick* --- > Very little is needed to make a happy life. > \~ Marcus Aurelius --- > *I have always treated my life like a chess game—focusing on right or wrong moves and what I believed to be their attendant outcomes—when it turns out a poker game is a much more useful analogy.* > *"Wrap your arms around the uncertainty," Duke said. "Accept it. Know that the way things turn out has a lot of luck involved so don't be so hard on yourself when things go badly and don't be proud of yourself when they go well."* *\~* [*And Then We Grew Up*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-and-then-we-grew-up-by-rachel-friedman/) *by Rachel Friedman* --- > "But I *do* know we can only live by the light we're given, and some of us are given no light at all. What else can we do except learn to see in the dark?" > \~ [The Book Eaters](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-book-eaters-by-sunyi-dean/) by Sunyi Dean --- > *I'm sure our lives will continue to get more complex. Noise will find new ways to distract us. Heartaches and stresses will present themselves time and time again. These things will never stop.* > *That is why we must always return to what we know to be true: our relationship with ourselves and our relationship with the universe.* > *Everything else is a distraction. And when those distractions lead us astray, we can be creative and design a path back home to ourselves.* *\~* [*Be A Triangle*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-be-a-triangle-by-lilly-singh/) *by Lilly Singh* --- > "Krishna means love," she said. "But Radha means longing. Longing is older than love. I am older than he. Did you know that, Sita?" > \~ [Thirst No. 1](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/) by Christopher Pike --- > *We think that when we are not doing anything we are wasting our time, that is not true.* > *Our time is first of all for us to be.* > *To be, to be what? To be alive, to be peace, to be joy, to be loving.* > *And that is what the world needs the most. So we train ourself in order to be.* > *And if you know the art of being peace, of being solid, then you have the ground for every action ... because the ground for action is to be.* > *And the quality of being determines the quality of doing.* > *Action must be based on non-action.* *\~ Thich Nhat Hanh* --- > It is the mynd, that maketh good or ill, > That maketh wretch or happie, rich or poore: > For some, that hath abundance at his will, > Hath not enough, but wants in greatest store; > And other, that hath litle, askes no more, > But in that litle is both rich and wise. > \~ [The Faerie Queene](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8741691-it-is-the-mynd-that-maketh-good-or-ill-that) by Edmund Spenser --- > *Becuase there's such an unbelievable amount that we're all supposed to be able to cope with these days. You're supposed to have a job, and somwhere to live, and a family, and you're supposed to pay taxes and have clean underwear and remember the password to your damn Wi-Fi. Some of us never manage to get the chaos under control, so our lives simply carry on, the world spinning through space at two million miles an hour while we bounce about on its surface like so many lost socks. Our hearts are bars of soap that we keep losing hold of; the moment we relax, they drift off and fall in love and get broken, all in the wink of an eye. We're not in control.* > *So we learn to pretend, all the time, about our jobs and our marriages and our children and everything else. We pretend we're normal, that we're reasonably well educated, and that we understand "amortization levels" and "inflation rates". That we know how sex works. In truth, we known as much about sex as we do about USB leads, and it always takes us four tries to get those little buggers in. (Wrong way round, wrong way round, wrong way round, there! In!)* > *We pretend to be good parents when all we really do is provide our kids with food and clothing and tell them off when they put chewing gum they find on the ground in their mouths. We tried keeping tropical fish once and they all died. And we really don't know more about children than tropical fish, so the responsibility frightens the life out of us each morning. We don't have a plan, we just do our best to get through the day, because there'll be another one coming along tomorrow.* > *Sometimes it hurts, it really hurts, for no other reason than the fact that our skin doesn't feel like it's ours. Sometimes we panic, because the bills need paying and we have to be grown-up and we don't know how, becuase it's so horribly, desperately easy to fail at being grown-up.* *\~* [*Anxious People*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-anxious-people-by-fredrik-backman/) *by Fredrik Backman* Backman really gets it, how hard it is to be a grown-up! Unlike what its name would suggest, this book had many moments of hilarity alongside poignancy. I haven't had the opportunity to read more of Backman's works since then, but it's on top of my list! I hope these lines have given you something to reflect upon, new titles to explore, and words that stirred something in you, something vulnerable, even if only to let you know it's ok to feel that way. Do you have any favourite quotes of your own? Words that soothe and heal you in your times of doubt and despair? Write to me and let me know! --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### reindeer on strike This one's an oldie. I took this picture a decade ago when we were living in Singapore. The sight of Santa Claus inside that capsule sparked this fun tale. I hope you enjoy reading it. [tales for dreamers: reindeer on strikeUh, oh! All the reindeer are on strike. How will Santa deliver his presents to you now?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2021/12/21.-reindeer-on-strike.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-reindeer-on-strike/) --- ## Books You May Love It's been a long time since I read a book and loved it so much that I had to go and blog about it. *The Sea Elephants* by Shastri Akella was one such piece of wonder. [The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella‘We meet our destiny on the road we avoid to take it.’ \~ The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/11/103.-nazym-jumadilova-WQ29MTe4MPs-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-sea-elephants-by-shastri-akella/) Set in 1990s India (when homosexuality was still deemed illegal), it is a coming-of-age tale of a boy, Shagun Mathur, who is conflicted about his sexuality. His father wants to 'fix' him by sending him to a conversion therapy centre. When his twin sisters die in an accident, he decides to move away from home by enrolling in an all-boys boarding school, but there too he finds himself ostracized. He runs away from school and joins a traveling theatre troupe performing plays based on Hindu myths, the kind of stories his mother used to narrate to him and his sisters when they were younger. Then he meets and falls in love with a gay man named Marc Singer, and is forced to confront his fears and trauma. The story was both brutal and just as breathtakingly beautiful, and the author narrates it with such tenderness I was very sad when the story came to its heartwarming end. I also finished reading *The Running Grave*, the latest in the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling). It was an excellent read. Strike's detective partner, Robin, goes undercover and joins a cult to help free a client's son. Such a thrilling and entertaining read! It was a nearly 1,000-page tome, and I love humungous books for the immersive reading experience they provide. I can't wait for the next book in the series! --- Well, that brings us to the end of this edition of *Monthly Missives*, dear Dreamer. This year ends on a Sunday, which means next month's newsletter will arrive in your inbox on New Year's Eve! Time just seems to hurtle forward mercilessly these days. Or maybe it was always like that and I'm only just beginning to notice it with each year, each birthday that passes by. So here's to spending the remaining days of 2023 more intentionally, focused on the here and now, grateful for all that has transpired, and curious about all that is yet to come. \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: do you know your own name? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-do-you-know-your-own-name/ Last updated: 2023-11-26T16:09:29.000Z What are you called, you beautiful tree? What name did they give you? What label did they affix to you, so they could go back home and brag to the rest of the world about their discovery? Did they name you after themselves? Knowing you’d outlast them all? As if only in their finding of you, your presence was established. As if without their discovery, you would have remained nonexistent. Something tells me you’d have preferred it that way. To remain unnamed. To remain unsullied by human words. ### books you may love: The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-sea-elephants-by-shastri-akella/ Last updated: 2023-11-26T11:17:44.000Z *The Sea Elephants* by [Shastri Akella](https://www.shastriakella.com) had been lying on my bookshelf for months now. I picked it up from the library several weeks ago; I don't recall now how I came across it. But I never quite got around to reading it. There was always something else to do, some other book to read, my own writing to attend to. Just last week, my shelf was overflowing with too many unread books and I mercilessly pruned my TBR pile, returning to the library several books unread. Mercifully, *The Sea Elephants* wasn't one of them. Now that my pile was manageable, I started to read the book. Even though I had read the blurb, I wasn't prepared for what an exquisitely beautiful story it turned out to be. It is a coming-of-age story of a boy named Shagun Mathur, who is conflicted about his sexuality. His mother loves him, but his father wants to 'fix' him by sending him to a conversion therapy centre. When his twin sisters die in an accident, he decides to move away from home by enrolling in an all-boys boarding school, but there too he finds himself ostracized. He runs away from school and joins a traveling theatre troupe performing plays based on Hindu myths, the kind of stories Shagun's mother used to narrate to him and his sisters when they were younger. Then he meets and falls in love with Marc Singer, and is forced to confront his fears and trauma. ![Hardback copy of The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella featuring an illustration of a blue elephants' eyes](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/11/102.-The-Sea-Elephants-1.jpeg) The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella My attempt here to recount the story is already doomed before I've even begun properly. No words can truly describe the enchanting and heartbreaking way in which Akella has woven Shagun's story and experiences. There's a gentleness that runs throughout the narrative, even when some of the most humiliating and horrifying scenes play out. I looked up Akella on the Internet and came across this wonderful article by him detailing how his own experiences led to the birth of Shagun Mathur and his touching story. I'd recommend reading the book first before reading Akella's article below, because it adds more depth and meaning to the story that way. Having read and loved Shagun's story, reading Akella's article gave me a greater understanding and appreciation of what compelled him to tell such a lovely tale. [How Exile Allowed Shastri Akella to Write a Queer NovelThe Sea Elephants began with an image that came to me one day when I was hiking by myself in the Himalayan mountain ranges of Uttarakhand. A young man shifts a photograph from one wall, that has pi…![](https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/favicon.ico)Literary HubShastri Akella![](https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Himalaya_Hike.jpg)](https://lithub.com/how-exile-allowed-shastri-akella-to-write-a-queer-novel/) On an aside, although I'm quite AI-neutral, it's obvious there's no algorithm can be manipulated and twisted to tell a tale so raw and true, a tale that comes from the depths of utterly human experiences. I took my time reading the story, savouring a few pages at bedtime. I finished reading the book yesterday and I wished Shagun and Marc were real people, so I could go give them a hug, be a friend to them, and have them as friends in my life too. You can tell how much this story touched me because I had to write an entire post on it, instead of simply pointing readers to the book and its author. I haven't written a ['books you may love'](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/books-you-may-love/) post in a while now, even though I have been reading a lot. But I couldn't let *The Sea Elephants* slip by without a mention here. And even now, I'm not ready to let the story and its characters go. I'm not ready to bid goodbye to them even though I've turned the last page and closed the book. Give the book a read, and please come back here and tell me about it so I too may indulge in the exquisite beauty of the story once more! ### happy birthday to me! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happy-birthday-to-me-4/ Last updated: 2023-11-20T18:05:05.000Z Today, I turn a year older, a year wiser. I've been thinking a lot about what I'd really like to have this year, how I'd like to grow, things like that ... I keep coming to the same conclusions year after year ... it's not a larger house or more money or more travel or more social events that I hanker for ... I'm still a sucker for beautiful stationery though! Beautifully designed notebooks, journals, pens, pencils, pencil crayons, markers ... I love them unabashedly! Other than those, what I want more of in my life though is the ability to incorporate the serenity prayer. > *God, please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.* As I grow older, the more I find that a whole lot of life is not in my control. Whether I win or lose. What others think of me. What others like and don't like. What happens when I try my best. None of these are in my control. It's also naïve to assume that I can keep trying and keep going on in the face of defeat/failure without pause or respite, without support or encouragement, either from myself or from loved ones. So, on this very special day of the year, this is my wish. > *To go through life with much joy and grace.* > *To follow my dreams with passion, not envy.* > *To love without hurting. To receive love as much as being able to give it.* > *To accept the messiness of life yet not lose my focus in the midst of it all.* > *To live my life not trying to run away from all that is scary but embracing all the highs and lows.* > *And trusting myself, trusting the Universe, simply trusting that come what may, I can keep on trying, I can keep going on, for as long as I live. And* that *alone is enough.* ![Me standing on a sidewalk full of fallen yellow leaves](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/11/101.-Happy-birthday-to-me-.jpeg) Yours truly! Happy birthday to me! ### lessons learnt from three years of being an author-entrepreneur URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-three-years-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/ Last updated: 2024-04-14T22:06:56.000Z Three years ago, I (sort of) formally declared the start of my career as an author-entrepreneur. [starting over as an author-entrepreneur at 40I turned forty two weeks ago. My birthday itself was a pleasant occasion and I celebrated it with my husband and four-year-old and cake. Wishes poured in from family overseas, and I remember feeling loved and content in the moment. But in the weeks leading up to my birthday, I![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2021/06/1.-Starting-Over_o.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/starting-over-as-an-author-entrepreneur-at-40/) Since then, it has become somewhat of a tradition for me to pause in November and look back and take stock of the year gone by. Here's what I wrote in [2021](https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-one-year-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/), and later in [2022](https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-two-years-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/). I read those posts out of curiosity, because I had completely forgotten what I had written back then. And when I did, I couldn't help but laugh. Because everything I thought I would wisely share today, I had already shared in those posts. Every struggle I thought was new to me this past year, I had already experienced in the years before. Every new nugget of wisdom I thought I had gleaned this year, I had gathered and written about back then too. So it seems to me that I've been given the same lessons to learn over and over again, because I haven't really learnt them. At least, not in a way that I intentionally apply in my day-to-day life. Or perhaps I have learnt them — I've definitely learnt to show up and do the work — yet I keep thinking there must be an easier way, a faster way, a more efficient path to success ... ... and that the next book by another writer, the next YouTube video by another writer, or the next blog post by yet another writer will teach me something new, elevate me to some new level of enlightenment, and finally show me the way to writerly success that would be effortless, painless and smooth-sailing at long last. --- > Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times. \~ Aeschylus --- ### Lessons learnt on the *Practice* of Writing I've finally come to the conclusion that whatever path I choose, there will be pain. It's a given. It's what we choose to do when that discomfort arises—because it surely will—that makes the difference. Often, I've run away in the face of discomfort. Sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who I was, why I was the way I was, and what I could do to improve, to better myself, so that I can navigate my way through the essential pain of living and creating. I think if I were to write a self-help book on this topic, it would fly off the shelves. Not because I'm an expert of any sort—heck, I'm not even an expert on my own self—but because the whole world seems to be riveted on finding that golden path to facing the pain *effortlessly* and keep moving towards success. And they keep seeking it in the next book, the next video, the next blog productivity technique ... I've found out what my Clifton Strengths were (#1 Input, #2 Strategic, #3 Achiever, #4 Responsibility, #5 Maximizer). I know what my Enneagram type is (4w3). I also know my tendency as defined by Gretchen Rubin (Rebel). I know my DISC personality type (high S) as well as my Myer-Briggs personality type (ENFJ). And each time I read the results of these tests and their analysis, I felt a light bulb getting switched on inside me. A-ha! So this is who I am. So this explains why I do this thing or like that thing or detest this other thing. Which means I need to ensure these three or four things are sorted before my brain can focus on writing. Which means I need to do these three or four things to trick my brain into focusing on writing. And so on and so on ... The lists were endless. When the shine of enlightenment arising from the result of each new personality test began to fade, usually in a matter of days or weeks, I'd be back at square one. Wondering why I'm not able to focus on work. Why when I've decided to spend the weekend with little D do I find myself slipping back up to my room after breakfast to try and write but not be able to do so. (On an aside, this constant see-sawing between writing and parenting had made a wreck of me.) And then I'd come across a different author talking about the same things with their own take on it, and it'd sound all very enlightening and refreshing all over again. For a few weeks ... or months ... you get the drift ... 😉 So my biggest priorities for the year ahead, and in fact it's something I've already begun to put into practice, is to - (a) understand and accept that the path is littered with a lot of challenges, and - (b) accordingly equip myself with healthy coping strategies when things take a rough turn. This may look like scheduling rest and rejuvenation, setting a pace that actually works for me instead of my fantasy self, and simply enjoying being the kind of writer I am doing the kind of writing I've been so blessed to undertake in this moment of time. --- ### Lessons learnt on the *Business* of Publishing Now, a few thoughts on what I've learnt about the actual business of selling the books I've written. - ***I love indie publishing.*** I enjoy all the aspects of indie publishing. Writing, learning the craft, finishing manuscripts, formatting the books, designing book covers, uploading the books on various retailer platforms, finding ways to reach new readers ... I love all of these aspects. This field is constantly changing. It offers countless opportunities to learn and experiment, to try out new things. These make my head and heart very happy. - ***But ... the subscription model is not for me.*** This is the latest trend in the indie publishing business. I say 'latest' but this model has been around for years (think Patreon), but more and more indie authors have jumped on to this bandwagon in the last couple of years. Last year, I started a weekly paid subscription for [*Tales for Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/), but three months into it, I realized this was not for me. I hate working to deadlines, and the biggest folly I could commit was imposing a weekly deadline on myself and expecting myself to stick to it. I hated it. And I announced that I'd be discontinuing it, although subscribers have so far received their weekly tale as promised, and will receive a bonus of 5 more tales after their subscription period ends later this month. I love writing the [*Monthly Missives*](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter/) newsletter, which goes out to subscribers on the last Sunday of every month. But a monthly frequency is what I can comfortably commit to. Anything more frequent than that makes me want to tear my hair out and run for the woods. - ***Social media is not my thing either.*** I deleted all of my social media accounts earlier this year. They were utter time sinks, and didn't help me at all in terms of promoting or selling my books. [the most important thing I learnt by quitting social media... what I had been seeking in that non-stop flow of images and videos and boxes of text on the screen was a salve for my loneliness.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/7.1.-duy-pham-Cecb0_8Hx-o-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-most-important-thing-i-learnt-by-quitting-social-media/) I haven't gone back to any of them except for an account I briefly created on Instagram in September but gave up on after posting a few pictures of the Paletta Lakefront, where I walk to on most mornings. Oh, I also got on Threads for a bit this summer to see what it was all about. I've since deleted both those accounts, so now I'm officially not on any social media platform. It's a distraction I'm perfectly happy without, and I've definitely seen a boost in the time I spend writing and the joy I derive from my work in the absence of social media. - ***Understanding that I'm not operating on a level playing field ...*** This has been the hardest lesson for me to learn and accept. In fact, I was completely oblivious to this fact until very recently. Sometime this summer, [trouble brewed](https://kriswrites.com/2023/09/06/business-musings-my-magazine-my-voice-my-rules/) in the fantasy and science fiction (F&SF) world when one of the magazines was accused of having bought a story from a writer who was known to have expressed extremist views. Long story short, the editor of the magazine, a black woman, had to face the flak in that incident and received no support from the publisher. This led to much discussion in the F&SF community about representation, and while researching online, I came across disturbing statistics that showed how white-dominant magazines in this genre are. I had been writing and submitting short stories to many of these magazines, getting even personalized notes of encouragement from some of these editors, without realizing that their acceptance rate of non-white authors was so startlingly low (in most cases, barely 2—5% of the authors these magazines publish are non-white). Until then I had harboured serious doubts about my ability to write a publishable story. After that incident, it occurred to me that perhaps those personal rejection letters might have been the equivalent of acceptance and publication had I been a white writer spinning a tale that a white editor could emotionally relate to. Who knows? This is not to say that diverse voices will never be heard — there are many successful authors of all backgrounds — but it helps me to accept the fact that the odds of my finding millions of readers may be lower, but I can still aim for thousands of readers and consider that great success. Somehow, realizing and understanding this has given me great relief. I no longer blindly keep trying what has worked for other writers and keep beating my head over why those tactics aren't working for me. This gives me permission to play the game following a slightly different set of rules and not blame myself for any lack of success. - ***Writing for the love of it ... because I can't help myself ...*** Ultimately, I love writing stories. I love writing fiction. And that is why I write. As a means of creative self-expression. Maybe these are the stories that someone may need to read years down the line and derive great inspiration or encouragement from. > *The conclusion for me always remains the same: write more, publish more, and enjoy my practice instead of being goaded by a sense of urgency to get to some destination/goalpost at the fastest only to realize belatedly that all the joy lay in the process, not in the end of it.* --- ### Celebrating my Wins Even though I have a tendency to feel I've not accomplished enough, I must list all the amazing stuff that has happened this year to remind myself of how far I've come. - My novel, [*Dying Wishes*](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/), was one of six finalists for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Speculative Fiction. The lovely folks at Kobo even published an interview with me on their website. [Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2023: KWL Author Spotlight on Anitha Krishnan - Kobo Writing LifeAnitha Krishnan on her expansive novel featuring “whimsical worlds and heartbreaking prose,” Dying Wishes, shortlisted for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life. For thirteen years now, I have served…![](https://i0.wp.com/kobowritinglife.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/KWL-Favicon-White-1.png?fit=192%2C192&ssl=1)Kobo Writing Lifekobowritinglife![](https://kobowritinglife.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/EWP-Logo.jpg)](https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/06/08/rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize-2023-kwl-author-spotlight-on-anitha-krishnan/) - My words of wisdom (aka advice for new writers) went on to appear in Kobo's newsletter and also a newsletter by IASFA (International Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Authors)! - I published four new works: [*The Land of No Reflection*](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection), the second edition of [*A Benevolent Goddess*](https://books2read.com/a-benevolent-goddess/) including an additional chapter and a vastly different ending to the original story, [*The Mind Meddler*](https://books2read.com/themindmeddler/), and the paperback edition of [*In Search of Leo*](https://books2read.com/in-search-of-leo/)! - I explored publishing on Barnes & Noble as well as via Draft2Digital for the first time this year with *The Land of No Reflection*. See all the various [platforms](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection) the book is now available on! I still have a lot of work to do in getting all my other books up on all the platforms, but I made a great start on that this year. - I explored various avenues of promoting my books: participating in a sales promo on BookFunnel, in a newsletter promo on BookFunnel, and also in two of IASFA's monthly promos. That's *four* in all in 2023, compared to *one* in the previous year. Great progress! Also, now that I've tried my hand at a bunch of different promotions, I have a better sense of which technique seems to be more effective than the others, and that gives me something to focus on. - I made several submissions to short story magazines, receiving personalized comments from various editors, which is considered higher up on the ladder than getting form rejection (which is a simple *'Sorry, your story didn't work for us'* without any explanation as to why or what could be improved.) - I've also received a standing offer from a magazine for one of my short stories. Although I've yet to see if the offer will be honoured, it was quite a shot in the arm to receive it alongside very positive feedback and praise from the editor. I wonder if I'm missing anything. Even if I am, this list above has convinced me that I've had a great year indeed and have made much progress on several fronts. I'm curious and excited to see what the next 12 months will bring. Onwards with great courage and zest for life! 🥳 ### tales for dreamers: the very important job of the head of security at the department store URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-very-important-job/ Last updated: 2023-11-24T23:54:57.000Z Lewis is the designated Head of Security for the department store, although the title is a little misleading because he is the only real employee with the Department of Security, if you didn’t count all the security cameras, that is. It’s a one-stuffie show, and he’s been with the store ever since it opened so many years ago that people have forgotten a time when the storefront did not exist. Very few people notice him though, perched as he is in a tiny unobtrusive corner, which is the point really because no one likes knowing that they’re being watched. People are strange that way, Lewis has come to realize in all his time as the Head of Security there. You’d think that his job is to watch for shoplifters and troublemakers, but ask him and he’ll tell you that there have been very few instances of theft in the store. The real trouble, he says with a very solemn expression on his face, tends to come from the people who don’t know the difference between what they *want* and what they *need*. Sometimes they buy too many things from the store and then go home and find their bags are full of stuff they didn’t need, and they tend to blame the enticing layout of the store or the friendly cashier for their lack of discernment. Lewis thinks he ought to be placed at the entrance to the store where he could welcome customers and remind them to be mindful while they’re shopping. It would save them a lot of heartache, he reasons. But the store managers don’t agree with him, he shrugs. And with good reason, he admits. So now what Lewis does is when he sees people walking out with too many bags to count, he whispers to them, “Thank you for shopping with us. Remember you can always come back and return whatever you don’t need. Have a great day!” ### that is all we need... URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/that-is-all-we-need/ Last updated: 2023-11-10T22:16:06.000Z We were at IKEA earlier this morning, looking for storage solutions that would empower little D to keep his (seemingly innumerable and ever-growing pile of) things in order. We sauntered into one of those demo-apartments that IKEA has, those beautifully dressed up spaces ranging from 100—600 sq ft demonstrating how to make the most of small living spaces. I was feeling terribly nostalgic for the olden days of KrA and I living in a 1-bed apartment, even though memory tells me that in those spaces too I was always seeking an escape, falsely believing that a better life lay somewhere else. Anyhoo, we were showing D around one of the IKEA showroom flats. *Here's the living area. Here's the kitchen. Here's a big bedroom. There a children's bedroom. And the bathroom.* And he said, "That is all we need to live." So true. Even now, as we live in a condo townhouse, occasionally toying with the dream of owning our very own detached, independent place, comes the realization of how futile that dream is, how it's not truly what we want but what looks pretty to us from the outside because culture has told us it is so. What we truly want, what I truly want, is to simply savour this moment, knowing I have everything I need, and that I can catch myself when I tend to fall into a negative thought spiral and choose a different course of action, a different way of thought, a different manner of being. I do have everything I need to live. I already have everything I need to live an amazing life. ### tales for dreamers: right here, all along URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-right-here-all-along/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:40:26.000Z In the winter, ask the grass, “Where have you disappeared?” In the spring, she will reply, “We’ve been right here, all along.” In the winter, ask the trees, “Where have your leaves gone?” In the spring will come their reply, “They have been right here, all along.” In the dark of the night, call out to the sun, “Where has your light vanished?” In the early hours of the dawn, he will whisper from the horizon, “Here it is, where I’ve always been. Right here, all along.” In the light of the sun, beseech the bright blue sky, “Reveal to me all your stars.” In the light of the moon, the night sky will answer, “Can you see them now? They’ve been right here, all along.” In this time and space of grief, holler out so the whole world can hear, “Hope, I have lost sight of you. Where are you now?” In this very dimension of time and space, the answer will come from within you, “Right here, all along.” ### tales for dreamers: spies in the skies URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-spies-in-the-skies/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:41:08.000Z The spies like to hide in the skies because they are less likely to be spotted there. People don’t usually look up unless they have good reason to. Like a spectacular sunset. Or time to lie on the grass and watch the clouds drift past. And even if someone does look up and spot something, or *someone*, they’re most likely to dismiss what they see as a trick of the light, or an illusion of nature. Anything to explain away the inexplicable. From their vantage point, the spies watch people. You and me, too. *It’s a boring job*, they admit, *to watch human beings do the same things day in and day out, even when they know better.* That is why they often sleep on the job, they continue to confess, knowing nothing much would have changed in the days or weeks or months of their slacking off. But every once in a while, someone comes along and challenges the status quo, and this rekindles the spies’ interest in our world once more. And they peep out from behind the clouds, eager to see, and just as willing to be seen. *Because*, they explain, *every once in a while, the people of this world need to be reminded to look over and beyond their walls, to see what lies on the other side*. ### October Odyssey: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/2023-newsletter-october-odyssey/ Last updated: 2024-02-25T13:26:13.000Z Hello, Dreamer! In my part of the world, October has been a strange month weather-wise, ushering in some really cold mornings while also taking the temperature back up to the late-teens (in Celsius) on some unexpected days. We had a dry spell for a long time, and now the skies have taken to shedding tears at night, leaving the earth cold and damp and grey the next morning. This month's mood swings have been quite adolescent-like in nature, which I find funny and confusing at the same time. Not least because my own moods have been swinging wildly in tune with the weather, hopping up and down like a gravity-defying teenage-kangaroo on steroids playing 'the floor is lava'. Restless. Worn out from all the jumping. Yet, unable to stop. Which is why I'm making it a point this season to be more intentional about managing these shifts in weather and mood and taking it slow, which in itself has become something of a feat these days when the one constant question that keeps playing like a broken record in the back of my head as well as KrA's head when it comes to working and parenting is this: "Are we doing enough? Are we doing enough?" --- But first things first! I hope you got the unexpected bag of book-goodies I sent your way last Sunday in which I announced that my latest work, [*The Land of No Reflection*](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection), is now published in both ebook and paperback formats! Yay! [![Ebook cover of The Land of No Reflection by Anitha Krishnan featuring an ornate, round gilded mirror with no reflection in it](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/10/The-Land-of-No-Reflection_Website.jpg)](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection) I spent some time this month publishing this book on as many retailer platforms and avenues I possibly could. It's one of my most widely available books in ebook and paperback formats. 💡 Especially, folks in India who've been asking me to make paperback copies available there, your wish is now [fulfilled](https://www.amazon.in/Land-No-Reflection-Anitha-Krishnan/dp/1738815862)! [Get your copy of The Land of No Reflection!](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection) --- And if you wanted a free copy of *The Mind Meddler*, it's available for only a couple of weeks more over at [*BookFunnel*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/fantasydark/prh21k96ch) along with a number of other new works and authors to check out. [Darkness Within: are you afraid of the dark?Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/2prh434zm1/header.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/fantasydark/prh21k96ch) --- I dedicate every single one of my books to my husband and best friend, KrA, and our little one D. Occasionally, I include other people in the dedication, but KrA and D are the ones who live with me and my writing endeavours day in and day out, influencing and being influenced by how all this pans out. This month, I dedicated *The Land of No Reflection* to my dear maternal aunt, Kala, who died a year ago in a horrific helicopter crash in North India. She was only sixty. Kala *Maami* ('*Maami*' being the word in many Indian languages for maternal aunt by marriage) was one of my favourit*est* relatives growing up. Every summer we used to take the train from Mumbai (Bombay, back in those days), near where we lived, to Chennai (erstwhile Madras), and spend the entire summer month of May with my maternal grandparents, maternal uncle and aunt, and their children (my dear cousins). That was the summer vacation destination of my childhood every year. Kala Maami was one of the funniest and finest persons around. It was impossible to remain sad or depressed around her for any length of time. She was always bubbling with a zest for life and a joyous energy, almost in defiance of some very difficult life circumstances she had to ceaselessly contend with. I have several wonderful memories of the time I spent with her. But the day I received news of her accident (via a phone call from my mom), there was one memory that popped up and lodged itself firmly in my mind. It wasn't a happy one. To provide you with a little context, back in 2017—2018, in the months leading up to the publication of my first novel, [*In Search of Leo*](https://books2read.com/in-search-of-leo/), I made all the mistakes every rookie indie writer is warned not to make but goes ahead and does so anyway. Mainly, I paid a pretty penny to an editor and a cover designer to get my book whipped into publication-ready shape. To date, the book hasn't sold enough copies to recover those expenses. Not very wise from a business point of view. I did, however, gladly share a free copy of the story when Kala Maami asked for it. This was before I had purchased a swanky formatting tool, so I only had a PDF to send over to her. She read the entire story with great interest and wrote to me at length afterwards, telling me how much she loved it, how she took to the various characters and the nuances of the emotions they were portraying. "I can't wait to spend an entire evening chatting with you about your book when you come to visit next," she had texted me. Obviously, that visit didn't happen. I haven't been to India in more than a decade now. Three years later, in March/April 2021, I published my next book, [*Dying Wishes*](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/). At almost 500 pages, it was quite a tome. This time I made wiser spending choices and was able to optimize my expenses. Having learnt from the experiences of publishing my first book (high expectations but very little sales to show for it), I was focused this time on *'selling'* this second book. What I'm about to share with you next, I do so with a lot of regret and vulnerability. For you see, when my greatest cheerleader, Kala Maami, asked me if I could send over a PDF of my book for her to read, this was my reply: "Maybe you could buy a copy, *Maami*? This is how I'm trying to make a living." ![a stalk of purple hyacinth](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/10/dominik-scythe-89AWrQmL0Ec-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Dominik Scythe](https://unsplash.com/@drscythe?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-purple-flower-with-drops-of-water-on-it-89AWrQmL0Ec?utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=unsplash) *Dying Wishes* contains so much from my childhood in it that Kala Maami would have been among a handful of people in this whole, wide world who would have read the book with much enthusiasm and even appreciated every single detail and nuance in it. When I heard the news of her death, I felt terrible thinking of how I denied her the pleasure of reading and enjoying my book, how I also denied myself the acknowledgement and support I'd have received from her. I'd have probably earned $3 in royalties from such a sale. Looking back at that incident now, I can appreciate both my perspective and hers. Neither of us were right or wrong. We were just operating from different perspectives, our behaviours shaped by our beliefs leading up to her moment of asking and my moment of refusing. Having reflected on my response to her, I've come to understand one thing. > *You see, when the big picture is uncertain, we tend to become petty about small things.* > *The big picture, the long term, these are always out of our control. And that is so terrifying that we try to exert control where we can, over the smallest of things.* > *I refused to give away a copy of my book as a gift to someone I loved and adored because I worried that such a deed would mean I didn't value my own work of creativity enough. And that if I didn't value it enough, the world would respond in kind.* Does that mean I could ideally give away all my works for free? I don't know. I wish I could. Because this is something I've come to learn about myself these past few years. I want wealth, not to splurge on myself, but to satisfy my need to give freely. I want to be able to give without worrying about whether it fits my budget or not, or whether I'd get what I need when the time comes. I don't like the kind of person I become when I'm compelled to think, "But can I afford to give this away?" My dad is one of the most generous persons I know. He gives without worrying, even though he's never been what you'd call 'wealthy' his whole life. He used to play professional cricket in his younger days. He once had his cricket bat autographed by the West Indies cricket giant, Gary Sobers. He handed that bat over to his nephew in an act of generosity that my mom used to recount with some regret. I've had glimpses of that kind of emotional freedom in my own life, when I'm able to give freely and my heart is light and happy because of it. But it's an elusive state at best. Eventually, that fear of not having enough for my family (especially D and KrA) rears its head, and I'm back to being tight-fisted until it hurts my heart and soul so much that I simply can't be that way anymore. > *Have you felt this way too?* > *Does your heart clam up in fear and make you do things you wouldn't do otherwise?* > *Have you wondered, or even seen, who you become when faith, not fear, turns up as the stronger force for you?* Write to me and let me know. Because eventually, time passes and lives come to an end. We could have spent all that time, trusting we have enough, knowing we'll be fine no matter what. Or we could have spent all that time, worrying about never having enough, fearful and anxious that something terrible will befall us unless we're careful, something terrible that we won't be able to survive. What will you choose? Today? Tomorrow? For the rest of your lives, oh so full of contradictions? --- > *I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”* > *\~ Neil Gaiman, American Gods* --- > *For Kala Maami,* > *I miss you. I hope the Gods realize how lucky they are to have you in their midst.* --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### waiting for permission to belong There's a home on the streets I usually take when I set out on my long, meandering walks. Every year they set up this half-skeleton half-mummy kind of decor on their front lawn for Halloween. Last year it was just a statuesque object. This year, the thing swivels its head and emits a low growl too. At this rate, I think next year it might well take up residence inside the home! [tales for dreamers: waiting for permission to belongThe half-mummy half-skeleton longs to be let inside for the season. Do you have the heart to welcome him into your home?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/10/42.-waiting-for-permission-to-belong.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-waiting-for-permission-to-belong/) --- ## Books You May Love Reading took a bit of a backseat this month as I was binge-watching *The Vampire Diaries* (rewatching the entire series without any recollection of the plot whatsoever). But when the latest instalment of the Cormoran Strike series came out, *A Running Grave*, I dove into it. I'm halfway through the book right now and I'm in reading heaven. I love that JK Rowling writes these tomes. 900 pages of immersion into such an exciting story. Look at the size of that book! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/10/IMG_5687.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/10/IMG_5688.jpeg) I will write more about it next month once I've finished reading it. I'm taking my own sweet time, savouring each page. Some treasures in life are not to be rushed through, and this is one such treat! --- Well, that's what October has been all about, dear Dreamer! But it's not been all doom and gloom. Many wonderful things have happened this month. My dear friend, Shreyasi, in New Zealand celebrated a milestone birthday this month! The good times have only just begun, dear one, trust me! 🥳 Another dear friend and bringer of all good things into my life, H, welcomed her first baby this month. Welcome to sleepless nights and moments of delirious happiness, dear H. Now you'll find out how a heart can truly explode with joy! 💕 Yet another dear friend from a very long time (more than 25 years 😲) ago found her way to my website and this newsletter a few days ago. Welcome, Sheetal! There's still Halloween to look forward to this month. And when November comes, I'll embrace it with both arms because it's my birth month. It's going to be an amazing time of the year! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: sermons of a very angry ghost URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-sermons-of-a-very-angry-ghost/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:36:46.000Z Every morning in October, the very angry ghost pops up on the front lawn of a very nice home in a very quiet suburban street. He rants about the evils of being human and exhorts unsuspecting passersby to give ghostliness a serious try. For the first few days, people walking or driving down the street stop to gawk at the ghost. He waves his puffed-up self at them, but his antics only serve to amuse them more than terrify them. It doesn’t take them long to get used to his presence and they begin to pass him by without so much as a second glance. This infuriates the already-very-angry ghost even more, and he hops up and down on the lawn and stirs a powerful breeze that brings red and golden leaves tumbling down from the treetops. The people on the street wrap their coats and jackets tighter around their bodies and hurry to their destinations. The days are getting shorter, and no one has the time to stand and stare at a creature they have gotten used to, like the beech tree under which it has taken up residence. So the very angry ghost recruits all the children of the ghost*dom* he hails from, and makes them line up behind him. And just as he had expected — he has learnt something about human weaknesses after all his time on the street — he begins to attract a crowd again, people who stop to *ooh* and *aah* at the little ghost*lings* and their cuteness overload. He keeps up with his rants even though the people who stop at the lawn tend to pay more attention to the little ghost*lings* than to him. The little ones know, in the way that only little ones do, that the humans can’t really hear the very angry ghost. His words fall on their ears like leaf-whispers or wind-howls. But the little ghostl*ings* don’t have the heart to tell him that because they know why he is really angry and why he calls on humans to convert. He too was human once, and it’s something he can never be again. > ✨ 🎶 Check out the audio version of this tale! --- For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! ### tales for dreamers: waiting for permission to belong URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-waiting-for-permission-to-belong/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:34:46.000Z The creature, half-mummy half-skeleton, comes to our front lawn every autumn. All bare bones and tattered clothes, he asks to be let inside our home every year. He says it’s too cold, too lonely outside. The light-up ghost down the street mocks him for his shabby attire. The witches in the neighbour’s yard threaten to cast spells at him and send him back to wherever he has come from. He doesn’t wish to go back there, even though he doesn’t quite remember where ‘there’ is although the mere mention of it seems to give him the chills. He yearns for a warm spot, a small patch by the fireplace to warm his frozen bones. He promises he won’t take up much space. He can fold himself into a much smaller form, he claims. When our eyes remain full of disbelief, he collapses right there on the front lawn, nothing more than a heap of bones, the skull-head perched on top, making for just as excellent a Halloween decoration as he was before. We gasp and ooh and aah. When we’re done applauding, he slowly lifts himself up, rearranging every bone meticulously, each held together by nothing more than air and tattered pieces of cloth. He looks at us hopefully then. We tell him we need some time to think. After all, it isn’t a small thing to invite a long-dead creature into our home. He nods sadly as though he understands but he doesn’t. He doesn’t realize that we’re only being polite, that we have no intention of inviting him into our home when we have no idea if he’ll ever want to leave. No one seems to have taught him that if he’s waiting for permission to belong, he’ll sadly be waiting for a very, very long time to come. > ✨ *🎶 Wonder what this tale sounds like in audio paired with tenderly haunting ambient music?* --- For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! ### October reading goodies for you! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/october-reading-goodies-for-you/ Last updated: 2023-10-22T17:20:16.000Z Surprise!!! I hope you've been having a fun-tastic October, dear Dreamer! It's not time for the *Monthly Missives* yet, but there's a bunch of book-related updates I wanted to share with you. Some of these will not be available by the time you hear from me this coming Sunday, hence this unexpected bag of goodies is turning up in your inbox today. If it has finally started to turn colder and darker in your part of the world (unless you're in the southern half of the planet), these books will keep you company for the winter that's right around the corner. Grab a warm cuppa and enjoy! --- 💡 [***The Land of No Reflection**](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection) **is now out on most retailers in ebook and paperback formats!** [![Ebook cover of The Land of No Reflection by Anitha Krishnan featuring a round gilded mirror with no reflection](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/10/The-Land-of-No-Reflection.jpg)](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection) **You don’t need eyes, let alone a mirror, to peer into the depths of your own soul.** Sight is a privilege denied to everyone by law in the land of Parinara. Every child is blindfolded at birth. Even the dead are buried blindfolded. To see is an unpardonable crime, punishable by death. Yet, fifteen-year-old Viola indulges in a momentary curiosity and violates the law, only to find that the gift of sight comes at an exorbitant price. To look outward, she must first lose sight of what lies inward. But therein lie the secrets that even sightlessness cannot conceal. [Get your copy now!](https://books2read.com/the-land-of-no-reflection) --- 💡 ****Free and 99-cent fantasy books from the** [****IASFA**](https://iasfa.org/oct23/)****: October 22-26 only!** Members of the International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors are offering some of their best works for free for a limited time. My paranormal mystery book, [*Erased from Existence*](https://iasfa.org/oct23/), is part of this promotion! It's twisted. It's wicked. It's a mystery. Steeped in family history! If you haven't read it, now's the time to get it along with many other works for free or 99 cents, and support the IASFA for the wonderful work it does in leading readers to authors whose works they'll fall in love with. This promotion runs only for a few short days, so don't forget to take a look at it before Thursday, October 26! [Fantasy | IASFAThe IASFA Fantasy promotion runs from October 22-26\. Please click on a cover to learn more and access the download link.![](https://iasfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/cropped-IASFA-Logo-SMALL-270x270.jpg)IASFARob Mc![](https://iasfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/fantasy-banner.jpg)](https://iasfa.org/oct23/) --- 💡 [***The Darkness Within**](https://books.bookfunnel.com/fantasydark/prh21k96ch)****: Free fantasy books on the theme of inner darkness! Oct 15-Nov 15 only!** If you love reading stories in which characters struggle with their dark side, here's a wide selection of free books for you to choose from. My fantasy short story, [*The Mind Meddler*](https://books.bookfunnel.com/fantasydark/prh21k96ch), is part of this compilation. These books make the perfect read for the month of October. [Darkness Within: are you afraid of the dark?Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/2prh434zm1/header.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/fantasydark/prh21k96ch) --- 💡 ****The** [****2023 Halloween-themed Storybundle**](https://storybundle.com/horror) **is now available!** As you perhaps already know by now, I often make my way over to Storybundle when I'm in the mood for book shopping. You can grab an eclectic collection of books and also donate to a good cause while you're at it. This particular collection has books from some of the most entertaining storytellers of our time. Annie Reed, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, JF Penn, Mark Leslie, Kevin J. Anderson ... these are authors whose works I love. But there is a special place in my heart for [Anthea Sharp](https://antheasharp.com), whose collection of short stories, *Celtic Midnight*, is part of this bundle. I think I've raved about Sharp's stories to you earlier; I love everything she writes and I can't stop recommending her work to anyone who'll listen to (or read) what I have to say! I came to Sharp's works through her book, [*The Dark Realm*](https://dl.bookfunnel.com/hvr0lgd8ot), which is the first in her Feyland series, which features an evil faerie queen looking to wreak havoc on the real world from inside a video game! Sharp has made the book available for free this month, so grab it while you can. Let me warn you though—once you get started, you won't be able to stop reading. It is that good! --- So these are all the reading goodies I have for you this month, dear Dreamer! Thank you for permitting me to share these with you. I hope you find among them at least one gem of a story to enjoy in these cold, dark times. As for me, the late sunrises give me something to look forward to when I wake up, especially on the weekends. Sunrise-viewing with little D! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/10/97.-Watching-the-sun-rise.jpeg) Until Sunday then! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: questions for the gods URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-questions-for-the-gods/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:41:26.000Z I was full of questions in those days. Questions about myself and the world around me. Questions about my life and my purpose in this world of people, who too seemed to be full of questions about their own lives and their own purpose. And no one seemed to have any answers, at least not the kind that wouldn’t spark off more questions and half-answers. Also, not everyone seemed to be looking for answers in the first place, which made me wonder if they had unknowingly stumbled upon some secret of living well. Finally, someone suggested said that if I could get up to the heavens, I could meet the gods and ask them all my questions and receive worthwhile answers. I had nothing to lose. And so I learnt how to fly, how to lift off from the earth and leap into the belly of the blue, blue skies. And what I saw from there was so vast and so beautiful that I forgot all the questions I had collected for a lifetime. And I started to create more beauty and joy instead. ### are you afraid of the dark? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/are-you-afraid-of-the-dark/ Last updated: 2023-10-15T22:26:00.000Z A group of authors over have gathered together to offer a bunch of sci-fi and fantasy books focussed on the theme of inner darkness! [Darkness Within: are you afraid of the dark?Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/2prh434zm1/header.jpg)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/fantasydark/prh21k96ch) These books will be available for free from 15 October—15 November. It's quite an eclectic selection. Plus my fantasy short story, *The Mind Meddler*, is up there too for grabs! Go ahead and take a look. Perhaps in the darkness you will find an unexpected source of light! ### tales for dreamers: letters to the Old Ones URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-letters-to-the-old-ones/ Last updated: 2026-02-19T19:01:26.000Z You can send letters to the Old Ones at any time of day or night. The Old Ones are all those who are long gone. A cherished grandparent who lives no more. A political figure from the past. A God forgotten. A soldier fallen in war. Someone you knew. Someone who didn’t know you. Someone you imagined. Even to your own self from a past life. The mailbox gathers every message and delivers it to the Old One it is addressed to. (Don’t ask me how these things work. I’ve learnt long ago that sometimes oftentimes I am better off not knowing.) You can write to an Old One and tell them about every heartbreak and agony, about every betrayal and injustice you face. About every promise that was made to you, only to be broken. About every thing you thought would bring you joy and happiness, only to find out that you had believed in a lie all along. You can also write to an Old One about how the blue of the springtime sky fills your heart with hope. About how the new leaves on the trees are a psychedelic green. About how the sun pours warmth on you, a warmth you had forgotten in the lonely cold of the long, long winter. Write your words with abandon. Write as if no one will read. The Old Ones will read, of course. But mostly, they do not reply. Because they know that you’re not seeking guidance or advice. They know that what you need is someone who will simply listen. ### tales for dreamers: the story of a horse URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-story-of-a-horse/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:41:46.000Z Jobs were hard to come by in those days, so the horse decided to earn his keep working as a living statue. At first he stationed himself on the pavement but as people began to spend more time inside shopping arcades than outdoors, he moved indoors. The owner of the mall did not mind at first — as long as we rake in more business, he said — and earmarked a special nook where the horse could stand all day long. The children took to him instantly. They gathered around him, wondering at first whether or not he was real. He would sometimes wink at a kid or two, surreptitiously swish his tail over another's hair, and just as they'd begin to get used to his inertia, he would raise his forelegs in the air and nicker gently, startling and delighting the kids all at once, then come back on all fours and resume a statued pose. Then someone decided it would prove good entertainment for adults if they started to bet on the horse. And so they did, placing their bets on when the living statue would move. At first, the horse obliged. A swish of his tail when the clock struck thirteen, a toss of his mane at the darkest moment of the night, a neigh at the break of dawn, much to the delight of the punters. But after most of the public had had an initial good run on their wagers, the owner of the mall instructed the horse to curb the goodwill gestures. And so the horse began to stand still for endless days and nights, moving only often enough to persuade people to wager more. They laid their odds, lost some money, laid another wager, won a little, put more money on, and lost a whole lot more. Occasionally someone won a million bucks and it made front-page news, kindling hopes, reviving dreams. It was funny how the horse died. He was growing old, his legs and neck stiff and sore from the tedium of his job. He eventually found himself incapable of motion. So when the time came, he simply froze in place. And there he has remained ever since, everyone still unsure whether or not he was alive. Children gaping at him, imagining a wink every now and then. Adults betting on him, swearing a whinny was in the making. Anytime now, anytime soon. And that is how the house always won. ### tales for dreamers: it's showtime! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-its-showtime/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:41:56.000Z Come, come, my dearies! Hurry up! You need to get dressed for the show, the stage is all set, and there isn’t much time left. Grab your costumes, and put on your make-up. Scarlet lipsticks, and midnight mascaras. Violet eyes, and shiny noses. Brush the rouge on to your cheeks, dab some perfume on your wrists, so you smell like oriental lilies and shimmer like the stars. Rehearse your lines. But if you forget them while on stage, fear not. Tell a tale, whistle a tune, or break into a song. Just don’t let the silence linger on for too long. We’ve been here countless times before. We will do this umpteen times again. You only get better each time. So worry not, if you make new mistakes. Remember, everything is acceptable, as long as you remain true to your character. ### changing my relationship with money and writing URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/changing-my-relationship-with-money-and-writing/ Last updated: 2023-09-26T19:03:08.000Z This post is a difficult one for me to write. This topic of money brings up a lot of triggers for me and is also a reminder of the fact that I'm currently not in the best place to talk about things like *how to make a living from your passion.* Not for lack of trying, though. I have been trying for the past five years to earn a livelihood by writing and selling books, and I've failed so far. And perhaps that is why I am indeed best placed to write about how money — the desire to earn it, the fact of its absence or deficiency in our lives at present, the fear of never being able to achieve whatever money goals we may have set for ourselves — affects the very process of following our passion. Because whether money itself is present or not, this torment surrounding it is ever present in my life. This has been the case for the last few years now. And I am absolutely terrified that I'd spend the next few years writing and not seeing any uptick in income related to it. This fear shows up in my daily life. Instead of motivating me, it paralyzes me. And when another day ends without me having achieved any progress on the writing front, it only serves to amplify the fear. I've often thought of securing a regular job, something even part-time, but my applications have so far led me nowhere. After years of feeling tossed about like a driftwood by the uncertain waves of this industry and the financial anxiety I experience, I took some time last week to reassess what the hell is going on in my life and what I need to do about it. --- The common advice out there is to first determine what we really value in our lives. My immediate answers to this question were: parenting and writing. But over these past few years, I've found that sometimes these two desires are at odds with each other. I was operating in a market that rewarded fast-movers, and so I had bought into the belief that I needed to write more and publish faster in order to make a living from writing. And that often led to me feeling irritated or resentful at my family (because I couldn't get more time and peace of mind to work faster) or feeling guilty (especially after I had picked a fight with KrA or snapped at D) or feeling utterly lost and completely incapable of doing what it took to make a full-time living as an author. In my head, I had concocted a fantasy of perfectly juggling parenting and writing, and acing both. I'd be an awesome parent to D when he was around, and focus on writing and publishing when he was at school or during early mornings before he woke up or late at night after he had gone to bed. That was my ideal life. What I didn't account for was the fact that being present and conscious as a parent takes a lot of energy, especially emotional and mental energy. If D has had a particularly difficult morning and I've put in the effort to be calm and patient with him, then I find myself left with little energy for the mentally demanding creative work of sitting and writing stories or formatting and publishing books. He'd be away at school, and I'd end up having a slow day or even a no-output day. And that same old terror comes roaring at me: that I'd never be able to write and publish books fast enough to earn money. (KrA is not like that. No matter what happens around him, he can still get to his desk and focus on the work at hand. I've come to admire and envy that ability of his in recent years — it's what helps us put bread on the table; it's also what I wish I could do but find myself unable to.) I've often wondered if having a job with deadlines to meet and an external boss to report to would help me focus better and get more done work-wise. Believing that, I've applied for jobs on and off in the past several years but have met with little luck. A few years ago, when D was younger, I was freelance-editing for a while. I remember taking on projects with great interest and enthusiasm, only to be forced to give them up because D would have fallen ill and needed to stay at home, or I was trying to get the work done at night when he was asleep but I ended up compromising my own sleep and sanity in the process. Over time, I've also come to see that given my current frame of mind, I'm likely to perceive external deadlines as an imposition and constraint, especially when I value the time I'm able to spend with little D and prefer to savour life slowly, especially when I'm able to do so without constantly worrying about the work to be done or the money to be earned. > *So then what is it that I really value? What is it that I really want?* > *At this point of time in my life, I find that what I really want is to be able to accept and value my life as it is without cursing it and wishing it were any other way.* I'd like to write and create without worrying about whether or not my stories will sell. When D is in pain, I wish to be there to hold and comfort him without wishing parenting were easy so I could focus more and better on the other job of writing. When KrA and I spend time together, I don't wish to have this nagging thought in the back of my head about how fleeting and precious this time is, and how there never seems to be enough of it these days. I'm unable to accept the fact that I'm not a breadwinner for our family and that I haven't been one for the last nine years. It stings. --- In a different context, Susan Cain explains this feeling in her book *Bittersweet*. She quotes a haiku by Japanese Buddhist poet Issa, who lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Issa witnessed a lot of loss of loved ones in his life. He railed against the impermanence of life. > "I concede that water can never return to its source, nor scattered blossoms to their branch, but even so the bonds of affection are hard to break." \~ Issa > It is true > That this world of dew > Is a world of dew. > But even so... > \~ Issa > ... there's a big difference between awareness and acceptance. Which is why "this world of dew / Is a world of dew" isn't the heart of Issa's poem. It's true, thrumming centre is those three unassuming words: But even so. > ... How are we supposed to live, knowing that we and everyone we love will die? Issa offers his own bittersweet answer. You don't have to *accept* impermanence, I believe he's telling us. It's enough to be *aware* of it, and to feel its sting. > Because this, in the end, is what connects us all. > \~ Susan Cain, *Bittersweet* --- Reading these lines from Cain's *Bittersweet* made me realize that I was aware of my constraints but I was struggling to accept them. Now that I understand the difference between the two? I do. But even so ... But even so ... I know that for as long as I continue to write, the reminder that I wasn't able to make a living from it will continue to sting. I will still write for my soul. For as long as I parent, the truth that I don't own or control my child, that his future will unfold in ways beyond my foresight, and that all I can do is show up in the moment and be there for him now, when he is still young and of a tender age, will continue to hurt and baffle me. I will still show up as a conscious parent for him; this is something I'd do for my own growth just as much as for him. The only difference is that when I write, it will no longer be with the frenzied approach of one looking to finish the work and put it up in the marketplace for sale. It will come from a place of simple delight and joy, like it did all those years ago when I first started to write with the singular intention of writing well, with the singular hope that my words too may soothe and comfort readers the way so many authors' words have looked after me in my times of need and distress. The only difference is that when I parent, I will do so from a place of unhurried presence, because I no longer have other more pressing matters to attend to. I can give all my attention to this little person I've been so lucky to have in my home. Ever since D was born, I knew how lucky I was. I tell him I've won the lottery because he was born to me. Somewhere along the way, in my ambition to monetize my writing, I had forgotten this truth. And I ended up resenting him and his dependence on me, I'm ashamed to say. I thought I was an awful parent who hadn't taught or encouraged her child to undertake independent play. I thought I was a smothering mom who had spent too much time playing with him when he was little. I am so sorry, little D. You are such a precious soul. I don't regret a single moment I spent with you. I regret doubting myself for loving you so much, for wanting to give you a happy childhood filled with presence and attention and connection. --- When I look at life this way, I can see I'm already living my dream life. Why did I want to earn money from writing? So that I can enjoy a life of freedom, not tied to a 9-to-5 job with limited leave. So that I can be there for my child as he grows up. So that I can spend much of my precious life with KrA. So that I can lie in bed in the afternoon and look out of the window and watch the white clouds drift across a splendid blue sky. These are the things that matter to me, and I already have them. Sure, I don't own a lakeside mansion, but all I need to do is walk about a kilometre down and I reach Paletta, where the wind rocks the waves and sweeps clouds across the skies! Does it matter that I'm only a housewife? Like my mother and almost every woman of her generation was? It used to sting. But now I see the gift I bring to this world, the gift that is not of the monetary kind. I can help ease suffering. My words ease the pain of those who read my posts or newsletter, as I gather from those who reach out to me and tell me how much solace my words brought them. My writing skills came in handy when KrA suddenly got a letter from a debt collector demanding we pay up more than 100 grand. It was a matter of similar names, but my ability to compose a neat, succinct email helped clear up the matter to a significant extent. My writing skills are coming in handy now when I had to compose an email to D's school this morning to complain of an injury a classmate inflicted on him yesterday. I haven't had a response yet, but the very fact that I'm able to use my strong voice and express my stance with compassion and understanding but also firmly tells me that I've come a long way. It's funny ... I started out writing thinking that I'd be free to set my own work hours. I ended up demanding much more of myself than any employer ever did, and even berating myself in terrible ways when I fell short of my own over-the-top expectations. When I had my freedom, I ended up building my own cage around myself. There are a lot of things I've come to realize about my writing in the process. I now know that I don't like working on the same project day in and day out. So if my mind tells me I need to switch, it's OK for me to do so. I've also realized that I don't wish to force myself to write 5—6 hours a day to achieve a goal of 5,000—6,000 words, which apparently is the definition of prolificness. Who cares? I don't. That is not what my life is suited for. I hate routines. I love some routine — for instance, a monthly newsletter is as much as I'm willing to commit to. I'll make no weekly promises of content to anyone. But daily writing sessions are not what fill my cup. I will attempt to write when D is at school, and that is more than enough time when I don't squander it on berating myself over all the could-have-beens and should-have-beens. I have a full life with my husband and my child and with writing at my own pace. I am very lucky that KrA was my first patron and he is intent on supporting me until the very end. I have already won the lottery in this life! And I intend to never forget this henceforth. --- In conclusion, I think I should have titled this post as 'changing my relationship with life'. Because, that's what this post is about. I had been resisting my life, pushing myself to do more to change it, and falling short every single time. It's high time I accepted it. I love you, life. It's true. I had some mask over my eyes that kept me from seeing the truth and beauty of what I already have. And when that longing comes, that longing for whatever — friendship, family, fearlessness — I now know that it does not signal the absence of something meaningful or purposeful. Instead, I can cherish it as a reminder of my ability to feel the inevitable bittersweetness of this life. It is the craving of the soul, for a union with God. In *Bittersweet*, Cain points to a poem by Rumi, titled 'Love Dogs', translated by Coleman Banks. This is what I leave you with. *One night a man was crying Allah! Allah!* *His lips grew sweet with praising,* *until a cynic said, “So!* *I’ve heard you calling out, but have you ever* *gotten any response?”* *The man had no answer to that.* *He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.* *He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,* *in a thick, green foliage.* *“Why did you stop praising?” “Because* *I’ve never heard anything back.”* *“This longing you express* *is the return message.”* *The grief you cry out from* *draws you toward union.* *Your pure sadness* *that wants help* *is the secret cup.* *Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.* *That whining is the connection.* *There are love dogs* *no one knows the names of.* *Give your life* *to be one of them.* I too am a love dog. An incredibly longing one. 💕 ### September Sparkles: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-september-sparkles/ Last updated: 2024-02-25T13:25:18.000Z Hello, Dreamer! I was hoping to have a new book ready for release this month, but I always seem to forget how many little things need to be done behind the scenes before a new book can make its way into your hands or e-reader. Instead, I'll share with you a tentative cover for the new title. It's not finalized; you can see the watermark on the image. But I wanted to have something to offer in lieu of the real thing! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/09/The-Land-of-No-Reflection-copy-2.jpg) So, tell me! What do you think? As to what the book is about ... > *Sight is a privilege denied to everyone by law in the land of Parinara. Every child is blindfolded at birth. Even the dead are buried blindfolded. To see is an unpardonable crime, punishable by death.* > *Yet, fifteen-year-old Anaya indulges in a momentary curiosity and violates the law, only to find that the gift of sight comes at an exorbitant price.* > *To look outward, she must first lose sight of what lies inward. But therein lie the secrets that even sightlessness cannot conceal.* > ***You don’t need eyes, or a mirror, to peer into the depths of your own soul.*** *The Land of No Reflection* is like nothing I've written before. Yet when I was going through the manuscript to ready it for publication, I couldn't help but think that this is exactly the kind of stuff I write. Read it, and you'll know what I mean. Hopefully it'll be out in the stores by the time I write to you in October! --- Now, on to what I've been yearning to share with you this month. This is going to be a long one, so grab a cuppa, make yourself comfortable and enjoy reading this month's missive! --- I realized only this month that most of the feature photos I use at the top of the *Monthly Missives* are of Lake Ontario as viewed from the grounds of [Paletta Mansion](https://palettamansion.com/about), an early 20th-century estate home now owned by the City of Burlington. So much so that if I find myself there in the days leading up to the last Sunday of the month, I inevitably think of you and wish that I could somehow share with you, in whatever limited capacity, the immense beauty and serenity of that place. Hence, the photos. This month's image was taken on one of my early morning solo walks, a luxury I enjoy on weekends or holidays when the mornings are not otherwise occupied with getting-ready-for-school busy*ness*. I head up New St, then down Belvenia Rd, a few steps along Lakeshore Rd, and I'm at the entrance gates to the mansion and its grounds. I run up a little slope and down a short flight of steps, and the world explodes open in front of me. Like an age-old secret revealed at long last! The walk to this beautiful spot is as thrilling as arriving there. Every time I walk down Belvenia Rd — your typical North American tree-lined suburban street with beautiful houses set a little ways behind, their elegant front lawns maintaining distance between the sidewalk and the homes — I catch a glimpse of something rather commonplace yet mysterious. --- Picture one such large house. Then, a large window on one side offering a view inside. The room is bathed in a dim, yellow light that is just as soothing as the pale darkness of new dawn surrounding it. The wall at the far end is covered by an enormous bookshelf made of a rich brown wood that gleams in the yellow light as do the spines of the countless books it holds. In front, by the window, sits an old man sipping a cup of coffee (or tea, perhaps) and reading a book. This is all I see. And I see this for barely a second or two as I briskly walk past. As much as I'd love to stand and stare for much longer, I don't wish to alarm him by intruding his privacy. But this snapshot is imprinted in my mind. And I think to myself this guy must be in paradise! > *And my heart aches with joy. It overflows with both delight and longing, such contrasting emotions. Delight at the sight of such beauty. And a longing to luxuriate in more of it, wishing it were not so fleeting, so ephemeral.* > *A room full of books, pregnant with the aromas of rich wood and old paper and coffee mingling in a space kept warm by the relentless efforts of a crackling fireplace, at this wobbly moment in time that separates dusk from dawn, in this liminal space where the shadows of the night cling for one last moment before they're chased away by the light of the morning.* Except ... I don't really like being in enclosed spaces for long. Give me the most elegantly furnished room, and I'd seat myself closest to the window so that I can look out. And contrary to what most writers seem to love, I don't care much for enormous bookshelves either, not enough to put one up in my own home. I mean, the pressure of all those yet-to-be-read books would be too overwhelming for me to bear! Yet, there is something about that scene that tugs at my heart every time I see it. I don't even go looking for that quiet house with the single lit window on the way to Paletta. It simply appears. I do look for it on the way back, about a half-hour or so later, yearning for another glimpse of that magical sight. But by then it's gone. I can't even remember which home the window and the room belong to, and it is as if it didn't even exist. Which makes it all the more mysterious and magical ... like 12 Grimmauld Place. (Of course, the more sensible conclusion to arrive at is that by the time I walk back, the guy has finished drinking his cuppa, set aside his book, turned off the lights and left the room to go about his day now that morning has well and truly arrived. But what's the fun in that?) This *longing*—for what, exactly, I don't know—has haunted me for as long as I can remember. For years, I worried that this state of *longing* for something indescribable, something otherworldly, was at odds with peacefulness and contentment. I thought, perhaps I was *craving* for the material manifestations of it, a magnificent library in a large well-kept house with a beautifully manicured front lawn ... and that not being able to have those things was what was filling up my heart with an ache, with desire. How could I tell the difference? --- Author Susan Cain asks this question poignantly in her book, [*Bittersweet*](https://susancain.net/book/bittersweet/). > *... From all these (Rumi's) poems (and indeed from all of Sufism, and from all the world's mystic traditions) came the central insight that "Longing is the core of the mystery / Longing itself brings the cure."* > *... I'd been reading about Buddhism as well as Sufism, and many of its teachings seemed to contradict the Sufi idea that longing is spiritually valuable.* > *... As one Buddhist website put it, "After a lot of training with the Buddha's teachings, we tend to recognize longing as an unproductive mind state and just move on from it to whatever is actually present."* > *How to square this view with Sufi poetry? Were Rumi and Buddha offering contradictory teachings? Was longing in Sufism different from what Buddhists call cravings?* Cain posed this question to a Sufi teacher named Dr. Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee (LVL), and this is what he said in response. > *"Longing is different from craving. It's the craving of the soul. You want to go home. In our culture it's confused with depression. And it's not. There's a saying in Sufism: 'Sufism was at first heartache. Only later, it became something to write about.'"* > *... he describes longing not as an unhealthy craving, but as the feminine expression of love: "Like everything that is created, love has a dual nature, positive and negative, masculine and feminine. The masculine side of love is 'I love you'. Love's feminine quality is 'I am waiting for you; I am longing for you.'* > *... Because our culture has for so long rejected the feminine, we have lost touch with this potency of longing. Many people feel this pain of the heart and do not know its value; they do not know that it is their innermost connection to love."* --- These words instantly reminded me of Christopher Pike's [*Thirst*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/) series of books, featuring a 5,000-year-old vampire named Sita and the Hindu god, Krishna, among its many enchanting characters. In one of the books, perhaps *Thirst No. 3*, Krishna's lover, Radha, says to Sita. > *"Krishna means love," she said. "But Radha means longing. Longing is older than love. I am older than he. Did you know that, Sita?"* --- Cain quotes C. S. Lewis to explain why this longing can never be sated. > *"Our most common expedient is to call \[the longing\] beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter ... But the books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited."* Hiraeth, anyone? Well, this certainly explains why I love that image of a person in a room full of books, welcoming the morning with a cup of coffee and a book, but I also know that I wouldn't last longer than five minutes in that space because I'd much rather walk a few blocks down and watch the sun rise over the endless lake and feel my heart burst with inexplicable joy. --- Do you too feel such desperate longing in your heart for something unnameable? Write to me and let me know, and we can feel a little less alone in our inexplicable madness. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### *A Cinderella Tale* Fairy tale retellings have become all the rage in recent years. I wrote this story in another lifetime and I didn't even remember it existed until I came across it in my search for something suitable to include in the newsletter this month. Turns out this is as *unsuitable* as can be, not at all in keeping with the theme of this month's missive. So here's to a little incongruity! [tales for dreamers: a cinderella taleA different take on the traditional story of Cinderella. No glass slippers involved in this one! They’ve been replaced with inner demons.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/09/41.-a-cinderella-tale.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-cinderella-tale/) --- ## Books You May Love I have more treasures for you this month! ![hardback copy of Bittersweet by Susan Cain](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/09/Bittersweet-copy-2.jpeg) I've already raved about [*BitterSweet*](https://susancain.net/book/bittersweet/) by Susan Cain. I'm still making my way through this book, slowly savouring the nuggets of wisdom filled in its pages. It's hard to describe the book; it's about a lot of things, but essentially it is the author's quest to find out why some of us are deeply moved by what society dismisses as depressive or tragic. > Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired. Cain's weekly newsletter, *The Kindred Letters*, are an endless source of delight and a joy to receive in my mailbox every Thursday! Sign up. You'll love it! My other delightful find this month has been the [*Russell & Holmes*](https://laurierking.com/books/russell-holmes/)series of books by [Laurie R. King](https://laurierking.com). ![paperback copy of The Beekeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/09/The-Beekeeper-s-Apprentice-copy.jpeg) Featuring the inimitable Sherlock Holmes, the books are written from the point of view of Mary Russell, whom we're introduced to as a recently orphaned 15-year-old girl living in Sussex who finds herself a neighbour to Holmes, now in his mid-50s, who has retired from detective work. Russell is a formidable character, with a wit and daring to match Holmes's! She's an equal partner to him in solving crimes. The first book, *The Beekeeper's Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen*, is set in the time period of World War I and pits Russell and Holmes against a foe who seems to outsmart them at every turn. The book also brings back the dear characters of Dr. Watson and Mrs. Hudson. There are a total of 17 books in the series so far, and I'm simply in reading heaven at the moment! 😇 --- Well, it's that time again, dear Dreamer! Time to part. Time to bid goodbye. Such a bittersweet moment this is. As of today, there are 99 days left in this year. What do you plan to do with them? Whatever you choose, keep Rumi's words in your heart: > *"Do not seek for water, be thirsty."* Until next month, Anitha ### tales for dreamers: words of wisdom from the wise old men URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-words-of-wisdom-from-the-wise-old-men/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:42:05.000Z The two old men sit next to each other in the showcase that adorns an entire wall in the living room of our home. Mother brought them back from her travels last month. "Looking at their amused faces reminds me to be happy," she said the day she gently peeled off the wrapping paper from the velvet box they were ensconced in and placed them tenderly in the showcase. I don’t think she has given them a second glance since. They are a funny pair. All day long they crack jokes and entertain each other, and amuse me whenever I am within earshot. They often joke about the members of our household. They laugh the most at the antics of Dover, our golden retriever, who tries to leap up and knock them down but they remain out of reach and he goes back to scowling at them from under the sofa. They are mostly nice to me, sharing their jokes and making me laugh, and sometimes they make fun of me and I end up laughing at myself. When I recount their conversations to Mother, she says figurines cannot talk. And I insist that they do, at least these two do. At first Mother does not argue, but after a few occasions she knits her eyebrows and says she is beginning to worry about me. And I tell her that she has no cause for worry, especially not if I am happy. She considers that thought for several moments and finally cautions me to not have make-believe conversations with the figurines anymore, after all I am too old to have imaginary friends, she says. "Not even if it makes me happy?" I ask. No, comes the stern reply. And so I promise her, my fingers crossed behind my back. When Mother leaves the room, the two old men tell me not to worry about the things she said. "No harm ever came from being happy," they assure me. ### tales for dreamers: a cinderella tale URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-cinderella-tale/ Last updated: 2024-03-27T20:55:53.000Z When she received an invitation to the ball, Cinderella scurried about the house looking for the things she would need before her fairy godmother arrived at dusk. Cobwebs spun by twelve-legged spiders would be woven into a fine gossamer dress for her to wear that evening. One large pumpkin she had stolen from her neighbour's garden last Halloween (but she couldn't remember how); this would become the coach to take her to the ball. She wasn't particularly fond of mice, so she thought she would instead ask the white doves to draw her coach. *We could transform the stepsisters into horses and make them draw the coach*, a little voice piped up. Cinderella shushed the voice and busied herself in her household chores. *Think about it*, continued the voice. *The stepmother would make a fine coachman, seeing as how good she is at using the whip*. Cinderella ignored it, and dusted the furniture. *What if the pumpkin is all rotten from the inside and the coach collapses as soon you step on it?* Cinderella shut out the truth of possibility, and swept and mopped the floors. *What if the fairy godmother doesn't turn up?* Cinderella told it to shut up, and did the dishes. *What if the prince already has a lover leaning on his arms?* Cinderella sang aloud, and washed the clothes and hung them out to dry. When evening came and her stepsisters and stepmother left for the ball, Cinderella ran up to the attic to wait. Evening bled into night but no one came. Cinderella started to sob at the realization she was doomed to a life of eternal slavery, and that there was no happy ending in store for her. *Look*, said the voice. *You tried it your way and it didn't work. You might as well let me have a go at it now.* Cinderella kept mum. And as suddenly as grey clouds conquer a clear sky, Cinderella stood up and shook herself. She wiped the tears with the back of her hands, landed a swift kick on the pumpkin and sent it hurtling down the stairs, and tore around through the house like a whirlwind. She picked a rucksack from one of her stepsisters' room and filled it with good clothes, sensible shoes, and loads of money from her stepmother's purse, and slipped out of the house. The stepsisters and stepmother returned home to find a note from Cinderella saying she was gone and that she had paid herself in cash and kind for all the household services she had rendered all these years. The note also carried a warning against reporting the incident to the police or attempting to track her as she would then be compelled to produce proof of how her father's death came about at the hands of her stepmother. She is writing a book now, titled *Cinderella and I*, recounting her escape and subsequent adventures across the world. **Author's Note** I am sorry to break this to the world but Cinderella was damaged goods. Who wouldn't be after years of domestic abuse? She needed someone to look after her, someone real, not illusory figures like Prince Charming or fairy godmothers or some such fantastic figment of imagination. I am happy to say Cinderella is well and recovering now, under my careful oversight and guidance, though she keeps mostly to herself these days. The miracle was that she found it within her to bring about the transformation. As her closest friend and ally, I am honoured she considers me her true voice and has given me this opportunity to present her story, our story, to the world. ### failing at acceptance URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/failing-at-acceptance/ Last updated: 2023-09-18T22:46:34.000Z The thing I truly suck at the most is accepting the fact that life sucks, more often than not. There is often more monotony than excitement, more pain and challenges than ease, and way more failures than successes. I've seen this as a writer, as a parent, no matter what the current pop culture on positive psychology would have us believe. Instead of accepting this is how it is, I resist this with all my might. I keep thinking that there must have been another route, another path, that would have led me to a better place. I keep thinking I didn't try hard enough, that I should have tried harder. All those days I slept in, I should have woken up in the wee hours of the morning to write. All those nights I lay in bed, sleepless, one hand on the body of my little child to keep me grounded even as anxiety pulled me this way and that endlessly, I should have gotten up and written a few words. And then what? I don't know. Maybe I'd have more wealth and status, more friends, more acceptance into society's circles, more peace of mind, more fame? Maybe my words would mean a little more than they do now? Maybe my existence would be a little more significant than it is now? Or maybe I'd have written and published more books but not seen an increase in sales or readership? Who knows? I don't know ... but this constant feeling that I'm not doing enough, that I should be doing a whole lot more, that I should have done a whole lot more has been haunting me more than any ghost possibly has the power to. Sarra Cannon over at [Heart Breathings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFRNd%5FUcnbM) says that when we make plans, we often end up planning for our fantasy self — the one that doesn't fall sick, that can work without distraction, that can complete tasks in half the time they really take, that doesn't need to rest or sleep well, the one whose plans never get derailed — instead of planning for our real, messy selves — the one that needs a day or two off to manage low energy and low mood, the one who has sick kids to deal with, the one who needs a full 8-hour sleep at night in order to function properly and sanely the next day. I wonder ... when I get into the self-critical mode about the past, berating myself for all that I think I ought to have accomplished by now but haven't, I wonder if I'm holding my past self up to standards that only my fantasy self could have possibly hoped of meeting or exceeding. I also wonder ... when I direct this criticism inwards, is it my way of safeguarding myself from the truth that life is messy and unpredictable, and that the consequences I'm facing today for choices I made yesterday were also influenced by a lot of factors *not* under my control? Because, if I were to accept this, then I'd also have to accept that this is the nature of life — to be messy and unpredictable and utterly random — which means that I could do a whole lot of things today for a *better* tomorrow but still not be guaranteed those outcomes ... because no one can. That would completely shake me, wouldn't it? Because I'm writing and publishing without any guarantee of an audience. That knowledge has plagued me for a long, long time. Even now, if I stop to think about it, my mind can easily psyche me into quitting writing if I allow it to do so. The only thing I know for certain is this: if I don't write, I won't have works to sell. If I have no books, I have no chance of making any money selling products that don't exist. Unless I'm trying to run a scam. Conversely, if I do write, I may have more than a 0% chance of earning a livelihood by means of writing. I could still make zero money, but I also have a chance of making more than zero money. This uncertainty plagues me a lot. I look up to people who are ahead of me in the game, hoping to learn something from them ... but the market is changing so rapidly that their lessons and insights from the vantage point of their success may not really be relevant to me. I wish there were more people at my stage of this career talking about their challenges and what they're doing to overcome those rather than already-successful authors touting their insights to relative newbies. Still valuable, but sometimes that advice becomes irrelevant very quickly simply because of how quickly and unpredictably the market continues to change. Or maybe I'm simply looking outwards because alone, I feel I'm unable to continue persisting without support. Or maybe this is the normal ebb and flow of feelings we go through in any pursuit and not great cause for alarm or concern. Except, being in the throes of these feelings leaves me helpless. I look for a way out, but only time decides when respite would be made available to me. Now that I feel as if I've tried everything I possibly could today to lift my mood — going for a long walk, taking a bath, spending time with little D, writing, taking an afternoon nap — I give myself permission to continue watching *The Vampire Diaries*! I'm nearing the end of Season 4 and I've been constantly amazed at how many stories have spun out of what started as a single love triangle between a girl and two brothers. I guess what I need to accept the most is that life is not as constantly exciting and adventurous as fiction is. ### happy birthday, KrA! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happy-birthday-kra/ Last updated: 2023-09-15T14:30:10.000Z KrA turns 42 years old today! So now he is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything! Truth be told, he always was. Happy birthday, KrA! I'm so lucky to be living this awesome life with you. Thank you for coming into my life all those years ago, and for staying! ❤️ ### tales for dreamers: colours in mutiny URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-colours-in-mutiny/ Last updated: 2024-03-27T20:59:47.000Z The colours are strewn about, remnants of a world that fell into ruin a very long time ago. As if an angry child broke them into little pieces of chalk because they wouldn’t stay within the boundaries she has outlined for them. The elephants she had so painstakingly sketched in various shades of grey are now running amok, pinker than her rosy cheeks. And the moon, the silver-coloured thief of light, takes to frequently disappearing from the paper, and when she deigns to reappear, is as blue as a robin’s eggs. And then there are the sheep, those innocent balls of wool, they keep morphing into orange and now they don’t look very innocent anymore. Worse still are the meadows, where the grass grows greener and greener the closer they get to the horizon. Her favourite was the Town of Shadows, silhouettes of minarets and skyscrapers, she had coloured them black as outer space, aglow from the light of the setting sun. And look, now her town is soaked in red. And when they think she is not looking, all the colours fly across the paper like a flock of birds in a cloudless sky, leaving behind a rainbow in their wake, and spill over the edge of the paper like molten gold. It will not be long before the child sees the wild beauty in their freedom. ### monday morning blues URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/monday-morning-blues/ Last updated: 2023-09-13T19:10:55.000Z Almost two decades ago, when I was new to the blogging scene, I used to follow the blog of a friend of a friend. She (the blogger) used to write poetry and snippets of her day-to-day life. In one of her posts, she said something on the lines of *"Everyone dies a little on the inside on Monday mornings."* I don't remember the name of the blog or the blogger or even the exact words she used, but the gist of this message stayed with me in this format. > Everyone dies a little on the inside on Monday mornings. I took those words to mean all those things culture likes to tell us about corporate jobs: that we sell our souls to the devil in exchange for security and comfort (as if there's something wrong with that!), that we ought to be doing more with our one wild and precious life, that we shouldn't be settling for less and miss out on all the adventures that a 9-to-5 would never offer us. At the time, I was all of 27 years old, I had quit my second job and was trying my hand at freelance writing while penning a novel alongside. I was hardly earning anything in those times, and even back then my biggest patron and supporter was KrA with his corporate job and the steady pay checks and perks it came with. In the subsequent years, I found much success as a freelance writer — it landed me one of my most exciting jobs as a commodities journalist in Singapore — and a lot of fun exploring writing fiction alongside. But the monotony of it all made me feel as though I was still dying a little on the inside every Monday morning, as though I should be doing something else, something different to make my life exciting. So we gave up everything and moved to Canada — that was nine years ago — and much has happened in the interim, including the arrival of D, me writing and publishing several books and short stories. And yet, some things have remained the same. I find that even now I die a little on the inside on Monday mornings. Even now, when I'm supposedly living the life of my dreams, doing the job, i.e., writing, that nourishes my soul and not squandering my days in some soul-sucking corporate job, having all the freedom to spend time with KrA and D, even now I find that I die a little on the inside on Monday mornings. And not just on Monday mornings. It's Wednesday morning now, and I've been feeling like this for the past two days. And I've had periods of feeling this way all along. > For you see, what I didn't realize in all these years is that much of what constitutes a good life is the willingness to trudge through periods of monotony and uncertainty, without any guarantee — unlike in feel-good movies and books — that success awaits us on the other side. I've spent most of my life running away from that monotony and sameness, seeking thrill and adventure in new places and new experiences, only for that initial high to wear off and be usurped by the very monotony and sameness I had been trying to outrun in the first place. It has taken me four decades of my life to realize that monotony and sameness are a considerable part of our lives no matter what we do. I'd have a good day of writing, only for that to be followed by monotony or a low-energy day in which nothing gets done. I'd publish a book, only for that to end up with little sales momentum, at least in the short run. I'd send out a short story to a magazine, only for it to be rejected. This is far more common than seeing a huge sale order or an acceptance, and so this is what stays in my mind. All this has added up to a feeling of never enough. I've been thinking, Oh, I just need to get to a 100 subscribers on my newsletter (for it to really matter). Oh, I just need one pro magazine to accept my short story (for me to be validated as an SFF writer). Oh, I just need a particular book to show a spike in sales (for me to justify my existence as an author). I've been working as though towards a deadline — that acceptance, or that income threshold — except there is no end to it. And it feels like a relentless grind. Just yesterday morning I was lying in bed wondering, "How long can I keep doing this for?" Obviously, I don't have an answer to that question. Until I have a million bucks in my bank account? Until D grows up? Until I stop worrying about money? Until I'm finally happy with my life? Until I die? Years of doing this, of questioning my desire to write in the face of so much uncertainty, has certainly eroded a lot of joy out of the process and replaced that with anxiety. Hence, the Monday morning blues have stuck with me for so long. I'm writing all this down to tell myself that it's ok, it's ok for me to write the kind of stories I write even though it often feels as if I'm operating in some sort of vacuum. This year, I've sent a bunch of my stories to various SFF magazines. I've mostly gotten rejections; I've also got a bunch of good and encouraging comments highlighting what the editors loved about my writing. I do have one future acceptance, on the condition that I try to get the story published elsewhere first and offer it back to this one magazine for a reprint, or offer it as a new work if it's not sold anywhere else in six months. But these successes, when they come, don't feel like much! What's bugging me the most is that for the last several years, I've been functioning as though I'm waiting for something to happen. Waiting for that acceptance to happen, for that spike in sales, for that review to show up, for that additional subscriber to my newsletter to come. And when I don't see the needle move in the ways I want it to, as fast as I'd like it to, the entire endeavour feels like one big, wasteful exercise. Then that paves the way for all the anxieties to rush in. What if no magazine ever publishes my story? What if I don't see enough sales to justify all this time and effort spent in writing? What if my newsletter does not grow at all? How will I promote my writings when I'm not even on social media anymore? I joined Threads a couple of months ago, posted a couple of things there and then gave up. I just end up scrolling through all those feel-good posts, all those pithy paragraphs that encourage you to do the work. Oh, it feels so good to read all those self-help posts and words of wisdom. Oh, it feels so difficult to simply sit down and write the next word when I feel I've tied so many expectations to the manuscript or short story. (Obviously, I deleted my account on Threads and the related Instagram account I had created to get into Threads in the first place!) I get it now why DWS insists on keeping the writing fun. Because if it isn't, all these other dramas just get in the way and nothing gets done, not even the writing. The biggest lesson for me here is to ask myself: What am I waiting for? Really, what am I waiting for? I don't even have a half-decent answer to that question. So I rephrase it and ask myself: Is there anything I *need* to wait for? The answer is a resounding **NO**. I'm already living an awesome life, doing what I love with the people I love, growing in ways I never expected to. Everything I need, I already have. And I also don't need everything I currently have, including the Monday morning blues! ### inner vs. outer worlds: can we find a balance? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/inner-vs-outer-worlds-can-we-find-a-balance/ Last updated: 2023-09-11T16:39:01.000Z Last week, I shared my [journey](https://thedreampedlar.com/on-the-role-of-ambition-in-the-creative-life/) to understanding what healthy ambition could look like. When we create for our own inner growth without looking to compare or compete with others, then we find ourselves in a healthy state of creativity and joy for its own sake. Now, the question arises: what if we're trying to make a living from our creativity? When we look to others to part with their hard-earned money in exchange for a piece of our creative output, isn't it confusing then to be told to not look outwards for validation or acceptance or livelihood? My thoughts on this topic have changed a lot over the years, veering from one extreme to the other. Obviously, there is no one answer to this question, but it can also be difficult to find a middle ground that we can decide to stick to early on. Very often, the path I'm able to stick to is the one I likely stumbled upon after several rounds of trial and error. --- ### From one extreme (focussing only on the inner world) ... On one hand are those who say that we should simply create what makes our heart sing, and the money (or audience or validation) will come of its own accord. In a reply to a comment on his post, career author Dean Wesley Smith [said](https://deanwesleysmith.com/direct-sales/#comments): > *For me, I don’t write for other people, ... I just write for me and if I can sell it, great, if not, shrug, I’ll write more for me.* This sounds very liberating, very romantic, but one could argue that something like this is easy to say for any writer who has achieved a certain measure of financial success. (Although achieving a level of success comes with its own challenges, as we'll see towards the end of this article.\*) Nevertheless, a newbie may find it very difficult to adopt such an attitude of self-assurance, especially one who is looking to others to pay him/her for his/her writing. It may be difficult for them to trust that they too can do this and go on to find an audience that would love their work and be willing to pay them for it. ### ... to the other (focussing only on the outer world) It then makes more logical and practical sense to veer to the other extreme of the argument, which entails any number of variations of the following statements: *You can write what you want but then don't expect to make a lot of money unless you write/create to market/trend/trope/whatever-theme-is-hot-and-trending-at-the-moment.* *Conversely, you have to write/create to market in order to be a commercial success.* The logic that underpins this argument is as follows: - Trend A is hot right now, and everyone working in this particular area is striking gold. - If I were to jump on the bandwagon, I could strike gold too. - If I don't get on this bandwagon, I'd miss out on an earning potential. When the market is riding high on optimism, we feel the tug. We feel pulled along, and it appears as if the only sensible thing to do is to go where the crowd goes. I understand this all too well. Been there, done that. But there are several fallacies in the above triad of arguments which reveal themselves if we look closely enough. - **A hot market provides more opportunities to succeed. But not everyone succeeds.** > *Possibility does not mean guarantee.* As Becca Syme has been saying off late, just because we *can* achieve success doesn't mean we *will*. So when we think, *"If I were to jump on the bandwagon, I could strike gold too,"* what we're not bearing in mind is the word *'could'*. Which means *"I could strike gold but it is also very likely that I may not."* In a buoyant market, we tend to overlook the very real possibility of failure or less-than-stellar outcomes. And when we don't see the outcomes we were promised by others who blazed the trail before us, the outcomes we've come to expect by listening to others' success stories, we are discouraged and demotivated. We hamper our own progress and eventually burn out and give up sooner or later. - **It may appear that some individuals and businesses are excellent at reading the market and pivoting on time. What they truly excel at is riding the ups and downs over a long period of time.** Those who are skilled at pivoting are able to weather failures in some ventures and move on quickly from that to enjoying success in some others while it lasts. As with any other skill, I'd imagine this too is something that can be learnt and is not the exclusive domain of only a select few. There's a small store near where I live; it was my go-to place for masks during the days of the pandemic. There used to be pretty long line-ups outside the store back in those days. Now that masks are not in high demand anymore, they've turned into a printing production facility. It's easy to look at that store from the outside and say, *"Hey, that's a great business model of supply chain. We simply need to supply what's hot and trending right now and we'd be minting money."* It appears so easy, so logical and sensible, it creates the illusion that anybody could do this just as well as that particular store is doing. On the outset it appears that all a creative needs to do is just jump from one hot trend to the other in order to strike gold. But since success is not guaranteed, sometimes you may win, and at other times you may lose. But we also inadvertently overlook this truth when we try to chase a trend, because ... - **Most often, we hear the success stories but not the failures.** We hear from people who have found success, but we don't hear from those who tried it out but didn't find much/expected success. My guess is the former group only forms the tip of the iceberg while the latter group constitutes the vast hidden majority of the iceberg. This further adds to the illusion that success is there for whoever ventures out. You only have to set out with a pan in your hand and the gold will find its way into it. Especially when the ones who have succeeded tend to preface their stories with that ultra-optimistic-but-not-entirely-true exhortation, "If I can do it, anybody can." So one could conclude that what really matters then is the ability to claim successes when they happen and equally the ability to move on from failed ventures when they happen. This sounds as though it's as easy as flipping a switch, but in reality setbacks can take a lot of toll on us, emotionally, mentally and financially, while the highs of successes can cause us to overestimate our abilities and downplay the risks. --- ### Me personal choice will always be the inner world. Up on the wall in front of my writing desk is a poster from [*Big Life Journal*](https://biglifejournal.com) that is titled 'Worrying'. In a beautiful illustration of a child walking through the woods with a torchlight in her hands, the poster lists out all that "I Can Control" within the beam of the flashlight and all that "I Can't Control" outside the beam. I Can Control: practising self-care, being kind to myself, my attitude, choosing hobbies that help me find calm, my actions, my response, talking about what's on my mind. I Can't Control: past mistakes, what might happen, if I win or not, what happens around me, what people think of me, others' choices & actions. To me, the answer is clear. My choice between the inner and outer world will always be the inner world. --- If we are intent on chasing a trend on the outside, we need to ask ourselves what exactly it is we're seeking. I don't know about other people but I find myself chasing trends when (a) I want some short-term success really badly and (b) I mistakenly believe that chasing this particular trend will guarantee some near-term success. For instance, this desire to look outwards crops up when I've been writing and publishing for months but not seeing much progress in terms of sales or increase in audience. Then I become quite desperate, terrified that I've been operating in a vacuum, and I turn my attention outwards, looking for any and every opportunity that would help me sell more books and/or find a vaster audience. To me, an increase in sales and/or an increase in audience are definite markers of progress and success. If more people are reading my books, it makes me believe that my books are worth reading. Which brings me to the question: how does one start and keep going when there is little feedback to fall upon? This is a very pertinent question because in this day and age, when the Internet and physical spaces are overflowing with everyone's and their offspring's creations, how does one even gain visibility and discoverability in the marketplace? --- Discoverability is a very long-term game. Fans and patrons of our work come and go. The market is always in flux. Not every fan will like everything that we create. People have lots of things going on in their lives which detracts them from continuing to support our work and art. It takes a really, really long time for someone to come across our work and read it and like it enough to want to read other works of ours. There are so many factors in this reader's journey that are simply not in our control. For instance, I've been devouring the Hercule Poirot books that contemporary British author, Sophie Hannah, has been commissioned by the Estate of Agatha Christie to write. I first read Book 4, *The Killings at Kingfisher Hill*, not realizing it was the fourth book in the series and promptly read books 1 and 2 right after. But I'm taking a bit of a breather now. I think I'd like to read something else instead of Book 3 right away even though I really loved what I've read so far. Perhaps I want to keep the last book for now for savouring at a later date, quite like how I haven't been able to bring myself to read Book 5 of *The Last Vampire* series by Christopher Pike because I can't bear the story of Sita to come to an end. Perhaps I want to keep watching episode after episode of *The Vampire Diaries* instead of reading at night. And none of these choices and decisions I make as a reader have anything to do with the amazing books that Hannah has written and created. In the same way, discoverability and audience retention are not entirely in our control. Sometimes it may take a very long time for us to reach the right audience. If I were to rely on external factors to keep writing, then I'd be doomed. I would find no motivation in writing without an audience guaranteed to love it. In which case I'd never write enough to find that kind of an audience in the first place. --- \*We also mistakenly believe that achieving a certain measure of success will keep encouraging us to create more. One of the things that DWS advises is to never look at reviews. He goes on to say that good reviews hurt us even more badly than bad reviews. This may sound counterintuitive at first, but think about it. When we receive a bad review, we may wallow for a bit, then pick ourselves up and try to learn from the feedback or decide it was the wrong kind of feedback or that we landed upon the wrong audience and move on with our next project. But when we receive a great review, we begin to put pressure on ourselves to meet those standards that we believe a reader has come to expect from us. We worry so much about our next product not being good enough that we paralyze ourselves from creating it in the first place. This also reminds me of an interview with JK Rowling. The interviewer asked JKR about how the success of Harry Potter has set her up for future ventures and I remember JKR answering that she was under no illusion that she'd be able to recreate the success she enjoyed from the Harry Potter franchise. She gave an example of how Michael Jackson enjoyed tremendous success with Thriller to the extent that he kept trying to recreate that success with every new album he made but couldn't. I had never heard anyone say something to this effect before and the gist of her message has stayed with me ever since. When we achieve success, we are taught to aim even higher. But so much pertaining to worldly success is not in our control, and this is something we forget so quickly. One stroke of success doesn't guarantee success forevermore, if we were to stick to the conventional definition of success. So where does this leave us? The way that works for me in dealing with this conundrum is the one that brings me back to why I'm even writing in the first place. I write because that is how I best express myself. I write because I love writing. It's an art form that I love and wish to constantly keep doing and keep improving in. Ultimately, I love writing. I don't really have a reason to write. But I know when I don't write, it's as if a piece of my soul has been hacked away and I can't get it back unless I've gone to the writing desk and written/typed out several words. I have no idea which of my writings will resonate with people and which won't. In fact, there is no body of work that is universally loved. Looking at reviews only gives us a part of the picture because it does not capture the views of those who haven't presented their views, whether good or bad, in the first place. Instead of attempting the imaginary and impossible task of pleasing an entire audience, I'm much better off both in the near and long term if I were to focus on improving my craft and improving myself as a person in this journey of writing. I don't have to be the best at something, but I can certainly focus on being and showing up as my best self. In parting, I will leave you with the [words](https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/22694.Flannery%5FO%5FConnor?page=7) of the late American novelist, Flannery O'Connor > When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God's business. > \~ Flannery O'Connor ### tales for dreamers: guardians of time URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-guardians-of-time/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:48:39.000Z In the beginning, there was only eternity. Then Time was wrought into existence to give us a means to measure all that was finite and perishable, all that was mortal. Harrumph! We all know how well that worked out, for truth be told, Time has been anything but precise. Speeding up happiness, slowing down agony, snatching precious moments and tucking them into the hidden folds of the universe, the list of Time’s mischiefs have quickly grown to be too long to recount. Some said it was the past that was slowing down Time, his baggage of memories had become too great a burden to bear lightly, while others reckoned Time’s journey into the future has always been one of haste. The Gods were at their wits’ end and pondered for days (or was it weeks or months? Time was too unreliable back then to tell!) until they agreed upon a suitable solution to tame the vicissitudes of Time. All the memories of the past were to be entrusted to the Lion, all the dreams of the future to the Unicorn. And as for Time himself, he was to remain in the present moment, bridging the past and the future, but belonging to neither. I cannot fathom a punishment more cruel than a life devoid of memories and dreams, and so I tell Time how sorry I am for his ordeal. But he simply smiles and insists that in being present, he too has become eternal. > ✨ *🎶 Curious to listen to the audio-story?* > ✨ For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar)! ### on the role of 'ambition' in the creative life URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/on-the-role-of-ambition-in-the-creative-life/ Last updated: 2023-09-03T07:00:26.000Z If there's one word that I've consistently misunderstood over the past couple of decades, it's *'ambition'*. I went from being a competitive, ambitious, high-achieving, high-performing kid during my school and university years to later renouncing all ambition in the pursuit of contentment, having convinced myself that those two words were entirely at odds with each other, that they could not co-exist, to now finally understanding what healthy ambition could actually look like. --- I always did well academically. I scored great grades, although in hindsight I think that was more due to the nature of the tests that were used to gauge students' knowledge levels. I don't know how things stand now but when I was at school, most exams were designed to test your memory rather than your understanding of the concepts of the subject matter on hand. I was quite skilled at learning by rote, so it was only natural that I'd do well on tests and exams. However, I distinctly remember three separate instances from my undergraduate days when I encountered the joy of taking on a challenging task and attempting to do well at it. And each time, the lesson learnt was different. ### *Trusting in the work done* The first time was in my 2nd or 3rd year of undergrad studies. The subject was Applied Mechanics, or App Mech as we used to call it. (I studied Chemical Engineering, you know? I ranked 2nd in my class of 65 and even earned a gold medal for excellent academic and co-curricular performance in the department. And my first job out of uni was on the shop floor of a cigarette factory.) Anyhoo, for each subject we used to have two small tests and one longer end-term exam. Somehow I performed dismally in the two small tests for App Mech. I thought I knew the concepts but I ended up applying the wrong equations in the paper. I remember talking to my professor about it and after he had gauged that I did indeed have a good understanding of the subject matter, he suggested that perhaps I was stressed about the exams and that I could try relaxing a bit. After that I studied really hard for the end-term exam and I remember this very clearly — I didn't look at my books and notes for revision on the day before the exam. I trusted that I had done my work and I decided to relax, like my professor had suggested. I even remember going for walk the evening before the exam and going to bed early, while many of my peers stayed up late at night, cramming. And I nailed it. Boy, did I nail it! I later heard from a fellow student that the professor took to raving about my splendid performance to whoever was around to listen. --- ### *Tackling a challenge* The second time, it was another subject, Computer Simulation. This was in my 3rd year, I think. This was one of those subjects that students from different departments could take. Back in the day, there used to be an unspoken hierarchy — Computer Science students were considered intellectually far superior to everyone else. Chemical Engg students were somewhere in the middle of the pack, with Aeronautics and Naval Architecture students pushed all the way to the bottom. This was mainly to do with the disciplines that top rankers preferred, which in turn was mostly governed by job prospects at the time or the potential each field of study offered one to go abroad to pursue higher studies (and eventually settle there). I was really determined to not succumb to that stereotype. For some reason, I was determined to prove that I too could understand the tough concepts that someone had deemed the exclusive domain of Comp Sci nerds. I remember intentionally working hard on the subject, taking the time to understand the concepts (none of which I remember now, evidently). But I remember enjoying the process. I remember that one Saturday afternoon I spent in my room, studying the subject for several hours and attempting a tutorial on my own. And I aced the exam. I scored the highest grade that could be awarded. It was a moment of pride when I saw the grade I had scored in the subject. They used to put the grades up on a notice board on a pre-determined date for all eyes to see. --- ### *For the love of it* The third instance also had to do with my undergrad days. I took French as a foreign language for one semester and fell in love with it. It was the first time that I realized how much I could love a language even though I had grown up trilingual (English, Hindi, Tamil) and had been been exposed to two other languages owing to school and the states we lived in (Marathi, which I hated because I never got the grasp of its grammar; and Gujarati, which I was exposed to for only a couple of years in grades 8 and 9). That one semester of learning French at uni triggered the creative part of my brain that somehow hadn't existed until then because the analytical half of my brain had taken up all the space. I was so enamoured by the beauty of language that after graduating, I went on to learn French at Alliance Française, first in India and then in Singapore when we moved there. --- ### *What makes ambition toxic?* Everything went downhill after I graduated. It took me several years to find my feet in the working world. After several false starts, I eventually found my calling in writing, editing and content creation, and that was where I spent a good chunk of my early career years: 2008—2014. I was writing fiction alongside, mostly short tales. There are several unfinished manuscripts from those days that I don't even have anymore. Many were handwritten on foolscap paper. I was out of my depth. I didn't know what I was doing. It was somewhere around this time that I came across Osho's teachings on ambition. > *Ambition means you want to be ahead of others. Ambition depends on creating an inferiority complex in you. It creates an ill state of affairs; it depends on that. Unless inferiority complex starts existing in you, unless you are full of it, ambition cannot function. So each child has to be wounded in such a way that he starts feeling a deep inferiority: that others are superior and he has to surpass them, otherwise he is nobody. Each child is taught to create a name in the world, fame in the world. Each child is told, ‘The way you are is not right. You have to prove your mettle, you have to become ‘somebody’—as if you are not anybody yet!* > *You are born with a certain flavor of your own, with a uniqueness, with an individuality. Nobody else is like you—nobody else has ever been like you—and nobody else will ever be like you. But this truth is never told to you. You are told, ‘Become somebody’—as if you are nothing.* > *So you have to become, you have to compete to become. And of course then struggle starts, because everybody is told to become somebody, everybody is told to become the president or the prime minister. Now how many people can be presidents and prime ministers? Then naturally there arises a cut-throat competition. Everybody is against everybody else, life becomes a war, a constant war. In this state there is no possibility of peace, love, silence, joy, celebration. All is lost.* > *\~ [Osho](https://www.osho.com/osho-online-library/osho-talks/the-source-mystics-ambition-07c54228-540?p=165c7df87def8a4d44e070a3d57dca8d), Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol. 2, Chapter 4\. Living in Tune with Tao* I took these words to heart and tried to stamp out all desire for a better career or more pay. I'd write stories but the instant I'd start to gain an audience, I'd somehow self-sabotage and convince myself that my work was not good enough and that I'd be doing my readers a disservice if I continued to write and regale them. Sigh! I was one person with a helluva lot of issues, wasn't I? Now, the trouble with wisdom teaching is that it is often taken out of context. We subconsciously latch on to one aspect of the words, the one that seems to make the most sense to us at that point in time given our life circumstances and our state of mind, and make that our truth. I did this after D was born. And every time 'ambition' rose in my heart, I told myself that I ought to be content and tried to stamp it out. Conversely, I also felt deeply envious of many of my peers who seemed to be doing well and soaring to great heights in their careers or chosen professions. I wondered why I couldn't do the same, why I chose to be a stay-at-home mom for those initial years. Even though I had started writing and publishing books at this time, beginning with *In Search of Leo* in January 2018, I often told myself that I was doing this as a creative hobby, that there was no money in it, it was just something I was doing to keep myself busy. > It became very easy to belittle myself and my efforts when they seemed really small and insignificant compared to what the rest of the world was doing. --- ### *How inner growth differs from ambition* It took me a long time to realize that the problem here did not lie in my efforts, but in the second half of the above statement: *compared to what the rest of the world was doing*. Once that penny dropped, a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. But the funny thing is I forget this every single day, and I need to remind myself of this, of what truly matters, every single day. This is especially hard because we do not live in isolation. Every day, if we're lucky, we meet a lot of people and we are exposed to what's going on in the world around us. Even if we don't meet people, all it takes is one moment of logging in to social media or even the news to see the heights others are achieving in their careers or personal lives and find our own efforts piffling or lacking in some way. Or conversely, we can look at all the terrible things that's broadcast on the news channels and convince ourselves that the world is a terrible place to live in, that the apocalypse is on us, and we just need to keep our heads down and go into survival mode. When anxiety tries to hijack my brain with all these meandering arguments, I have to remind myself that my true anxiety stems from the uncertainty of my work. I don't know how this particular story I write will turn out (which is quite an outward-looking statement, relying on others' judgement and opinions for its validation). I don't know how it will be received (which is yet another outward-looking statement). I don't know if it will sell enough copies and make me a decent living (a statement enough to render the strongest among us helpless and powerless). These are my real anxieties, and no one can really answer these questions for me unless I actually sit down and write and publish my stories and send them out to readers and/or editors. --- > *Although I didn't realize it back then, I was making the mistake of equating ambition to growth, and in stamping out 'ambition' from my life in the conventional sense, I was refusing to allow myself to grow too.* If we were to revisit the context in which Osho made his comments about 'ambition', we'd see that he wasn't anti-growth at all. > *People ask me, ‘If we drop competitiveness, if we drop ambitiousness, then how we will grow?’— and trees are growing and animals are growing, and the whole existence is moving and growing — just you cannot grow without ambitiousness…* > *And with ambitiousness what has happened? Have you grown? Something wrong has grown in you; something like cancer in your being has grown. Yes, that cancer will not grow anymore. If you drop all ambition, then a totally new process sets in: your natural growth takes over. Then you are not competing with others; you are simply evolving each moment within yourself, not comparing.* > *If you are playing music and it is beautiful this moment, next moment it will be more beautiful, because out of this moment the next moment is going to be born—from where else it will come?—next moment you will have a deeper music arising, and so on, so forth.* > *You need not be competitive with other musicians; in fact, if you are competitive with other musicians your inner music will never grow. You may learn more tricks, strategies, techniques how to defeat them, how to go ahead of them by right or wrong means—because competitiveness is so blind it does not bother at all what is right and what is wrong.* > *Competitiveness believes that whatsoever succeeds is right and whatsoever fails is wrong. That is the only criterion for an ambitious mind: the end makes the means right.* > *For a non-competitive mind there is no question of thinking of others; you simply go on growing on your own. Your roots go deeper into Tao, into nature. Not that other trees have reached deeper so you have to reach—you reach deeper for your own nourishment, you reach deeper for your own enrichment, you reach deeper because your branches can go higher. The deeper the roots go, the higher the branches reach—but it has nothing to do with others; others are accepted as they are. Nobody takes any note of others.* > *\~ [Osho](https://www.osho.com/osho-online-library/osho-talks/intelligence-stupidity-ambition-c4d7d19f-a2a?p=98ee4d5471011ca2f3bf4faf6efc6d05), Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol. 2, Chapter 4\. Living in Tune with Tao* --- When I look back at that essence of spirit in me, which drove me to strive and learn and do well in App Mech, Comp Sim, and French back in my uni days, it had nothing at all to do with competition or ambition as we know it. I was entirely driven to grow for my own nourishment, for my own enrichment. I wanted to face something that was believed to be hard and prove to myself that I could do hard things. Since I wasn't in competition with anyone, I also remember my efforts back then being *effortless*. 'Effortless': this is another word that can often be misconstrued. > *Effortless is not easy.* > *There is a lot of work involved but what effortlessness lacks is the desire to do or be better than anyone else.* > *Effortlessness does not make us angry or snappish when we fail or things don't go our way. Effortlessness gives us the strength to persevere while also holding fierce compassion for ourselves in the process.* I put in a lot of hours of study, but it didn't feel like hard work. It was immersive and uplifting. There were no external factors involved. I just wanted to tackle a subject that had become challenging for me and seek to understand and learn it more. In the case of French, I wanted to learn more out of a pure love for the language. --- *In Search of Leo* was my very first novel that I published. Some of the things I remember most about writing it are personal. I outlined it when I was pregnant with D and wrote and published it during the first eighteen months of his life. I remember one afternoon when D was asleep and I was cleaning up in the kitchen when suddenly an idea for a particular turn of phrase came to me and I ran to my laptop to quickly type it out before D awoke from his nap. I can still feel that elation that lifted my heart when my hands were immersed in a sink full of soapy water and dirty dishes, the smile that stretched across my face and gave me hope, and the ease with which I was able to write down the few pages that eventually made it into the final published book. Eventually, as I wrote and learnt more about writing, I heard things like 'words are not important' and that 'only storytelling matters' — which all led me to question the happiness I felt that day and its source. > *Was I so foolish as to feel happy about having written something in a way that tugged at my heartstrings when the rest of the world was saying that this is exactly the kind of stuff that won't sell?* > *Because I remember how awed I used to feel when I read vivid descriptions and emotionally intense prose, even though it took a while for the story to move along.* > *And now industry stalwarts are telling me that this is not what makes for good writing?* > *So I had been loving the wrong thing all along? I had been attracted towards the wrong thing all along? I had even been creating the wrong thing all along?* I felt the effect of this kind of thinking more intensely after *Dying Wishes* came out. It didn't help that a close friend of mine read it and loved it, it didn't even matter that the book was nominated as a finalist for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in the Speculative Fiction category. All I can remember are its lack of successes. Like the blogger to whom I had reached out asking if she'd review it, only to get ghosted. Or the fact that it didn't get a wider audience than it did. Or even the fact that it didn't win the Kobo prize! But then again, to be fair, I didn't do much to promote it — except post a couple of times on social media back when I was still on FaceBook — yet it [found its way](https://www.youngw.ca/product/dying-wishes-by-anitha-krishnan/) into many hands without my doing anything at all. --- ### *Creating without comparing or competing* In short, when my ambitions for growth are tied to the successes I see or don't see in the world outside, then I have invited trouble. Because the instant we look outside, there comes the tendency to compare and feel worthless and inadequate in our efforts. > *That is not to say we shouldn't ship our work and learn from what others are doing that's working for them. But it's a fine line between learning from others and lambasting ourselves for what we didn't know or do.* > *It's one we learn to traverse well only with repeated practice. And just because we get it right once, doesn't mean we'll never falter again.* --- In parting, I'll leave you with these words of advice I once gave in response to an [interview question](https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/06/08/rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize-2023-kwl-author-spotlight-on-anitha-krishnan/): Do you have any advice for emerging writers like yourself? Any advice you wish you had had when you first started writing? My answer has since found its way into other places, including the Kobo Writing Life [newsletter](https://preview.mailerlite.com/c4a2r1m8e1) (June 2023) and in the newsletter that the [International Association of Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors ](https://iasfa.org)sent out this month (August 2023). Here goes: > *Luck and time have a far, far greater role to play than we realize (or even want to accept) when it comes to achieving material success in our writing and publishing journeys.* > *When we are told that we only have to work hard and keep showing up to eventually get what we want, we forget that there are no guarantees. It is such a common and universal human experience to not get what we want.* > *Besides, innumerable factors in this industry (and in life) are not in our control. Yet we may mistakenly believe that we’re not successful because we’re not exhibiting enough grit or discipline or perseverance.* > *So if you’re not seeing the kind of worldly success you had hoped for, no matter where you are on your journey, please know it is not your fault.* > *Please come back to what had brought you to writing in the first place; I suspect that had little to do with getting rich or famous and more to do with an unadulterated love for expressing yourself through words.* > *And when all else fails, please read[ And Then We Grew Up](https://www.kobo.com/ebook/and-then-we-grew-up) by Rachel Friedman for a wise reminder that there can be as many ways to live a creative life as there are creatives.* Keep creating! Keep living the creative life! ### tales for dreamers: the three wise men by the window sill URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-three-wise-men-by-the-window-sill/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:42:28.000Z The three wise men hang around by the window sill all day long and dole out prophecies to innocent passersby. Trouble is, no one can hear them. Even if they do, the passersby just pretend that the voices coming out of nowhere are only figments of their imagination. But that does not stop the three wise men from sharing their wisdom with the world. They now resort to shining brightly to grab the attention of the accidental receivers of wisdom. The wise man on the left starts to shimmer and glitter if he knows your past is about to catch up with you. The past may well be long gone, but nothing stops it from shaping your present and your future, he believes. The one on the right glistens and glimmers to let you know a glorious destiny awaits you, whatever your past may have been. Obviously, he is always at loggerheads with the one on the left, and both try to outdo the other in guiding the passersby. Today he shines so brightly you are blinded by the promises of what the future might bring; so you forget your past and trip over today in reckless haste. The wise man in the middle rarely shines. People rarely notice him, so he ignores them too. He shakes his head at his quarrelling partners. “Fools,” he laughs. We know not whether he is ridiculing his partners or his mockery is aimed at you, you who runs from your past and hurtles impatiently into the future. ### August Abundance: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-august-abundance/ Last updated: 2023-08-27T07:00:27.000Z Hello, Dreamer! It is often said that growth, especially of the emotional and spiritual kind, is a subtractive process. It is who we become when we are forced to let go of past attachments, of what once belonged to us but no longer does, of beliefs that no longer serve us. In that sense, August has been a month of endings for me. It hasn't been easy, but I'm also beginning to see that when we let go of what no longer serves us, it frees up a lot more space for us to explore, experience and evolve in new ways. --- The first thing I shed this month was the very first Dream Pedlar website KrA helped me launch more than a decade ago. In November 2011, to be precise. It was thedreampedlars.com, a plural version of the name that we chose to use as *The Dream Pedlar's*. *Welcome to The Dream Pedlar's*, it used to say at the top of the page. It is where I first started to write the [*Tales for Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/) stories. KrA built the site using [Ghost](https://ghost.org), which had just emerged as a clean, fuss-free alternative to Blogspot and Wordpress. I remember uploading images and formatting text in Markdown. (My current website is also built using Ghost, which has only continued to grow as an amazing platform all these years.) I built a little bit of an audience there, mostly friends and fellow writers, some of whom are still with me on this journey. (Hello, Padmaja! 👋) A few years later, when I was playing around on a 100-day project of writing short poems (which eventually became a [book](https://books2read.com/HelloDreamer)), KrA built a nifty feature on the website whereby you could click on a column and it would yield a new random poem from the collection. But I had long stopped using the website in any form other than as a repository. I wanted to hold on to those specific dates in the past when I had conjured up and posted more than a hundred *Tales for Dreamers*, even though that label itself underwent a lot of transmutations. I also couldn't bring myself to let go of the appreciative comments that readers had left there. > *More than anything else, it served as a reminder of the times when I was still a new writer, starry-eyed, my head filled with dreams of what it would mean to write and write and write, stories and whimsies, heartfelt musings and words of wisdom, my heart filled with that eternal hope that my words would matter and make a difference, and that just as I had been shaped and saved on numerous occasions by the written word of others, so too the words I write would touch a heart here, give hope to a soul there, and offer comfort and solace when everything else fails to do so.* > *Long story short, life and writing took unexpectedly wild detours. I wasn't prepared for the disappointments (which were far too many) and the heartbreaks (which were often too overwhelming) or even the wins (there never seemed to be enough of those!).* Eventually, I had to accept that I was holding on to something that no longer exists. 2011 is no longer here. I'm no longer the person I was back then, and I am also at a different point in my writing journey now than before. Trying to reclaim the past only keeps me from dedicating myself to the present and the future that is yet to come. When nostalgia ceased to be seductive and became stifling instead, I gave KrA the thumbs up to delete the site and shut down the server. But not before I had migrated most of my posts from there to here. Which includes many of my poems that don't appear anywhere else on the Internet. So these are my gifts to you this month. The poems I wrote a long time ago. You can check them all out [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/poetry/) or search for 'poetry' in the search bar on the website. Some of my favourites are *The Colour Thief*, which is the earth's love song to the sun; [the colour thiefHey fire-breather, my arm’s length lover I’ve danced around you in ecstasy for a billion years, Never straying too far Nor getting any closer All day long you cast on me your roving eye Come twilight You rob me off all my colours And splash them on to![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/18.-The-Colour-Thief-1.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-colour-thief/) *The Dance Within*, which I wrote as a love song to KrA; and [the dance withinAt the sight of you My heart leaps like a splash of raindrop on a roadside puddle Dances like frail flowers tenderly bobbing their pretty heads when the wind whispers sweet nothings in their ears In your presence, I am a maiden twirling around to an invisible melody My billowing![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/21.-The-Dance-Within.JPG)](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-dance-within/) *Transience, and You*, which I wrote, heartbroken, when my parents left and went back to their home in India after staying with us for six months in Australia during my pregnancy and the birth of D. [transience, and youI walked with you from room to room watched your every step with all my heart sauntered up every lane and alley and street corner beside you, stitching memories together to rein me in, to keep me from falling apart when you’d be gone, for I knew you would![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/29.-Transience.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/transience-and-you/) --- The other thing that is swiftly slipping away is the season. Because the days and nights have been cooler than usual this month, summer feels as if it's already giving way to autumn. Back when we used to live in Singapore, where it was more or less hot and humid for most of the year, except in November/December when it would rain more than usual, time always felt as if it had come to a halt. The weeks and months were unbearably long and monotonous and unchanging. Now it is as though time is in a tremendous rush, to get to the end of the world perhaps, and it simply ~~won't~~ cannot stop until it has reached its destination. Besides, in only ten days from now, summer holidays will come to an end and D will be back at school. This transition used to be a very anxiety-inducing one for me in the years past. But as D grows and I see him go through various experiences in his own beautiful ways, it's becoming easier for me to accept that he is his own person and I can more readily trust that he will find his own ways to navigate the journey of his life. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/Feature-Image.jpeg) --- This month of endings and imminent new beginnings reminds me of the beautiful words of Anne Morrow Lindbergh from her book of contemplative essays titled [*Gift from the Sea*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77295.Gift%5Ffrom%5Fthe%5FSea). > *When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand.* > *We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of life, and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return.* > *We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity—in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.* > *The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.* > *Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits—islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.* > *\~ An excerpt from Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh* I think Lindbergh's views hold true not only for relationships but also in the case of our dreams and desires, what we long for, our beliefs and expectations from the world outside, and also what we demand our own selves to do. So, what is it that you're holding on to that no longer serves you? Write to me and let me know, and we can encourage each other in our respective journeys. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### Footwear for any Destination When we were across the pond last month, we had a chance to visit the London Zoo. It has a section, [Land of the Lions](https://www.londonzoo.org/whats-here/habitats/land-of-the-lions), that has, in addition to the lions of course, scenes recreated from the streets of Gujarat! Among the many colourful displays, including an auto-rickshaw and carts laden with spices, was this stall of brightly coloured pairs of slippers! *Chappals*, as we'd say in Hindi. How could I not write a short tale to go with it? [tales for dreamers: footwear for any destinationSo many brightly coloured pairs of slippers! Which one will you choose to wear on your next journey?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/40.-Footwear-for-any-destination.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-footwear-for-any-destination/) --- ## Books You May Love You're in for such a treat this month! First, I read *The Crossing Places* by Elly Griffiths, author of the incredible mystery series featuring DS Harbinder Kaur that I've [raved about](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-ds-harbinder-kaur-series-inspector-persis-wadia-malabar-house-series/). *The Crossing Places* introduces us to Dr. Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist who lives with her cats in a cottage by a salt marsh. She is pulled into a murder and missing person investigation when DCI Harry Nelson reaches out to her for help, and thereon begins her adventure. Galloway is the kind of friend I'd like to have — in fact many of my close friends are like her — brave, outspoken and fiercely compassionate. Aren't we lucky there are already so many books in this [series](https://ellygriffiths.co.uk/my-books/the-ruth-galloway-novels/) to read? ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/The-Crossing-Places-1.jpeg) But now, the book that I didn't know existed is a Hercule Poirot novel that the estate of Agatha Christie commissioned contemporary British writer, Sophie Hannah, to write. What a daunting task that must have been, having to live up to all that expectation, and what a formidable person Hannah must be, to undertake this task and deliver something so enjoyable, so delightful, and so true to the original (in my opinion)! Hats off to her! I absolutely loved reading this book, *The Killings at Kingfisher Hill*, and was even more delighted when I learnt that Hannah had [already written](https://sophiehannah.com/hercule-poirot-novels/) three more Hercule Poirot books before this and that a fifth one is slated for release later this year. ![hardvoer copy of The Killings at Kingfisher Hill, a Hercule Poirot novel, by Sophie Hannah featuring a silver ring with a bloodied diamond stone](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/The-Killings-at-Kingfisher-Hill-2.jpeg) The Killings at Kingfisher Hill by Sophie Hannah ![stack of four Hercule Poirot books by Sophie Hannah](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/Hercule-Poirot-Books-2.jpeg) The first four Hercule Poirot novels written by Sophie Hannah My favourite part in *The Killings at Kingfisher Hill* is when Hannah makes Poirot sound a little New Age-y, when he says to his friend, Scotland Yard Inspector Edward Catchpool: > "There is a moment in each case—there always has been, from the commencement of my career in the Belgian police—when suddenly, before the mystery is solved, I see enough of the picture to know for sure it *will* be solved. In that instant—and it is a glorious feeling, Catchpool ... *in that instant, I feel the very same emotions that I would feel if I already knew the answer.*" > "I see," I said doubtfully. > "Once I have the feeling of triumph that accompanies the perfectly resolved puzzle, then I am forced to justify it. Do you see? I am bound by my duty to myself to create, in my mind, the resolution that proves the emotion correct. I hope you will experience this for yourself one day, my friend. Truly, it is the only way to succeed." > ... > "... Once one has a point of focus, all of the other details start to arrange themselves around it." > I mumbled something about that not having happened yet. Of course, Poirot had an answer at the ready: "If you resent it for not happening before it can possibly happen, you push it further away. Me, I prefer to trust that it will happen when the time is right." There, ladies and gentlemen, is the law of attraction and the principles of manifestation explained in a completely logical and rational way by the inimitable Hercule Poirot! 😄 --- That brings us to the end of this edition, dear Dreamer! But, as we've seen, endings pave the way for new beginnings. So go forth, dear Dreamer, and make of your life what you will. We only have the one and it is truly a gift. Much love, Anitha ### tales for dreamers: dangers in the woods URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-dangers-in-the-woods/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:42:36.000Z Don’t be fooled! The scenery is breathtaking but these are the most dangerous parts of the woods. Travellers would do well to stay in groups. (In fact, they would do well to stay away from the woods altogether.) But if you must travel, you must seek refuge in numbers, and although that does not guarantee safety, a lone traveller will almost never make it alive to the other side. You could consider donning invisibility cloaks for protection, but they are rare to find and obtain, and if you do wear one, there are things in the woods that even magic cannot protect you from. The woods are lush and green, but invisible creatures prowl among the trees hunting for fresh souls to prey upon. The water is cool as ice and fresh as dew, but underwater beasts lurk just below the surface, tempting you to dip your feet in the water, where they wait, ready to yank you into bottomless depths. The bridge offers the only escape from the woods. But when it grows dark, it vanishes from right under your feet. Even if you are only halfway through it. ### tales for dreamers: footwear for any destination URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-footwear-for-any-destination/ Last updated: 2023-08-22T13:33:56.000Z There are countless pairs of slippers for you to choose from. Each pair leads to a destination of its own choice. Some take you back into the past, giving you a chance to say goodbye to those past mistakes and regrets that never seem to leave you. Some take you far into the future to give you a glimpse of what your life might be like, if only you’re willing to do what it takes today. Some lead you towards love; of these, some may lead you back to an ex-lover while some others may cross your paths with that of a stranger. Many lead you back home. But you have to choose whether or not you wish to stay there. The home you once grew up in need not be the home you need right now. None of them can lead you away from death. But each and every one of them can lead you towards a different life than the one you’ve remained stuck in for so long. You only have to don a pair and start walking. ### knowing what you know, would you still create? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/knowing-what-you-know-would-you-still-create/ Last updated: 2023-11-05T00:11:47.000Z I've been feeling quite like an imposter off late in almost every aspect of my life, but especially when it comes to sermonizing on [the creative life](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/the-creative-life/). Of course, we are all works in progress, we always will be, and we'll never have everything figured out. There is no final destination to cross in this journey of life, unless you consider death, and we're all inexorably heading there anyway, whether we wish it or not. Yet, this past week I once again succumbed to demanding that the Universe provide me immediate material returns for my writings — a cheque in my hands, some moolah in the bank, a 5-star review somewhere, several books sold. And when none of that was fulfilled, I went about feeling grumpy and whiny, unable to exert patience when overwhelmed either by the prospect of cleaning up our home before a playdate or helping little D with something. And so I went and did the thing that gave me a lot of joy and a lot of escape. I continued and finished watching Season 1 of *The Vampire Diaries* and am well into Season 2 now, just to get my fill of its very good-looking cast and be enamoured by the possibility that in some alternate version of the Universe there exists a high school whose students are required to be pre-occupied more with festivals and carnivals, love and heartbreak, secrets and adventures, than with more mundane things like studying and thinking of earning money in the real world. --- ### Myths about what a creative life looks like So why does all this make me feel like an imposter? Because this is not what a true creative does, innit? > *We're not supposed to create for the sake of external validation but for our own growth and conscious expression and evolution.* > *We're not supposed to moan about how hard it is to create because we're lucky enough to work on our passion projects and try to make a living out of it whereas everybody else is slowly dying inside, from one Monday to the next, in their soul-crushing 9-to-5 jobs.* > *Every moment not spent creating or imbibing inspiration is a waste of our precious time. Every moment spent complaining about how things are not going our way is a display of ungrateful wretchedness.* > *Creating is supposed to be fun and frolic. We're supposed to face challenges head on, because aren't we trying to dispel the myth of the starving artist in these modern times full of opportunities and resources? Heck, we're in the thick of the gig economy, aren't we?* That's a lot of pressure on any human being, let alone someone who tries to make a living from their art in which they are required to do the work first and are not guaranteed a pay. Instead of accepting these thoughts as fact, which Older Me would have impulsively done, I've begun to question these opinions as they arise in an attempt to dissect them and get to the heart of the matter. --- To me, it appears that over the past couple of decades, or perhaps even more, this has become a world that leads you to believe that *'Anybody can do anything as long as they work hard and persevere.'* Over time, we've let go of the appendage and stuck to the *'Anybody can do anything'* motto. While highly motivating, this statement can be turned on its head to suggest that if someone can't do something, then they are to blame for it. The implication is that they must have done something wrong along the way — not worked hard enough, not been smart enough to grab the opportunities that came their way, not persevered enough to show up at the right places at the right time. How do we know? How do we know which is the right place? How do we know how much longer we ought to persevere before we receive a windfall? --- ### On the unforgiving disconnect between effort and reward I remember reading a story as a very young child on the topic of perseverance. Once a king went hunting in the forest but, as is wont to happen in stories like these, he somehow strayed away from his soldiers, met with an accident and fell from his horse into a very thorny bush. He lost consciousness and was covered all over in thorns. The local villagers found him and rescued him. Not knowing exactly who he was, they brought him to one of their homes, where one young damsel put in the painstaking effort of removing each thorn, one by one, from his body. Sometime during this process, the king regained consciousness but thorns still covered his eyes, so he kept them closed and silently vowed to himself that he'd marry the person who was taking such good care of him. Turns out that by the time the first woman removed most of the thorns on his body, she was exhausted and asked her sister to take over. There were only a handful of thorns left at this point and they were on the king's eyes. Her younger sister took over and when the king opened his eyes, he mistakenly assumed that she, the younger sister, had been tending to him all along and asked for her hand in marriage. Notwithstanding the many problems with this story, stereotyping in particular, I presented it here to highlight the fallacy in our thinking. The moral of the story, as I understood it back then, is that if the older sister had finished her job, despite her exhaustion, she'd have been rewarded for her efforts. There are two flaws with this kind of thinking. First, it assumes that there exists a reward at the end of that long journey of hard work and perseverance. Second, it reveals how hindsight is often confused for foresight. If only the older sister had somehow been able to read the king's mind, she'd have kept at it or at the very least she'd likely not have passed on the remainder of the task to her younger sister, again assuming that she viewed getting married to the king as some sort of handsome reward. Now that I've been thinking more about this story, perhaps the moral of the story is actually this: > *You could put in your best efforts and still not be 'fairly' rewarded/compensated for your effort.* > *But we don't want to hear that, do we?* > *If we're told there is no guarantee of any reward, we wouldn't risk our necks, would we?* > *And so instead of a real carrot, the illusion of a carrot is dangled in front of us and we keep chasing it like a mirage. We are told that we only need to work hard and persevere and keep at it and that carrot would be ours, tasting all the more sweet for our efforts.* > *For some, the mirage turns into a tangible reality. For countless others, it remains a mirage.* These are the stories we do not hear. The ones of failure. The ones of less-than-stellar success. The ones in which we'd have done 'better' — in terms of how we define material success in this world — had we chosen to walk away instead of persevering, instead of continuing to bang our heads on the same wall over and over and over again. The former choice may have led us to more success on a different path, the latter choice only leaves us with concussion with no guarantee of the wall breaking down to reveal the path beyond it. --- ### Reframing 1. **Looking for ways to grow** At the risk of making an abrupt U-turn here and turning the so-far pessimistic tone of this post on its head, I want to reframe failure, or rather, lack of success. It is quite hard to define failure. At what point do we discard a venture as doomed? After the 20th rejection? Or after the 200th? The answer will vary from individual to individual, but perhaps the point is to reframe what we consider as success and failure. > *Is getting rejection a failure?* > *Or is it a failure to take the rejection to heart and stop creating anything that is personally meaningful to us because someone on the outside said it wasn't to their taste?* It is common wisdom but when we look at the journey as one of growth and not one of crossing milestones en route to some destination, then we can reframe the responses we receive (or don't) to our creative work. What does growth then mean? How do I face disappointments or setbacks? How do I cope when anxiety comes rearing its head? How do I learn to rest? How do I learn to try again? If we could learn from our journey and begin to answer these questions, perhaps that could be the most astounding success we ever receive. --- 1. **Who are we becoming in the process?** > *It doesn't matter what we achieve but who we become in the process of doing so.* I don't remember where I heard/read this but I've found this especially true in my own creative path. Personally, I find that my writings are worthless if in the process of crafting this blog post or a short story, I'm so caught up in the angst of finishing the work that I get snappy at D or short-tempered with KrA and spout half-baked feminist theories at him to explain how it is unfair that he gets to work more hours in a day than I do or pick some other topic to fight over depending on the mood of the day. But I'd consider any day a success in which I've been able to calm an upset child, even if it meant spending more time with him and less time at the desk, or in which KrA has sought me out to share something that's troubling him and we spend some time talking about it. Personally, to me that is important. I rank high in S (stability) in the DISC personality test. I also have high Responsibility in my Clifton Strengths. So maybe that is how I am wired, to prioritize family. And still I make time to get to the desk and write, because that is also important to me. There is a balance. If I go more than one day without writing, I find I'm doing myself no service, so then I have to make sure I carve out time for that. Which means I have to be the adult and reach out to KrA to ensure D is taken care of so that I can head to the library to write. Or I could choose to make use of D's afternoon TV time to get some words down. That is on me. Feeling highly 'responsible' towards my family or other commitments can also translate to feeling highly 'responsible' towards my own self first. That way, it's a win-win. Any other way is a guaranteed descent into hell for me and, consequently, for everyone else. --- ### Similarities between the journeys of creating and parenting We could look at the journey of parenting to explain this analogy of our creative pursuits as a journey. If we choose to have kids, a conscious parent wouldn't set about the task of parenting with some end-goal in mind. Too many factors are out of our control. Instead, we'd focus on meeting our child(ren) where they are. We'd focus on understanding and accepting that they are different people than we are, with their own opinions and likes and dislikes. We'd focus on meeting their needs, physical, mental and emotional needs, in the present moment. If we had any sense, we wouldn't be looking at our child(ren) as an investment from which to secure the best returns. We'd know better than to demand that our child grow into our image of an ideal adult, one that we ourselves are far from being. We'd know better than to expect our child to fulfil our fantasy of an ideal human being living a perfect life. We'd simply love and support our children, no matter what situations they face, no matter the mistakes and bad decisions they make, no matter how many times they feel frustrated and stumble on the journey. We wouldn't dare say that we'd raise our child only if there is any guarantee of them leading spectacularly successful lives when they grow up, given what our definition of success has morphed into at any given point in time. It could be the same with our creative lives. Culture teaches us to hold fantasies in our head of what it means to be a successful writer or musician or artist. We are told to hold that vision in our head and steadfastly march towards it at all costs. But that comes at the expense of the present moment. We don't have to force our creative selves to fulfill those fantasies. > *Instead, we can love and support our creative selves, give them the best support we can to create and ship the work, to face rejections and overwhelm and anxiety, to know when to rest, when to try, and to know that in the very process of creating lies our evolution.* --- Coming back to that story about the thorn-riddled king and the two sisters. What if not getting married to the king turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the older sister? Sure, she could have spent the rest of her days as a bitter maiden, disappointed with herself and her fate. Or, she could have faced her disappointment (if she was really disappointed), done something about it (told the king it was she who did the bulk of the work), or felt secretly pleased that the king didn't choose to marry her for her thorn-picking skills and gone on to explore her own life. What new skills would she have tried and learnt? Given that she exhibited perseverance but also knew when she needed to rest and listened to her body to give it the rest and hiatus it deserved, would she have set out and succeeded on a long-term venture of some sort? The ending of no story is cast in stone. That's what makes life very interesting. I wonder, if we were all guaranteed success, would we still strive for it the way we do? Or would it become so commonplace as to have no value anymore? That would be a real shame because then we'd miss out on all the growth and learnings that come from taking on a challenge and working our way through it. ### The Mind Meddler & other fantasy short stories URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-mind-meddler-other-fantasy-short-stories/ Last updated: 2023-08-21T01:24:53.000Z Hello, Dreamer! Hope August has been treating you well, wherever in the world you are. I have so much to share with you this month but I will leave all that heart-to-heart for next Sunday, when the *Monthly Missive* for August will find its way into your inbox and, hopefully, your heart and soul. Today's brief note is to remind you that the International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (IASFA) is running a promotion for the next 5 days only, August 20—24, whereby you can get some really good fantasy short stories for free or 99 cents only! [Great fantasy short reads for free and 99 cents! Aug 20-24 only!](https://iasfa.org/aug23/) [*The Mind Meddler*](https://books2read.com/themindmeddler/) is up there too for 99 cents! Give it some love, and grab a copy while you can. [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/The-Mind-Middler---ebook---website.jpg)](https://books2read.com/themindmeddler/) The Mind Meddler Additionally, while you're there, I'd recommend grabbing Anthea Sharp's *Heart of the Forest*. Sharp is an author I have come to love after having read the first book in her Feyland series, which marries fairy tales and video games. Another author I like is Tao Wong, who is known for his cultivation series, *A Thousand Li*, inspired by Chinese wuxia (martial heroes) and xianxia (immortal heroes) storytelling. *A Thousand Li: Ten Thousand and One Fates* is the short story from this universe included in this promotion. 💡 **Don't forget to* [**sign up*](https://iasfa.org/newsletter/) *to the IASFA's newsletter, if you haven't already! Every month, the good folks who run the IASFA will treat you to free and discounted science fiction and fantasy reads from some of the most ingenious, entertaining and best-selling storytellers of our times!* Happy reading! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: the trail URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-trail/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:42:50.000Z We are quite a noisy bunch but we manage to remain out of sight. The travellers journeying across the path mistake us for the rustle of leaves or for invisible creatures slithering through the undergrowth, shying away from the humans. Which suits us well enough. We do not seek to make ourselves known, at least not to everybody. We merely want to get close enough to the path to eavesdrop on the wanderers without revealing our presence. Most travellers stick to the path, occasionally pausing to catch their breath, peer into the woods, and wonder what lies beyond. Mostly, they choose not to satisfy their curiosity, and after a brief pause, they continue onwards. Some think a paradise of sorts awaits them at the end of the path, what with the town council – in its schemes to lure more tourists to the forgotten region – having advertised breathtaking views overlooking cliffs and oceans to be found at the end of the trail. Some others believe the journey is more significant than the destination, and seek to enjoy the pleasures of walking down the trail, one hidden turn leading to another. Often they try to capture the sights and sounds and smells in their cameras, creating a heap of pictures that never receive a second glance; they are forgotten no sooner than they are clicked. We usually wait for the lone travellers who seek us out and talk to us. We do not see them as often as we would like but when they do come, we delight in their visits and the intelligent conversations they make. They inquire after the creatures of the land, and ask us questions about the trail and its history. How old is the trail? *Older than the sun and the moon.* Who created the trail? *The creatures that live in the woods.* Where are those creatures now? *They are labelled extinct but in truth they remain cleverly hidden in the woods.* Sometimes they ask us tricky questions. Once a little girl asked if the trail leads to heaven. No, it does not, no matter what your idea of heaven may be, we answered. Then how do I get to heaven, she asked. But we didn’t know what to say. We do not always have appropriate answers to their questions. ### tales for dreamers: going on the super slide URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-going-on-the-super-slide/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:42:58.000Z There is a huge line-up for the super slide. The guard lets people in, three at a time, and hands them a sack each. When it’s their turn, they run up the stairs erected between the two long lines of metal railings. Another guard at the top ensures they get into their sacks safely, and when they’re ready, they slide down with a whee and a whoop. And it is so much fun that they line up to do it all over again. Sometimes, as soon as they reach the bottom, the little ones try to climb back up the slides. The guard at the bottom yells at them, as do the other grown-ups huddled there, waiting with phones in their hands to record videos of their own loved ones ready at the top, eager for their turn to slide down. The little ones give up on their endeavour and get out of the way. It’s a shame, for they were really on to something even if they themselves weren’t aware of it. For you see, rumour has it that if you could climb *up* the super slide, it would take you all the way to the skies. ### tales for dreamers: snakes & ladders URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-snakes-ladders/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:46:12.000Z This game of snakes and ladders is very easy to play. The snakes are friendly but the ladders can be slippery. You don’t have to land at the base of the ladder to begin climbing to the top; you can simply begin to make your way up any time you come across one. And neither will the snakes devour you and force you to slide down their tail. But they like being rewarded for good behaviour (they were trained by humans, what to do), so you’ll need to pat them on their heads and feed them their favourite foods. Mice, rats and such, you know. You’ll have to keep everyone entertained. So sometimes, depending on where on the board you land, you’ll be asked to do silly stuff like stand on one leg or croak like a frog or sing like a blue whale. It won’t matter how well you perform; all that will matter is that you show up and do what is asked of you. There is no room for embarrassment in this game. Watch out for that lone bee though. She usually does not sting (it kills her, you know) but she can get very mad if players don’t follow the rules and if she doesn’t get her turn. So even though there are no real rules in this game, just make sure she keeps getting a turn ever so often. That’s it, really. And did I mention that the ladders can be slippery? They also have a tendency to move around. Sometimes they can fling you off the board to see how far they can make you fly. Don’t fret, though. The snakes will come to your rescue; if they like you, they will extend their tails long enough to cushion your fall. Make sure you keep them well-fed. They like their meals delivered alive, not dead, you know. ### the art of sticking to one's lane in heavy traffic URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-art-of-sticking-to-ones-lane-in-heavy-traffic/ Last updated: 2023-08-06T19:43:12.000Z D has been attending a summer camp these past two weeks at a location that's about a half-hour drive on the highway one way. Drop-offs and pick-ups are at peak hours, although the traffic during this season of the year appears to be far less then what we normally see when schools are in session. Still, traffic on the highway or even on regular roads for that matter seems to bring out the crazy in people. I get it. It always feels as if the lane we're on is moving excruciatingly slowly, while every other lane appears to be undoubtedly moving faster. In the past, when we were younger and restless and naïve, we used to switch lanes every so often. With time, I've come to see that switching lanes actually doesn't help much. It only adds to the stress – that constant comparison of which lane is moving faster, that feeling of lack that comes when we believe we are in the slowest lane and that every other lane is moving faster than ours, those lane switches for which we need to watch very carefully before making those shifts. And in the end, we reach our destination at more or less the same time irrespective of which lane we stayed on. --- I have anecdotal evidence of this in the sense that we usually end up catching up to many of the vehicles that try to get ahead by switching lanes or tailing others to get out of their way. I've seen this often on North Service Rd, which runs parallel to the QEW/403 highway here. It's a 2-lane road with no passing lane for the entire stretch, except at one signal at its junction of Industrial St. The speed limit is 60 km/h, but traffic usually speeds past at 70—80 km/h. Occasionally, there'd be someone wanting to go at 90 km/h, and they'd try to race past all the other vehicles at the aforementioned junction. Eventually I'd find them halting at the traffic light at the intersection of Walkers Ln and N. Service Rd. What was the point of their speeding for that stretch of 4 km from Industrial St. to Walkers Ln.? It only created an illusion of getting to their destination faster, while putting themselves and so many others at jeopardy. I understand the need for speed, and I've been driven by it myself, especially when I worry I'd get late to pick up D from school. So I completely understand why someone might feel driven to just get to their destination as quickly as possible. Except, driving like crazy doesn't really solve the problem; worse, it only creates the illusion of getting them to their destination faster. --- I find this analogy applicable to writing. For long, I've debated between going back to work and writing. Every time writing got hard, I'd start to apply for jobs. And then I'd get no calls for interviews and spend more time moaning about that fact, before realizing that I could be making good use of this waiting period to write and add to my inventory of books and products for sale. The current book I'm working on is another case in point. I had shelved the story a few months ago, having decided that I'd written myself into a corner. Several times I've come back to it, and each time after reading what I'd written so far I found myself wondering why I wanted to abandon the project in the first place. That euphoria would only last until the next time I found myself getting stuck again, and I'd go looking for other things to do — short stories to write, cooking, promoting de-weeding to a matter of emergency, something that had to be done right then and there! Anything to avoid facing what I construed as a difficult patch. --- ![concrete road winding through a green mountain under a blue sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/87.1.-george-hiles-tDPxPcOnlCg-unsplash.jpg) choosing to stay in my lane | Photo by [George Hiles](https://unsplash.com/@hilesy?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/tDPxPcOnlCg?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) I'm done switching lanes when it comes to my creative projects. Yesterday I had yet another feeling of bewilderment as I went through the almost 20,000 words I had written so far on the WIP. Why had I discarded all that work? When I read through it, I actually loved what I had written. Turns out I can't trust my own brain, which also seems to keep switching lanes between Creative Voice and Critical Voice. So here's the choice I made this morning. I'm going to stick to Creative Voice. I'm going to finish this book, no matter what. Critical Voice will happily point me to other ideas to work on, other jobs I could be working on, but I've got to remind myself of that precious nugget of wisdom I received from listening to [Mel Robbin](https://www.melrobbins.com)'s TEDx talk yesterday. I've written this down and taped it to the wall above my writing desk. > You are NEVER going to FEEL LIKE DOING all the things it takes to make your business everything it could possibly be! > \~ Mel Robbins Which means that maybe I'll never feel as if that story is any good, or maybe I'll doubt myself way more often than I can trust myself and my writings. But I'm going to keep writing anyway. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/DreamPedlar_Header_SignUp-1.jpg) ## Support my writings! ### Sign up for Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar for more such musings on writing, reading and the creative life! Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Arrives in your mailbox on the last Sunday of every month. ### the trouble with labels URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-trouble-with-labels/ Last updated: 2023-08-06T19:41:09.000Z I was listening to an author coaching session yesterday and one of the attendees said that four of her top 5 Clifton Strengths were in the thinking domain, which ideally means she's likely to need more time to think about her stories before being able to write them down. But, she went on to add, she publishes and releases a book every 6 weeks! She also said that this was the reason she has been resisting trying to find out more about her Strengths and how they apply to her as a writer, because she fears she'll only hear about all the ways people with top 5 Strengths primarily in the thinking domain aren't really equipped to write fast and publish fast. I was flabbergasted when I heard this. Among my top 5 Strengths, 2 are in the thinking domain, but 2 are in the executing domain. And yet, I'm unable to achieve the kind of productivity I dream of! In fact, when I found out my top 10 Strengths and saw that 50% of them were in the thinking domain, I used that as a perfect excuse to tell myself things like, "Oh, I need more time to think before I write. This is my Intellection needing thinking time. This is my Input needing TV time or reading time." How do we tell the difference between when it's a particular trait actually showing up and when it's something our fear-based brain is using as an excuse? --- A friend of mine — who is a general physician and whose child went to the same school as D — once told me how some of her relatives were quick to label her child as 'shy'. "It's not good for children to hear these labels about themselves," my friend said to me, "because then they start using these labels as excuses to not try out something new." For instance, a child repeatedly referred to as 'shy' could end up thinking "Oh, I can't make new friends because I'm shy." Doesn't that sound eerily similar to "Oh, I can't write 1000 words everyday because my strategic thinking Strengths need time to think!"? ![child hiding between her mother's legs](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/86.1.-tamara-govedarovic-YVEmwyGaEtk-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Tamara Govedarovic](https://unsplash.com/@tamaragovedarov?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/YVEmwyGaEtk?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- In response to the attendee's question, the author coach said that when they talk about how people with certain Strengths behave, they're talking about the *'norm'*. Or, she added, perhaps it was likely that the attendee was already subconsciously using her top Strengths at their optimum levels, which was leading her to exhibit high productivity. --- In a long-ago Statistics class I took while pursuing an MBA degree several years ago, the professor showed us a sequence of dots of different colours and asked us if we could decipher a pattern. Many of us came up with different answers. The professor then revealed that it had been an entirely random sequence, and that human beings have a tendency to imagine patterns where there are none! [everything is unknownBowing down to the mystery that governs all of life, no matter how much we try to codify the inexplicable.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha KrishnanThe Dream Pedlar![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/84.-sanjay-hona-2Q2dpVPY6XU-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/everything-is-unknown/) --- Labels can help us understand ourselves. For instance, I have come across people heaving huge sighs of relief when they figured out they had ADD or ADHD. "That explains why I behave like that!" > At what point then do these labels — anxious, depressive, shy, outgoing, ADD, ADHD, extrovert, introvert, geek, jock, night owl, morning person, and so on and so forth — cease to be instruments of enlightenment, helping us understand ourselves better, and become limiting definitions, excuses that we resort to when faced with the discomfort of doing something new or different or challenging? At what point did my strategic thinking Clifton Strengths become more than labels and started limiting me in the ways I showed up (or didn't) at the writing desk? --- The one pattern I recognize in myself is my inability to face the discomfort and do the work when it gets tough. Maybe, this is just something that shows up because it's a very human tendency to do so, and I've become good at catching myself when I'm shirking work because of some anxiety related to it versus when I'm not doing it because I'm bored or tired or sleepy or have something else to do. Other than this, do we really have a pattern? I don't know. When there are external deadlines, all patterns go out of the window! I've been able to work just as well late in the night as early in the morning. I've also made excuses about why I can't work in the morning as well as for why I can't work in the night. What does all this mean then? That if I'm not getting to the writing desk, it is not because of a pattern or an inherent trait but the simple, undeniable fear of failure, of my unwillingness to face the fact that the outcome of my efforts may pale tremendously in reality compared with the fantasy I've built in my head? --- The author coach, to give her credit, said that people with high thinking Strengths may do well to follow [Mel Robbin](https://www.melrobbins.com)'s 5-second rule. > ... in any area of life that you want to change, any — there's one fact that you need to know. > You are never going to feel like it. Ever. > ... > What's interesting about being an adult is that when you are eighteen nobody tells you that it's now going to be your job to parent yourself. And 'by parent yourself', I mean it's your job to make yourself do the crap you don't want to do, so you can be everything you're supposed to be. And you're so damn busy waiting to feel like it. And you're never going to. > ... > It's very, very simple to get what you want. But it's not easy. > You have to force yourself. Anything that's a break from your routine is going to require force. > \~ Mel Robbins in her TEDx talk, How to stop screwing yourself over She goes on to explain that the instant you have an idea or an impulse, within the next five seconds we ought to 'marry it' with something physical. For instance, feel like talking to that person over there? Start walking towards them within 5 seconds of having that thought. That's how you'd follow through on your ideas and impulses, without letting your fear brain stop you in your tracks before you've even had a chance of doing something about that brilliant idea of yours. --- So ... what does this mean for me? For us? I think it's high time I stopped looking for that silver bullet, which I was still looking for in the form of Strengths, get out of my own head and keep writing those words and publishing those books and sending out those stories. There is no course or workshop I can take, no talk I can listen to, no newsletter I can read that will help me achieve success in my writing, unless I'm writing and practising and writing some more in the first place. An old friend from university suddenly reached out over the weekend. Turns out his oldest daughter is into writing and he asked me if I could give her some pointers. I told him with great sincerity that there's only two things she needs to do: Keep reading, and keep writing. High time I took my own advice, isn't it? ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/DreamPedlar_Header_SignUp.jpg) ## Support my writings! ### Sign up for Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar for more such musings on writing, reading and the creative life! Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Arrives in your mailbox on the last Sunday of every month. ### I feel like quitting almost every single day URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/i-feel-like-quitting-almost-every-single-day/ Last updated: 2023-08-06T19:53:56.000Z Contemporary champions of independent writing and publishing, or even the broader gig economy, often talk about having fun, enjoying the process of creating, and keeping it all fun and play to ensure that we're able to play this game for a long time. I've already written about how long-term is actually far longer than we can possibly contemplate. [long-term is longer than you thinkWe often underestimate how long long-term actually is.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha KrishnanThe Dream Pedlar![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/82.-viktor-kiryanov-zQjQaEiAafk-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/long-term-is-longer-than-you-think/) But today I wanted to talk about the short-term. The day-to-day reality of the creative life. I don't wake up every single day, feeling excited about my life and my work. I do have great days like that, true, when I'm eager to write the next scene, check off some pending tasks on the never-ending list of publishing and marketing. But I also have days when I dread getting up and facing the tasks that lie ahead. There are days when I wish to do nothing but lie in bed and not think about how long this long-term thing really is. Heck, on days like that I can't even fathom getting past that day alone, let alone a decade of writing and publishing. In this day and age of constant positivity, I think it's important to put this out there and not romanticize the struggle and heartache, the anxiety and dread that often accompanies our creative work. --- ## **The Truth About Difficult Days** Today is one such day. I woke up in a bit of a grumpy mood this morning. Who can tell what caused it? Perhaps it is because yesterday I received some author copies I had ordered and I was happy with all but one, so my head is buzzing with all the things I need to do in order to rectify that. And once again I start to feel I wish I had more time to do all that needs to be done in this solo operation. Perhaps it's the exhaustion of driving up and down 80 km in all in a day to drop off and pick up D at/from his ongoing summer camp. Perhaps it's also the sadness that this will be his second and last week of camp at that venue and I'll miss the morning and afternoon drives and chatting with his camp instructor who's also a new author and fellow book-lover. Perhaps it's the constant push for high word count output I've been operating under, without allowing time for blog posts like these — I've had three ideas in as many days, and I put them aside to focus on fiction, instead — and now I just have to get them out before I can focus on anything else. Who knows what causes that shift in mood, that grumpiness, that overwhelm that forces us to pause and rethink and reset? It doesn't matter what causes it. All that matters is what we do in a situation like this. ![man running on a trail in the mountains under a cloudy sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/85.2.-brian-erickson-CBHxASbfH4s-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Brian Erickson](https://unsplash.com/@brianericksonco?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/CBHxASbfH4s?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) Over a period of time, I've come to see that sometimes I can plough my way through this funk. Sometimes I need to write the things that are taking up space in my head so they'd stop residing as to-write words in my thoughts and show up as written words here on the blog. Sometimes I need to step away and do something else. I've also come to see that I can't always plan and prepare for this. And that's alright. It's just part of the human condition. It's just part of trying to do something that feels hard in the moment. Just because these moods come up doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong. Just because this business of writing and publishing fiction feels hard at times, too often really, doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong. It's hard. It is. I love this YouTube short posted by Sarra Cannon, writer and author success planner over at her channel, HeartBreathings. > *"Just cried alone in my car," the text on the video reads, "Edits are sometimes hard, and it feels like I'm moving too slow."* This, this right here is the reality. It's not fun and play all the time. Writing and editing and publishing sometimes really feel hard and insurmountable. I always feel that I'm moving too slow, that I'm not doing enough, that I need to do more, that I need to push myself harder. Of course, none of that works, and I end up just burnt out and wishing I had never gotten into writing in the first place. Just like that, a blessing becomes a curse. Alternately, I can give myself space and grace, allow myself a day or two of clearing the decks, of writing these blog posts that demand to be written, of taking care of publishing/marketing/admin stuff, and then coming back to the manuscript with a clearer head and a rested body and mind. > *"But I will not give up just because it's hard," the text in the video says. "If you're struggling too, you are not alone. Let's keep going together."* YouTube short titled 'Don't give up' by Sarra Cannon --- ## **The Truth About Feelings of Quitting** In his book, *The Power of Unwavering Focus*, Hindu priest and former monk, [Dandapani](https://dandapani.org), says the following about the pursuit of our passion. > Anyone who tells you he has never thought of quitting is selling you a tropical island in the Arctic. > In a conversation with Joe DeSena, the founder of Spartan Race — military-style obstacle races designed to test mental fortitude and physical strength — I asked him if he ever thought of quitting any of the long endurance races he participates in. > The words were barely out of my mouth before he replied with "All the time. I want to quit every race I do." > I couldn't help thinking to myself at that moment what an honest answer that was. > I can assure you that portraying a life devoid of uncertainty and imbued with perfectionism does not inspire hope but rather falsely paints a picture of a painless path to success — a picture that will leave all hopelessly disappointed by their inability to reach such heights. > The glorified narrow pointed peaks of success that most people like to focus on are but a fraction of the breadth and depth of the chasms that achievers spend most of their time crawling out of. ![man lying on the ground with an open spiral-bound notebook covering his face and a question mark on the page](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/85.3.-ryan-snaadt-TsRnxEVecbs-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Ryan Snaadt](https://unsplash.com/@ryansnaadt?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/TsRnxEVecbs?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) > Let me also be transparent in saying that the pursuit of such a solitary desire at the expense of all else in life should not imply that I never doubted or questioned my path. I don't want to paint a picture of a superhero or a stoic monk immune to the throes of life. > We often wish to paint those we hold in high regard with broad strokes of perfectionism and messianic qualities. > I can assure you we are all human, every last one of us. I broke, I cried, I failed, I faltered, became desperate, got confused, questioned myself, and more. > But I never gave up the pursuit of my life's purpose. That desire is ever present and is what defines what I do in life and the focus of my energy. > \~ [The Power of Unwavering Focus](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61399174-the-power-of-unwavering-focus) by Dandapani I have nothing to add to this. These words are self-sufficient and convey the message eloquently. --- ## **The Truth About Affirmations** One of the oft-given advice on the internet for ploughing through difficult times is to resort to affirmations. I've given my fair share of time and energy to affirmations, but they've always felt wrong and insincere to me. I finally understood why, and I also figured out what I could do instead, thanks to [*The Desire Map*](https://shop.daniellelaporte.com/collections/the-desire-map-digital-view-all/products/desire-map-ebook) by Danielle LaPorte. In a sub-chapter titled *'Affirmations Can Mess You Up'*, LaPorte quotes other exemplary beings and shares her own experiences with affirmations. > Affirmations are like screaming that you're okay in order to overcome this whisper that you're not. That's a big contrast to actually uncovering the whisper, realizing that it's a passing memory, and moving closer to all those fears and all those edgy feelings that maybe you're not okay. Well, no big deal. None of us is okay and all of us are fine. It's not just one way. We are walking, talking paradoxes. > \~ Pema Chödrön, *Start Where You Are* > If you're going to affirm something, affirm the truth. Then go do something about it. > \~ Jim Rohn > I came of age in the New Age of the '90s. I had affirmation cards before I had business cards. And I tried to love affirmations, really I did. But affirmations didn't do me any favours. > When my mouth was saying, "I am fearless and courageous!" my brain was saying "I'm scared shitless." So then not only did I still feel scared, I also felt like a fake. > If you say that all is well when all is not well, or that you're skinny when you're feeling fat, or that you're healthy when you're sick — well, to state the obvious, you're lying to yourself. > Self-deception creates a cognitive dissonance so that, despite the positive-sounding phrasing, you're creating inner tension and conflict. > Contrived affirmations take you out of the present. Rather than facing what's real, we try to plaster over the difficult truths with happy thoughts. This is false optimism and it's damaging. > It undermines our capacity to be with that is and to access our real strength and spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity includes the capacity to acknowledge our fears while maintaining our confidence and truth. > ... Fear is natural and it deserves respect and compassion — don't insult your fear by smothering it with saccharine affirmations. Be scared. And ... be brave. > \~ The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte --- ## **Facing Our Fears** ![black and white image of a small boy facing a gigantic arachnid](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/85.1.-vadim-bogulov-9kbNYzo1XtQ-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Vadim Bogulov](https://unsplash.com/@franku84?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/9kbNYzo1XtQ?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) It's OK to admit that this business of writing and publishing feels difficult and impossible more often than I'd like it to be. It's OK to admit that every morning I wake up, worried that all these hours I spend at the writing desk may result in nothing. That's a terrifying thought indeed. Imagine spending decades of your life on something that never takes off in the material sense. Because we do live in a material world after all, and our reality is very material indeed. To deny that is foolish. To deny the risk of failure in any undertaking is certainly foolish. So what do we do then? We can acknowledge our fears, and then go on to face them anyway. Like Danielle LaPorte says, "Be scared. And ... be brave." [face your fearsWhat it means to face your fears…![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha KrishnanThe Dream Pedlar![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/81.-ehud-neuhaus-H2RJWwdv2zk-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/face-your-fears/) --- So, you, you who are scared and worried about where all your creative work is going to lead, it's OK. It's OK to feel scared. You're not doing anything wrong. It's just the nature of this world. It's just our human condition. This need for certainty. This guarantee of a certain outcome. This desire for our heartfelt dreams to come true. This is what drives us. And in following our dreams, whether or not we encounter material success, I know for a fact that we will encounter our fears every single day. And we can be brave and acknowledge them and proceed anyway. This much, we can do. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/08/DreamPedlar_Header_Depositphotos_263559664_XL.jpg) ## Support my writings! ### Sign up for Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar for more such musings on writing, reading and the creative life! Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Arrives in your mailbox on the last Sunday of every month. ### everything is unknown URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/everything-is-unknown/ Last updated: 2023-07-30T18:42:05.000Z The first verse of the Tao Te Ching goes like this. > *The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.* > *The name that can be named is not the eternal name.* > *The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.* > *The named is the mother of ten thousand things.* > *Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.* > *Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.* > *These two spring from the same source but differ in name;* > *this appears as darkness.* > *Darkness within darkness.* > *The gate to all mystery.* (The exact words differ depending on which translation you consult, but the gist is more or less the same). I understand this verse to mean that there is an undecipherable force, a mysterious ... mystery that governs all of life. It is from this well of mystery that all life springs forth and unfolds, and it is back into this well of mystery that all life falls upon ceasing. I understand this verse to mean that life and its mysterious ways of unfolding cannot be wholly explained by tools of logic and rationale, of patterns and reasoning. Ever since I realized this, perhaps 3—4 years ago, I've resisted all attempts at codifying life. For instance, I cannot for the life of me break down a story into a structural format; I find my analytical brain simply inadequate for explaining something as abstract as 'story'. Conversely, I find myself unable to write based on a predetermined outline. The muse loves exploring the story as it unfolds. The reason I write this is because as I write more and publish more and do more writer-ly things like sending out a newsletter, I find that many of the systems that I use are governed by algorithms and such. It makes sense then to assume that if one knows how to play the game, they can bend the algorithms in their favour. But what baffles me every time is how unpredictable things are. Something what I write and dismiss as commonplace gets the strongest and most heartfelt reactions from readers. Something what I believe would definitely touch the hearts of many barely records any response. Lack of response doesn't necessarily mean lack of interest. It's these nuances that I personally find tracking and algorithmic tools such as newsletter analytics, click rates, open rates, fail to capture for me. Or perhaps I'm just a complete ignoramus who doesn't understand how systems work and so I'm resorting to the 'grapes are sour' explanation for my ignorance. So the lesson for me in all this is to keep writing, keep sharing my work, and let the mysterious Tao do the rest. --- The opposite is true for me when it comes to music. I can read a sheet of music and attempt to reproduce it faithfully on the piano. But ask me to compose a tune, and I'd freeze. D, on the other hand, cares little for reading music. His fingers fly over the piano and he comes up with the most melodious of tunes. Ask him how he does it, and he wouldn't be able to deconstruct his method or process for you. In the same way, ask me how to write a story or how I write mine, I'd be able to tell you nothing. It's because my brain simply doesn't work in that analytical way that is required to deconstruct and explain a process so that it can be reproduced. But I love the certainty of math. And I love the emotional tug of language too. I reckon one can be a particular way in one field and of an entirely different bent of mind altogether in another field. See, I can't even replicate the workings of my own brain across different aspects of my life! --- I remember how when little D was much smaller, I used to sometimes call him Tao (pronounced as Dao). It was a reminder to myself that he is his own person, and that his life will unfold in ways beyond what I can fathom and conceive with my limited imagination, and that I'd serve him best by trusting in the forces of existence that govern all life in the Universe. I'd serve him best by trusting in the Tao. In this day and age of numbers — how many copies of the book were sold, what rank it reached on the bestsellers' list, how many reviews it garnered — I'd do well to remember that the only thing in my control is my writing. I must write, I must write as often and as well as I can. I must publish what I write and let the market know that my books are available for purchase. And then onwards to the next piece of writing. Sounds naïve in this day and age? Absolutely! Will this work? I don't know! But then, nobody can tell you exactly what will work. So why not this? All I know is that the more I write, the more writings I have to share with readers. I can leave the rest to the mysterious Tao! That makes my work so easy for me! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/DreamPedlar_Header_Depositphotos_263559664_XL-3.jpg) ## Support my writings! ### Sign up for Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar for more such musings on writing, reading and the creative life! Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Arrives in your mailbox on the last Sunday of every month. ### July Journeys: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-july-journeys/ Last updated: 2023-08-06T19:54:13.000Z Hello, Dreamer! Something special happened this month and so, even though I didn’t expect to have much to share in this column until September, turns out I now do. --- But before that, here's a short announcement to let you know that next month, you can get [*The Mind Meddler*](https://books2read.com/themindmeddler/) and several other fantasy short stories, some for 99 cents and some for free, as part of an annual promotion run by the *International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors [(IASFA)](https://iasfa.org)*. The promo will run only for a week – August 20—24 this year. 💡 I will send you a short reminder on August 20th, so you can fill up your e-readers with several awesome short reads in the fantasy genre! --- Now, on to all the fun stuff! For you see, I’ve been a-travelling. We were in the UK for a few weeks. Among the many moments of happiness we had, visiting family and doing touristy stuff, there’s ~~one~~ two I’ll hold very dear to my heart. The first is that my darling nephew, not even 10 years old yet, has signed up to this newsletter! Hello, Aadit! 👋 A big welcome to you here! So you see, dear Dreamer, I'll have to make doubly sure now that I don't post any NSFW stuff here! I don't wish to be accused of corrupting young, impressionable minds and all that, although I reckon some of the best creatives we've seen in history did precisely that with much aplomb. 🤭 --- The other thing that happened was the one which left a lasting impact on my own impressionable mind. One fine afternoon in Edinburgh, I set out by myself in search of [*The Writers’ Museum*](https://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/venue/writers-museum). It features memorabilia from the lives of three Scottish literary giants — Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson. It was literary heaven for me! While Sir Walter Scott has an entire monument erected in his name, the [Scott Monument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott%5FMonument), The Writers' Museum housed some fascinating items of his. One was a rocking horse he used as a child, with one foothold higher than the other to accommodate his handicap resulting from polio at an early age. There were other treasures too, like his fancy Meerschaum pipe and walking stick, as well as his silver seal and inkstand set! ![The rocking horse Sir Walter Scott used as a child as displayed at The Writers' Museum, Edinburgh](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/2.-Walter-Scott-rocking-horse_sized.jpeg) The rocking horse Sir Walter Scott used as a child ![Sir Walter Scott's walking stick (top) and Meerschaum pipe as displayed at The Writers' Museum, Edinburgh](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/3.-WS-Meerschaum-Pipe_sized.jpeg) Sir Walter Scott's walking stick (top) and Meerschaum pipe ![Sir Walter Scott's silver seal (L) and inkstand set, as displayed at The Writers' Museum, Edinburgh](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/4.-WS_Ink-Stand_sized.jpeg) Sir Walter Scott's silver seal (L) and inkstand set --- But what touched me the most were the words of Robert Louis Stevenson. It was in the rooms dedicated to this writer that I spent most of my time at the museum. Here is what he had to say about travel, writing, and life. > ***To Travel Hopefully*** > *For all his life, Robert Louis Stevenson believed that ‘to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.’* Can you imagine the gladness my heart felt upon reading these words? I, who have been long chasing some imaginary milestones and goalposts to cross in my writing journey, needed this reminder as badly as flowers need rain in the grip of a heatwave. > *For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.* > *\~ Excerpt from Travels With a Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson* ![Riding boots, spurs, crop and hat used by Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa as displayed in The Writers' Museum, Edinburgh](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/1.-RLS-Memorablia-copy-1.jpeg) Riding boots, spurs, crop and hat used by Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa And like every great writer, Stevenson's words were a great reminder of why we need to keep creating, keep telling our stories. > *When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge; I take them like opium; and consider one who writes them as a sort of doctor of the mind. And frankly, it is not Shakespeare we take to, when we are in a hot corner … It is Charles Reade, or old Dumas, or the best of Walter Scott … We want incident, interest, action; to the devil with your philosophy.* > *\~ Robert Louis Stevenson* --- And here is what Stevenson said about life. > *To be honest, to be kind — to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make, upon the whole, a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation — above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself — here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.* > *\~ Excerpt from A Christmas Sermon, Ethical Studies 1888 by R. L. Stevenson* Funny how even 150 years ago, humankind aspired to the same values and ideals in life that so many of us hanker after in the present day. The story of humankind is certainly as old as the story of the stars. We make the folly of thinking that our joys and our sorrows are unique to us, that we’re all alone in the successes we achieve and the trials we face during our oh-so-brief time here on earth. Nothing could be farther from the truth. So here is the permission we find ourselves needing from time to time to shed any regret and guilt over past mistakes, and to relieve ourselves from the pressure of having to *'make'* something extraordinary of this wild, precious life of ours. > For life is already exquisite in its ordinariness, and seeks nothing more from us but our absolute acceptance of this extraordinary fact. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### A Crisis of Identity I wrote this story more than a decade ago! We were living in Singapore at the time, and were often treated to views like these. Funnily enough, when I looked at this picture a few days after having taken it, I couldn't quite tell if the sun was rising or setting. When I asked KrA about it, he promptly replied that it was a sunset. I asked him how he knew. His reply? This was a westward view and so there was no way the sun could rise from that end! [tales for dreamers: a crisis of identityEven the sun and the moon can have dilemmas of their own.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha KrishnanThe Dream Pedlar![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/39.-a-crisis-of-identity.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-crisis-of-identity/) --- ## Books You May Love Reading took a backseat this month as I was out and about, greedily soaking in the sights and smells and sounds of the new worlds I was visiting. I did take my Kindle along for the journey but I didn't even switch it on. Movement was all that my body needed to enjoy a good appetite and a good night's sleep. But fret not! I've now gone back to my usual vice of browsing the library shelves and picking up books, so hopefully I'll have some lovely recommendations for you next month. --- Now that I'm back home, I miss being on vacation. I miss being in a place steeped in history, because history means lots of stories. I miss being with family, all of us having come together in this lifetime by some quirk of fate — call it birth or marriage — and enjoying each other's company. But the best thing to do is to look ahead, not behind. So here's to more adventures, more joy, and more of this wonderful life for all of us. In parting, I will leave you with Stevenson's immortal words from Treasure Island, published 140 years ago. > Fifteen men on a dead man's chest — Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest — Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Until next month then! \~ Anitha ### 156 days URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/156-days/ Last updated: 2023-07-30T01:57:43.000Z 156 days — that's how many days are left in this year. I don't know why I thought to look that up. Perhaps I was reminded of a 100-day challenge that some people undertake for the last 100 days of the year, beginning sometime in late September. And it occurred to me that perhaps we're around the 200th-day mark. We've already spent 209 days of this year, I found out when I asked Google. I am not too bummed by that or anything. 156 days is also a great number of days to practise something. It is not necessarily whole and satisfyingly round like 100, 200 or even 50 or 30 would appear to be. It's just a number, and any number ought to do, really. Besides, 156 has a pattern all of its own. 1 + 5 = 6\. Yeah, I love math and number patterns that way. So how can I make the most of what remains of this year? --- ### *Shedding False Beliefs* 2023 has certainly been an eye-opening year for me. I began this year determined to improve my mindset around life, writing and parenting. [looking back and looking ahead in preparation for 2023My plan for 2023 is to develop a healthy mindset as an author-entrepreneur and build my writing and publishing business on this robust foundation.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha KrishnanThe Dream Pedlar![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/12/13.-planning-for-2023_bart-kerswell-6mQED3hSgyk-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/looking-back-and-looking-ahead-in-preparation-for-2023/) We're more than halfway through the year, and I find that in order to improve my mindset, I've had to first shed some utterly wrong beliefs about the past that I had been clinging to. For a very long time, struggling with writing and parenting as I did, I kept assuming that I could have achieved a lot more success if only I had a little more help, a little more support, a little more friendship, a little more time, a little more encouragement. Turns out I had been living in lack, focussing on all that I didn't have but thought I ought to have in order to live a productive and successful life. This kept me conveniently in 'victim' mode where I could point the fingers at others and blame them for not helping me, for not cooperating with me, and for essentially being the hurdles in what would otherwise have been a straight, smooth path to unbelievable success and glory. Only my ego kept getting stoked as a result. > *I learnt the lesson that life had been trying to teach me all these years: that life would not have been any easier or more fulfilling had I made different choices than the one I did.* > *Nor would life have been any easier or more fulfilling had my circumstances been any different.* > *No matter what life throws at me, it is my response to it that determines everything.* > *Not necessarily the outcome of the situation, but the outcome of me, the person I am becoming in the process of showing up and facing and responding to life day after day after day.* [life lessons on choices and consequencesLearning that life would not have been any easier or more fulfilling had we made different choices than the ones we did. We’d still have had to learn the same old lessons the hard way.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)Anitha KrishnanThe Dream Pedlar![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/80.-alexander-schimmeck-QHmR7iiILec-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/life-lessons-on-choices-and-consequences/) --- ### *Our Thoughts and Our Destiny* I've been listening to a lot of [Dr. Joe Dispenza](https://drjoedispenza.com) lately. He says — and this is nothing new really — that our thoughts determine our choices, our choices determine our behaviours, our behaviours in turn determine our experiences, which in turn create our feelings and emotions that we anticipate from these experiences and which are also the payoffs that drive the same thoughts over and over again. > *He goes on to cite research and say that of the 50,000—60,000 thoughts we think every day, 90% are the same that we thought about in the previous days. Is it any wonder then that each day of our life is identical to the ones that have gone by?* Emotions are a record of the past and our brains are hardwired, over the past several decades of living the same patterns day after day after day, to seek out what's familiar, which means the emotions and feelings and brain states we are most familiar with, whether or not that serves us best. When we seek to make a change, build new neurological pathways, so that we can make different choices and experience different outcomes in life, the pull back into the familiar is very strong. Unless we face that discomfort, unless we show up over and over again and make a different choice, we'll remain mired in the same patterns and in the same unfolding of our lives that we've been living all along. Steven Pressfield calls this discomfort ['resistance'](https://stevenpressfield.com). Becca Syme calls it ['essential pain'](https://thedreampedlar.com/essential-pain-versus-wanting-to-do-it-all/). What intrigued me the most was what Dr. Joe Dispenza said about how 90% of our thoughts repeat themselves every day. Wow! I mean, no wonder life has been unfolding the same way for me day after day, all these years. I think I've known this at some level, but this makes it very obvious. That each day is identical to the one that came before it because we've been thinking most of the same thoughts and subconsciously making the same choices and exhibiting the same behaviours and seeking out the same, familiar feelings, which in my case are failure, lack of success, unworthiness, and regret. This is why we reach for our phones in the morning, check email and WhatsApp, even though there is nothing of real consequence in all these messages from other people that we're so eager to read and invest our energy, time and attention on. --- ### *Choosing Empowering Thoughts* Now that I know this, what changes can I make? > *Instead of thinking, 'No one's going to read this book, why bother writing it in the first place?',* > *can I instead think 'My writings are changing the world, one reader at a time.'?* > *Wouldn't the latter thought motivate me to spend every precious moment I can manage at the writing desk?* When we were in the UK, my brother-in-law bought a new LEGO set for little D as a birthday present. Our days in the UK were fairly busy, and D rarely had long stretches of uninterrupted time to build his new set. But he kept chipping away at it, a bit a time. If we had plans to go out, he'd get ready and spend the 15 minutes it took everyone else to get ready to complete a few more steps of the instruction manual. We'd come back, and he'd immediately get to his unfinished piece, adding a few more bricks to it. Bit by bit, he built the entire set. I observed that and was greatly inspired. Instead of waiting for the perfect stretch of uninterrupted time in which to do my writing, I could chip away at it, bit by bit by bit too. I don't have to only wait for D to be away at camp or at school in order to add a few more words to the manuscript. Right now, he's watching TV on this rainy Saturday afternoon, and I'm here writing this because I feel it is important for me to get these thoughts out there, both for the sake of my sanity and for the benefit of anyone who's reading these words and feeling inspired to take action in their own creative life. --- ### *Nothing Else is More Important* Dr. Dispenza says that the role of meditation is to make ourselves more familiar with our own thought patterns and develop the habit of sitting through discomfort. He says this inner work is much more important than reading and responding to any text or email message from anyone. This resonated with me strongly because email and WhatsApp are the places I go to when I'm stuck in the manuscript. I worry that unless I reply quickly to the person in question, they'd be waiting with bated breath for my reply and that their lives would be hanging in abeyance! Obviously that makes my ego feel very happy in a twisted kind of way. It's probably also my #4 Responsibility (in my Clifton Strengths) that makes me feel beholden to other people. It's time to turn that #4 Responsibility inwards and remind myself that my first and perhaps only duty is towards myself. (D too, because the latter is my child, and KrA too because we've chosen to live together and that comes with certain commitments but KrA demands nothing of me, and I am a very lucky person for sure.) But I digress. My first and perhaps the only important job for me in my life is to write my stories, tell them the best I can, and keep doing so. There is no email or text message that requires my response within 24 hours! In fact, I can easily go 2—3 days before replying unless it's to do with making plans to meet someone. Most, if not all, virtual communication only creates the illusion of companionship. I'm better off being present to the people who exist in my reality right now, in this framework of space and time. --- I've begun to get into the habit of meditating now. It's good practice for sitting with discomfort, for reminding myself that I can do hard things, and for coming back to what and who is important. Simple reminders. Simple reminders. My time for my work and D and KrA. How simple is that! How difficult is that to remember! > *I have 156 days left in this year to practise this: to change my thoughts and actions to reflect the life I wish to create for me.* ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/07/DreamPedlar_Header_Depositphotos_263559664_XL-2.jpg) ## Support my writings! ### Sign up for Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar for musings on writing, reading and the creative life. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Arrives in your mailbox on the last Sunday of every month. ### tales for dreamers: festival of fools URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-festival-of-fools/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:46:20.000Z Come, come, my friends, for today we celebrate our inner fools and imbeciles. The reckless spirit that travels the world seeking the depths of her own heart. The gullible lover who trusts you with his passions over and over again, for he has long lost count of the rusty nails you have driven through his soul. The rebel, the renegade, foolish enough to risk her life for a future unknown. The credulous soul who seeks out the innocence you have lost inside of you, for his world is a reflection of his own naïveté. The daredevil, the foolhardy one, who throws caution to the wind and bares her subconscious to be trampled upon by the world in haste. Oh, you fools! When will you ever learn how wicked the ways of the world are? *Forgive us, m’dear, we are not wise, we know.* *It is true the wise one knows only too well the perils of life and love.* *But the fool simply lives and loves all the same.* ### tales for dreamers: a crisis of identity URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-crisis-of-identity/ Last updated: 2023-08-06T19:54:36.000Z It were moments like these that posed the greatest dilemma. What was he to do? Rise to the occasion? Or fall by the wayside? Was it the beginning? Or was it the end? He lingered, looking for clues on the roseate horizon. Sunlight singed the clouds and they glowed like dying embers. A cool breeze fanned his part of the world. Unseen hands began to slowly drape the thick mantle of night on a part of the globe he had graced only moments ago. The events of the past twenty-four hours flitted through the eye of his mind, one image segueing into the next. The morning rush, a full day of work with no respite, the sinking at twilight, then a red-eye to another part of the world before its inhabitants stirred. Each day no different than the other. Often despair clouded his jaded mind. Surely there must be more to life than this, he wondered. But then a sunny day lifted his spirits. Those were the days he scaled the highest mountains, perched above the tallest cliffs, and beheld the world beneath him. On days like these, he patted himself on the back for a job well done and readily accepted there was little more he could do here, that the people here were ready to light their own paths through the darkness of the night, and that it was time for him to spread his message in another part of the world. Today was a day like that. A day spent usefully, much had been accomplished. Much more was to be done too but in another time and another place. So when the moon started to rise from the other end, the sun decided to bow out gracefully. Not all battles need to be fought, he reckoned. ### long-term is longer than you think URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/long-term-is-longer-than-you-think/ Last updated: 2023-08-06T19:54:47.000Z After yesterday's encounter with discomfort and overcoming it to make progress on the writing front, I became all anxious at night at the mere thought of having to repeat this day after day after day after day. I did pick up a squabble with KrA about him being unwell — yes, it's both unfair and mean on my part — and didn't sleep well at night. This morning, I started work on a shaky foot, but this time I was aware of what was going on, of the traps I keep falling into, and so I kept going until I finished the short story I had started writing three days ago. Wow! That is probably a record of some sort for me. I understand now, somewhat, what it takes to write book after book after book. In my plans and visions, the days of hard work segue into one another, like a scene from a movie, and life-changing success lands in my lap even before I know it. Obviously, this has no resemblance to reality. In reality, the days are painfully slow. Discomfort keeps cropping up over and over again, especially when you become complacent and start to think that after all this practice, you'd have become better at dealing with discomfort and not giving in to it. Maybe. Maybe not. But practice has increased my awareness greatly. This time around, I am able to sit through the discomfort, I don't expect it to go away, and the more I face it the more I can remind myself of all the times I've faced it in the past and that gives me the confidence to sit through it once more. The knowledge that I've done it once means I can do it again is quite valuable. Doing the work is so much better than sitting and thinking about it and making plans to do it. The only planner I really need is a to-do list, so that I don't have to keep in my head all that needs to be done. --- > *Thinking brand new thoughts that you've never thought before is far more conducive to creating major life changes than thinking different varieties of the same old thoughts.* > *\~ Mike Dooley, [The Universe Talks](https://www.tut.com)* I heard on the *Big Life with Alexandra Eidens* [podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/1v9sH7LKPbrR1lUBha0UMt?si=492840abe5064ff3) this afternoon how when we keep thinking about all that we don't want, we don't really make room to receive what we actually want. She gives the example of a man asking his wife what she wants for her birthday and she hands him an entire list of what she doesn't want. 'I don't want a dress.' 'I don't want a fancy meal.' 'I don't want a game.' And so the clueless husband steps out and buys a gift he thinks his wife would like. And when she opens it, she moans, 'But this is not what I wanted.' It's the same when we keep thinking about the things we don't have. I don't have money. I don't have friends. I don't have love. Funny how life keeps revolving around the same universal desires. Then the Universe doesn't know what to gift us, unless we shift our thoughts to focus on gratitude and where we're going instead of what we don't want or what we don't have. > *Scientifically and logically speaking, the less time, energy, effort and attention we invest on what's not working, the more of these resources we are left with to expend on matters of importance.* > *And when we focus and do more of what we've chosen to focus on, then over a long period of time we'll see our share of successes and failures and growth.* > *It's as simple and as difficult as that.* I definitely feel a shift in me after this visit to the family. For a long time, I kept thinking about family and their presence or lack thereof in my life. I kept living under this illusion that if only my circumstances had been different, I'd have achieved a lot of success by now. Thankfully, those illusions have been completely shattered. Unfettered by those fantasies, I can now face my reality as an author who's writing and building inventory and will see success in the long run. Of course, the long-term will always feel like it's taking way longer than I'd like it to. That's yet another source of discomfort I'll have to learn to overcome and not let it stall me in my tracks. One day at a time. One day at a time. ### face your fears URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/face-your-fears/ Last updated: 2023-07-24T17:31:21.000Z "Face your fears," little D said to me as we stepped off the flight at Pearson after a lovely three weeks away visiting family and doing touristy stuff across the pond. I turned to look at him in surprise and said, "I had no idea you knew those words!" He grinned sheepishly. "I've known this for a long time." We were talking about his summer camps, now that we had returned from our holiday. He said he was nervous about attending them, he hadn't known they'd be drop-off camps, which means he'd have to be away from us the entire day. These last few days have been full of conversations surrounding doing difficult things, feeling nervous and fearful when we're about to embark on something new, and how we ought to try and do that which scares us anyway because that is really the only way to face fear. We face fear by looking it in the face. So even though D talked a lot about not wanting to go to camp, he did make his way out of the door on time this morning and, at the venue, got in line when the camp counsellor was ready to take all the children indoors. I'll leave in a couple of hours to pick him up, but his words and his behaviour have been having a huge impact on me. I am so proud of, and inspired by, my little one who wants to do the hard thing even though it's scary and terrifying. I can't wait to see how he feels this evening when I go to pick him up. --- I have been facing my fears too around writing and publishing. Instead of pooh-poohing away the feelings that arise or wishing I had been a different person of a different temperament, I've been consciously setting out to do the thing that I often feel tempted to give up on because I'm afraid that the outcome of my efforts may not be worthwile. Well, no one can predict an outcome, can they? Let alone *guarantee* an outcome? The instant I understand this, nothing is impossible. I only have to show up everyday and face my fears and do the work despite my fears. --- These days, when I'm awake at 2 a.m., I no longer lie in bed rehashing the past a thousand different ways or imagining different versions of a dismal future in my head. Instead, I get up and get cracking on pending work. Early morning is not my best writing time, I've come to see. But once I've gotten some of the admin stuff out of the way and have dropped D off at school/camp, then begin my precious hours of creativity. It has taken years of trial and error to figure this out. --- This is how I have begun to show up and face my fears and do the work. I don't get sidelined by arguments. I'm not going to be bothered by the fact that the front lawn is overgrowing with weeds and really, the condo should be doing something about it, but hey, right now that's not my focus area. Right now, it's writing. And D. And KrA. Anything, anyone other than this is a distraction. I also accept that some days it will be hard. Heck, on most days it will be hard. I can take a break, listen to a song and sing along, then come back to do the work, knowing that the discomfort I feel inside my skin is fear screaming its loudest. Fear of not doing a good job. Fear of not finding an audience. Fear. Fear. Fear. That fear can exist. And I can continue to show up and do my work. --- Face your fears! How cliché this sounds! How true it is! And how surprising that even though this has been repeated so often, we still fall prey to the same old fears, and we let it stall us. Not anymore. Not anymore. > *Success comes from doing somewhat-monotonous things every day for years – but no one wants to hear that.* > \~ Dickie Bush, *19 inconvenient truths I don't want to forget* (over on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/dickiebush/status/1509510847680454659)) ### life lessons on choices and consequences URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/life-lessons-on-choices-and-consequences/ Last updated: 2023-07-21T17:26:38.000Z I've just come back after a glorious three weeks in the UK visiting family and doing touristy stuff. It has been an eye-opening experience for me, not least because I was fraught with a lot of anxiety in the weeks leading up to the visit. We hadn't gotten together with family for almost seven years, a lengthy period of time during which the world turned upside down, at both the personal and global levels. This visit opened my eyes to the very human*ness* of our lives and ourselves. ### 1\. We will be OK no matter what. Before leaving for the UK, I spent days feeling anxious about how I'd react (or not) if a certain situation were to crop up. Needless to say, much of this preparation was needless because people didn't behave the way I was worried they would, and this included me. The future is a vast open space and the possibilities are endless. By constantly worrying about what could go wrong, we easily fall into the pit of self-sabotage. Case in point. I worry I'd never make a full-time living as an author, and that keeps me from getting to the writing desk on most days. Whereas, I'd be much better off in the long run if I were to hold a more optimistic view and motivate myself any which way to keep persevering. ### 2\. No choice is better for us than the ones we make. And no matter what choice we make, we'll always run into pain. If you've been reading my writings for any length of time, you'd be familiar with my frequent forays into that wistful quagmire of something-else*ness*. That twisted belief I use to convince myself that I'd have been better off had I been a different person, doing something else, somewhere else. > *I've now come to see that no matter what choices we make, there's always going to be issues.* > *There will be times when we feel frustrated and angry.* > *There will be times when we'll keep doubting ourselves, worry we've made the wrong choice, and wish we had made other choices instead.* That's only life messing with our heads, because we allow it to. > *Because the truth is this: No matter what path we take, there will be pain along the way.* We can either face the pain and plough through it, or run away and set out on another path, which may appear easier and more enticing at first but will soon prove to be just as painful, just as difficult at times, and demanding just as much courage and perseverance from us. > *Life would not have been any easier or more fulfilling had we made different choices than the ones we did. We'd still have had to learn the same old lessons the hard way.* --- My bro-in-law's lovely wife, M, bought two designer satchels and asked me to choose one. I went for the one that appealed to me the most. It was a lovely dark blue satchel with just enough space for the items I need – my wallet, sunglasses, reading glasses, phone, and keys. I had been meaning to buy something like that for myself anyway. So when I saw it, my heart immediately chose it and my hands reached out for it. The other one was a brown shoulder bag of a slightly different design. I had had something shaped like that several years ago and it didn't appeal to me at the time. That evening we all went out to a 500-year-old pub for a drink and pizza. M was using the other purse and it looked absolutely awesome on her. She took great delight in it and was very happy with it. After we came back home, I started doubting my choice and wished I had chosen the other purse instead. It took me a while and a conversation with KrA to understand that it wasn't the purse that was making M happy, she was choosing to be happy with her new purse and was taking great delight in it. And had I chosen the other purse, I'd have still felt as if I had made a wrong choice and would have wanted a way to get away from the consequences of the choice I made. The instant I realized this, I began to take great delight in my new blue purse. And I've been loving it ever since! ### 3\. Self-responsibility is the ultimate sign of a grown-up. When we've grown up, we take responsibility for our choices and actions. All these years, I found it convenient to blame family for my life circumstances. I kept believing in a fantasy that if only I had more help or moral support from family when D was younger, I would have reached the pinnacle of my author career by now. I can finally call BS on that now! Instead of taking stock of my life as it was and doing what I could within that framework, I was busy looking at all the could-have-beens and should-have-beens and blamed what-was-not for my perceived lack of progress and success. ### 4\. Everything else is a distraction. My real anxieties pertain to my creative work. In his DailyOm course titled [*Overcoming Creative Anxiety*](https://www.dailyom.com/courses/overcoming-creative-anxiety/), American psychotherapist Eric Maisel explains this beautifully. > *Anxiety is a feature of the human condition. It is a much larger feature than most people realize.* > *A great deal of what we do in life we do in order to reduce our experience of anxiety or in order to avoid anxiety altogether. Our very human defensiveness is one of the primary ways that we try to avoid experiencing anxiety.* > *If something is about to make us anxious, we deny that it is happening, make ourselves sick so that we can concentrate on our sickness, get angry at our mate so as to have something else to focus on, and so on.* > *We are very tricky creatures in this regard.* When I open my manuscript, I worry that this story makes no sense and that when I write stories like this, I'd never be able to get closer to that dream of earning a livelihood from my writings. Needless to say, such thinking keeps me stalled. I end up adding no words and I wonder how days can go by without me making any progress on the manuscript. The trouble is compounded by the fact that some of the most prolific writers in the industry today keep talking about the 'fun' aspect of writing. Keep it fun, they say. There is nothing more fun than sitting in a room and making things up and writing them down, they insist. Writing is fun, I agree. Writing is also challenging at times. Sometimes I'm stuck. Sometimes I worry. Sometimes I worry that my worry will kill all the joy in my writing. I fear I'm doing this wrong. I fear I'll never figure this out. I fear I'd have spent ten years on this writing thing and still not earned a penny from it. These are very normal human emotions. These are all very valid fears. These fears are the reason I hesitate to open the manuscript and choose to check email or Whatsapp 20 times a day instead. These fears are the reason I choose to blame KrA or family for my troubles instead of looking inward and acknowledging that yes, I'm struggling with this, yes, I'm having a hard time in this part of the manuscript, so let's sit down with it and see what's working and what's not and what can be done about it. These fears are the reason I focus too much on life issues — such as what's going on in the neighbourhood and in the wider world, what's going on with AI in the publishing industry, what's going on Dean Wesley Smith's ongoing [Kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/403649867/pulphouse-fiction-magazine-subscription-drive-2023) (which is really awesome, by the way) — issues that have no relevance whatsoever to my life right now. I don't feel happy when I'm not creating. And then I get caught up in all sorts of anxieties that keep me from writing. > *These fears are only masks that conceal my true fear — that I may never earn a full-time income from writing fiction.* > ***The truth is this:*** > *No one can tell what the future holds. There is no alternate universe in which a desirable future can be guaranteed.* If I were to take up a job for the safety of a steady income, well, guess what? I'd be only a layoff away from that financial security. There is no certainty or guarantee in that either. (Not to mention that I've been applying to jobs for the better part of the last two years but haven't managed to get a response from any place. Surely I must take this as a sign and stick to my path!) ### Making peace with the choices I made I chose to be a stay-at-home mother when little D was born. I chose to try and make a living from writing fiction. It hasn't been an easy ride. It has been very difficult at times. But one thing I know for certain: Even if I had made different choices, life would have thrown curveballs my way to teach me these invaluable lessons. 1. There will always be some pain to endure, some obstacle to overcome, some difficulty to tackle no matter which path I choose. 2. Wishing things and people were otherwise will not help the situation. I can only focus on myself, what I value, and where I choose to spend my time, attention and energy on. --- My choices now are no different than the ones I made all those years ago. - To be a conscious parent to D and enjoy a wonderful relationship with KrA - To write entertaining and soul-stirring fiction and make a full-time living from it - To stay focused on these two areas and ruthlessly choose to stay away from every other distraction > Here's to choosing what matters, and sticking to our choices no matter how difficult the path becomes! ### tales for dreamers: the two worlds and the fence in between URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-two-worlds-and-the-fence-in-between/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:54:12.000Z A thin fence separates the two worlds. It isn’t clear which world stakes a claim to the fence itself. Perhaps it is the other world; some of their folk seem to be always sitting on the fence. Sometimes one of them falls over to our side. He then quickly springs up, mutters an apology, dusts himself, and jumps back on to the fence or over it and saunters away on the other side. Most of us in our world want to be neither on the fence nor on the other side. We are happy where we are and, if given a choice, would like to stay here forever. But sometimes one of our own tries to blend in with the other-worldly folk. Sometimes they pass on. More commonly, they tread precariously on the fence, as if attempting a delicate tightrope walk between this world and the other. Sometimes they fall back on to our side. Sometimes the other side wins. But only if their time has come. Of course, none of us gets to choose when the time is right. ### tales for dreamers: the gypsy with magic in her eyes URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-gypsy-with-magic-in-her-eyes/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:54:22.000Z She is a gypsy, a wandering wild soul who has a camera for a second eye. Oh yes, she can read you your fortune and tell you all that lies ahead. Not necessarily the truth, but that depends on how much you are willing to pay her, as is the case with most gypsies. But she is special. One fleeting glimpse at you through her little thingamajig, and your darkest fears and most shimmering dreams reveal themselves to her like sunbeams surfing on ocean waves. You halt for an instant, she captures a moment of you in time, and your future unfurls itself at her feet. If she likes your expression in the snapshot, she will, if you’d like her to, make a cut here, a snip there, and alter your fate to your liking. That is her idea of fun and mischief for she is a princess of the wild. If you let her look into your eyes for far too long, she will pluck out your soul, infuse it with some magic, and press it back into you. And she does all this in a very practiced sleight of hand, so you will wake up the next morning not knowing why your entire being appears to be so imbued with hope and optimism. Sometimes she does things without being asked to. If she thinks you will put your time on earth to good use, she will stretch your future a wee bit further than was granted to you. If she is convinced otherwise, there is no telling what she would do. But that is a risk you must be willing to take if you want her to meddle with your future. ### tales for dreamers: making new roads URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-making-new-roads/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:46:57.000Z It is difficult to track down the road-maker. Word has it that there is very little that gives away his presence, especially when he is at work. He works quietly and swiftly, and you know he's been there only after he is long gone, leaving behind a trail of new roads where none existed before, perhaps to make up for the old roads that disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them up in the dead of the night. It was the end of the year 2022, and the world had not met its end, so some of us resuscitated long-forgotten dreams. And now we wanted to seek out the road-maker so he could build us new paths to traverse in the new year. Someone said they had spotted him at the town's inn the evening before, enjoying a drink and making merry. We hurried towards the inn but, as we had half-expected, the inn was closed and we learnt that the innkeeper had set out to travel the world, following new paths no doubt laid by the road-maker. Someone else said the road-maker was last seen by the edge of the river, erecting a bridge across the waters to the city. We rushed to the river bank only to see a newly-laid bridge disappearing before our very eyes, and a glimpse of the road-maker disappearing into the city lights yonder. Our search for the road-maker was fruitless, nevertheless we decided to plod on towards the city following well-trodden paths. This was in early 2023\. And looking back now, we can safely say it has turned out to be a year of adventures and discoveries. We stuck to established paths at first, then allowed ourselves to meander a bit and stumbled upon hidden routes; the more adventurous among us blazed new trails, some of us ran into dead ends and had to retrace our steps and start all over again. The funny part was that in all this we had forgotten all about the road-maker. So when he approached our table at the newest pub in the city, where we had gathered for an evening of celebration on the last day of 2023, and greeted us, we were more than a bit startled. He apologised for the delay but stressed his was not to simply unfurl new paths at our feet when we stood still. His was to help keep the momentum going. And that is how when dawn broke over the new year this time, we found ourselves on new paths paved by the road-maker. And we find he also has thrown in a few new dreams for good measure. ### tales for dreamers: flowers for when he is gone URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-flowers-for-when-he-is-gone/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:46:48.000Z The flowers arrive unexpectedly. They weren't suppose to arrive until Valentine's. But here they are now, all these months ahead of time. Which means I will not see him until after then. A little knot of fear rises from the pit of my stomach, lodges itself firmly in my throat, and causes my heart to flap. I run a finger over the petals. They shiver under my touch. I look for a note in the bouquet. There is none. I place the flowers in water, and let them be. It's been a week now. The roses are still in full bloom, the petals soft and tender. Now it's been a month and I have seen the roses turn different shades of red. Sometimes they are the vermillion streaks of sunset, at other times they take on the colour of blood. When the mood strikes, they dazzle brilliantly like rubies. Sometimes the phone rings and he tells me he is headed to distant lands, at other times I can say he's been hurt even if he doesn't always confide. There are times when he finds the answers he is seeking, and I wish he'd finally make his way home. But then I can also tell he is dreaming of other adventures to pursue, mysteries to unravel. It has taken me a while to decipher the code but the flowers are my constant companions now. I can discern the slightest shift in colour, the faintest alteration in tint, all in just a momentary glance. And I know if he is safe or happy or in danger or sad even if he doesn't always tell. He hasn't called in a while now. The roses have mostly been a dazzling crimson these past few days, so alive, so bright I think there is mescaline coursing through my veins. A glint here, a sparkle there. Like a candle sputtering and shimmering right before the end. And now they have burst into flames. And before I can do anything, a little ball of fire collapses into itself and vanishes from sight. I stand looking, staring at vacant space, not quite knowing what to make of it all, when the doorbell rings. ### June Jabber: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-june-jabber/ Last updated: 2023-06-25T07:00:44.000Z Hello, Dreamer! Hope your summer has gotten off to a great start! Mine began with little D turning 7 just a few days ago. Naturally, this has been a month of celebrations for us, beginning with D's birthday party early on, then the beginning of his summer holidays, and then celebrations with friends on his actual birthday! The weather has been in our favour too. It's not sweltering hot, which is absolutely unseasonal but I'm loving it. The big news is that the wonderful folks at Kobo featured an author interview with me in which I had great fun sharing my thoughts on reading and writing. [Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2023: KWL Author Spotlight on Anitha Krishnan - Kobo Writing LifeAnitha Krishnan on her expansive novel featuring “whimsical worlds and heartbreaking prose,” Dying Wishes, shortlisted for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life. For thirteen years now, I have served…![](https://i0.wp.com/kobowritinglife.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Pride-Favicon.png?fit=192%2C192&ssl=1)Kobo Writing Lifekobowritinglife![](https://kobowritinglife.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/EWP-Logo.jpg)](https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/06/08/rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize-2023-kwl-author-spotlight-on-anitha-krishnan/) This feature was part of the Rakuten Kobo 2023 Emerging Writer Prize in which *[Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/)* was a finalist in the Speculative Fiction category. It didn't win, and I was bummed about that for a bit. But the winner in that category is *[The Petting Zoos](https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-petting-zoos)* by K.S. Covert, and it has such an intriguing premise it's already on my TBR list now. I'm keeping this month's missive [short](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-may-mayhem/) as announced earlier, but there's still a short tale and book recommendations to enjoy! --- ## *Tales for Dreamers* ### *colour-changing flowers* The flowers have been in bloom this season, splashing colour all about town. It's a gorgeous sight, one that brought forth a story. [tales for dreamers: colour-changing flowersThese flowers keep changing colours. Without rhyme or reason, it may seem. But is there really no method to their madness?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/06/38.-Colour-changing-flowers.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-colour-changing-flowers/) --- ## *Books You May Love* ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/06/The-Doll.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/06/The-Herd.jpeg) *[The Doll](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/42857626)* by Icelandic crime writer, [Yrsa Sigurdardottir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yrsa%5FSigurðardóttir), is a very twisted and creepy mystery. It begins with a mysterious doll being found on a fishing trip, and it somehow leads to a spate of mysterious deaths. The book made for some pretty spooky reading at the start and ended up being a very engrossing police procedural. Apparently, this book is part of a series called Children's House, and I can't wait to read the other books in the series! But the book I fell in love with this month was [*The Herd*](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58696120) by Emily Edwards. It is about the very touchy subject of vaccination. Two mothers, who are also best friends, have differing views on the subject of vaccinating their children although one of them keeps her opinions and her child's vaccination status hidden. I don't want to say more about the story — this book really merits a read — but the author has dealt with this topic so sensitively and empathetically that you'd love the book no matter what your own beliefs on the topic are. It also delves beautifully into what it really means to be a parent, having to make choices for our children in this mad, chaotic and utterly random world. > *If it's not viral or bacterial, it must be maternal.* > *\~ Janna Malamud Smith* > *(Quoted from The Herd by Emily Edwards)* --- Also, if you're looking for more speculative fiction, check out The 2023 Best of British SFF over on [StoryBundle](https://www.storybundle.com/bestof). --- That's all for this month, dear Dreamer. I wish you all lovely warm days and starry nights. May you all taste the sweetness of a summer filled with ice-cream and popsicles, with watermelons and berries, with sunshine and open-ended days. \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: well-intentioned advice for parents of children left unattended to URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-well-intenationed-advice-for-parents-of-children-left-unattended-to/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:46:41.000Z Children unattended to will be given espresso and a free kitten. As you sip your coffee and help yourself to some cookies, your child can choose from among pixie-bobs, ragamuffins, ragdolls, ocicats, Persian kittens, munchkins, minskins, Australian Mists, and Abyssinian cats. Whichever your little one chooses, the kitten will wrap itself around your child's legs and cast a benign, binding spell. The kitten will then lead your little girl or boy to the park across the road. (Oh, don't bother to look. The garden is not visible to adults. Only little children and kittens can see it.) The garden has a jungle gym to climb on to, rabbit holes to fall into, stars to count all night, and invisible friends to talk to. When your child has had his fill of the park, the kitten will lead the little one through the hedgerows to the other side where treasure-hunters are digging a hole through the earth to a hitherto undiscovered land. We hear the hunters have very nearly completed the hole, so your child could be the lucky first to disappear through it and reappear in this mysterious land, halfway across the world on the other side. (Oh, don't you worry, dear parents. Your children will be completely safe with the kittens by their side. And if you insist, they can always come back from the mysterious place in a jiffy simply by sailing over the rainbow.) If the hole has not been completely dug, the kitten will lead your child beyond to meet The Famous Five. The five – (of course, Timothy the dog will be there too!) – are a jolly bunch and they will welcome your child to join them on their summertime camping adventures. When the summer holidays are over and the Five have to return home, the kitten will lead your child to the wise man's hut, where he has a stash of fairy tales to regale them with. He will read stories to your child until the little one falls asleep, and the kitten will then bring your young one back to you. You must then take your child home, tuck them in, kiss them goodnight, and leave them to dream of fairylands and magic and adventures. The only trouble is, when your child wakes up the next morning, they will go looking for the adventures they dreamt about. Nothing you say or do will dissuade them. So, dear parents, if you don't want your children to go seeking adventures you think don't exist, please do not leave them unattended to. ### tales for dreamers: colour-changing flowers URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-colour-changing-flowers/ Last updated: 2023-06-22T14:28:21.000Z ![pink flowers on a bush by a fence of a grey brick house](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/06/38.-Colour-changing-flowers-1.jpeg) tales for dreamers: colour-changing flowers The flowers are a dazzling pink today. It’s obvious why they chose this colour against the unyielding grey of the house and the bleak grey of the skies. The grass is a lush green, and the unexpected explosion of pink makes it even more so. No one knows what the true colours of the flowers are. But everyone knows they seek to strike a contrast with their surroundings. When the sky shines brilliant on a summer afternoon, the flowers take on a cornflower blue hue. When the setting sun dyes the horizon crimson and pink, the flowers turn scarlet. When the night is purple, the flowers shine a resplendent white, like a cluster of stars lighting the way home for lost souls wandering on the path. Sometimes they even turn green, especially towards the end of autumn, to give the impression of last leaves lingering on the branches. But when the first snow falls, the flowers know to make a graceful exit. They know not only when and how to shine but also when and how to surrender. ### happy birthday to D! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happy-birthday-to-d/ Last updated: 2023-06-20T21:04:38.000Z D turns 7 today! What a roller-coaster ride parenting has been these past seven years! An inward journey unlike any other. His birthdays gone by have been bittersweet for me, constant reminders of an early childhood slipping away and permanently out of grasp. This year, it's only a cause for celebration. Life is relentlessly changing. Instead of looking back on what's slipping away, I'm more eager now than ever before to look around and embrace what's here, and look forward and be open to all that is yet to come. D is growing and navigating life. KrA and I are delighted to support him while trying hard to not let our egoes and our fears and biases get in the way. It is a daily exercise in patience and consciousness, and it's only now that I've come to see how these experiences have been invaluable for my own growth. Thank you, D, for coming into my life and changing my world! ❤️ On this special day, I wish for you to always remember how amazing and wonderful you are! ### essential pain versus wanting to do it all URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/essential-pain-versus-wanting-to-do-it-all/ Last updated: 2023-06-20T01:47:02.000Z The last seven years of my life can be summed up in a single line: seeking a balance between writing and parenting. As I wrote long ago in my '[About](https://thedreampedlar.com/about/)' page, this balance has constantly proved elusive. I'd find it one day, only for it to slip away from me the very next day as if it had been nothing more than a fragment of a dream. As if the instant I want to clutch it and make it a constant fixture in my life, it doesn't seem to like that idea and simply disappears. ~~Which makes me wonder — am I looking for something that doesn't really exist?~~ Which makes me certain that I have spent all these years looking for something that doesn't really exist. I have spent all these years foolishly believing the wrong things. More importantly, I have grossly underestimated the time and effort it takes to be a good writer and to be a good parent. Fundamental to both of these is my ability to remain calm and conscious no matter what is going on around me. I used to think it was the other way round. - That if I got my words of fiction down first thing in the morning, then I'd be joyful and happy enough to be a calm and conscious parent for the rest of the day. - Or if I spent the day having a fun time out with D, then it would fill my creative well enough and help me write amazing words the next time I come to the writing desk. I had come to believe these because the opposites were playing out in my life. - If I didn't get to write on a given day, that was reason enough for me to feel grumpy and annoyed with KrA and D and myself. - Conversely, if I hadn't responded well to D in a situation, that too was enough to throw me off track, send me into a spiral of regret and depression, and essentially keep me from writing. I've never been able to write after a shouting match with KrA or after snapping at D. The truth has been something different altogether. While a great writing session in the morning would indeed set me up for a happy rest of the day more often than not, not every writing session has turned out to be great. Some days were a struggle, and especially on those days, I'd feel even more dissatisfied at the end of the writing session. And I'd end up wishing for everything that was not in my reality that day — if only I had more time to write, if only I didn't have to spend the day with D, if only we had more family around to help out with looking after D, and so on, and so on. Similarly, a fun day out with D, while absolutely amazing, would tire me out so much that sometimes I'd be unable to sleep well at night. Which meant I'd not wake up in time to get some writing done first thing in the morning before D wakes up and furthermore, I'd need a nap the next day to catch up on sleep and rest. My body no longer seems to have the endless supply of energy it did when I was a couple of decades younger. --- ### *focusing on what's really in my control* I have long resisted my limitations. I've long refused to accept that I have only so much time in a day, only so much energy to do stuff. Even though it feels tempting to throw my hands up in the air and give up on writing or pick up a fight with KrA with self-righteous indignation over how much more time he gets to devote to work in a day than I do — and these are the two cop-outs I resort to over and over again — it's high time to focus on what I can do to change the situation. 1. I can focus on the time that I get, whether early in the morning or later at night after D has gone to bed, and choose how to spend it. I often indulge in Netflix at night, which ruins my sleep and decimates any chance I may have of getting up early the next morning to write. 2. During my writing session, when I come across a difficult patch, I often pick up my phone and start playing this game Royal Match, a version of Candy Crush! It's super fun and super addictive! 3. I've also fallen back into the habit of checking email and Whatsapp messages every few minutes. I refuse to face the essential pain of giving up these three distractions, and I end up facing the pain of not having written, of not being present when I parent, and falsely placing too much blame on the circumstances and people around me. Yes, I sometimes do find some parts of writing difficult, no matter what the experts say about keeping it fun and free of all expectations. When I'm not able to write well, I do worry about whether or not I'd be able to earn a living as a writer. Instead of facing this pain of doubt and uncertainty, I run away to Netflix and Royal Match and email/Whatsapp, and then give myself and everyone else around me a lot of grief that I have not been able to write. --- Another very important reason why I hold on to these distractions is because I see KrA watching a lot of movies and playing games on his phone. I see him constantly checking email. It's true he has a day job that requires him to show up for work at predetermined times and stay on top of the emails and messages he receives from colleagues at work. It also gives him the luxury of indulging in movies and online games in his spare time, because — and very fortunately for us — his paycheck does not hinge upon what he does with every single second of his day. I feel the pressure differently. Every moment I'm not writing, I feel the pressure build. I've become much better at handling this mental pressure than ever before by way of setting modest daily goals I can look to achieve consistently, small enough for a given day but large enough when accumulated over a period of time. Yet, I can't help but feel envious when he tucks himself away in the basement office, cocooned in headphones, and becomes engrossed in work. I think it's something I'd love, except the truth is also that when I have a full day at my disposal I've more often than not squandered it. So it's not really about KrA getting to spend more time at work, is it? It's about me not having enough motivation to write. With no external deadlines looming over me, no fanatic readers desperately waiting for my next book to be released, some days it can be quite a chore to convince myself to keep writing. It's easier on those days to blame KrA and his parents, to blame patriarchy and the inherent difficulties of parenting for my woes than to take a look at myself, at my deeply flawed self that wants one thing so badly yet will sabotage that very thing it claims to want desperately. As if I am afraid that by showing up everyday to write, I'd prove myself wrong. I'd show myself how wrong I had been all these years when I blamed the world around me for everything that was not going in my favour. --- But I can change. For instance, today I was determined to write this post and I came to the writing desk right after D went to bed. I chose to sit here and write this post instead of resuming a very interesting and gripping show on Netflix I'm in the midst of watching. I did pick up my phone to play Royal Match a couple of times, but the irony of doign so while writing this post was not lost on me and I kept the phone away. Besides, the sooner I can finish writing this post, the sooner I can get to that Netflix show. --- D turns 7 years old tomorrow. This is always a bitter-sweet day for me, because when I look back at all the time that has passed, all the love and joy we've shared, I can't help but also remember the times I was caught up in my own mental frenzy and blamed myself or KrA or my little child for all the chaos that life was turning out to be. Well, I can't do anything to change the past, can I? Besides, I'm pretty sure I'm making it all out to be far worse in my head than it actually was. Why?! Just two days ago, D said to me how lucky he was that he has such awesome parents! So, let us set forth now ... focusing on what matters, practising living with the uncertainty, with the not knowing, and trusting that all that is asked of us is to do the best we can in this moment and in the next ... and in the next ... and so on. ### questioning the potential for happiness when other feelings arise URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/questioning-the-potential-for-happiness-when-other-feelings-arise/ Last updated: 2023-11-04T16:31:54.000Z [Yesterday's post](https://thedreampedlar.com/fomo-and-the-potential-for-happiness/) was about how I've been coming to terms with who I am and what my life is, accepting the as-is*ness* of it all and not giving into the false belief that there is an alternate existence in which I'd have been happier or more successful or more content. Later in the night, I was wondering about the role of other feelings in my day. If happiness is a given no matter what's going on — as I boldly claimed yesterday — why do feelings such as sadness, envy, fear, regret, anxiety arise? I've often wondered why when I know intellectually how to bridge the gap between the feelings that arise and the state of happiness that is supposedly our default, I'm unable to put it into practice? I've been asking the wrong questions. No matter how much I know, all sorts of feelings arise, especially at what feels like the most inconvenient of times. I've spent 40+ years of this lifetime having feelings, building habitual responses to the people and situations in this world around me. To expect those instinctive responses to disappear in this lifetime is unrealistic. What we can do instead is accept that all sorts of feelings will continue to arise, and remember that there is no alternate existence in which these feelings wouldn't have come up. There is no other existence in which life wouldn't have been painful or messy. There is no other existence in which we are not constantly assailed by discomfort and doubt. There is no other existence in which we won't grapple with desire and longing, love and heartbreak, joy and grief. We can let go of the belief that if only we looked some more or tried a little harder then we'd have been able to find that alternate existence. When we let go of that belief, the one existence that we have is all we need to be concerned with. And we find that the present moment is all that truly matters. ### tales for dreamers: the street of the dead URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-street-of-the-dead/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:37:17.000Z The street is thronged with dead beings. Zombies, vampires, ghouls, they rule this place. Like monsters running amok on Halloween, the place is littered with all kinds of dead beings – the half-deads, the ones barely alive, some who died barely a moment ago and are only just getting used to the sudden turn of events in their lives/deaths, and then those who died several deaths every day, and then some more. Every evening they emerge on to the street, dressed in their finest, from the edges of existence. They wriggle out from the cracks in tombstones. They bleed into existence from the horizon. They surface from the walls that partition homes. The vampires sashay in their overrated capes, hissing and flashing their fangs at innocent bystanders. The zombies stumble over each other, like drunk old men. Some of the dead are reduced to bare-bones, their dead, decaying skin clinging to their skeletal frames. Some others, freshly lowered into their graves, appear rosy-cheeked and wide-eyed. There are no leaders, no followers. There are only those who have walked the street a countless times, and those who are new to the ways of this world. Every evening they stomp down the street in revelry, sharing stories of their past lives, and their hopes and dreams for future ones. Some look forward to their new lives, other are unhappy to have lost their old ones. Sooner or later, however, they make their peace with their deaths and step off the street, back into the world of the living. Truth be told, even on the street they are more alive than dead. > ✨ 🎶 *Prefer to enjoy your tales in audio form?* --- For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! ### FOMO and the potential for happiness URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/fomo-and-the-potential-for-happiness/ Last updated: 2023-11-04T16:30:18.000Z I can't stop thinking of the words I said to myself yesterday when I was stuck in a quagmire of FOMO and was looking for a way out — that the same potential for happiness exists no matter what we do. I first read these words as attributed to physician Chris Ballas, who [wrote](https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/07/a%5Fsurprising%5Fnumber%5Fof%5Fteens%5Ft.html) over on his website the following words. > The goal of adulthood is to let go of the other possible existences and to make the best of the one. > A successful adult is one who understands that it doesn't matter which life you ultimately pick, only that you live it well. > The same potential for, say, happiness exists whether you are a construction worker, porn actor, or wealthy industrialist. These words have had a profound impact on someone like me who has long suffered the 'otherness' syndrome. For as long as I can remember, I've always thought I'd be much better off being someone else, somewhere else, doing something else. No matter what I did, where I lived, who I was with, this nagging thought rarely ever left my mind. Even in the early days of D's childhood, when I was still learning how present and content children can be, feeling whole and content in themselves no matter what they're doing, I used to worry that we weren't having enough outdoor play, we weren't having enough playdates, and that I ought to be providing more, doing more, engineering more experiences for D to have a good childhood. It was exhausting and unsustainable, to say the least. No matter how much I did, it never felt enough. And whatever I did, that too ended up becoming robbed of joy and innocence. --- Of the three sentences of Dr. Ballas above, I clung to the first two for a long time. And in doing so, I misinterpreted them pretty badly. Gripped by the idea of 'living well', I thought that I had to turn this life of mine into such a success that the concept of otherness would cease to haunt me. So what does 'living well' mean? Being very ambitious? Writing an endless number of outstanding stories? Being an excellent mother whose child shines in every activity he chooses to do? I was obssessed with the thought of excellence. That I had to be the best in my field, the best at whatever I chose to do, that there was no place for mediocrity in my undertakings. Exhausting and unsustainable again! --- It was only yesterday that Dr. Ballas's third sentence came to my rescue. > The same potential for, say, happiness exists whether you are a construction worker, porn actor, or wealthy industrialist. The notion that the same potential for happiness exists no matter who you are, where you are, or what you're doing came as a liberating salve for me. I had understood long back that I could be unhappy and anxious while skiiing on the slopes of the most beautiful mountains of New Zealand, I could be utterly discontent walking in the lush greenery of Vancouver, and I could still be haunted by that feeling of otherness while walking on sandy beaches, my feet kissed by the turquoise-blue ocean waters of Australia. I could be very unhappy no matter where I was, or with whom, or what I was doing. Which clearly meant that my happiness had little correlation with these factors — where I was, with whom I was, or what I was doing. My happiness was not, is not, dependent on any of these factors at all. I recall a time vividly when I was really upset about something — I don't recall what — and went for a walk on the beach. The realization that even a walk on the beach didn't always have the potential to lift my spirits was startling. I had often believed that Vancouver was my happy place. But when we went there [last summer](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-happiness-that-was-neither-in-the-mountains-nor-in-the-tesla/), I had plenty of occasion to realize that even there, surrounded by mountains and beauty and sipping delicious lavender tea latté, I could be discontent and unhappy and feel like running away from my life, from myself. --- > *If the same potential for happiness exists no matter who we are, where we are, or what we're doing, then it doesn't really matter what's going around us, does it?* > *I could go to a party and be happy or unhappy, and just as equally I could stay at home and play with my child and be happy or unhappy.* > *Does that make happiness a choice?* > *I'd say it makes happiness a matter of perspective.* > *It makes happiness a matter of acceptance of the as-isness of life.* > **It liberates our happiness from being contingent on life around us being a certain way, on us being a certain way or the ther.** > **It makes happiness a given.** --- If that's true, then the only reason we'd tend to stray away from happiness is when we forget this truth and go back to believing that we should be someone else, somewhere else, doing something else. This tendency to run away crops up when things are difficult, when we're stuck in a tricky phase of a project, when we're stuck in an unpleasant conflict with a partner or a neighbour, when our child asserts his independence by making choices different from our own. Pain and difficulty are unavoidable. We could live a perfect life and still encounter situations that feel difficult and painful. There is no alternate route of existence that would have prevented us from facing difficulty or pain in life. Often, we mistakenly believe that such a silver bullet exists, and it is precisely this kind of thinking that ruins perfectly good lives. --- > *So, the next time I find myself wishing I were someone else, somewhere else, doing something else, falsely believing that this otherness would somehow improve my life or help me make the most of it, I only need remind myself that the same potential for happiness exists no matter who I am, where I am, or what I am doing.* > *My happiness is not contingent on anything external.* > *My happiness is indeed a given.* ### proud mother of an ordinary child URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/proud-mother-of-an-ordinary-child/ Last updated: 2023-11-04T16:29:47.000Z Little D has officially completed Grade 1 now! Yesterday was the last day of school, and today were the closing ceremonies. D came home yesterday feeling really sad that Grade 1 had come to an end. And I was sad too, as I always am, whenever there is change. Today's closing ceremonies brought some kind of closure. It was a way to say goodbye to the academic year that has gone past, and to look forward to all that the summer holidays will bring. As is the norm, awards were given out at the ceremony for curricular and co-curricular achievements and my precious little D didn't win any. As someone who's always won awards throughout her academic life, I am so proud of my little one even though he doesn't have any special labels or distinctions to attach to his name. It is at moments like these that I find myself feeling tremendously grateful for having come across Dr. Shefali's teachings, especially her insights into how we, as human beings, have become so avoidant of our ordinariness. Of course, I'd be lying if I said that my heart didn't tighten in desperate hope and anticipation right before the names of the award recipients were announced. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was disappointed when D's name wasn't the one to be announced. But, it took me no longer than an instant to remember that while it's awesome to receive an award, not receiving one need not take away from my child's self-worth. Little D didn't much care about the ceremony except for the fact that he was part of the choir team that performed at the ceremony and that the treats at the end of the ceremony — cookies and brownies — were mouthwateringly delicious. --- This morning, I was suffering from a severe case of FOMO. The parents of one of D's classmates usually throw a year-end party for all the children of his grade at their home; it's a pool party with a DJ and music and bubbles and loads of fun. It's an annual ritual to look forward to. We missed it last year, and we were looking forward to going this year. But D was unwell last week and only just recovering from a viral infection, so it didn't seem wise for him to splash about in an outdoor pool when the weather is still rather chilly, unseasonably so! I had RSVPed no when the host asked for confirmation a couple of days ago. Yet, despite having made that decision, I fretted all morning. I even thought of messaging the host and asking her if D could skip the swim but join later for the DJ and dinner instead. I decided to first ask D if this was something he'd like. He said either he'd go for the swim or not at all to the party. And we stuck to our decision to not go. D made his peace with it. Instead, KrA, D and I headed to Boston Pizza in the evening and had a lovely meal and watched bloopers on the big screen. A simple delight, but a very precious one. --- The more I see, the more I'm convinced that life has a way of unfolding of its own accord. When we can trust what emerges — be it in the form of faith in God or the Universe or in existence — we can trust that we'll be OK no matter what. It's very easy to forget this when we're caught up in the daily happenings of life. When we are caught up in a dispute with a neighbour, when another child is being mean to our own, when our homes and lives feel messy and out of control, when winter brings its gloom with darker evenings and shorter days ... it's hard to remember that the same potential for happiness exists in us no matter what we do and where we are. And that is what I said to myself to come out of that funk this morning. That the same potential for happiness exists whether we spend the evening celebrating D's graduation with his friends or with the just the three of us. It is not the situation that matters. It is how we make the most of it. And I am so glad that D's first day of the summer holidays turned out to be awesome! Here's looking forward to the next several weeks of enjoying the days with my extraordinary little one. ### how badly do I want this? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/how-badly-do-i-want-this/ Last updated: 2023-06-13T00:12:47.000Z Tomorrow is D's last day at school. Grade 1 will come to an end and summer holidays will begin. This is a bitter-sweet transition for me. I welcome the summer break — those delicious long days of basking in the sunshine, of not having to rush anywhere as there are no appointments clogging up the calendar, and of taking it slowly and savouring what each day brings. But I've also been worried about having to sacrifice writing time now that D will be at home, barring the handful of weeks he's signed up to attend summer camps. In the past, I've fought with KrA over how much more time he gets to spend working than I do when D's at home. Obviously, those arguments have led nowhere. Moreover, now I'm able to see that I got into many of those arguments as a distraction; it was a time when I was prone to picking a fight with KrA than face the creative anxiety of sitting down and writing. This tendency still crops up in me from time to time. But that's not the issue. The point is that I can choose how to respond. Knowing that my time during the day will be limited in the summer, I've been mulling over two choices: getting up early in the morning to get an hour of writing in before the day begins, or get to the writing desk at the end of the day after D has gone to bed or even a little earlier as KrA can handle bedtime. The end of the day is not always the best time for me to write. In fact, right now I just want to get into bed and close my eyes and fall asleep. It has been quite a busy morning and afternoon. That leaves early morning. D is an early riser too – waking up at around 6 or 7 a.m., depending on when he goes to bed. Can I squeeze in an hour before that? I am usually the first one to wake up in the mornings. Instead of lying in bed and dreading the day, can I get up and make some progress on my story? What keeps me from doing that? I know the answer. In order to wake up early in the morning after a good night's sleep, I need to go to bed earlier and resist the temptation to watch Netflix. This is my sole vice. I'd also need to resist giving into the temptation of having an afternoon nap, because that causes me to sleep later at night, which in turn prevents me from having a good night's sleep, and so on, and so on. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the best bet for me is to wake up early in the mornings and get at least 500 words done. Once I get started, evening if I'm not able to write all 500 words in the morning, the early start will give me enough momentum to make it a point to come back later in the day, in the evening even, to meet that daily target. Starting to write for the day only in the evening is too daunting. I'd easily tell myself that I'm tired and that I need to rest, and give in to the temptation of Netflix and sleep. I've done that so many times over the past several summers, I'd be a fool to attempt that again this time. So this is the plan for summer. Wake up earlier, get started on my 500 words of fiction for the day, have an absolutely awesome day with D, meet my word count target (if I haven't already) before bedtime, then wake up to another awesome day. Childhood summers are far too few, and even though the days can feel long, the season is often a short one. And every summer, D grows one year older. I don't wish to miss any moment of this child's beautiful presence in my life. Nor do I wish to give up writing. With a little amount of planning, preparation, and willingness to put in the effort to encounter this essential pain (as Becca Syme puts it), I know I can definitely do both. ### a chicken-and-egg conundrum URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-chicken-and-egg-conundrum/ Last updated: 2023-06-10T20:19:16.000Z Yesterday, I was suddenly seized by an idea to revive *Tales for Dreamers*, but over on Substack this time. I was frustrated by the lack of discoverability I'm seeing here on Ghost, especially now that I am no longer on social media. And from what I'm seeing of Substack, it reminds me of the early days of blogging. But this time around, instead of jumping into whatever newfangled idea has gripped me, I spent some time mulling over what I was trying to achieve, and had some discussions with KrA on this. The bottom line is this: I'm yearning for discoverability. I want to reach more readers. I want to increase the size of the audience for my work. Wanting to start *Tales for Dreamers* over on Substack is an idea to reach and introduce more readers to my works of fiction. Writing is often a solitary endeavour and, for someone like me, who craves constant praise and encouragement from the outside world, I seek all the validation I could possibly get all the time. While that is a very valid desire, the truth is also that I don't yet have a vast enough body of work to justify the time and effort I'm looking to spend in promotional endeavours. Dean Wesley Smith explains why this is folly, and of the kind that new*ish* writers fall prey to, in his book, [Magic Bakery](https://wmgpublishinginc.com/product/the-magic-bakery/). A succinct treatise on copyright for laypeople, the book explains the importance of inventory using the example of a magic bakery. Imagine you are setting up a bakery and you have only two kinds of products to offer – a chocolate chip muffin and a blueberry muffin. You'd have customers come in, take a quick look around, and if they really want either of the two muffins, they might buy one and leave. But, and this is the important bit, there is nothing in the bakery to keep them coming back for more, unless they wish to keep eating the same type of baked good over and over again. The metaphor as applied to writing pertains to the bakery being your store or the retail platforms where you sell your books — it could potentially house all the intellectual properties you own and will ever create in your lifetime — and the products being the ones, i.e., books, that are actually up for sale. So if I have only 2 novels, 1 novella, and a handful of short stories up for sale, that is not enough to fill up an entire bakery where customers could browse for hours/days/weeks/months/years, and it is not enough to keep readers coming back for more. Yet, that temptation to invite more and more readers into my world right away is so strong, so alluring, that common sense often flies out of the window. Like it did yesterday. Like it did last November when I started offering *Tales for Dreamers* as a weekly paid subscription service, only to announce its termination at the end of 2023. So on the one hand while I'm trying to write more books, I'm also looking to take on the work of promoting more, but it is clear to me now that this is an untimely endeavour. I keep circling back to this over and over again because I desperately want to see some results, some uptick in sales, more subscribers to my newsletter, something that will move the needle in a tangible way, something that tells me I am on the right track, like an overall uptrending graph to represent steady growth in this business. Aah! The constant tug of war between long-term payoffs and short-term gains. I read 3—4 newsletters in the course of a month, perhaps a few more all put together. I love what I read so much that it is impossible to not have the same desire crop up in me for my writings. Perhaps that is why I'm constantly thinking of ways to write and share my words to more and more readers. But as has tended to happen in the past, that initial enthusiasm fizzles out too soon, especially when it is hard to find and *keep* readers, as is so often the case in these days of an overcrowded Internet. So I have to remind myself, over and over again, that this is a long-term game. That I'm much better off in the present moment writing my stories and publishing my books, than I am trying to solicit new readers via social media or Substack or from anywhere else at this point in time. That is an issue I can tackle when I have enough wares in my bakery. Right now, I have plenty of tasks to complete, tasks I've been sitting on, namely, designing covers and writing sales copy and publishing the stories I've been writing, without needing to add any more to this never-ending list. I find myself straying from this path often, but instead of chiding myself for that, I'm going to congratulate myself today for catching myself in the midst of straying and gently nudging myself back to what really matters. This has made it easier for me to realign my focus, acknowledge how hard it is to stay focused when so many market gurus keep showcasing ways to market and promote, and carry on doing what will truly move the needle for me in the long run. Write the next story. And the one after that. And the one after that. ### tales for dreamers: painting the pots URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-painting-the-pots/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:46:27.000Z The pots and vases stand bare and nude, having just emerged from the potter's wheel. Each one is different from the other. Each is unique. But you can choose only one each year. If you choose a pot that doesn't like you, you will have to give it up and wait an entire year before you can choose another. Curved and moulded and shaped by the potter's hands, they stand tall and firm, and wait to be coloured and painted upon. Some are painted in the colour of sunsets, the reds and yellows and oranges merging and fusing in a jovial dance. Some are painted in the colour of peacock feathers, blues and purples and greens twirl and converge and diverge in little rivulets of colours. A few are painted in monochrome, several others in motifs and designs painstakingly repeated with near-precision all over the surface. Some are painted into invisibility. Several others are painted into life, and they have minds of their own. They walk into houses they like and out of places they don't. Every year people flock to the potter's to select their pots. Some opt for the large ones, others are content with smaller pieces that are just as exquisite. Some are drawn to the bright-coloured ones, some others rub the rims of the pots to see if any have magical wish-granting traits. But no one thinks to look inside. None of the pots are painted on the inside. Each bears a gift within. Some carry the gift of happiness, some carry the gift of life. A few (I can't quite remember exactly how many) bear youth, and only one holds immortality. But you can pick only one pot each year. They say immortality resides in the prettiest abodes, but I can't quite be certain of that. ### feeling all grown-up and writerly, and also wise URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/feeling-all-grown-up-and-writerly-and-also-wise/ Last updated: 2023-06-09T00:05:38.000Z The Universe has been showering blessings on me today! First, the lovely folks at Kobo have published an interview with me over on the KWL blog! [Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2023: KWL Author Spotlight on Anitha Krishnan - Kobo Writing LifeAnitha Krishnan on her expansive novel featuring “whimsical worlds and heartbreaking prose,” Dying Wishes, shortlisted for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life. For thirteen years now, I have served…![](https://i0.wp.com/kobowritinglife.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/cropped-KWL-Favicon-White-1.png?fit=192%2C192&ssl=1)Kobo Writing Lifekobowritinglife![](https://kobowritinglife.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/EWP-Logo.jpg)](https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/06/08/rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize-2023-kwl-author-spotlight-on-anitha-krishnan/) I shared this news with dear friend, Helen, who promptly offered to share it on her FB platform! Her offer was such a pleasant surprise because for the first time today, I regretted not being on social media, because otherwise I would have shouted this news from all the rooftops on all the platforms! Helen read my thoughts and without me having to ask her for anything, she asked me if she could share it. Thank you, dearest friend, for being such a big supporter and believer in my stories! Thank you for coming into my life! ❤️ And then, I got to chat with my parents at leisure about random things, something I hadn't done in a long, long time. --- I've been mulling a little more along the lines of [yesterday's post](https://thedreampedlar.com/onwards-with-optimism/). And I think I finally understand what it means to leave the past behind, and to take responsibility for the present and the future. But my eyelids are drooping, and I'm already snug and warm under the sheets, so I'm going to call it a day. And I'll come back here tomorrow to write what it means to make choices in life and face the consequence of the choices we make. 💕 ### onwards with optimism URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/onwards-with-optimism/ Last updated: 2023-06-08T14:56:17.000Z I've just finished reading *[The Herd](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58696120-the-herd)* by Emily Edwards, and this book has had such a profound effect on me that I came here right away. The book tackles the very contentious issue of vaccination, highlighting how differing opinions on vaccination can drive a wedge into close relationships. I couldn't put this book down, curious to see how it would all pan out. But, to me, this book above all presented parenting in a way I've never seen before. The constant worry and the angst. So many things could go wrong that we're always worried about getting every single detail right. And when things do go wrong, how quick we are to blame ourselves, as is the rest of the world. I'm a little at a loss for words today because when I woke up this morning, I was in a rather foul mood about an upcoming family reunion this summer. It has been a cause of great stress and anxiety for me, so much so that it is ruining many of my present moments. Fear of judgement. Fear of being shamed. Fear of falling into the same traps and patterns as before. Fear of not being able to stand up for myself. Fear of having to explain and justify my life choices and find myself lacking in their eyes. When I'm anxious, I end up picking up a fight with KrA over the minutest of things. About waking up late in the morning. About watching too much TV. About my belief that we ought to be doing more around the house. So much grasping and trying to control. I wish to rein in a little of life, remain in the illusion that if only I could do things differently, then I could compel life to go my way, prevent it from throwing things at me that I don't like. I am quite tired of these foul moods and this desperation to make things go my way. Sometimes, when my chest is all coiled in tension, I try to imagine what it would feel like if I could let it all go. How freeing it would be to let life wash over me, without demanding it take me here or there. I feel the same way about writing. If, instead of getting bogged down by fears and anxieties over writing, over not writing, over designing covers and writing sales copy and publishing my works, over not doing any of these things but spending my precious moments in imaginary conversations with family members, or regretting the past and assuming that the future is doomed and bears no good tidings ... if instead of doing all these things I could simply write what I want to and do the things I need to do to publish without questioning or cursing or ranting or moaning, wouldn't I be a much happier person? Wouldn't I already be far ahead in terms of work and progress? Why does this simple truth remain elusive? Why is there always this notion that there is a silver bullet out there somewhere? Some magic potion to swallow that would make everything easy and certain and guarantee success and riches and good health forevermore? I find I have spent far too long in the depths of darkness, in the quagmire of depression and desperation. There is no life to be lived in the depths of fear and worries, in petty squabbles and envies. And so I resolve this to myself: > *Henceforth, I will not fight with life.* > *Henceforth, I will not moan about the situation or the people, the past or the future.* > *Henceforth, I will take what comes my way, with acknowledgement and acceptance, without fear that it will wreck me, and continue to do my cherished tasks of writing and parenting without all these other distractions.* Every situation contains a possibility. > *A possibility for me to respond with wisdom and equanimity.* > *A possibility for me to step into the highest version of myself and approach everything with optimism, courage and confidence.* > *A possibility for me to grow as a human being.* Please, God, please let me remember to keep forging ahead, doing what I can in the present moment, without getting bogged down by the mistakes of the past or anxieties about the future. The past is gone. Henceforth, I shall not bring it up in my relationships or dealings. The future has not yet arrived. Instead of spending time thinking about it, I can use the present moment that I have wisely and with much joy, instead of being miserable and resentful. Growth is not fundamental to joy. Joy is fundamental to growth. Writing is not fundamental to my happiness. But my happiness is fundamental to writing, parenting, even living. May everything I do come from a place of joy and optimism, from a place of inclusion and safety. In the face of angst and worry, may I sit down and seek refuge in myself, trusting and knowing that whatever comes my way, I also have in me the courage and confidence to handle it without giving into blaming and shaming, without pointing fingers at myself or at anyone else, without cursing and ranting. This is the purpose of my life. To evolve into becoming a more conscious and joyful being. And from there, I can contribute creatively towards writing and parenting. It's not the other way round. It's not the other way round. Please, Universe! May this alone be the guiding intention of the rest of my life. ❤️ ### do celebrities wash their own clothes? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/do-celebrities-wash-their-own-clothes/ Last updated: 2023-11-04T16:30:32.000Z I wonder if the rich and the famous have to bother with mundane daily chores like washing their own clothes, cooking their own meals, doing their dishes, vacuuming and mopping. Or even sitting by the bedside of their child who is unwell. I don't like being confined at home, which is almost always the case when D is unwell. He was up a couple of times last night, fever-ridden and throwing up. This morning, he won't let us out of sight. KrA and I take turns to sit with him, cuddle him, hug him, and tell him how much we love him, and how he's been facing his illness so bravely and with a patience I can only ever dream of. The truth is KrA and D are my role models when it comes to sitting with pain, sitting with discomfort. Especially, D. It seems to come naturally to him. KrA tends to immerse himself in work, which is a far better alternative than the ones I go for — running away, picking up a fight, ruminating, regretting every single life choice of mine, coming up with doomsday predictions for myself and my family. Anything other than - sitting here and saying to myself, as Dr. Shefali often says, "Wow, this is difficult!" "Phew! This is so painful!" "Huh! Still very painful!" - or asking myself the questions, "What am I resisting in this moment?" or "What am I attached to?" I know the answers so well. I'm attached to my fantasy of D being away at school so that I can write my stories, attend to some chores — including cleaning up what with all the wonderful gifts we've received from his friends on the occasion of his birthday party last Friday, heading over to IKEA to purchase some much-needed shelves and bedsheets, making a library run. But my reality has little room for any of these today. And so I'm resisting it with all my might, wishing it were otherwise, wishing I were someone else — a celebrity, a queen — so that I wouldn't have to do any of the tasks I'm faced with, so that I won't have to make choices about what to wear, what to eat, how to spend the day even, so that I won't have to even lift a finger to get through the day because I'd have someone else to do that for me, someone else to even decide whether this is something that needs to be done or not in the first place! The funny, and thankfully the best, thing about feelings is that we don't have to act on them. I don't have to draw up a 5-year-plan to become rich and famous so that I'd never have to do my own laundry again. I don't have to put up vision boards and force myself to think only happy thougths so that I'd have a fun and completely pain-free experience. All I need to do is accept that I was riding on a fantasy, which has now been shattered, and I have to look at reality as it is. And now I have a choice: Will I navigate this reality being miserable? Or will I choose to navigate it with joy? --- D has decided that he is going to spend all day in bed and not step on the floor unless it is to eat or to go to the toilet. He has started watching a show called 'Grizzy and The Lemmings'. Apparently they watched some episodes of it at school, and he told me it was hilarious. I watched one episode with him and it reminded me instantly of Tom & Jerry! The sound of D's laughter and this little writing exercise of thinking aloud and using the tools I have to cope with pain in this moment have already given me a shift in perspective. I know exactly how I will spend this day: Hanging out with D, and very joyfully so! ❤️ --- Funnily enough, today's [*Note from the Universe*](https://www.tut.com/about/) says to me the following: > *Today, Ann, you will be challenged.* > *Challenged by the illusions. Tempted to look to time, space, and all things material for understanding; to judge your place in the world; and to make decisions about your life.* > *Fight it.* > *Go within.* > *You're more than your manifestations.* > *You're alive for greater things.* > *The truth lies within you,* > *The Universe* > *\~ The Universe Talks* How on earth did the Universe know?! --- I'm also reminded of another beautiful quote I had written down in my diary a while ago. > *Sometimes you get what you want. Other times, you get a lesson in patience, timing, alignment, empathy, compassion, faith, perseverance, resilience, humility, trust, meaning, awareness, resistance, purpose, clarity, grief, beauty, and life. Either way, you win.* \~ [Brianna Wiest](https://www.briannawiest.com) ### writing: my one true love URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/writing-my-one-true-love/ Last updated: 2023-06-04T22:57:17.000Z I'm beginning to see that in life it doesn't matter what we do, as long as we do it wholeheartedly, with complete presence and involvement. It could be a beautiful day outside — the ones that culture (meaning advertisements, movies, other people, social media) will convince you to not waste a moment of by spending it indoors — and yet you could be indoors, either tired from a celebration the previous night or accompanying an unwell child. And even though culture may be telling you that you're wasting such a beautiful day indoors, you could still be happy, playing a cooperative board game or a Beyblade battle or reading together or cooking and eating or measuring doses of Advil and Tylenol and nursing the little one back to health. We can choose to be joyful no matter what. And I say this not from a place of fake positivity, but from a place of acceptance of our realities. That this is what it is. Culture rarely ever shows us the true picture. Culture shows us images of gorgeous sunsets and silhouettes of a couple on a bike riding into the golden light; anyone who has driven facing the sun in the sky can tell you how difficult it is to do so when the light of the sun is blinding you. Culture shows us images of life in a wonderful villa surrounded by woodland. It doesn't show us the blackflies and the mosquitoes that makes most people who head up to their cottages up north in the summer choose to stay indoors than go out into the woods and battle those bugs. Culture shows us images of turquoise-blue pools and colourful cocktails. It doesn't show us the effort required to keep the pool clean and sanitary enough for use. Culture shows us half-baked stories. When I unsubscribe from the half-truths and lies that culture feeds us, I come back to the one, simple truth: that I am whole and complete. That I could spend a perfectly beautiful day, indoors, writing stories, and it wouldn't be a waste. That I could spend a perfectly beautiful day, indoors, nursing a sick child, and it wouldn't be a waste. That I could spend a perfectly beautiful day, indoors, sitting and staring at the blue sky, and it wouldn't be a waste at all! --- The truth is – anything can happen in life – and I can still choose to be OK with it. I can still choose to respond from a place of serenity and bliss. --- My head ceased to buzz somewhat this morning. After D left for a class, I had some time to open the manuscript. I first got 100 words down, which then ballooned to 300\. Then KrA and D came to pick me up so we could all make our way to a birthday party. We all had a blast there, but when we returned home, D had spiked a fever. He had some Tylenol and went for a nap. I came back to the manuscipt and in barely any time at all, I had met my word count target for the day. Something about writing those 500 or more words of fiction every day makes me deliriously happy. I'm writing without any thought to the outcome of the story, how it will fare in the market, all those things that guarantee ruination of the joys of writing and living simply for their own sake. --- Then I came and sat in bed next to where D was sleeping and resumed reading an utterly engrossing police procedural set in Iceland. When D woke up, we played some Beyblade battles while KrA cooked pasta. After that, all three of us spent a couple of hours playing a cooperative board game called Space Escape. It was such fun! I love cooperative games. They are so much kinder and much more fun than competitive ones. The latter make people want to cheat, and winning is still so random and subjective to luck and chance. D had received this game as a birthday present a couple of days back. I wrote to the parent who had gifted us this, thanking her for such a thoughtful present. We're tired now. We'd head to bed pretty soon, I reckon. Let's see what the night brings. Last night, D woke up complaining of pain in his throat. We'll have to monitor him for fever tonight. I can still choose to respond to any turn of events with calmness and serenity. Thank you, Universe! 💕 --- At the end of the day, everything outside comes and goes. People. Relationships. Situations. Cities. Land. Trees. Animals. Birds. Seasons. Our inner landscape is what continues to shape our moods and feelings and days. And I've found that I'm at my best when I write, when the characters in my stories do their dance and I simply note down their tales, without any manipulation or questioning, without doubt or reasoning, without any thought to the past or the future. I write for my soul. Thank you, dear soul, for showing me what really pleases you! ### happily hungover URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happily-hungover/ Last updated: 2023-06-03T23:02:53.000Z D's birthday party last evening was an absolute blast! The fact that so many of his friends and their parents came over to celebrate this lovely child and made him feel so special warmed my heart. But last night was brutal! I was way too exhausted but couldn't sleep, after having been subjected to the nonstop sounds at the party venue — the sound of people chatting, the delighted, sugar-high squeals of children running and shouting and playing, the jarring sound of my own voice against my brain after all that socializing and chatting. My head was buzzing, my ears were ringing, and I was in tears because sleep remained elusive and refused to come and relieve me of my exhaustion. It's half past four in the evening of what has turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day — cool breeze with warm sunshine — bringing to an end the heatwave that blasted the region for most of this past week. I've just woken up from a nap I had drifted into to make up for all that lack of good sleep of the past few days. Past-me would have pestered myself to step out and make the most of this beautiful weather. Current-me is aware of the toll yesterday's party has taken on my body and my need to rest, and is content enough to stay at home with the windows open, occasionally stepping into the yard to soak up the sunshine and feel the cool breeze caress my cheeks and blow my hair. Current-me is also aware of the age-old feeling that still arises in me, that longing to be somewhere else, someplace else, doing something else. Current-me has also learnt enough to know that this feeling will keep coming over the course of my lifetime; it is a vestige of a past, but I don't need to act on it. I don't need to run away to Australia to seek beauty in its beaches on this beautiful sunny day. I don't need to move to a bigger house with a bigger yard and a deck and a pool to have a fun afternoon and evening. I don't even need to be out in my yard or the front lawn to enjoy this day. In fact, if I'm not happy where I am, I'll be happy nowhere else, life has shown me over and over again. So when the mind starts to tell me, "Look, how beautiful it is outside! Don your shoes and get out! Don't *waste* this day indoors!", I'm now in a position — after having caught up on sleep — to understand that these instructions are coming from an egoic place, a place where self-worth has deserted me, and that I am better off not paying much heed to them in the first place. I've also set aside writing fiction for today and tomorrow until my brain is back to some form of functioning sanely. Little D knows this innately. He has spent all morning and afternoon playing with his BeyBlades! At this time, yesterday, he owned absolutely no BeyBlades. And now, he has received the generous gifts of a BeyBlade arena, several Beys, and launchers! I must admit, watching two Beys spin and bounce off each other reminded me of cockfights at first. After lunchtime, I too got pulled into the frenzy and battled with D taking turns with several of his Beys, losing almost all the time, and as of now I'm a BeyBlade fan too! Though I absolutely cannot compete with little D's obsession. --- Coming back here after a brief interlude in which we made our way to the Indian grocery store and grabbed something for dinner. Gosh! Even though it's beautiful outside, I was giddy and hungry and couldn't wait to come back home and have dinner and fall asleep. Dinner's done now, so I came here to post this. Because this entire situation reminded me of what D said to me [last summer](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-happiness-that-was-neither-in-the-mountains-nor-in-the-tesla/), when we were in Vancouver, driving down a beautiful, scenic highway, and the child needed to go to the toilet. Instead of taking in the scenery, we were dashing to the nearest available restroom. I remember trying to distract D by asking him to look at the mountains outside. And this is what my lovely, lovely child said to me: *"I know the mountains are beautiful, Mama, but not when I'm getting urgent p\*\*p."* All the happiness I seek is right here, inside of me. The blue sky keeps reminding me of this. ### the magic of modest goals and intentions URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-magic-of-modest-goals-and-intentions/ Last updated: 2023-11-04T16:30:57.000Z This morning was slightly challenging for me. I needed KrA to take a photo of me that I could send over to the lovely folks at Kobo as they gear up to publish my author interview on their blog as part of the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer's Prize 2023\. In 20 days from now, we'll know if *Dying Wishes* emerges as the winner in the Speculative Fiction category! I hope it does. I hope it does. Universe, knock knock, hello, are you listening? Now, to get back to the subject on hand. A photo shoot brings up a lot of insecurities for me. Growing up, ever since I became aware of these things, I've always felt terribly bad about my dark complexion. It didn't help that I grew up in a culture obsessed with fair skin and complexion. Not to mention that the first comment I'd often receive from my late well-meaning grandparents when we'd turn up at their place for the summer was how dark or how fair I had grown in the year gone past. There have only been a few occasions over the past three decades on which I've been happy at the sight of my own photos. Back in the day, before phone cameras or even mobile phones for that matter were a thing, Dad used to load Kodak camera films into a camera, take pictures of us, and then drop them off at a photo studio for developing. This was an exercise we indulged in on special occasions, such as family outings or celebrations, which were quite rare to begin with. Weeks later, he'd go and collect the album of photos that the photographer at the studio would have developed for us from the film rolls. > *At some point in life, the childhood joy of seeing a picture of me quickly gave way to embarassment, sadness too, that my photos did not show the real me.* > *They showed someone too plain, too dark, with a head tilted too much to one side, with a smile — if there was one in the first place — that didn't look anything like a supermodel's or a superstar's. Which is what I'd think I was, until a photo came along to prove me wrong.* This feeling has continued to haunt me well into adulthood. Although I'm quick to flash a smile when someone asks me to pose for a photo without warning, it's a different ballgame altogether when I have to stand and pose and smile for something like an author photo to be featured on a blog post, on a KWL blog, that too. I can barely manage to keep a smile frozen in place for as long as it takes KrA's DSLR to whine, wheeze, flash, and click. And I'm rarely ever happy with the end result. This morning, after dropping D off at school, I wanted to have the photo taken before I sat down to write. I had already received a reminder from the lovely people at KWL, and I didn't want to keep this pending any further. Besides, we're hosting D's birthday party this evening, so we've got a busy afternoon ahead of us. It was a bit of a disheartening experience to begin with, given my biases and past angst pertaining to photo shoots. We tried an outdoors setting, then an indoors one. We tried with KrA's DSLR, and then with his iPhone. I kept moaning all the time, while simultaneously wishing I wouldn't moan and cast all this negative energy on the whole process. But with each photograph that I discarded, KrA kept reminding me, "It's OK. This one didn't work out. We'll try the next one." Eventually, we managed to click one that I liked enough to be able to send over to the KWL team, even though I couldn't help wishing I looked ... smarter? chicer? prettier? Well, basically like anything other than what I looked. After sending that email, I was in half a mind to not open the manuscript but to come here and blog instead. But thanks to the intention I had set yesterday to write after doing the photo-thing this morning, and thanks to the [challenge](https://thedreampedlar.com/500-words-of-fiction-a-day/) I've set myself of writing at least 500 words of fiction everyday, I was able to sit down and write. The words came slowly. I gave in to a number of interruptions in between. But I've written a little more than my target word count for the day, and I can't wait to get back to the rest of the story tomorrow. Need I tell you how glad I am that I started writing? After that initial resistance, I easily slipped into the joy of seeing images in my mind and describing them in words on the screen. I'm done for the day because, as I said, I have a busy afternoon and evening to look forward to. And I'd much rather build my writing muscles slowly, and focus on developing this daily writing habit despite the mental and emotional challenges like the one I faced this morning. This is the way I am honouring Creative Voice and not giving in to the nagging comments of [Critical Voice](https://deanwesleysmith.com/excuses/). Some days, it is hard. On days like that, the goal of 500 words does not seem insurmountable. On days like that, I can still override Critical Voice and continue writing the story, without burning out. And that sets me up for success in the days to follow. Until the next life challenge comes along, and I get more practice in facing Critical Voice and overcoming it to get back to the fun and joy of writing. So, what kind of modest goal d'you reckon will work for you? I arrived at my number after years of trial and error. Additionally, I had to convince myself that 500 words/day is not a small goal in the long run because the words add up. Trial and error endeavours give us a lot of data to substantiate that fact. On 'bad' days, I write at least 500 words. On 'good' days, I write more than double that. Small steps, taken consistently, add up to a lot more in the long run than we could possibly imagine. Writing every day makes it that much easier to return to the story the following day. I am so grateful to have finally arrived at this point in my writing journey where I can leave all the doubts and angst aside and lap up the simple delights of writing and living a full life. And in case you're wondering, here is the photo I sent to the KWL team. Don't I look simply amazing?! ❤️ ![Image of myself against green foliage in the background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/06/Author-Photo_Anitha.jpeg) Me! ### tales for dreamers: the tea party URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-tea-party/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:54:33.000Z "The tea party begins at four," the old man said. It was only a quarter past three, so he suggested we lie in wait by the bushes at some distance. "They like neither visitors nor onlookers," he grunted. We huddled behind the thicket in wonderment, determined to not irk the partygoers. The old man squatted down beside us, scratched his scraggy beard in a moment of thought, then proceeded to narrate to us the history of the place. "Folklore has it," he began, "that the first tea party took place even before mankind came into being but obviously there is no documented evidence of this. It was the wood creatures that established the tradition of the tea party. It began as a weekly affair. "Back then, nectar was the beverage of choice. Wood creatures took turns at organising the party – which meant sending out invitations, laying the table, ensuring everyone has a good time, breaking up fights between guests intoxicated by excessive consumption, and cleaning up the after-party mess before another fellow creature assumed the host's mantle for the following day. "The guests brought along nectar and exquisite delicacies, along with news from their parts of the world. Births and deaths, sightings of new creatures, the discovery of new lands, new fruits grown and new beverages concocted, news from the mountains and the seas. The visitors gave each other the lowdown on the happenings in their corners of the world." The old man paused, then looked up at the sun and down at the shadows of the hedges, and nodded to himself. "Another half an hour, eh," he said. We peeped above the hedges. All was still at the tea table. "But the earliest credible record of the tea parties taking place as we know them today dates to the turn of time," the old man continued. "By then, the human race had existed and evolved for aeons, but it had taken man longer than it had the wood creatures to discover and share the wonders of tea and tea parties. "At first the tradition had continued in its original spirit of social entertainment. The parties were mostly attended by residents of the neighbourhood. They were occasionally joined by travellers passing by the woods. The visitors regaled the guests with tales from faraway lands and adventures of their travels. "It was only when the war broke out that the tea parties began to assume a more strategic significance. Soldiers and patriots and scholars assembled here to plot their defence strategies. The woods provided shelter to fugitives who brought news of the enemies' movements. Revolutionaries met in secret around the tea table where the seeds were sown for many mutinies and insurrections that were to take place around the world. There was never enough tea during the war, but the table became home to the ideas and plots and courage and bravery of the people that sat around it. "But the enemy did eventually manage to penetrate the woods by which time most of its inhabitants had fled to different parts of the world. The ones who lived to tell the tale introduced tea parties in their new hometowns. The others who failed to escape were caught and beheaded by the enemy but the kind wood creatures rescued their souls. So they continue to live, only differently." He wiped the sweat from his brow and a tear from his cheek. Another look at the sun and the shadows, and he gestured it was time. An excited chatter began to ripple through our group but he put a finger to his lips and shushed. Like children up to no good, we covered our mouths with our palms, stifling giggles and murmurs of excitement, and peeped over the hedges. Somewhere in the distance the church bells pealed. At the stroke of four, a merry chatter and hoots of laughter wafted through the woods. Cups and saucers rose and clinked in mid-air, an invisible hand tilted the teapot over the floating cups and filled them to the brim with tea. Scones and pastries, buns and cakes, and bowls of cream and jelly appeared on the table and floated on to plates as if by their own free will. Unseen voices engaged in lively conversations. The guests talked about science and technology, mankind and civilisation, endangered species and extinct ones, global warming and snowfall in summer, of hermits and spirituality. One voice cooed with delight that humans were eavesdropping on their conversations, and some others reckoned it was alright and that we were only human and that it would do us a world of good if we followed their example and started to host tea parties such as this one. ### a new, intentional way of living URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-new-intentional-way-of-living/ Last updated: 2023-11-04T16:31:17.000Z Yesterday was a long day. We had an appointment for a travel application. So we first drove 80 km to Toronto, a journey that took us an hour and a half, then spent two and a half hours waiting for our turn at the application centre. It then took another hour for our applications to be checked and submitted. Finally, the drive back to Burlington took me just a little over an hour because I was driving at about 140 km/hr almost the entire route. We reached Burlington just in time for me to drop KrA at the eye doctor's where he had an appointment for an eye infection, and then made my way to pick up little D from school. Then we made it to an Indian restaurant for dosa, paav bhaji and Nutella milkshake. No illusions about our capacity to go home and cook a gourmet meal after having spent the entire day outside, driving and waiting. Finally we returned home, overstuffed and hot and knackered. I switched on my laptop for long enough to check email and upload a couple of documents (again for that travel application). A warm shower, and then I was in bed with a book. I did open the manuscript to see if I could manage my 500 words of fiction for the day, but the words I had typed swam in front of my eyes. I went to bed quite early and thought if I woke up at an odd hour, I'd do well to return to the manuscript and start typing instead of staying in bed, restless, tossing and turning, an endless stream of thoughts running in my head. Funnily, when I first woke up I thought it was already 6:30 AM. I made to wake up KrA, then realized it was only 5:30 AM. A moment's hesitation, and then I wondered 'What if?' > *What if I went and opened the story I'm writing and see what happens?* What happened was that I spent a delightful hour writing more of the story and enjoying it every bit. I've already met today's word count goal and more than made up for yesterday's missed day. I was sorely tempted to keep writing this morning after dropping D off at school, but I know what lies that way. Slow and steady. I'm in no rush. I'd much rather maintain a steady pace daily than crash and burn by trying to do a whole lot in one day. There is so much I want to say about my learnings from this experience, so I'm trying to put my thoughts in some semblance of order. But the thing is I need a lot of real-life experience to feel alive and joyful as a person, which then feeds into my writing. I'm simply not the kind to sit in a room and write for 6 hours at a stretch, day after day after day. I'd probably be able to do it for one day and then never want to write another word for the next several weeks! It's because I feel most alive when I'm out in the real world, doing real-life stuff. Like dropping off D at school and picking him up. Playing with him. Being silly with him and KrA. Chatting. Reading books. Cooking. Cleaning. Doing a last-minute shopping run before D's upcoming birthday party. Meeting friends. Taking an interest in other people. Going for a walk. Filling petrol in the car. Doing a library run. Filling out travel application forms. Filing taxes. Sending necessary emails. Planning for and going on long drives. Exploring new places with D. Having a shower. Doing the laundry. Folding clothes. Giving D an oil massage. None of these are distractions from writing. Writing is not more important or less important than any of these things. In fact, neither of these things are any more or any less important than any of the others. I've come to see that it is only when we make some things important and others less so that we fall in trouble. If writing is important and doing the laundry less so, then my attitude towards laundry is one of resentment and angst. I keep putting away laundry for as long as possible, until one of us runs out of clean undergarments. And then I spend almost an entire day loading and unloading the washing machine and the dryer — usually 3 loads' worth — and folding clothes at the end of it all, all the time resenting how much time this is taking away from my writing. Setting a seemingly modest word count goal of 500 words of fiction per day is not only helping me write that much and more, but I'm also able to go about necessary life tasks with much joy and ease. Time doesn't feel like a scarce commodity anymore, and there seems to be enough time to live a full life. --- Another unexpected gift I received from the Universe yesterday came in the form of a [blog post](https://deanwesleysmith.com/i-feel-bad-for-new-writers-part-10-more-myths/) by Dean Wesley Smith, busting many of the myths of indie publishing, and some very valuable comments from readers. I had bought into some myths of what a successful indie publishing career or journey should look like. 1. I thought I had to keep churning out 2,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 words per day if I were really passionate about writing. 2. I thought I had to spend many hours at my desk, writing, and not be burdened by life tasks such as the ones I mentioned above, including looking after my child for more hours in a day than is necessary. 3. I thought I had to start earning money and ramp up my income quickly by publishing and selling as many books as I can, as fast as I can, if I were to make this a full-time career. In yesterday's post, Dean wrote the following: > *In indie publishing, the blogs and articles are full of “You must…” commands. And poor beginning writers believe that once they have started a series, “They must…” write the next book and the next and so on and faster and faster and faster. All with the excuse that their fans will be angry at them.* > *...* > *This type of writing to order is deadly as well for indie writers, and much quicker death than the slow, painful death of traditional writers trying to chase a moving market that no one understands. Indie writers with this kind of belief in the myth of writing to market just flat burn out.* > *\~ Dean Wesley Smith* And these lines below hit me smack in the middle of my forehead and made me realize how much I had bought into these myths of rapid publishing to earn a lot of income right off the bat to establish myself as a full-time author. > *The truth that is in indie you can write what you want, as fast or as slow as you want.* > *If you can ignore the myths that swirl around this craziness and write the books you want and sell them wide, all over the world, you have a great chance at long-term success. It might be slower in the start than those who flash and burn out. But you will be at least happy.* > *\~ Dean Wesley Smith* That was me, alright. Burnt out and desperate to do anything other than writing fiction for the rest of my life. The comments to the post are just as insightful, and one of the commenters by the name of Philip had this to say: > *Another Indie Myth: Success for everyone means quitting your day job, and quitting it as fast as possible, to become a full time writer.* > *Writing is my passion and hobby. I just happen to monetize. Don’t get me wrong, I do hope it grows into a very healthy income supplement in 20 or so years when I retire, but I don’t burden my Creative Voice with the panic that everything I write must be a blockbuster hit to change my life overnight.* > *I write for fun and I write because I have to. My soul needs it. I’m in it for the long-term. $50,000/year starting 20 years from now would be just fine. I just want to share my joy with readers.* > *\~ Philip [commenting](https://deanwesleysmith.com/i-feel-bad-for-new-writers-part-10-more-myths/#comment-214267) on Dean's blog post* I feel so liberated after reading this post and this comment. So free of the burdens I had placed on myself to make a living from my writing. Everytime I'd send out my monthly newsletter, I'd be disappointed thinking of the handful few I'm sending it out to. Newsletter analytics are also pretty unreliable now, what with email spam bots and such. But everywhere I turn, there are books and 'how tos' on sending a newsletter, setting up a welcome sequence, giving away books for free ... I've downloaded so many free books in a frenzy over the past several months and I haven't opened a single one of them so far! There are so many things going on, so much advice being doled out, but very little resonates with me. And that had led me to keep doubting myself, berating myself to be someone else, following the herd, doing what the experts are goading everyone to do. I am very lucky to be following Dean and that he's doing these blog posts now on busting writing myths. Such eye-openers. I've also been loving the comments posted by Philip; they are just as eye-opening and insightful and wise. I never liked the angst I kept feeling these past couple of years when it came to writing and parenting and living. It always felt as if I was doing things wrong. What I'm now beginning to see is that I was trying to do a lot more than I possibly could in a single day, and was in a crash-and-burn cycle. I had also deemed some kinds of work as more important than others — I had become an [art monster](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-and-then-we-grew-up-by-rachel-friedman/), as Rachel Friedman said in *And Then We Grew Up* — which filled my day-to-day existence with a lot of resistance to life and its simple beauty. Now, giving up all those myths and being able to see how alive these day-to-day experiences make me feel has been one of those life-altering shifts in perspectives I'm experiencing. Thank you, Universe. I am grateful for these lessons. --- The other realization I've had is the power of intention. Last night I went to bed thinking that if I woke up at an odd hour, I'd return to the story and write. I think sending that message to my subconscious made it easier for me to actually get to the manusript when I woke up at 5:30 this morning and had a full hour to spare before it was time to start prepping for D to go to school. I usually have enough visibility for the following day, so instead for a week in advance, this simply act of setting an intention for just the next day seems to be a great tactic. Small, modest goals for me. Small, modest plans for me. Day after day after day after day ... That's all it takes. Moment after moment after moment. Day after day after day. It is a wonderful way to live! ### the gift of life URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-gift-of-life/ Last updated: 2023-05-29T23:58:08.000Z D and I narrowly escaped colliding into a truck this morning on the way to school. I was in the slow lane, the one closest to the exit, which was only 1.5 km away. But traffic had stalled on that lane because of many vehicles merging into the highway from the ramp just ahead of where I was. When I got a chance, I switched into the lane to my left. I had paid attention and switched lanes only when there was no car coming up on that lane. But as soon as I got into that lane, I heard a large truck come to a screeching halt right beside me. I continued on my way luckily, but when I looked in the rear-view mirror, it was evident that the truck had been two lanes away from me and had also been trying to switch lanes to the same spot I had been eyeing. I thank my stars that the truck driver noticed what I had failed to see and applied his brakes in the nick of time. Otherwise I might not have lived to tell the tale. I take our lucky escape as a sign that the Universe has my back! That all my efforts at being a careful and attentive driver are being rewarded in the form of safety when I accidentally let my guard slip. Thank you, Universe! Thank you for giving me the gift of life! You have my back! In your care, I have no fear of anything, anymore! ❤️ In your protection, I lack nothing. My life is for me to show up and act and learn and grow. There is nothing to fear. Nothing is a mistake. Thank you, Universe, for loving me so much! 💕 ### 500 words of fiction a day URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/500-words-of-fiction-a-day/ Last updated: 2023-05-29T16:29:02.000Z So, last evening, after I realized how much I tend to dither on any goal I set for myself, whether lofty or small, I decided to set myself a fiction writing goal of 500 words/day. I know. I know. I've done this before, and we all know how that story has ended countless times. I'd set this goal. Then I'd get to writing the next day with much gusto and reach for more and more, sometimes 1,500+, sometimes 2,000 words or more. And then there'd be a crash landing for the next few days, with the word counts dwindling. This is probably the equivalent of trying to run a marathon on day one, without any prior practice, and then trying to run another marathon on the next day, only to fall flat on my face and not be able to get up from bed for the next few days. So what's different this time? I'll sit down to write, not get up until I've crossed the 500-word count mark, and beyond that if I'm still continuing to write, I'll stop at the 1-hour limit or earlier. I'm usually able to write 500 words in less than half an hour. It may take a little longer on days when I'm struggling with Critical Voice. But most importantly, I find that when I aim for much higher word count goals right off the bat, it is exhausting for me. And when I stop writing for 2—3 days after that, it becomes that much harder to return to the manuscript. And lots of drama happens in the interim. Critical Voice keeps nagging at me. Even when I'm doing other things, there's this constant worry in the back of my head that I haven't written for the day, or that 2—3 days have gone by without me having written any fiction. And that simply kills all joy and pleasure in every other aspect of my life. So a modest daily goal is good for me. And 500 words per day of fiction is my target. My aim will be to get to it first thing in the morning after dropping off D at school. There will be some ocassions, like tomorrow when we have to head out for an appointment in the morning, or on the weekends and on holidays when D would be at home and we'd be hanging out together, whether indoors or outdoors, when getting to the manuscript first thing in the morning may not be possible. In those instances, I can certainly spend the last half an hour of my day penning 500 words of fiction. Will that be easy? Of course not. But that's the whole point. To keep at it even when it becomes challenging. I think this practice will strengthen my writing muscles for the long term, and also yield me more finished words in the long run. I took stock of my wordcount so far in this writing challenge. From April 1—May 28, over a total of 58 days, I wrote 13,773 words of fiction. That amounts to about 238 words per day. So clearly, aiming for super-high (for me) wordcounts right off the bat resulted in a worse outcome than I'd have otherwise achieved had I aimed for a more modest but steady daily goal. On the contrary, I've been able to write about 800 words/day of non-fiction, these blog posts essentially, over the same duration. Blogs are easy for me. I think a lot and I have a lot to say about writing and about feelings, about emotions and about life. I am so unabashedly me when it comes to blog posts that Critical Voice doesn't rear its head when I'm writing a post. Sure, it crops up later, badgering me for writing personal posts instead of SEO-favoured how-to posts that promise to solve other people's problems. I've reached a point in my life where I'm able to say 'I don't care!' That's the beauty of being in my 40s. When I say 'I don't care', I really mean it. Unlike when I was in my 20s, and 'I don't care' actually meant 'I'm just saying I don't care but actually I do care a hell of a lot what others think of me because I really, really, really want to be loved by everyone.' That's the spirit of unabashed and bold authenticity that I wish to bring over to my fiction writing too. And I do believe a daily practice of getting to the manuscript and typing out words is essential for me to get over that initial resistance and whatever doubts tend to keep coming back. Because the longer I stay away from the manuscript, the harder it becomes to return to it. So setting myself a fiction word count goal of a minimum of 500 words/day is great for me at this point in my writing journey. Sure, there are experts and professional writers writing 10—20 times that on a daily basis, but I admit I am no expert. It does not mean I'm not as passionate about writing. I am, which is why I'm looking to adopt a grown-up mindset of long-term sustainability instead of an adolescent attitude of crash and burn. June will be a good time for me to challenge myself to maintain this 500 words/day streak. Summer holidays will begin, D's birthday and celebrations, planning for the summer ... there'll be lots going on and I wish to soak up as much of life as is offerred to me. Even though Dean may say this is a time of Great Forgetting because we tend to head outdoors and enjoy the beautiful weather and forget about writing at this time of the year, I don't wish to be sitting indoors, writing, when I could be playing with my child, watching him fill bowls of water and pour them on a muddy patch, so that he can run his cars through the muck and eventually paint some of that muck over himself. I don't wish to miss out on any of this beautiful stuff that life brings. And I am very very lucky and extremely grateful that I am under no pressure to produce a novel a week or 100 books in a year or any such arbitrary deadline that may work for others but not for me and my life circumstances. I am very very lucky that I can set a modest word count goal without it hurting my physical, emotional or financial safety. And I am grateful to KrA and D and this Universe for that privilege! As a bunch of life stuff is coming up, this will also be a good exercise for me to reflect the day before as to when I'd write the following day. Setting that intention for the following day would get me to the manuscript way more often than not. For instance, I knew there was a bunch of non-writing stuff to be tackled today, so I had already planned to write right after dropping D off at school. And that worked. I wrote about 600 words of fiction and was tempted to keep writing, all other tasks be damned. Uh oh! I've been down that path too often without any good results. So I reined myself in, attended to life stuff, and came here to write this post. Now I'm off to attend to more life stuff, knowing I've met my writing goals for the day. If that nagging voice crops up in the back of my head to tell me I should have written more or that I'd never be able to write a whole lot at this rate of 500 words/day, I have enough data from the writing challenge so far and sound arguments to send it skittering away to sulk in some concealed corner. Life is fun when my energy and outlook are good. And that's really the most important thing, even more important than writing, for me. To remain optimistic and have a positive and trusting energy towards life. This lesson has been a long time in the learning for me, and I am determined to keep reminding myself of this every single morning, every single day, every single night. That I have a choice. That I can choose a more helpful thought. And that when I am firmly grounded in my self-worth and self-trust, life offers endless possibilities for me. Thank you, Universe! ### being human in an increasingly algorithmic world URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/being-human-in-an-increasingly-algorithmic-world/ Last updated: 2023-11-05T00:11:27.000Z Earlier this year, in a bid to increase the visibility and discoverability of my website, I began to look into SEO. I looked up a course on Udemy and from what I understand, it's about determining what kind of keywords users are inputting into the Google search bar and then using those keywords strategically to boost your site's ranking in the Google search results. I also looked up websites that are highly ranked but I soon grew weary of reading about 7 smart ways to boost your productivity or 11 different ways to hack your life. I've long unsubscribed from the notion that one could follow steps 1, 2, 3, 4 and achieve the results that someone else did, at least when it comes to matters of the heart. Which is probably why, in all these years of writing, I have not been able to read a single how-to book on writing from cover to cover. I begin to read them with much gusto, but the entire premise of force-fitting a formula to a book or someone's writing journey or someone's life journey altogether just doesn't make sense to me, no matter how hard I've tried to subscribe to it. I remember, back in mid-2000s, when I began writing longer manuscripts, I came across several articles on the Internet attempting to dissect why the Harry Potter novels were so popular. One of the reasons given was that the characters aged alongside their readers, which kept them very relatable. While that may very well have been true, I don't think writing a series of books in which the characters age with each one is any guarantee of success. This is why I revolt deeply against all attempts to dissect success in hindsight. The instant we attribute the success of an individual or a product to factors A, B and C, the implication is that if we were to replicate those very factors, then anyone or any product could achieve similar success. And, of course, we do not include luck and chance and our innate human differences as factors contributing to that success, because those are clearly inimitable factors. Yet, even though I know all these things and come back to the same conclusions, I keep questioning myself all the time. I am so riddled with doubt that I spend more time questioning myself and worrying about everything than actually making progress, no matter how small, on the path I've chosen. And now, the joke is that even among the writing community, with the rise of ChatGPT and other AI tools, the advice being doled out is to double down on being human, on being ourselves. As if we could possibly ever have been anyone else in the first place. I guess I'm a little frustrated with all the conflicting advice on writing and life that's out there and I'm even more frustrated with the fact that I've been struggling to follow my own path and doubting myself way too often. Yes, it's the latter that I find the most frustrating: my inability to keep trusting myself in a world that is so fickle and always keeps changing its mind. It's as if I'm so terrified of placing any trust in myself that I'd much rather place it in something that has earned a reputation of not being reliable and trustworthy. Wow! I wonder why that is. Is it so that when failure comes my way, I can blame the world, i.e., something external, instead of accepting it as an inevitable happening on my journey? Am I so terrified that I won't be able to handle the disappointment that failure would bring that I'd much rather do the things I know are not right for me? Am I following external advice and setting myself up for failure, so that I can give up and tell myself that I gave it my all and it didn't work, too bad? Because, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I am not really giving it my all. I write one day, and for the next 2—3 days I am riddled with doubt over the story, over myself, over this writing journey I am on. I keep changing my goals. One day I'd decide to tackle a daily word count of 2,000 words; I'd probably achieve it for a day or two, then it'd be difficult to keep this up on the third day because somehow Critical Voice would have crept in, and I'd be convinced that this was too lofty a goal for me anyway. It's the same when I set a daily word count goal of 500 or even 100 words for that matter! It's as if I simply won't listen to myself. I simply won't put in the effort. I don't know why. Am I unwilling to put in the effort it takes? Am I expecting it to be easy and a breeze, and on days it isn't, do I refuse to sit with the discomfort of it all and simply DO THE WORK? Yes, that's what it is. At the slightest sign of discomfort, I run away. I don't know how to stay with something difficult with resorting to fight, flight or freeze. In my personal relationships, I fight. I yell and scream and I cry. In my writing, I flee. I simply stop going to the manuscript altogether. None of it helps. None of it helps at all. And I am so sick of wasting my days thus, mired in anxiety and paralysis, going around and around in the same circles. The patterns are so so familiar I don't even have to think about them anymore. It is definitely going to take me a lot of work to change. Coaches and experts offer differing advice on how to bring about this change. Right from plunging into action despite the dread, to warring with it or embracing and befriending it, always expecting the discomfort to show up ... I reckon it's something I'll have to stop expecting will happen overnight. It is a conscious decision to make every moment and the moment after and the one after that. One breath at a time, one moment at a time. And please, please, please, dear God, please let me not fall into the trap of berating myself and my writings and my choice to be a writer. Please, please, please let me stick to this path no matter how difficult it gets. Please, please, please let me not lose faith in myself. Please, please, please let me not give up on myself. I also do not wish to spend too much time gushing over other's art and creativity especially at the expense of my own. This month, I tossed into the DNF pile books by three authors who had once been my absolute favourites. Maybe I've grown as a writer and a reader, or maybe I had put these authors on a pedestal, demanding to be vowed by every story they spun, by every word they wrote, forgetting that they too are only human. Now that I have written some of my own works, I can see that while there is still a certain nameless element of the spirit in creativity that tugs at our heartstrings, much of it also has to do with doing the work of sitting down and writing the words, lending them a healthy, creative energy and not writing from a place of desperation, cursing every moment spent at the keyboard, typing and deleting and re-typing words. This is true of life too. Our choice of response. Do we attend to a situation with willingness and involvement, or do we rush through what we deem as 'chores' and try to get them out of our way? The other day, we made our way to the local Shoppers' Drug Mart to get our photographs taken for a travel application. I was sitting very anxious and uptight throughout the 5-minute drive in the car, whereas D was making jokes and being silly. And when we got down, he decided to play 'floor is lava' for the distance from the car to the photo booth. It probably took us 2 extra minutes but it made the short journey so much more pleasant and kept us in the moment. So much of my fear is inherited and shows up at times when I don't wish to brook mistakes, when I want everything to go smooth and perfect, when I simply cannot tolerate any errors. But why? What will happen if something goes wrong? Worst case, I'd have to take another shot at it. Can I live with the disappointment or inconvenience of that? Can I live with the fact that the outcome throws a spanner in the works by 'ruining' my schedule for the days ahead? Can I bring myself to attempt the same thing again without being dissuaded by the failure of the first attempt? It's only when I am not able to that I fall into the trap of cursing myself for having made a mistake in the first place, for not having been more careful or more prepared. Well. This is my lesson I guess. Becuase, guess what? Despite our very careful preparation, carried out with much angst and fear and anxiety, our application was rejected. Which means we've had to redo everything, refill all the applications from scratch, run around for another day to get some additional documents in place, and secure another appointment to submit our applications again. We are yet to submit our applications and while I hope for it to go through, I also know this time that rejection won't hurt me in any lasting way. Sure, I'd feel frustrated and disappointed for a few minutes, but the experience would also become an opportunity to re-centre myself and come back to being the person who chooses to respond to life consciously. To be human means to try and accept that things do go wrong sometimes and that it is in our own best interests to not vilify ourselves in such moments, but instead to accept them with calm, distance ourselves from the outcome of our efforts, and plunge into action all over again. We can have a lot of theories about the right ways to live. But ultimately, it comes down to one thing ... doing what needs to be done even if it's most uncomfortable or inconvenient, and doing so with a calm and pleasant energy. Taking deep breaths always helps. Iwish to add to this post another couple of lessons I've learnt in these past few days. In one of his YouTube videos, contemporary Indian mystic Sadhguru noted that when we aspire to something and then keep changing our minds about it, then we're sending mixed signals to the Universe. In that case, our goals and ambitions fail to materialize as we keep switching back and forth. Instead, he says, if we were to maintain our focus and stick to our chosen path despite all the difficulties that may crop up, we'd have a greater chance of reaching our goals. I feel this very strongly because even as of last week I woke up in the middle of the night, riddled with anxiety, and came to KrA and said that I'm done trying to make a living from writing. That I wanted a full-time job with a guaranteed salary — well, as guaranteed as a job and salary could possibly be in these times, which anyway seems more certain than earning from writing at this stage of my journey — and that I never wished to write for a living ever again. That I've become completely risk-averse and cannot undertake this entrepreneurial journey anymore. I've gone back and forth on this many many times in the last couple of years or more, since the beginning of the pandemic at least. Should I take up a job alongside writing fiction? Should I focus on writing fiction alone? Should I give up writing fiction and focus on getting a job and building a career? I never seemed to be able to make a choice. And last night, I understood why. I woke up at 3 a.m., anxious and sleepless, folded two basketfuls of laundry I had intended to fold this afternoon. After that, I had half a mind of waking up KrA and badgering him, but somehow this time I wanted to make a different choice. I grabbed my phone and headphones and looked up on YouTube what Sadhguru's take on money was. In one video he said, "We don't make money in order to live well. We try to make money in order to live better than our neighbour." And boy, did his words punch me in the gut. Because that is exactly what I am trying to do. Make as much money as I quickly can so that I can buy a lakeside home with a lovely view, move up the status ladder, and never ever have any unsolveable problem again in all my life. Because every problem can be solved if only we have enough money, right? Wrong. Sadhguru talks about whom he calls as 'billionaire beggars' — people who have plenty of wealth yet are always desperately looking for ways to make the next buck. I know for a fact that happiness does not really lie in anything external. Until today, my definition of 'external' excluded 'money'. But now my perspective has shifted. At last, I find that I'm able to decouple writing fiction from making money. Because I had been wanting that money to live better than everyone else I know, I admit. Now I realize I need very little to live a good life. Now I can write without worrying about whether it will yield me money or not. Now I can do anything in life without worrying about whether it will yield or cost me money or not. I can be happy in this moment no matter what is happening around me. True, sometimes I'm not able to conjure up my patronus in a time of need, but for times like those, I can plug into YouTube and listen to a motivation talk or watch a video by Dr. Shefali or Sadhguru and re-centre myself, re-align myself to what I truly wish from life. To me, this is what it means to be human. To be more conscious in my behaviours and attitudes. To be more trusting in myself. To be kinder and loving to myself and KrA and D. It simply doesn't matter what's happening in the world around me. ### May Mayhem: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-may-mayhem/ Last updated: 2024-03-26T17:47:36.000Z Hello, Dreamer! For a month that ought to have been long and productive, full of time to do anything and everything and some more, what with 31 full days, each longer and brighter than any we've experienced in a while, May has simply gone screeching past. The magnolias and tulips have bloomed and gone. The maples and the oaks beckon us outdoors, waving at us their branches laden with new leaves. The breeze, whenever it blows, stirs a chill all around, as if to remind us that summer is not truly here yet, and that all of this golden magnificence is merely a teaser, a glimpse of what is to come. Possibilities unfolding. I love the neither-here-nor-there*ness* of spring. Because, basking in this coexistence of cool wind and warm sunshine, we need not think about the biting cold of the winter just gone by nor the harsh heat of the summer yet to come. Spring is a season in which I find it easy to be happy, filled with joy, and at peace with myself and the world around me. When I look up at the clear blue sky and stare into its vastness, it is easy for me to be kind and forgiving towards the world at large but most importantly, towards myself. > *It's likely the optimism of new births and growth that is lifting my spirits. But also, the older I grow, the more I realize how little of life is truly in our control.* Most of us are brought up to believe that if we only study hard, work hard, do the right things, the ones prescribed to us by other people or culture or society or even by our own hearts, then we'd have a shot at a 'good' life. That is true to some extent. Unless we show up or do the work, there are likely no rewards to be claimed. But the flip side of such thinking is that when the rewards don't come despite our best efforts, when life is messy and disappointing, we are quick to believe that we must have gone wrong somewhere. Ah, if only we had moved halfway across the world ... if only we had eaten more greens and less chocolate ... if only we had been better at setting boundaries ... if only ... if only ... if only ... The fantasy that life could have been different had we made different choices or had our circumstances been different is simply that — a fantasy that has nothing to do with our current reality whatsoever. --- *The goal of adulthood is to let go of the other possible existences and to make the best of the one.* *A successful adult is one who understands that it doesn't matter which life you ultimately pick, only that you live it well.* *The same potential for, say, happiness exists whether you are a construction worker, porn actor, or wealthy industrialist.* *\~ Physician Chris Ballas,* [*The Last Psychiatrist*](https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/07/a%5Fsurprising%5Fnumber%5Fof%5Fteens%5Ft.html) ![cherry blossoms in full bloom under a blue sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/05/arno-smit-sKJ7zSylUao-unsplash-1.jpg) Photo by [Arno Smit](https://unsplash.com/@%5Fentreprenerd?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/images/nature/spring?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- The reason I've been mulling on these lines so much this month is because May has been a busy month full of life stuff, many with disappointing outcomes. A property dispute. A rejected application for a travel document. A 6-year-old needing encouragement to stay true to himself. Adults deceiving and manipulating, conspiring instead of collaborating. Past trauma resurfacing and knocking me sideways at the most inconvenient of moments. Instead of writing fiction, I've been writing to communicate and cajole, to urge and persuade, to convince and call out. > *In the back of my head is this nagging thought that life shouldn't be so difficult. And if it is, that's clearly because I'm doing something wrong.* > *In the same spirit that we are quick to attribute any success to our hard work and perseverance, we are also quick to attribute difficulties to our perceived shortcomings.* We do this in our creative pursuits too, congratulating ourselves for an anthology or an album well-received only to berate ourselves for anything that the audience might consider less than stellar. One of the best antidotes to this kind of thinking comes from Elizabeth Gilbert in her TED talk, [*"Your elusive creative genius"*](https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth%5Fgilbert%5Fyour%5Felusive%5Fcreative%5Fgenius). She delves into the question of creating a safe distance between herself and the outcomes of her creative pursuits. If I were to take her words and reframe them in the context of life itself, rather than creative pursuits alone, this is probably what I am asking. > *How does one weather the ups and downs of life without falling into emotional ruin? How does one engage with life fully while also managing the emotional risks inherent in doing so?* --- Poet [Danna Faulds](http://dannafaulds.com) tells us exactly what to do. #### ALLOW **by Danna Faulds* There is no controlling life. Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado. Dam a stream and it will create a new channel. Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet. Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground. The only safety lies in letting it all in — the wild and the weak; fear, fantasies, failures and success. When loss rips off the doors of the heart, or sadness veils your vision with despair, practice becomes simply bearing the truth. In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes. *Practice becomes simply bearing the truth.* > *I don't have any answers to the questions I keep asking, but it is evident that I ask these questions with great fervour only when the truth, or reality, becomes unbearable.* > *Which, ironically, is perhaps the best time to not ask questions or seek answers but to sit in the discomfort of what is.* And for someone like me, who's had a lifetime of practice of running away from what is, I wonder how many lifetimes it will take to practice being with what is. Yet, it is never too late to begin. --- ## My Writings in Other Places ### Dying Wishes in the YoungW store My words and works have been appearing in other places on the Internet, and I wanted to point you in these directions. Toronto-based artisan shop, YoungW, has stocked copies of my novel, [*Dying Wishes*](https://www.youngw.ca/product/dying-wishes-by-anitha-krishnan/), in their online store! [Support a Toronto-based independent store, YoungW!](https://www.youngw.ca/product/dying-wishes-by-anitha-krishnan/) YoungW is a young independent store, selling ideas and inspirations for a more analogue life. Its founder, Elena Woo, and her ideas have played an influential role in getting me off social media and back into the thick of artistry and beauty, of creativity and joy. --- ### Every Intention by Ashley Janssen In my frenzy to unsubscribe from almost everything, I also gave up a fortnightly newsletter on productivity that I used to really enjoy: *Every Intention* by [Ashley Janssen](https://ashleyjanssen.com). It's packed with wisdom and practical tips, grace and understanding. Yet, I unsubscribed for the simple reason that I had gotten into a pattern of seeking the silver bullet in other people's words and wisdom instead of peering into my own dark and deeply troubled shadow. When I unsubscribed, Ashley wrote to me asking why. I was so surprised to hear from her, it was such a joy to not be bid goodbye by a mere automated response, that I wrote a lengthy, heart-baring response to her. The TLDR version of that response was "It's not you, it's me." Inspired by my email, Ashley wrote a wonderful post on distractions and focus, calling my email the best break-up letter she has ever received! [In a World Full Of Distractions, How Do You Get Your Focus Back?Sometimes you need to do an inventory of the many things vying for your attention and make sure you give it to the ones that actually matter.![](https://ashleyjanssen.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/08/1--60x60-.png)Every Intention by Ashley JanssenAshley Janssen![](https://ashleyjanssen.com/content/images/2023/04/In-a-world-full-of-distractions--how-do-you-get-your-focus-back.jpg)](https://ashleyjanssen.com/in-a-world-full-of-distractions-how-do-you-get-your-focus-back/) I still pop over to Ashley's website to read her latest musings. We've grown to become a little more than acquaintances, or so I'd like to think based on the heartfelt emails we've shared with each other. [Support Every Intention by Ashley Janssen](https://ashleyjanssen.com) This is how the wonderful world of words and writing has led me to meet some amazing and very inspiring creatives and entrepreneurs, executing their passions and trying to show up as their best selves, day after day after day! --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### a glimpse into your future Life most certainly runs in cycles. A decade and two months ago, I wrote this tale. I have no idea what I was thinking back then. And little did past-me know that in the future, I (she) would read this and gasp a little in shock and smile quite indulgently. Because the timing is just right, considering the thoughts that have been swirling in my head this month! [tales for dreamers: a glimpse into the futureI’ve seen what the future holds for you. Would you like me to tell you all about it?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/05/37.-a-glimpse-into-the-future-2.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-glimpse-into-the-future/) --- ## Books You May Love This has been a month full of surprises when it came to reading. For once, I ended up shelving books by my favourite authors into the DNF (did not finish) pile. This has happened with not one, not two, but with three favourite authors, and it has been rather depressing for me to experience that. Because it reinforces how little of the reader's experience is truly in the author's control! But, but, but ... I found myself picking up a different kind of book and devouring it, much to my own surprise! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/05/IMG_4423.jpeg) *The Twyford Code* by [Janice Hallett](https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Janice-Hallett/185128688) is written in the form of audio transcripts of iPhone recordings made by Little Smithy, who served time in prison and is looking to re-establish a relationship with a son he didn't know at first he had. He's also solving the mystery of the disappearance of a teacher he knew in high school as well as trying to decode messages left by an author of children's books; these messages are rumoured to lead to a hidden treasure! This delightful mystery is full of codes and puzzles. It's hilarious in some places and heart-warming in many others. It's also about great friendship and loyalty, and that seems to be the biggest draw for me these days. Not to mention the completely unexpected twist after twist after twist that Hallett delights us with in the last several pages! --- By this time next month, we'd be in the thick of summer here in the northern hemisphere and I'd have a newly-7-year-old at home! Little D will turn 7 exactly a day before the summer solstice this year. I'm so excited that I have a birthday party to plan for and host! At times like these, all my existential questions fade into the background and life is then nothing more, nothing less than one moment woven into the next and into the next and so on. Time is a-flying, and I wish to make the most of this summer with the little one. Which is why I'm mulling paring down the *Monthly Missives* over the summer. I haven't completely decided yet, but if I do, the *Monthly Missives* will still turn up in your inbox on the last Sunday of the month with a *'brief'* hello and any book/writing updates, as well as the *Tales for Dreamers* and *Books You May Love* sections. I'll go back to writing my feature-length reflections on life in September after school resumes. I've been blogging over on the website offlate and I'll continue to do so, so you can always come over to read and share your thoughts too. So, what are your plans and hopes for the summer, dear Dreamer? Write to me and share your heart with me. I wish for this season to bring you much warmth and sunshine, optimism and joy, and also a sense of freedom and possibility. Much love, Anitha ### tales for dreamers: a glimpse into the future URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-glimpse-into-the-future/ Last updated: 2024-10-16T12:57:06.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/05/37.-a-glimpse-into-the-future-1.jpg) tales for dreamers: a glimpse into the future Later today you will set aside a moment to begin taking stock of your life. All your pain, real and imagined. All your hopes, lost and never found. Relationships that strolled out the window and threw themselves over the edge. The troubling ones that lingered. No, say not to me you do not have your fair share of loss, else you wouldn't be here now seeking a counsel and a cure. This evening you will sever a relationship. Which one, I am unable to see, as you are yet to make up your mind. A walk in the moonlight will give you the courage you need tonight. Tomorrow, as you sip your morning tea, swirling it in your mouth, feeling and tasting the brew like you've never done before, daybreak will begin to dispel the illusions of the night. What seemed courageous at night will appear foolhardy in the morning. And the first strand of doubt will begin to creep into your mind. This weekend, you will go over the same ground several times. Did you or did you not do the right thing? The questions never changing even when phrased differently. The answers, always the same. But time tends to quell doubts, so by next week you will have convinced yourself this was how things were meant to be, and that you had no other choice. In a month's time you will have forgotten most things. About him. About yourself. Life will see to that. Until someday you bump into each other again, perhaps on the sidewalk, or in a dream or a nightmare. Some scars run deep. And the memories will come flooding back. The crinkles around his eyes. The melody of his voice. His laughter. The way you twirled your fingers in his hair. How his breath mingled with yours to create a flurry of lovers' air. And you will come back full circle, setting aside a moment to take stock of your life again. And the next time you seek a counsel and a cure, you will pick a better date to approach me. And I will foretell happier endings. ### tales for dreamers: a safe place to hide your secrets URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-safe-place-to-hide-your-secrets/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:45:53.000Z The best way to hide a secret is to whisper it to the clouds. Sing them a melody composed of your deepest, soul-scorching secrets. Or pen a poem on paper, and set the words ablaze, so the wisps of smoke would mingle upwards and disappear into the clouds. Or blow all your secrets into a rainbow-coloured balloon and let it fly over the tree-tops into the blue sky and disappear into the white clouds yonder. The clouds gather all your secrets by day, weaving together strand by misty strand of people’s disguised truths. And when night falls, they lay your secrets on the hillside, gently and quietly like a lullaby. And then they wait. Patiently. Stealthily. All night. When morning comes, the clouds glide down the slopes of the hill, biding their time, like a newly-wedded bride shyly lifting her veil to open up her heart’s desires to you. And where your secrets lay all night now glisten mysterious drops of dew. Here now, gone the next moment. And your secrets dissipate into the rays of the morning sun, leaving you to pursue the promise of a new day, of a new beginning. ### living with intention, not by accident URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/living-with-intention-not-by-accident/ Last updated: 2023-11-04T16:32:14.000Z The more I work at it, the more I see how a healthy mindset is fundamental to everything I do and how I live. > *And what does a healthy mindset mean? For me, it boils down to one simple thing: choosing a more helpful thought.* This writing challenge I've been participating in has been revealing to me a lot of my misguided beliefs and bad habits and tendencies. That's what a challenge is meant to do, and alongside we learn how to unsubscribe from those beliefs and adopt good habits as we journey through the challenge. ### *Conscious Thinking* One of the things I tend to do when there's a lot of life stuff going on, as has been the case for most of May, is let writing slide. I have a lot of excuses for it. I can only write in the mornings. I get too tired in the afternoons or in the evenings. I need to read or watch Netflix before bed-time. What I've noticed is that when my mind is tired, then it very easily keeps circulating these thoughts in my head. And it becomes very convenient to forego writing and choose another activity instead. Check email or Whatsapp for the umpteenth time. Log on to Netflix and see what's new. Pick up a book to read and fall asleep. If I am conscious of these thoughts in my mind, I can choose a more helpful thought. For instance, I could say to myself, "I am tired, but I'd still like to make a little progress on the writing front as I had planned to. Let me set a timer and write for 15 minutes, and see how that goes." This is such a simple thing to do. And the truth is, I always always feel very good after that 15-minute sprint. Just the act of showing up and getting started on the task is enough of an impetus to keep going. ### *Action Over Deliberation* Common wisdom is that action leads to motivation, not the other way round. The smallest step is still progress to be celebrated, momentum that keeps on carrying us towards our goals. When we pause to think, especially engage in thoughts about why something sucks or does/will not work, then we feel deflated before we've even given our idea an iota of a chance. > *I wrote [yesterday](https://thedreampedlar.com/to-do-or-to-think-before-doing/) that the greatest fear that keeps me from taking action is the fear of disappointment if the outcome is not to my liking.* > *The truth, as the Gita so wisely explains, is that we only have control over our actions and not over the outcome of those actions.* For instance, just a few hours ago we received an email about a schedule change next week that currently creates some conflict for us. Our initial response was to simply accept it, but now that we're in the habit of taking charge of our lives — which means speaking up, showing up, and doing our best — KrA and I decided that it was best to write and present our dilemma to the parties concerned. Who knows? Maybe things might change in our favour. Maybe they won't. That is immaterial. The fact that I reached out and voiced my concerns is already success enough for me. I'd much rather live with disappointment than with the regret of not having tried something. It took me less than 2 minutes to write that email. My previous avatar would have spent 2 days fretting and fuming, wondering whether to send the email or not, worrying about what the other party might think of me, and all those mental actions and physical inactions that keep us drowning in a quagmire of our own making. Now I'm a big believer of taking action without too much deliberation. I trust myself and my values enough to know that whenever I choose to respond consciously to any situation, it will come from a place of authenticity. No regrets lie that way. ### *Moment-to-moment Presence + Long-term Thinking* One of the ways my mind often pushes back against me when I think of the long-term is by reminding me that there is no future. That the future is uncertain, and that today might very well be the last day of my life. True. There is no denying that. Which is why, instead of foregoing all possibility of any future whatsoever, I can remain present and joyful in whatever I undertake today, be it writing fiction or planning for tomorrow or making a to-do list for the week ahead. Long-term thinking does not have to come at the expense of presence and joy in the moment that exists here and now. I find this especially true when it comes to my writing endeavours. I have often fallen prey to thinking "Where is this story going to lead? Will readers even like this? Will I ever make a full-time living writing fiction?" and let those kinds of thought dissuage me from writing and enjoying storytelling today. > *Which is where being conscious of my thoughts, choosing a more positive thought, and choosing action over deliberation help me make the most of today.* --- Tomorrow I have a number of important appointments to attend to, which means I'll have to give myself some grace if I'm not able to meet my writing goals. Additionally, I finished another short story today; I had stalled on this for a few days because I realized in hindsight that the story was coming to an end and I didn't quite want to bid goodbye to it. Because now comes the most pressing question of the moment: what next? I'll have all day to think about that tomorrow, and I'm determined to make my way to the writing desk at the end of the day, no matter how tired I am, if only for a 15-minute sprint. That's all it takes. 15 minutes. That's all. ### to do or to think before doing URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/to-do-or-to-think-before-doing/ Last updated: 2023-05-23T23:53:56.000Z Most of my problems stem from the simple fact that I spend more time 'thinking' about doing something rather than actually doing it. This morning, I had a bunch of tasks to get through. After dropping D off to school, I took a notepad and pen and wrote down all the emails I had to send, the little tasks I had to do in preparation for this week and the one after, and even the chores around the house that have been pending for a long time. I had been procrastinating on many of these for a long time, often believing that I needed to prepare a little more or think about these things a little more. Yet, when I got down to it, the tasks that I had put off for months took me no longer than a morning of focused work to get done. Funny how that happened, eh? This is not the first time I've had this [epiphany](https://thedreampedlar.com/pondering-the-mystery-of-time-why-tasks-take-longer-than-they-need-to/). It's as if someone else wrote that post four months ago! I wonder why I come to learn this lesson over and over again. Despite my efforts, resistance has been getting the better of me. > *The fear that drives me astray the most is this: What if this, whatever I'm working on, doesn't turn out to be as well as I had hoped it'd be?* This single question is the reason I procrastinate on a lot of things! The fear that I might screw up in the process. > *So now, I give myself permission to make mistakes.* > *I choose progress over perfection.* Sometimes, I just need to get started! So that answers the question for me. If the choice is between doing and thinking, doing wins hands down. Thinking is, quite often, fear in a very clever disguise! The flip side is, once I get going, I wrongly expect to see big progress and big results very soon. And when that doesn't happen, as expected, I think I'm not doing this right, and I come to a screeeeeeching halt. Until non-action becomes boring and annoying and depressing, and the next such epiphany about doing vs thinking comes to me, and I get into the thick of things once more. So this time, I'll engage in the action but not expect myself to move mountains overnight. Action, coupled with patience, is the way to play this long-term game. I will do well to remember that. ### confessions URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/confessions/ Last updated: 2023-05-22T23:16:40.000Z Yesterday was a Sunday. Yesterday I would have emailed Dean with my word count for the week. Only, we made an impromptu plan and went out with D's friend and his family on a lovely day trip to African Lion Safari. When we came back, we were all knackered, and today being another holiday — Victoria Day — all thoughts of writing and emailing my word count went out of the window. The last few days have also been a whirlwind of social activity and I've been buzzing. Meeting people and chatting with them has been filling a void I knew I had for a long time, for decades now, but never knew how to fill. Somehow, now I'm able to engage with people from a place of worthiness, not needing them to fill any gap or void in my life, which has been elevating relationships and life to a level I hadn't experienced since, perhaps, childhood. Because I've been living life, instead of merely thinking or fantasizing about it, I didn't even get around to switching on my laptop some days until late in the evening for a quick check before bed-time. Ah, the sweet scent of spring and summer sun! The freedom of blue sky and blue water. I didn't even realize my slip-up until I made my way over to Dean's blog and saw his post this morning about the [time of Great Forgetting](https://deanwesleysmith.com/may-is-screaming-past/)! Apparently, this is the season when new and amateur writers shelve writing in favour of other pursuits, most of which likely entail being outdoors. Normally, a post like that would have given me a sinking feeling in the gut. It did, this time too, but not as intensely. Instead, my reaction was, "I don't even care anymore." Perhaps it's my exhaustion that's speaking, because this morning D woke me up and he was in tears because he wants a sibling badly! 🤷🏽‍♀️ That triggered me too, bringing up past trauma pertaining to pregnancy and early motherhood and that longing for another child ... I thought I had made my peace with our decision to have no more — my post-partum struggles were too unbearable to merit repetition — but clearly I haven't. And I reckon it'd be a longing and a grief that'd likely keep resurfacing multiple times for the rest of my lifetime. Another thing that brought me to tears was that we had trapped a mouse yesterday morning in a humane trap, which does not hurt it, and because of our impromptu day out with friends, we had to delay our plans to go and release it from the trap at a far enough distance from our home. We left the trap outside of home for the night. In the morning, the trap was empty. And the mouse was lying at a distance. Dead. How this came to be will forever remain a mystery. But I felt highly responsible for its death, and went into a meltdown. Perfect storm on a Sunday morning. Oh, Monday morning! I feel so so tired trying to catch up to some milestone, meet a certain daily word count, stay emotionally sane and calm, be a good parent, without allowing myself considerations for the fact that I am only human, that when D is at home the day is vastly different than when he is away at school. And then come roaring those old thoughts ... I should be doing more ... I should be able to do more ... If I'm not able to do more, it's because we're doing something wrong ... We need to fix whatever is wrong ... We need to fix our lives ... We need to fix ourselves ... On and on and on ... I know I love listening to songs on loop, but this tape of thoughts just keeps on playing on auto-mode and I am so sick and tired of playing it, but when I'm not paying attention it gets out of hand and I'm not even able to hit the pause button. I used to think that if only I could get really clear about what I want from life, then I'd go forth and work towards it. But on this writing journey, I have questioned myself 90% of the time and have strong conviction or hope for the future only 10% of the time. That isn't a good state to be in, is it? I don't know. At the beginning of this month, I [stopped blogging daily](https://thedreampedlar.com/one-month-in/) as I realized that I was blogging instead of writing fiction to meet my daily word count for the challenge. I thought that doing so would help me write more fiction instead. But it hasn't. Sure, it could also be because this month has been especially busy with a lot of appointments and socializing and planning and organizing and such. Yet, I know I'd have successfully maintained a blogging streak no matter how busy this month has been. Perhaps it is time to confront this truth. I don't write fiction everyday. It's not a question of discipline or ability. Perhaps it's a question of trust, of faith that this would lead to something in the future. Perhaps it's a question of needing other stimuli in life, in terms of experiences and relationships, which I currently don't have. Ultimately though, it comes down to whether I am able to encourage and motivate myself enough in the moment or not. Some days I am able to. Some days I'm not. And I have to give myself grace for that. ### tales for dreamers: the baby shoe URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-baby-shoe/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:45:45.000Z The baby shoe lay on the pavement like a forgotten promise. It betrayed no clues as to who and where its wearer was. Some worried a little child may have gone missing. Abandoned, but with a pink shimmer of hope, as if it were waiting for a rescue it knew would never come. The notion sent a collective sigh of pathos among the crowd. Some others harboured less sinister thoughts and believed the shoe may have fallen from a baby's dangling leg or out of an overflowing, shopping bag. Some thought the child may have fallen into the sewer, or better still, leapt into it out of curiosity, one shoe left behind. Somebody wistfully said the child may have grown up too quickly and so the shoe no longer fit. Somebody else then asked where the other shoe was. Truth was, it was just another *baby shoe, never worn, for sale*, having fallen off the truck en route from the factory of mass production to the retail shop of luxury; but no one wanted to believe something so devoid of emotion. ### the contradictory juxtaposition of struggle and fun in a creative life URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-contradictory-juxtaposition-of-struggle-and-fun-in-a-creative-life/ Last updated: 2023-11-04T16:36:33.000Z Actress Sally Field is known to have said, "The struggle is the work." I remember reading this in a Ghost newsletter, and although I can't find the exact words, I remember interpreting Field's words to mean that all the peripheral activities we deem as admin work are as crucial to fostering our progress as our own art is. For an indie author like me, this would mean that all the work around formatting the finished work, designing book covers, writing blurbs, uploading the books on various retail platforms, and doing the work around promotions and marketing are as crucial as the actual writing itself. Off late, I've come to interpret Field's words a little differently. There is the struggle of doing all the other things that are required to keep my books in the market and in public view, and then there is the *'struggle'* of doing the writing itself. It is very common among writers to talk about how we're *glad to have written* but are *not glad about writing*. I was in that boat too for the longest time. There were days when writing didn't seem *'fun'* and I'd get into this mental battle with the manuscript, questioning everything I wrote, everything I had written, so much so that sometimes I'd even dread getting to work! Which is not what I had signed up for when I decided to write full-time. I mean, whatever happened to writing because it was such a delightful and joyful act to engage in?! Many contemporary experts, long-term prolific authors who've been in the writing and publishing business for decades such as Dean Wesley Smith, keep talking about *'keeping the writing fun'*. The funny thing about words is that they can be really inadequate when it comes to expressing some very important yet profoundly simple truths of life. Writing hadn't been *'fun'* for me in a long, long time. Which led me to believe I was doing it all wrong. That I wasn't passionate enough, that I wasn't dedicated enough, that I wasn't *writerly* enough. Which meant there was no hope for me. I had written all the stories I had wanted to tell, and that this is it, this was all there was to my author career. That was a terrifying thought, because if I'm not a writer, then I truly don't know who I am. And then it clicked. This contradictory juxtaposition of *'struggle'* and *'fun'* suddenly began to make sense. > *The 'struggle' for me is not the writing itself, but the part when my brain keeps coming up with the most innovative (or perhaps, utterly clichéd) of ways to keep me from getting to the writing desk.* My head was often filled with angry thoughts about the past, about the future, about the present even. I'd often get into imaginative arguments with members of my family and have an entire drama play out in my head at the end of which I'd actually be standing muttering and swearing as if I were in a combative, confrontational conversation with this other person in real life. I'd also get into such scenario-building in my head about the future, especially when it comes to D. > *My brain, my body, my senses had gotten so used to being angry, to having this adrenaline rush that came from fighting with someone in my head, that they had forgotten what it feels like to be at ease, at peace, and filled with joy.* A couple of weeks ago, KrA gifted all of us Fitbit trackers. We have a trial access to the Premium version of the Fitbit app, and I've been using some of the audio workouts to engage in power walks, amping up my usual walks to some extent. And boy! The endorphins that those audio-led power walks are pumping into my body and brain are unlike anything I've experienced in a long, long time. Plus, having a coach – even if it is only a voice – cheering me on and encouraging me to keep the pace has been a game-changer. I look forward to these daily walks now, and no matter how busy my day is, I make it a point to not miss going out on a power walk. I'm so much more productive and full of energy simply because of having taken the time to head out for walk with a coach's voice giving me much-needed encouragement to the accompaniment of delightful workout music into my ears. Life is so different when we have an encouraging voice to support us. > *I realized that for me this is the struggle: keeping my mind and body healthy, so that I can get to the fun part, which is the writing.* My struggle has nothing to do with the writing itself. It's all the unhelpful thoughts that keep me away from the writing desk that I struggle the most with. Once I get to the writing desk, once I've told this Critical Voice that I don't believe it one whit, the words flow naturally and writing is fun, the challenges are delicious and mind-bending, and life flows on an entirely different plane altogether, one in which the possibilities are endless! And it's not just the writing that becomes effortless. It's my entire life that changes when I refuse to believe in that Critical Voice which keeps telling me I'm not good enough. One thing KrA and I realized a couple of days ago is this: because we are financially and materially not in a place we had expected to be in, given our very strong academic and professional backgrounds, we had fallen into a tendency of believing that we are not as smart as or as intelligent as our peers, many of whom are in a very different place altogether when it comes to financial success. We had fallen into this trap of believing we're not smart enough to make good choices and wise decisions. We subconsciously told ourselves that we did not deserve the riches and wealth so many others have because we didn't have it in us to make smart choices. In other words, we deserved our lot because we were no good. These are really harsh statements to make to anybody, let alone ourselves. And the worst, or best, thing is that none of this is true. Perhaps it is all the extra sunshine and brightness the changing of seasons is bringing us, or the power walk endorphins that are making my brain happy, but there has been a shift, something like the lifting of a fog. I've had a couple of very busy days but I've somehow still managed to find the time to add words to a story I'm writing, and it's just been fun! Whenever my brain begins to concoct an imaginary fight with a family member who is not even on this continent at the moment, I have begun to stop myself, saying, "No, I don't want to go there again." These thoughts typically tend to crop up when I'm cooking, for reasons I'm well aware of. Now, with a bit of mindfulness, I can shift from getting into imaginary fights – which feel very real to my body because of the anger and adrenaline that course through my veins – to thinking about getting back to my manuscript and writing the next scene in the story. It's almost like visualizing getting back to the manuscript, which makes it easier to actually get back to the manuscript once I've finished cooking or whatever I'm doing. > *So this is what I have to remind myself: the struggle is not in the art. The struggle is in doing the work to keep my mind and body healthy so that I can create and live and laugh and love and be a new me, the person who waltzes through life with optimism and courage.* > *I used to be that person a long time ago. Now that I've found her again, I know for a fact I will never let her out of my sight! She has a forever companion in me!* ### tales for dreamers: the little door and the pixie who lives behind it URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-little-door-and-the-pixie-who-lives-behind-it/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:45:38.000Z They say a little pixie lives in the tiny house at the base of the largest magnolia tree in the village. No one has seen her though, so you could argue the house belongs to a pixie or an elf or a dwarf or even to you, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But someone does live there, they say. A little someone who keeps the fire roaring in the little fireplace in her little home so that weary passersby on a black night are guided by the light, and the homeless and the abandoned can huddle around her tree for warmth. A little someone who climbs up to the highest points of the tree before the break of dawn and quietly jiggles the branches, so when the village begins to stir and people look out their windows towards the new day, they see lush carpets of delicate pink flowers on their streets and smile to themselves, thinking what a beautiful world we all live in. If she likes you, she will sometimes rustle the leaves and shower you with flowers as you walk under her tree. A little someone who leaves cute little things in the hollow of her tree for inquisitive children to find. Sometimes the good children leave behind little things for their invisible friend too – a marble of the colour of the deepest oceans and the bluest skies, a spinning top that goes round and round the magnolia tree until you command it to stop, sometimes a balloon that the pixie could hold on to and fly away over the treetops into the mountains beyond – magic-ky little things that she loves. Some of the kids say they have visited the pixie at her home (and yes, she is a pixie, not an elf nor a dwarf, they say). We call their bluff and say they are just too big to wriggle through the little door. They say they nibble on the mushrooms that grow outside her door, and they shrink enough to be able to enter. And – they add before we can contest – on the way out, they nibble on another mushroom and grow back to their full size. Well, children have such active imaginations we simply cannot fault them for spinning such lovely tales. So when they pluck a mushroom from her doorstep and hand it out to us, we thank them and politely take a few bites. Of course, there are no such things as pixies and magic mushrooms in real life, we tell ourselves. But I secretly hope we turn out to be wrong. ### emotional pain and the creative URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/emotional-pain-and-the-creative/ Last updated: 2023-05-08T01:27:47.000Z One of the things that frustrates me as a creative is how much time, energy and mental effort gets taken up by life stuff. Over the past fortnight, life rolls have come in various forms: - All of us at home going through a wave of viral infection in turns, followed by the briefest of recoveries, only to now go through a second wave. - Navigating a property dispute in which a former supporter suddenly became a turncoat and ghosted me out of the blue. - Planning a birthday party for the little one only to realize that there'd be a vast chasm between my fantasy and reality in terms of turnout. > *But underlying my frustration with all these situations is my hidden belief that ...* - *if only I had been able to cook and feed my family more nutritious meals,* - *if only I had not so wholly trusted another person,* - *if only I had the wealth/status/popularity to match that of many of the other families'* > *... then I would have avoided these problems.* Which means I am the bad one, the foolish one, the failure, for not having foreseen these issues and done what I could have to prevent them. --- ### *Emotional Pain* When I put it down like this, I can see how absurd this line of thinking is. But in my head these thoughts are real*\-er* than the tears of frustration and disappointment I shed. Until a few years ago, I didn't have a word for these experiences. From clinical psychologist and conscious parenting expert, [Dr. Shefali Tsabary](https://www.drshefali.com), I learnt this is *emotional pain*. The pain of not getting what we want in life. The pain of finding out that reality rarely ever matches the fantasy lives we've built for ourselves in our heads. The pain of feeling helpless when life refuses to bend to our will and insists on steamrolling the way it has always done, with an indifference that can only be described as callous. ![Nine Lego figurine heads with different facial expressions](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/05/56.-nik-zYdYz7JlevE-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Nik](https://unsplash.com/@helloimnik?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/zYdYz7JlevE?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- ### *How do we cope with emotional pain?* Acceptance and gratitude for what is are commonly prescribed as remedies for emotional pain. I've often struggled with both these concepts in their literal sense. Looking for something to feel grateful about, especially when I'm in the midst of a distressing situation, almost feels like denial to me. Or even akin to toxic positivity. I feel forced to look away from what's troubling me about a particular situation when I'm called to look at the goodness I can find in it. It doesn't come easily to me; even when I force myself to do it, it doesn't feel true or good. And most often, the difficult feeling I'd have tried to steamroll with gratitude tends to erupt like a volcano at a later time when I least expect it. Acceptance, on the other hand, I understand intellectually. But it is one of those things I find hard to implement in the practical sense. I once wrote a poem on the abstractness of acceptance, inspired by the English translation of a Korean poem a dear friend had once sent to me. ### AN UNTITLED POEM ON ACCEPTANCE *S sent me a Korean poem —* *an English translation* *of a Korean poem —* *by Chun Yang Hee.* *A poem on how to chew on feelings* *as one would chew on rice,* *A poem on life being something to be digested.* *And I laughed and laughed* *at the simplicity of it all,* *at the relatability of it all,* *because isn’t it easier to understand digestion* *than to comprehend acceptance?* *If you were to tell me to accept,* *to embrace and to let go,* *I wouldn’t even know* *where to begin, what to do,* *how to keep my arms, should I sit or stand?* *If you were to tell me to chew and digest,* *I can start right away,* *one morsel at a time,* *hand to the mouth.* *Of what use is a poem, esoteric and vague?* *Perhaps it is meant to confound and confuse,* *to say, “look at you, you ignoramus,* *you who cannot see the beauty,* *the mystery in these lines,”* *and the ignoramus continues to seek with eyes wide open,* *and looks for meanings that were never there.* *No wonder the world is caught* *in its own web of abstract words:* *love,* *forgiveness,* *compassion,* *empathy.* *Stop those sermons and talk to me instead* *of eating and sleeping,* *of crying and fighting,* *of shouting and stomping,* *of jumping and whooping,* *And I will listen, and I may hope* *to understand* *that I need to be completely human first* *to make way for the divine.* --- And now I had to look up for Chun Yang Hee on the Internet, and I found the following lines [attributed](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7074206-to-you-who-eat-a-lot-of-rice-because-you-re) to her. ### RICE *by Chun Yang Hee* *To you who eat a lot of rice because you are lonely,* *To you who sleep a lot because you're bored,* *To you who cry a lot because you are sad,* *I write this down.* *Chew on your feelings that are cornered* *like you would chew on rice.* *Anyway, life is something that you need to digest.* --- Still, as beautiful as these words are, they give us little clue as to what we really need to do when life doesn't go our way and emotional pain arises in our body. What do we do when those uncomfortable feelings of loneliness, envy, guilt, sadness, despair, helplessness, any of those feelings rise like tidal waves in our bodies? Because words have proven themselves so inadequate in providing a satisfactory answer, there remains only one conclusion, no matter how improbable. The answer is to do NOTHING. Nothing at all. --- ### *How do we do nothing?* Whenever an uncomfortable feeling arises, - we either get entangled in our thoughts and stories about it, a mental process that tends to take on a life of its own faster than a tornado sweeps across the land, - or we try to get rid of it by means of distraction, which could be physical activity, or something to occupy our mind or numb it altogether. ***My way of doing nothing is to stop whatever I'm doing and come and sit on my bed and look out of the window at the sky.*** ***There, looking out at the vast expanse of space, I feel safe enough to let the feeling rise like a billowing cloud from my gut, come up and press against my chest and lungs, making it difficult for me to breathe, then fill my cheeks with red hot flames of shame and lack of self-worth as I breathe in and out.*** I try not to rationalize or get entangled in stories about who did what and why. Instead, I focus on my feeling and sometimes say it out loud: *'I don't like it when people backstab me. I feel unsafe in a world where it feels I have no one to rely on'*. I don't try to argue with or rationalize these feelings. When sufficient time has passed, sometimes it's half an hour, sometimes the feeling resurfaces over and over again for a day or two, then life and my body and my state of mind seem to settle back into their state of normalcy. ![fisherman in a distant small boat on a blue ocean under a blue sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/05/57.-jacob-sapp-aZhRG5i5rb0-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Jacob Sapp](https://unsplash.com/it/@jake%5F%5Fsapp?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/aZhRG5i5rb0?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- ### *What is the learning for me in this?* Later, after that feeling has long passed, I'm able to look back at the situation more objectively and ask myself what I could learn from it. ***On falling ill*** We're falling ill not because we've been slacking in meeting our nutritional needs but because viruses tend to spread faster the more we interact and socialize, like at birthday parties and at school. It's nobody's fault that any of us is unwell. ***On the property dispute*** KrA had the wisest remark on this: 'Even kings and queens have spent their lives fighting over land.' We didn't do anything wrong in buying this townhome where we now live. We didn't have to have known any better than to buy such a unit just because we are facing difficulties now. On the contrary, I was able to engage in a constructive discussion with the parties concerned and the matter is close to getting settled amicably, more or less. While I couldn't write much fiction this week, I put my writing skills to good use in composing emails to express our concerns and offer suggestions. I also got to see how it's not easy to fix problems that have come about owing to legacy decisions. This is the reason why so many problems in the world are actually unfixable today, and the best we can do is minimize future risk for those already marginalized. I also came to terms with the fact that people and their needs change with time. When relationships are forged owing to a common need, that's a tenuous link that can be severed as soon as one party's need changes. While I don't believe this is a good enough reason to backstab and would much rather be honest, even if I choose to part ways, I can understand and now *accept* that not everyone feels the way I do. Some may choose to breach this trust instead of being upfront, and that's their choice. I can accept this and walk away instead of holding the other person to exalting standards. At the same time I need not start looking at the rest of the world with suspicion as a result of this experience. ***On the birthday party*** Little D religiously attends all his friends' birthday parties; he has so far missed only two because of being unwell. Now that we're planning a party for him and RSVPs have been slow and sparse, I had started going down the route of thinking we're not good/wealthy/popular enough to draw a crowd. I shed a few tears on this earlier this evening. Now that I can look back objectively, I can safely say that for myself, I don't wish to have relationships that are forged on the tenuous links of wealth/status/fame/popularity. I had long ago decided to not play this game in the material world. Yes, I definitely love having money in order to lead a good life and enjoy a lot of experiences, but that is not my criteria for choosing friends and relationships. Even though I'm not playing this game of impressing others with my material possessions, I can accept that the world continues to operate on this premise for the most part. There is nothing I can do to change that. And it's not for me to change how other people are. But even in such a world, I have a handful of genuine friendships, people who show up for me and Dhruv and KrA to support us in the way we show up for them. And to me, that counts a helluva lot! So yes, now I can look at all that I have with gratitude and appreciation, now that I have felt my feelings. --- ### *So what does feeling our feelings have to do with our creative lives?* I am often unable to write fiction when I'm in the throes of going through these experiences and feeling-cycles. I'd earlier chide myself for being unable to set aside what I felt and just get down to the fun task of writing stories. But neither confrontation nor a sweeping away of the difficult experiences or feelings helps. I find that I have no option but to feel those feelings as quickly as they arise, or at the earliest available opportunity. And then, only after they've had their say, they can float away, leaving behind a vast clean space in which creativity thrives. Until the next feeling comes along. ![purple coloured flower against a black empty background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/05/58.-shahzin-shajid-6N7beFyH2xw-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Shahzin Shajid](https://unsplash.com/@shahzin%5F2903?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/6N7beFyH2xw?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ### tales for dreamers: the golden boy URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-golden-boy/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:45:28.000Z The golden boy sat by the stream, his gaze fixed longingly at the waters prancing and rollicking past. It appeared to me he wanted to take a dip without running the risk of having the colour washed away from him. As with everything unusual, I was mistaken. He said he did indeed long for a dip but he did in fact want the yellow to be washed off. But the water was blue and he did not want to turn blue. I tried to convince him that water had no colour in it and that it appeared blue only because it stole the blue from the sky sometimes, usually when it felt drab and colourless. At that he began to worry that a dip in the stream would leave him drab and colourless. And the thought conjured up in his mind the notion of invisibility. His voice quivered. He did not want to vanish from the world, he stressed. I asked him what his favourite colour was and whether I could paint that over the yellow. He shook his head sadly and said that right now his favourite colour was the colour of skin, and that he could not recall having ever liked any colour more than he now longed for the colour of skin. I asked him how he had turned yellow and he said a little yellow girl had kissed him. Mother had warned him about the faeries of the forest and had forbidden him from playing with the colourful kids, he cried quietly. I could not think of anything else to say or do, so I offered to give him the colour of my skin in exchange for his. At that the boy leapt up in delight and hugged me with a wrap of his arms around my legs, so tiny was he. I buried my face in his hair. The thick unruly but fleecy locks of the little child caressed my cheeks. The scent of lavender and lemongrass filled my being. When we pulled away from each other, I could see he was transformed into a rubescent cherub. My hands and legs were as flaxen as my tresses. The boy thanked me and gambolled away into the meadows. I sit by the stream wondering whether someone would come along to my rescue. How long would it take, I wonder. I think I will bathe in the stream. I am not sure if it will simply wash away the yellow or turn me blue in the process. Or render me invisible. What if the stream turned yellow? ### (day 30): one month in URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/one-month-in/ Last updated: 2023-05-08T01:28:09.000Z Today marks the completion of one month of my participation in the writing challenge that Dean Wesley Smith initiated in mid-March for commencement on 1 April. I've been blogging daily for the past 43 days, since March 19th! That post was titled ["there's no equation to be solved; it is all a mystery"](https://thedreampedlar.com/theres-no-equation-to-be-solved-it-is-all-a-mystery/). That day I was still in two minds about signing up for the challenge. One month in, I feel very differently. For one thing, I've been blogging every day and that has been a process of inner discovery for me. I'm changing gears to writing fiction daily for the month of May. (I won't be posting those works here.) Let's see how that pans out. Maybe I'll be successful. Maybe I'll be disappointed. But I'll learn something about what it takes to write fiction consistently, what I can do to set myself up for success, and, in fact, find out what the best definition of success is for me. Which means I won't be coming here to blog daily, at least not in May, as I don't wish to keep relying on these posts to boost my word count total. But I will try and make it a point to write deliciously long essays on my creative journey and post them here on Sundays. A weekly check-in of sorts, and a deep dive in to the jewels of wisdom I keep coming across (and forgetting as well) on this journey of writing and longing to make a living writing fiction. Until next Sunday then! Au revoir! ### April Anniversary: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-april-anniversary/ Last updated: 2023-04-30T07:00:29.000Z Hello, Dreamer! *Monthly Missives* turns a year old this month! Yay! 🥳 A year ago, the first edition of *Monthly Missives*, titled *[April Alchemy](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-april-alchemy/)*, went out to a group of people who trusted and loved me enough to sign up without quite knowing what was about to turn up in their mailboxes on the last Sunday of every month. I'm thrilled to report that all of the original members have stayed with me and more of you have joined along the way. And for that I thank you! I thank you for reading and responding, for understanding and connecting, and for taking such loving care of the pieces of my heart and soul I share with you and for reciprocating by sharing valuable parts of you too in return. May I please ask you for a gift on this special day? 💡 If the *Monthly Missives* has touched you in any way over these past twelve editions, would you please refer it to someone you know would enjoy them? ![a meerkat whispering into another's ear](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/8.-whisper_joshua-j-cotten-8NmGOkPliE0-unsplash.jpg) Please spread the word on Monthly Missives! / Photo by [Joshua J. Cotten](https://unsplash.com/@jcotten?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/8NmGOkPliE0?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) The more widely I know my writings are read, the more motivated I am to keep at it! The self-publishing industry is still largely driven by word-of-mouth. So when you let even one other person know I'm a writer worth reading, they'd be more likely to sign up. Your support is valuable to me, and I can't thank you enough! --- Now, in this month's edition, lucky missive number 13, I have some stellar book news and some sobering (but in a good way) realizations to share. Quite a mixed bag. So grab yourself a cuppa and read on! ### *Dying Wishes in the running for an award!* In what is probably among the most exciting news I've received so far in my writing journey, *[Dying Wishes](https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/dying-wishes-4)* is now one of six finalists in the *[2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize](https://www.kobo.com/media-hub/rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize)* in the Speculative Fiction category!!! [![ebook cover of Dying Wishes by Anitha Krishnan featuring a full moon behind a silhouette of leafless branches of trees](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/Dying-Wishes---Catalogue-Cover---1800-by-2700-px_Kobo-Sticker-2_small-4.jpg)](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/) Doesn't that sticker look cool?! The awesome folks at Kobo sent it over when they announced the shortlist, and they've also lined up some cool stuff like author interviews and such! I feel all grown-up now! So now, dear Dreamer, what you need to do is send loads of good vibes my way and cast whatever bewitching spells you can (kind ones only, please) on the judge, Robert J. Wiersema, author and Professor of Creative Writing at Vancouver Island University, so that he picks my book as the winner without any doubt whatsoever! Grab *Dying Wishes* from Kobo [here](https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/dying-wishes-4) and from other retailer platforms [here](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/)! Available in both ebook and paperback formats! --- ### *Latest edition of A Benevolent Goddess now available!* A year ago, I published a long*ish* short story titled *A Benevolent Goddess*. That version ended on a somewhat tragic note, and my dear friend, Shreyasi, wrote to me asking if there was truly no hope left for the goddess. I set out to write an additional chapter for Shreyasi and posted it on my website as a [bonus chapter](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-reimagining/) that readers of the book could access when they signed up to the *Monthly Missives*. (As subscribers to this newsletter, you have access to the bonus chapter too. It might make for a fun read on its own, but it's even better when you've read the six chapters that precede it.) Anyhoo, I put up the bonus chapter and that should have been it, right? No! Because now the book that was up for sale began to feel somewhat *unfinished* to me, for the bonus chapter was clearly an extension of the original story. So I set out to publish a new edition including the bonus chapter. Et voilà! The ebook is up on Amazon and Kobo, the paperback is available on Amazon. Grab your copy [here](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess)! I'm working to put it up on other retailer platforms too. 💡 If you already own a copy of the earlier edition of *A Benevolent Goddess*, please write to me and I'd be happy to send you the updated ebook version for free! [![ebook cover of A Benevolent Goddess by Anitha Krishnan featuring a woman with arms outstretched and a red ribbon swirling around her](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/A-Benevolent-Goddess---1800-x-2700-px---Catalogue-Cover---Ebook_small.png)](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess) So thank you, Shreyasi, for reminding me to believe in happy endings! Life is too short for anything else, especially in fiction! ❤️ --- ### *Musings on The Creative Life* Despite the spectacular news I've shared with you above, April has in fact been a slow and deeply uncertain month for me on the fiction writing front. For one thing, these bright, warm days of spring have been the perfect excuse to spend more time outdoors and, consequently, less time at the writing desk. But the real reason I wasn't writing was because my attention was taken up by all the changes happening in the industry. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quite mainstream now, and many authors, as well as those who were previously not authors, have been experimenting with writing stories using ChatGPT or its more premium counterpart, GPT-4\. I myself have used ChatGPT as a starting point for blurbs/marketing material. Owing to the conversational nature of the interface, it's quite like bouncing ideas off a colleague, then going back to work with renewed enthusiasm and armed with a slew of new ideas. I'm not at all anti-AI; it's a wave of change that's happening and my stance is to approach it with curiosity, rather than trepidation, even though I alternately feel nervous and optimistic about what it means for authors and artists, for the entire world even. What drove home the point of this irreversible change, however, was plans announced by an independent publisher to publish 10,000 titles this year alone with the aid of AI tools. No typo there! 10,000 titles! In a single year! Of course, they have a huge team of writers working for them, 50+ by some accounts, so it's not the ambition of a lone wolf. Still, the instant I heard that news was the instant a phenomenon that had hitherto been a mere harbinger of change in some distant future transformed instantly into a reality shaping and influencing the business plans of operators at the street level. It became very real and very present, a force to be reckoned with or befriended or rolled over by, but certainly not something to be ignored. ![person wearing a helmet visor in a glass-panelled room full of blue and red streaks of light](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/9.-AI_drew-dizzy-graham-s4dfrh7hdDU-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Drew Dizzy Graham](https://unsplash.com/@dizzyd718?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/s4dfrh7hdDU?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) I went down the dangerous rabbit hole of 'What's the point?' What's the point of writing when a program can do it for you? What's the point of trying to sell books in a saturated market when it's only going to be even more so? Truth be told, it's not as if this was the first time I was grappling with these questions. Even as a beginning writer, first putting words to paper several years ago, thoughts and questions of this nature troubled me. > A little introspection led me to the big yet unsurprising question that lay at the root of all this anxiety: what is the point of me being a writer if I cannot make a living from my writing? Luckily, I didn't have to look too far for an answer. Another writer had been grappling with an almost identical question a few years ago in a slightly different but pretty similar context. Only, she set out to answer this question and wrote a book on her findings. *And Then We Grew Up* by [Rachel Friedman](https://www.rachel-friedman.com) is one of the wisest, funniest and truest books I've ever read on how there can be as many ways to live an artistic life as there are artists. With great panache, Friedman calls BS on many of the cultural myths I had bought into on what it means to be a creative artist (writer) trying to make a living from her creative works (books and writings). In short, the fantasy of an artist's life is often vastly different than its messy and complicated reality. Obviously, I've written an entire post on the insights Friedman shares in this book. Give it a read if you need a little more persuasion to read the book itself! [And Then We Grew Up by Rachel FriedmanI had now been on this earth long enough to realize that if I was to sacrifice other parts of my life to writing, it guaranteed nothing other than the sacrifice. \~ And Then We Grew Up by Rachel Friedman![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/48.-suzanne-d-williams-VMKBFR6r_jg-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-and-then-we-grew-up-by-rachel-friedman/) But there's one passage I wish to share here today, a few lines that funnily didn't make it to the blog post above for reasons unknown and unexplored. At one point, Friedman questions the contemporary wisdom on grit, perseverance, and hard work that experts have been feeding us as non-negotiable factors en route to success. > When we're told success is as simple as gritty perseverance or putting in ten thousand hours, it's a short walk to believing that failure must be all your own fault. > Part of what nagged at me when I thought about the idea of my failed potential was having been given so many opportunities—music lessons, camp, youth orchestras, supportive parents, an instrument to practice on—yet I still didn't make it. > Thus the only explanation for not making it was, well, *me*. > If I just worked harder (or more deliberately) or had more ambition, first with music and now with writing, I'd be more successful. > I just needed to push myself harder, longer, and smarter. I just needed more positive affirmations, more discipline, more optimizing. > ... > We are taught that the heroic thing to do in the face of personal or professional adversity is to persevere. Persist hard enough with the right attitude and the universe will provide, right? Well, maybe, but maybe not. In the meantime, how much psychological and financial uncertainty can you tolerate? > ... > Everyone I know who makes any kind of art battles an inner critic telling her the work is no good. We struggle with envy. We struggle with fear. We struggle with self-doubt. We struggle with indecisiveness and disappointment and the pressure of what we think our lives and careers *should* look like. > We are human beings, not robots, no matter how much internet clickbait tells us we can hack who we are and what we can accomplish. To endure, you must be able to bear hearing these voices or block them out, as well as bear maybe touching it, then maybe losing it, then maybe touching it again. > \~ *And Then We Grew Up* by Rachel Friedman So this was the messy complicated reality of my life this month: being nominated for an award one day only to get caught up the very next day in overwhelming anxiety about all the factors that are not in my control. The reason I share all this is because the world loves success stories. Nothing wrong with that; they can be quite motivating and inspiring, even if they also tend to kindle envy alongside (or maybe that's just me!). The trouble crops up when we romanticize obstacles and failure in hindsight, looking back from the vantage point of success. That's the beauty of story-telling, isn't it? We all want to be assured of success and happy endings or at least some satisfying conclusion that would make all the hardships *'worth it'*. That's why fiction exists. That's why Hollywood exists. That's why all the myths surrounding art and artists exist! I've come across this phrase, *'it is/was all worth it'*, very often in the contexts of both writing and parenting, and perhaps on my deathbed I'd really feel that way, who knows? But right now, in the trenches, frequently tottering between elation and uncertainty, it certainly doesn't feel that way. The world is constantly shifting beneath my feet and I have to keep trying to regain my balance, until the next judder comes along and threatens to topple me once more. --- Unless I begin to see that life is full of contradictions. Because I can feel fulfilled yet insecure at the same time. I can feel lost even if I am on the right path. Gratitude can co-exist with longing. Life can be messy and wonderful at the same time. Which means I can continue to write, because I love it so much, without trying so hard to wrestle it into providing a means of livelihood for me, so much so that all joy is lost in the process. And for now, that sounds like an excellent path to set out on. Maybe my plans will change tomorrow, but that too is a contradiction I can handle. > It \[balance\] happens through some combination of learning to relax where you already are and, at the same time, keeping the possibility open that your capacity, my capacity, the capacity of all beings, is limitless ... This is the potential of a human being. > \~ Pema Chödrön, *When Things Fall Apart*, as quoted in *And Then We Grew Up* --- And when it all gets too much, I head over The Cornell Lab's live bird cams and watch a pair of [barred owls](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/barred-owls/) and a pair of [red-tailed hawks](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/red-tailed-hawks/) lay eggs and hatch them, then feed their young until they fledge and fly away. The Lab also monitors and live-streams the activities of several other birds in different parts of the world, and posts clips of interesting turns of events and important milestones over on their [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@CornellBirdCams) channel. D and I have been checking on these cams for the last four years now. Sometimes eggs fail to hatch. Not all the young survive. Yet, the birds come back to their nests every spring to lay more eggs and repeat the entire cycle all over again. ![duck leading ducklings across a rain-soaked street](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/11.-fledglings_vlad-tchompalov-wt5Y8VY_0bA-unsplash-1.jpg) Photo by [Vlad Tchompalov](https://unsplash.com/@tchompalov?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/wt5Y8VY%5F0bA?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) There is something reassuring in witnessing and observing this seasonal, reptitive cycle of life in a world that is constantly shifting and changing. And it also helps to remember that in life, luck and time play a far greater role than we care to admit. So when things go badly, it's not so much our fault as we tend to believe. And when they go well, it's not entirely our doing either, something we tend to forget. --- I'd love to hear from you on a time when you faced a conundrum in your life — there must have been many a time, I'm sure! What was going on in your head at the time? Now, whether or not you are where you wanted to be in your journey, what kind of light does hindsight shed on that period of confusion? 💡 Write to me about all of your contradictions and conundrums, your confusions and crises. At least then we'd know it's all part of the ordinary human experience and not try to fight or flee from it. --- #### SOMETIMES WRITING *by Pat Schneider* Sometimes writing sits in you like a wild animal. Maybe you see its eyes. Maybe you don’t see it at all, but the hair on the back of your neck knows it is there where the deepest shadows lie. Often the shadows lie about what’s hiding in them. The panther that has stalked you since you were a child is old now. No longer wild, and tired of guarding the treasure you yourself left behind— blind and deaf, she will give it all to you if you just let her go. But how are you to know whether the fox on the hill in the cemetery carries your mother’s name or is the same fox you saw crossing your back yard in the snow unless you put your pen to paper and use it to release the animal that hides in the shadow of your hand? --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### morning secrets As much as I'm loving the warm sunshine and the evening light, I've also been loving the sparkle of dew on the green grass in the mornings. The dandelions haven't flowered yet, but the morning dew reminded me of this tale I had written in what feels like another lifetime altogether. [tales for dreamers: morning secretsEven dandelions have their secrets although they won’t tell you what they are.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/36.-morning-secrets.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-morning-secrets/) --- ## Books You May Love Ooh! I have quite the bundle for you this month, in addition to Rachel Friedman's *And Then We Grew Up*, of course, which I've already read thrice in as many weeks! First, there was *The Stolen Book of Evelyn Audrey* by [Serena Burdick](http://www.serenaburdick.com), a historical mystery being unravelled in the present day. One of my favourite lines from the book is the following. > *"It's frightening to come right up to the thing you've spent your life desiring. What if it doesn't solve all the problems you thought it would?"* [books you may love: The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey by Serena Burdick“Who says you have to do something with your life? Isn’t living it enough?” - Sally, in The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey by Serena Burdick![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/24.-The-Stolen-Book-of-Evelyn-Aubrey.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-stolen-book-of-evelyn-aubrey-by-serena-burdick/) And then I managed to read the first book in the *Malabar House* series by [Vaseem Khan](https://vaseemkhan.com) featuring India's first policewoman, Inspector Persis Wadia, and set in 1950s Bombay coming to terms with India's newfound independence and its ensuing chaos. *Midnight at Malabar House* marks the beginning of an exciting series; I've already sung the praises of books 2 and 3 in the series to you. So it was exciting to go back and see how it all began. Khan tackles some very sensitive issues pertaining to India's fight for independence with much deft honesty. I also returned to an old favourite, the Inspector Rutledge series by [Charles Todd](https://charlestodd.com), set around the World War I years and featuring a detective suffering from PTSD and hearing his dead corporal's voice in his head. *A Divided Loyalty* kept me good company for a few nights. [books you may love: Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan, and A Divided Loyalty by Charles ToddReaching for the comfort of the familiar: historical mystery books in the Malabar House and Inspector Ian Rutledge series![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/33.1.-Malabar-House.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-vaseem-khan-charles-todd/) And I'm still in love with the 5,000-year-old vampire, Sita, of [Christopher Pike](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19954.Christopher%5FPike)'s *Thirst* series. I finished reading *Thirst No. 4* this month and then dear friend and bringer-of-all-good-things-in-my-life, Helen, sent me the most wonderful surprise. ![paperback copy of Thirst No. 5 by Christopher Pike featuring a white woman with pale blonde hair, blue eyes, and blood-red lips](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/6.-Thirst-No-5.jpg) My very own copy of *Thirst No. 5*! I can't wait to read it, yet I also don't wish to start reading it anytime soon, because then Sita's story will be over and I'll miss her and her friends a great, great deal! Sita's encounter with Krishna turns me inside out every time! > ... wondering if I really want to ask if I should go back or not. To leave him feels like an impossibility. > Before I can speak the question aloud, Krishna smiles. > "It matters not, Sita. Stay or go, you will always be with me." > His words heal my last shred of doubt. > I have faith. It doesn't matter what I decide. > \~ *Thirst No. 4* by Christopher Pike Many of my favourite authors have been releasing new books, so I've been in book paradise! I'm currently reading [Kate Morton](https://www.katemorton.com)'s *Homecoming*, and I also have [Alka Joshi](https://alkajoshi.com)'s *The Perfumist of Paris* to look forward to, so you'll hear me gush about these two books next month. --- May is already on our doorsteps! The tulips are blooming. A robin has built a nest in a weeping mulberry tree right in front of our home, and I can see it from the living room window. And there are still many, many amazing books to be read and many more wonderful stories to be written. All is well. And so, what I wish for you, dear Dreamer, is that amid all the contradictions and chaos of our lives, may we find calm and compassion for our very human selves in this very random world. Much love, \~ Anitha ### (day 29): coming back to what really matters URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/coming-back-to-what-really-matters/ Last updated: 2023-04-29T19:21:29.000Z Tomorrow is Sunday, which means I'll be emailing Dean my word count for this week and also my total word count since the challenge began on the first of April. Except for one week, April 10–16, my non-fiction word count (primarily from my blog posts on this site) has far exceeded my fiction word count. On days I haven't written fiction, I've still been coming to the site and posting an update to ensure I can enter a word count in my daily tracker. At the end of one month, I'm looking at these numbers and thinking that this is entirely defeating the purpose of the challenge. I joined the challenge because I wanted to write more fiction words. That I could use blog posts to add to my word count was a safety net that is now turning out to be a prison wall! I want to practice storytelling and become a better fiction writer, not a better blogger. If I'm only typing words here so that they can add up to a respectable total, then I'm only fooling myself. It is a quick short-term win, no doubt, but I want the long-term benefits of having put together words of fiction into a novel or a short story. And by giving into these short-term temptations, I'm completely sabotaging my long-term goal of building a career writing fiction. A couple of things I've learned this month though. - No matter what, I've been coming to the computer and typing at least a few words. Perhaps I could do the same with my manuscripts? - Throughout the day, my mind is often filled with the thoughts I wish to share on the website. Perhaps I could do the same with my manuscripts? - It is said, "Where your attention goes, there your energy flows." Can I pay more attention to the stories I'm telling, my body of fiction, instead of the stories I'm trying to tell about writing and storytelling? I mentioned in yesterday's post that I realized '[I've been doing it all wrong.](https://thedreampedlar.com/almost-forgot/)' What I meant by that was exactly this: I've been thinking and writing about writing, instead of diving into simply writing fiction and seeing where it leads. If I have to toss out what I've written, so be it. If at the end of it, my story doesn't feel very exciting to me, so be it. Why am I so afraid of doing that? It often feels as if I am my own sole saboteur when it comes to writing fiction. Last evening, I picked up a fight with KrA at bedtime. I knew what I was doing. I had fallen behind on creating my monthly newsletter, which is all set to go out tomorrow morning. And I was feeling overwhelmed. - I was sharing something vulnerable in the newsletter, and I was anxious about how it would be received. - I didn't like that what I was writing was dark and bleak at times, although everything ends on an optimistic and hopeful note, you can be rest assured. But still, I couldn't bring myself to write down those dark words or keep them on the screen once I had written them. - I didn't like that I was judging my writings and my efforts thus. - I didn't like that there was still a whole bunch left to put together when I went to bed, coughing and shivering from chills, having caught whatever bug D is fighting too. Instead of feeling this discomfort and setting out to do the smallest task to make some progress, I got into an argument with KrA about how I was unable to write because he wasn't pulling his weight when it came to parenting and running the household. It's a lie that my mind has concocted and cemented over the years just so that it won't have to face the anxiety of creating. Sad, but true! And I am so sorry, KrA! I don't know how to explain it, but this is probably the very definition of self-sabotage. This reminded me of a comment I had read over on one of Dean Wesley Smith's posts a few days ago. Dean wrote about the various [myths](https://deanwesleysmith.com/myth-believer/) writers tend to buy into, which keeps them from writing fiction and making a living from it. Dean has always been against beta readers; typically, these are first readers who get to read your manuscript before you've published it and give you feedback and suggestions on how to improve it. I had two beta readers too for my first book, *In Search of Leo*. I roped in two of my well-read friends and asked them to look at my draft. They came back showering heaps of praise on me, which left me wondering if they were just being too nice to say what a load of tosh that story was. I found Dean's blogs and opinions on the self-publishing industry soon after, and I've been following much of his advice on the matter. In response to his blog post on myths, someone by the name of Philip wrote a very insightful comment: > *"Funny thing I’ve noticed in the indie world since I first got involved about 8 years ago: in the beginning, everyone raved about the fact indie meant no more gatekeepers, yet over the years the indie gurus have added more and more of their own gatekeepers (beta readers, editors, street team, various creative coaches, etc)."* > *\~ Philip in a comment on Dean Wesley Smith's blog post titled [Myth Believer](https://deanwesleysmith.com/myth-believer/)* I had never looked at it this way, but this perspective reminded me of how all too often, we think we want freedom. But the instant we get it, it terrifies us and we come up with ways to imprison ourselves even more. It's the same with money. Same with success. Same with love. Our internal saboteurs seem to scream the loudest when we have all the freedom and time on earth to do the work we claim we desperately want to do. > *So, seing as I've spent every day in April writing a blog post, I'll spend the month of May writing fiction every day. No more excuses!* Which means I'm not going to keep up with these daily posts on the blog. But because I enjoy them so much, I'll reward myself by allowing myself a maximum of one blog post a week on matters close to my heart. That too, at the end of the week. So on a Sunday night perhaps, when the world is asleep and I ought to be in bed too, I'll come over here to write about the week and what I learnt, instead of keeping up with it as a daily affair. May will also be the last full month of school for D before summer break begins in mid-June. I best use this time to get some fiction words down, because the summer holidays typically end up being zero productivity months for me. There are only so many summer breaks I'll have with my little one, and I certainly wish to be with him instead of worrying about deadlines and rigorous publishing schedules. So I'll make the most of the month of May! Of course, my monthly newsletters will go out without any interruption. I'll come back here tomorrow for one last 'April is coming to an end' daily blog post, and then I'll put in an appearance here only on Sundays, if at all. That should be impetus enough for me to write more stories. I have all the freedom. Let me not create my own gatekeepers! ### tales for dreamers: morning secrets URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-morning-secrets/ Last updated: 2023-08-06T19:37:49.000Z “Wait,” the dandelions stop me before my eager hands can pull them by their stalks. “Why?” I ask. This is a morning ritual both of us are accustomed to. I walk down this path every morning, pluck a few dandelions and blow their seeds into the air, helping them spread their secrets far and wide. “You’re earlier than usual,” they admonish me, or so I think. The land is lit but the sun is yet to slip into the sky. Dew drops perch like transparent jewels on blades of grass, not yet sublimed into the ether. The breeze is cool and light, flitting away with the dawn before it can be sun-kissed. But then they laugh and say, “Take a closer look.” And I see what they want me to see. The camouflage of the morning frost hiding between their countless florets, white on white, clumping them together. I blow gently on them, and nothing happens. They’re not ready yet. “There is a reason the light arrives before the sun does,” they say. “It is to give us time so we can return the secrets of the night to other faraway stars before the sun comes to steal them.” I step back and let them do what needs to be done. A non-existent breeze worries their heads. Star-shaped wishes twinkle up towards the sky like dust motes on a sun beam. When the orange head of the sun finally peeks out of the horizon, the last star blinks out of the morning sky. “Some secrets simply don’t belong in our world,” the dandelions whisper. ### (day 28): almost forgot URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/almost-forgot/ Last updated: 2023-04-29T00:42:49.000Z I've been working on this month's newsletter almost all day — it's due on Sunday morning, yikes! — and almost forgot to post this. But I had the insanest epiphany earlier today, and I had earlier titled this post 'I've been doing it all wrong.' Well, I'm pretty tired right now, so I'm shutting down the laptop and will head to bed. So you'll have to wait until tomorrow or perhaps Sunday to learn what I'm talking about. Good night! ### tales for dreamers: angels banished from Heaven URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-angels-banished-from-heaven/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:54:51.000Z The angels admit they were banished from Heaven but they will not reveal why. Some say the angels must have done terrible things but the angels themselves neither confirm nor deny these rumours. They (the angels) say very little, in fact. They mostly stand at the market square all day, still as stone, so you can't even see their nostrils flare or their chests heave and you wonder whether they breathe. Or perhaps they are just cheap mannequins stationed to prey on the generosity of tender-hearted souls, you think. And so you move closer to them, wondering whether or not you could glide the back of your hand over their smooth cheeks to determine if they are made of flesh or stone. You finally muster up enough courage to hold your finger under their noses and feel their warm breaths tumble over your skin in unwavering rhythm and dissipate into the atmosphere. You fish around in your pockets for a dollar or two but come up with a handful of loose change, all that you've accumulated so far this month. And you are about to tip the coins into the jar but the angels say they have no use for your money. You look up but they remain motionless. Their lips unmoving, their eyes looking vacantly into the distance. Yet you can hear them speak. They tell you what they really need is a roof to live under, a place to call home, and ask if you would be so kind as to invite them into yours. You shrug your shoulders and pretend to not have heard them. The coins feel uncomfortably heavy in your hand and you tip them noisily into the jar and walk away, mentally patting yourself on the back for having done your good deed for the day. There is nothing more you can do, you tell yourself. After all, mother did teach you to not talk to strangers. And angels are no exception to the rule. ### (day 27): when it doesn't help to think URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/when-it-doesnt-help-to-think/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T21:51:48.000Z As I had decided yesterday, I got up this morning and headed out for a walk. It was yet another sleepless night, with D waking up with fever close to midnight. It took us more than an hour to get his temperature down. Finally, we all went back to sleep at about 1:30 AM and woke up past 7 AM this morning. Determined to stick to my decision to go for a walk, and having faced the repercussions of doing about-turns when it comes to executing my decisions, I headed out after I had snuggled with D for a bit. Once outside, I hesitated. My first instinct was to take a long*ish* route towards the lake; I hadn't been on this path in ages and had been wanting to go that way for several days. The instant I stopped to think about that decision, I began wondering if ought to stick to the bike path instead. What if I was too tired, not having slept well last night? What if the longer walk would take me too long? And then there came a moment when I was absolutely fed up of my mind seesawing thus, and I said to myself, "I'm going to stick to my original choice. There is no perfect choice." And I am so glad I did because the sight of the silky blue expanse of water under the blue, blue morning sky lifted my spirits immeasurably! When I came back, I kept my promise to D and we spent the morning playing Scrabble, Outfoxed and Uno. Then we had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon — D had a stomach bug until now, and has caught a viral respiratory infection, so a few more days of TLC at home for him — then went shopping at Dollarama where D chose a craft activity, then came back home. His temperature has risen again, and soon he'll fall asleep. We'll have to wait and see what the night brings. Whatever it does bring, I'll be ready and able to handle it. --- Yesterday, I was driving to somwhere — perhaps to the library in the morning — when an ad came on the radio. It was the sound of a child laughing, and the announcer said something on the lines of *'We give your child access to the best medicine: family.'* Turned out it was an ad for a private clinic treating children with cancer. The ad struck a chord with me. Since D was born, I've faced, but mostly resisted, excessive pressure to coax, cajole or coerce my child into independence. Why does culture tell us to have unreasonable expectations of our children? Make them sleep by themselves, play by themselves, fend for themselves, regulate their own emotions? So that adults will have all the time and energy in the world to do the things they got used to doing before a child came along and turned their worlds upside down? This got to such an extent that I often doubted myself when I co-slept with D (we still do) or set aside work to spend time with him (like I've been doing these past few days), not to mention feeling tremendous guilt over bigger choices such as deciding to be a stay-at-home mom. Anyhoo, I took that message on the radio to be some kind of divine words of wisdom from the Universe, and it gave me much-needed validation of my decision to hang out with D when he's at home. I took my time in the morning to go for a walk, and that was awesome. So that's one activity I will not let go off, seeing how much it boosts my mood and capacity for patience and compassion. --- One other place where I suspend (rather, try to suspend) my ability to think too much is when it comes to writing. I write into the dark, meaning I explore the story as I write it. It's when I stop to think that my mind gets a chance to come up with multiple ideas, keep see-sawing between them without settling on any one conclusively, and waste a lot of time and brainpower in so doing. I see now why it is so much better to just make a choice and stick with it. Clarity comes from action, not from thought. Anyhoo, I'm all set to call it a day. D's reading. I'll finish up some work and turn in early too, so that even if the night brings interruptions to sleep, I'd be able to handle it. Ciao! ### (day 26): when the Universe eavesdrops URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/when-the-universe-eavesdrops/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T00:58:29.000Z The Universe must have eavesdropped on me [yesterday](https://thedreampedlar.com/redefining-my-creative-life/) when I was speaking out loud and deciding that when D is at home, I will be with him without resentment or worry. Because this morning D woke up at 4:30 A.M. with a mild fever, and so he didn't go to school. Like I promised myself yesterday, I decided that today would be a day spent with D. But then the age-old doubts sneaked into my mind. The knowledge that KrA woud be working in the afternoon tempted me also to not give up my morning worktime, and so when KrA suggested that I head to the library in the morning, I jumped at it. The library opens at 9 A.M. Since I'd been awake since 4:30 AM, breakfast got done by 7 A.M., and the time for me to leave for the library, 8:45 A.M., couldn't come fast enough. In my head, I was already thinking ahead to that time, while KrA and D were hanging out together while I was mentally elsewhere. When the time finally came, I got into the car and felt intense remorse for having left D on a day when he was unwell. Still, I got to the library on the pretext of getting magazines for him to read, then I sat down and worked on my manuscript for half an hour. Then I ran back home, played a board game with D, had lunch, and ended up dozing off when we were both reading books. I was probably asleep for half an hour when D woke me up shouting that a parcel he had been waiting for had arrived. I was mad at being woken up so rudely, but I tried to be happy for his sake. We had ordered new clothes for him and he had been waiting all morning for the package to arrive. Only, many of them didn't fit him. 🙁 He was bummed, I was bummed, and I got into an argument with KrA about returning the ones that were too loose. But truly, I was upset that what had arrived didn't fit. Whereas I hadn't even been part of the discussion when D and KrA made the choices and placed the orders online. A size 6X T-shirt fit D perfectly whereas another size 6X T-shirt ended up being two sizes too large for him! Yet, I found it in me to blame myself and KrA, deem that we are a loser family who couldn't even place an online order correctly! When my internal critic gets going, there's no stopping her. On and on she ranted, until KrA stopped me and asked me what was truly going on. And in that moment I realized, like I always do but tend to forget later, that I have no more capacity for disappointment. Did that reek of entitlement? Perhaps, but it occurred to me then that if I couldn't tolerate disappointment, then I was in for some very rude awakenings in life. Later, I rationalized that another choice of response could have been to simply accept that we ordered clothes for D in size 6X, but turned out that the store's definition of 6X seemed to vary across products! Are we to blame for that? Should I have known that? Of course not! Then why this addiction to self-flagellation and criticism? As if it's my fault that things go wrong. Anyhoo, D had a physiotherapist appointment later in the evening. We came back, had dinner, read a bit. Because he napped, D is unable to sleep now (it's almost 9 PM) and so KrA is giving him company while I came here to type this post. I was about to fall asleep lying next to D, waiting for him to sleep. But coming back to what I had said yesterday, when I had made up my mind to stay with D while he is at home, why did I change my mind? In fact, I think I'd have been better off had I set out on a walk this morning. It would have cleared my head, given my body some movement and much needed exercise and endorphins, and likely set me up for a calm and comforting day with D! So let me stick to what I've decided. No path is perfect. It is always tantalizing to think of all those unlived lives, but I've found over and over again that heading down that route only ends in utter insanity for me. The best path for me is to be present in one place at one time, and not try to tackle too many difficult things in a day. I may not accomplish much that way, but that is OK. ### (day 25): redefining my creative life URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/redefining-my-creative-life/ Last updated: 2023-04-26T09:26:46.000Z After dropping D at school, I made my way to the library this morning. And there, in that familiar nook that I hadn't been to in a long time, I was finally able to open the manuscript on which progress had been stalled for several months and start going through it to reacquaint myself with the characters and their stories. I don't quite remember when I had stopped going to the library to work or what excuses I made to slip out of that habit. But much drama ensued yesterday (Monday) morning, and I've had to take stock of who I'm becoming on the pretext of creating art. As [Rachel Friedman](https://www.rachel-friedman.com) puts it in her book, *And Then We Grew Up*, I had become an art monster. --- ### *On being an 'Art Monster' and the anxieties that are feeding it* For you see, after several days of not writing fiction and generally mucking about, I had decided over the weekend that I'd spend this week tackling the manuscript that I've been struggling with for a very long time. A look at the document shows me that I've been working on it on and off since last October. I've tried every single trick in the book to get unstuck. Taking the Write Better-Faster 101 workshop by Becca Syme hoping it would help me figure out how to tap into my unique Strengths as a writer. Taking the Depth in Writing workshop on craft by Dean Wesley Smith to give myself some impetus to get back into writing fiction. I learnt a lot, including the truth that I seem to like throwing away money that I don't have to take advice from others that I don't intend to implement anyway. I really love the story, so I have no idea why I've been so stuck in that manuscript for so long. Anxiety got the better of me on Monday morning. Simply opening up the document sent me into a tizzy, and I became an art monster. The kind who snapped at D because he was being himself, a 6-year-old who wanted to spend time with his mother before leaving for school. The kind who yelled at KrA because if only he had been a more supportive partner, I could have written countless books and won the Pulitzer or become a New York Times bestselling author by now. And after KrA left to drop off D at school, I made the mistake of going online and looking up the usual websites I follow to stay updated on the publishing industry. In her latest podcast, Joanna Penn talked about how Michael Anderle, author, publisher, and one of the co-founders of the 20BooksTo50K group on FaceBook had changed his publishing plans for 2023 based on the newfound access the whole world has gained to ChatGPT and other AI tools. Apparently, Anderle's publishing house had published 350 books last year (he works with a number of writers), and he was aiming to double that output to 700 books this year. But now, with access to ChatGPT and the ease with which content, including novels, can be generated, he is eyeing an output of 10,000 books this year. Yes, there is no typo there! 10,000 books. That number is staggering. True, Anderle has a crew of writers to work with so he isn't going to be a lone wolf cranking out 30 books/day using ChatGPT. Still, it goes to show the immense possibilities that AI offers, and while I'm not at all anti-AI, I do worry about what these changes would mean for someone like me who likes to sit and type words and string them to form a story. The process of writing a story is so enjoyable for me and I've resisted attempts to co-write with human authors before, so I don't know how I feel about co-writing with a tool. I have played around with ChatGPT to create initial versions of blurbs for a couple of books, which proved great starting points for me to flesh out the final blurb. But when it comes to writing a story, I love typing out what the characters are saying or doing or sensing or thinking or feeling. I love discovering the unexpected twists and turns a story takes. And I absolutely love the state of flow I sometimes get into when a story is chugging along really well. But if the market is going to be flooded with books, and who's to say it's not already saturated, then I have to start asking myself the question, "What's the point of it all?" What's the point of writing if I can't find readers at the end of the day to sustain my practice? And in a fit of rage, I took my handwritten notes on the story and ripped them into pieces so tiny that there'd be no possibility of salvaging them at all. We've already emptied our garbage bins at home into the communal bin outside, so those bits of paper and the words written on them are gone forever. That's OK. I reckon I needed a fresh start on the story, which I managed to get today when I headed to the library and started going through what I've written so far and taking notes on them. But I'm jumping ahead, because I first needed to take stock of who I was becoming in this pursuit of making a living from writing fiction, and how to follow a creative passion without going insane in the process. --- ### *Deciding what creativity means to me* In her podcast, Joanna Penn talked about how the business model that Michael Anderle intends to pursue is not one that entices her, not that there's anything wrong with it, but just that she chooses to follow the path of being an AI-assisted artisan author instead. I was so anxious after hearing that news that I promptly wrote to Dean Wesley Smith asking for some words of wisdom. Dean has been extremely clear on his stance on AI right from the beginning and he is taking a wait-and-watch attitude till the dust settles on copyright and other legal issues pertaining to AI right now. I remember from the Critical Voice workshop I had taken from Dean about a year ago that when we write a book, it's best to be process-focussed. And only when it is time to sell a book, do we need to become product-focussed. If we become product-focussed when we are in the thick of writing a story, that influences the story in all sorts of unwanted ways. For instance, we might foresake an original ending in favour of something we believe the market would like better. Thinking on these lines made it easier for me to accept that I quite love writing stories, I love writing these blog posts, and because I enjoy the process itself so much, despite the frustrations and challenges that come along with it, there is little benefit for me in outsourcing the process to another human or an AI tool. What bothers me in the whole scenario is the possibility that I may not earn a living writing fiction, or rather, a lucrative income is not guaranteed, because there are far too many factors outside of my control for anyone to say with any measure of certainty that I'd have a million bucks in my bank account in five years from now. Ain't that the dream?! After doing some soul-searching, largely in part due to having read Rachel Friedman's *And Then We Grew Up* recently and now re-reading it, I've come to admit that this whole endeavour of ***making a living writing fiction*** was stalling me in my tracks. I had put conditions on my creativity to be financially viable, wildly lucrative even, and that too as of yesterday. No wonder the muse had turned away, disappointed and likely feeling threatened. I know I don't like to deliver when demands are placed on me without faith; I know I deliver a lot more when the recipient doesn't even feel the need to ask. I can completely understand if my muse is like that too. When I first read Friedman's book, I promptly concluded that I should give up trying to make a living as a fiction author and focus on getting a real job in the real world instead. A few days after that, I tottered towards the other end of the spectrum and decided that ambition was not a bad thing, and that I needed to be ambitious and go after lofty goals. Now that I have teeter-tottered between wanting it all and wanting nothing at all, I have come to adopt a more balanced and nuanced view. I love writing, yes, but I do not wish to pursue it with some kind of crazed passion that turns me into an art monster, one who hates being a mother and hates doing grown-up things like filing taxes or cooking food. Instead, the simplest and most sustainable practice I can keep up with is this: - When D is at school, I'll go to the library in the mornings to write fiction for an hour. That's it. That's all I ask of myself. The rest of the day, I will leave it open for adulting and also for writing and other publishing-related work as I'm able to do. - When D is at home, whether on weekends or before or after school or during school breaks, I'll spend that time with him without worrying about all the writing I believe I could be doing, should be doing, even though in an alternate D-less Universe, I'm sure I'd have been squandering all that time complaining about something else altogether. That's all. I don't wish to have any crazy wordcount goals to chase. I've noticed that when the going gets good, when I get into a habit of writing daily, that's when ambition raises it head and starts telling me that I should be doing more, and that I could be doing more if only KrA would do more (he'd need to clone himself for this) or D would be more independent. Rubbish! This kind of thinking has only filled me with resentment and completely clouded my view of what life is. Surely, this is some kind of self-sabotage! Of course, there may be businesswomen who are able to rope in their moms or mothers-in-law to look after their kids while they focus on their business. Or perhaps they get by with 3 hours of sleep and are completely functional despite that. I have to take a realistic assessment of my life. It's only KrA and me, and between us this is about all we can manage. To me, it is very important that I spend time with D joyfully. For instance, I woke up this morning at around 3:40 AM and couldn't sleep after that. At around 4:30 AM, I headed to the computer and began to write my thoughts on [Friedman's book](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-and-then-we-grew-up-by-rachel-friedman/). I may have worked for about 40 minutes when D awoke and called out to me. My earlier self would have resented this interruption, but since I had decided that I wish to be there for my child intentionally, I happily made my way back into bed. D then got up and started to read a book, so I too picked up Kate Morton's *Homecoming*, which I'm in the midst of, and read alongside him. D put his legs between mine, wanting to cuddle for warmth and comfort, and we spent a blissful hour in each other's company, both of us engrossed in the books we were reading. Occasionally, D would remark on something or make an observation and we'd have a chat. Later, when KrA woke up, D and I played a game of catch for a while until it was time for him to get ready for school. Such a simple pleasure of life that I'd have missed had I insisted on continuing to write, sitting besides D, wishing I had had absolute peace and all the time in the world to focus only on my writing and nothing but my writing. --- ### *Making some hard decisions on financial capacity and tolerance* Since I'm staying this course of being a writer, I have to look at the long term and accept that short-term gains, if any in the first place, are likely to be far and few in between. Can we live as a family on KrA's income alone? Sure, there'd be some compromises involved. For instance, we'd have the budget to travel only once a year. We'd continue to live in this townhouse even though we've been yearning for a bigger yard (as well as an increased budget to be able to maintain that) for a while. We may not have the budget for me to go back to piano lessons in the short term. Can I accept these? It is hard on some days, yes, to come to terms with the fact that I can't spend freely like we used to do before when both of us were employed in Singapore. But I've also come to see that an increased spending ability doesn't necessarily mean greater happiness or satisfaction in life. So what am I really craving for then? Or have I simply gotten addicted to complaining, so that I won't have to do the sometimes uncomfortable job of getting to the manuscript in the first place? Isn't that the very definition of self-sabotage? --- ### *Focussing on the overall journey and not on every twist and turn* Just last week, I heard from Kobo that my book, *Dying Wishes*, is one of six finalists in the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in the Speculative Fiction category. This is such a shot in the arm for me, an excellent external validation for my writing and motivation for me to keep writing. Although I'm supremely grateful for the nomination, now I'm desperate to win! I want all the glory and the adulation and the opportunities that being a winner would bring, that *I think* being a winner would bring. Will winning this award *'make'* my career? And in the event I do not win, will that be a missed opportunity that *'breaks'* my career? I think this is the difference between reality and fiction. In books and movies, we can pretty much pinpoint the climax, the point at which everything changes for the protagonist and there's no going back. But I've lived for long enough to see that that is not how it works in real life. Yes, a particular award or glowing review might certainly give me a bump in sales. But whether I can keep that momentum going in the long run will depend on me writing and publishing more stories. I don't think there's a point of no return in our lives. We can earn riches only to lose it all. We can hit the point of rock bottom and rebuild our lives entirely from that foundation. There is no one thing that 'makes' or breaks' a long-term career. It is usually a string of choices or a series of decisions that have a cumulative impact in the long run. But we often tend to forget this, especially in a world that is now obssessed with story-telling, so much so that we all have to make our lives sound like one big adventure full of learnings and insights whether we're at a job interview or having a drink with friends. We are all told to be protagonists of our stories, take charge of our lives, and capitalize on turning points. But we're rarely ever reminded that life is not fiction and does not need to be fiction either! Two years ago, I had wanted to submit *Dying Wishes* to the [Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off](http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-official-self-published-fantasy.html), but I had the date wrong and I missed submitting it. Last year, I managed to submit the title and although the book did not clear the first round, it garnered a [neat review](https://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2022/08/spfbo-8-fifth-winnowing-mihirs-batch.html) from one of the reviewers over at the Fantasy Book Critic. Did missing the contest the first time around *break* my career? No! Did entering the book the second time around *make* my career? No! Did not clearing the first round of the contest *break* my career? No! Did getting a nice review from Mihir *make* my career? No! The point is that we sometimes tend to place too much emphasis on the short-term details. A missed day or two of writing, even a missed month or more of writing, does not spell the end of a writing career. A nomination for an award, even winning an award itself, may do far little than expected when it comes to moving the needle on book sales. But all these attempts at writing and showing up and trying over and over again do add up to some kind of momentum in the long run, so that when Lady Luck turns her attention my way, I'll be in a much better position to capitalize on her blessings than I am today. --- So these are my realizations for today. I'm pretty sure doubt will sneak up on me when I'm not looking and ensnare me in a lot of negative thoughts. That's to be expected. I'm a writer with a lot of imagination. I reckon I'd never ever stop fantasising about the ideal life of an author nor will I stop wondering what life would have been like had I made different choices, such as staying put at my job in Singapore while writing fiction on the side, not having had a child, having more family around and a closer connection with family? I'll never find the answers to these hypothetical questions because those are all my countless unlived lives. There is only the one life that I am living right now, and it is perfect for me. When D was having a hard time settling at school in JK, he once said to me on the car ride to school, "I was not born to you so that you could send me away to be with someone else." Yes, little D, you were not born to me so that I could resent your very existence and deem it an impediment to some lofty goal of pursing a creative path. You were born to me because I was the luckiest person on the planet that day. Every moment I get with you, I cherish it. I am sorry for all the times I thought I ought to be writing more or earning more instead of spending time with you. Please forgive me. KrA, please forgive me for all the times I accused you of not doing your bit as a parent and a partner. You keep doing more than is humanly possible for a single person; it has taken me far too long to understand that I've been holding too many expectations of life, I've been demanding too much from you, from D, and from myself. What we have is enough! What we have is perfect! I forgive myself too. Guilt is the most useless of human emotions. It's a slippery slope that takes me away from the present moment. Instead of guilt, I choose gratitude. Gratitude for these moments of enlightenment, for these lessons I'm learning about what is important to me in life. I am a mother, partner, and writer. In that order. And that is simply perfect for me! ### books you may love: And Then We Grew Up by Rachel Friedman URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-and-then-we-grew-up-by-rachel-friedman/ Last updated: 2023-04-26T00:33:42.000Z I've been meaning to write about this book, *'And Then We Grew Up'* by [Rachel Friedman](https://www.rachel-friedman.com), but I've only managed to mention it in passing in a handful of posts over the past fortnight. But this is one of those books that hilariously and poignantly calls BS on many of the myths I had bought into as an artist (writer) making a living from her art (writing). ![Paperback copy of And Then We Grew Up by Rachel Friedman featuring a splash of bright colours](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/48.-And-Then-We-Grew-Up_small-1.jpeg) Friedman, who had shown promise as a young violist in her childhood, quit music in college when crippling anxiety began to grip her. Yet, she was unable to stop fantasizing about how her life might have turned out had she continued to play the viola. Years later, she turned to freelance writing in New York, and continued to grapple with the vast contrast between the fantasy of an artist's life versus its messy and complicated reality. Seeking answers to this inexplicable conundrum, she reached out to the childhood friends she made while at Interlochen Arts Camp to see if their adult lives bore any resemblance to any fantasies they may have had as young adults with respect to their creative ambitions. Friedman might have very well slipped into my mind somehow and recorded my thoughts on the subject, so much did the book speak to me. For years now, I've been grappling with my creative ambitions, the fantasies I've held about what it means to live a writer's life, and the crushing disappointment at the realisation that reality always, always falls short of that idealistic verison I hold in my head. Because, in that fantasy, little D is miraculously taken care of without me playing any part in it, food appears on the table without any thought or action on my part, the house somehow cleans itself without me having to lift a finger, and weeds know better than to grow in the little yard we have! Such a person is not an artist, such a person is an Art Monster, as Friedman defines for us. ### *On Being an Art Monster* One of the first childhood friends Friedman talks about is Jenna, a gifted violinist who now teaches music to high school students, and has a musician spouse and also a baby. > When I visited Jenna in Chicago, the impression I got of her life was that it was a balanced artistic one. Her job as a music teacher fed her creative side while also giving her summers and other school breaks off to spend with her husband and baby. If I hadn't known her as a kid, this would have struck me as perfectly lovely. But I'd witnessed her abundant early talent, and caught up as I was in conflicted feelings about my own potential, I couldn't help but feel like she kind of, well, *owed* her talent an attempt to be the absolute best on the biggest possible stage. > And it seemed to me that people who strove for that kind of greatness weren't well-rounded spouses and parents and high school orchestra conductors. They were art monsters. I stole that phrase from Jenny Offill's brilliant novel *Dept. of Speculation*, about a woman considering what it means to be an artist once you become a spouse and mother. In it, the unnamed narrator tells us she had planned to be an art monster instead of getting married: "... art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn't even fold his umbrella. Véra licked his stamps for him." > I believed that *real* artists are art monsters. They choose art above all else. > ... > Regardless of how great artists see themselves, our culture romanticizes artistic suffering. We aspire towards balance while we are simultaneously captivated by stories of reclusive writers, eccentric entrepreneurs, and beautiful-mind mathematicians. Any tortured genius will do, really. > ... > I believed from an early age that to pursue an artistic passion meant I needed to be dedicated as exclusively as possible to it—potentially sacrificing happiness, family, even sanity. I believed what the writer Susan Sontag said: "There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work." > Art monsters definitely didn't become teachers instead of performers, as Jenna had. And they'd rather starve than take day jobs, as I recently had. They followed passion, not paychecks. This is art monster mythology sprinkled with a dash of American dream "do what you love" cultural messaging, of course. > There is a hidden challenge in this art monster mythology. If you can be happy doing something else, if you would survive untortured not Making Art, not sacrificing everything to the muse, then you weren't really an artist in the first place. > \~ *And Then We Grew Up*, by Rachel Friedman Meeting Jenna convinced Friedman *somewhat* that one didn't need to be an art monster in order to live a creative life. > Art monsters definitely weren't moms, at least not ones whose kids didn't end up with hefty therapist bills. You have no choice but to adjust your ambitions somewhat if you want to balance your various identities: teacher, parent, spouse, musician, and so forth. Jenna understood this and didn't see it as a cost—she saw it as necessary compromise—but I wasn't so sure. > And forget the high stakes of relationships and babies for a moment. I was wary of anything that ate into my writing time. More and more of adult life these days seem to be taken up with, well, adulting. Just those basic boring tasks that eat up huge chunks of time: cooking, commuting, cleaning, folding, grocery shopping, financial planning, insurance getting, apartment hunting. Ad infinitum. > ... > Art monsters didn't care about dishes. They didn't care about picking up the dry cleaning. They cared only about—you guessed it—*art*. But when I spent time with Jenna at her house with her baby and Kent, I didn't see her resisting or resenting these mundane tasks of domestic life. There were times she was overwhelmed, she told me. There were days it felt like she was spread too thin. But on the whole she was thriving in a balanced space she had created that encompassed both the creative and the practical. > And anyway, what if I did sacrifice it all to the muse, if I doubled down on the idea that having a partner or kids or steady paycheck or consistently clean dishes would spell the end of my artistic ambitions? Then what? **I had now been on this earth long enough to realize that if I was to sacrifice other parts of my life to writing, it guaranteed nothing other than the sacrifice.** > \~ *And Then We Grew Up*, by Rachel Friedman These parts of the book spoke to me so much. There is so much wisdom in these lines, because even in the writing community I see so many people touting these idealized versions of a fantasy writer's life. Getting up at 3 A.M. Getting in 3—4 hours of focussed, uninterrrupted work before the rest of the family wakes up. **Making a living from their art!** **This is the one that has killed me with a thousand different cuts ever since I published my first book five years ago!** **That if I wasn't earning money from my books, if I wasn't making a full-time living by writing and selling books, then there was no point to writing at all.** No wonder I had become an art monster too, often resenting my role as a parent, often hating the little tasks a grown-up needs to attend to in order to keep life functioning smoothly. Please forgive me, little D! Please forgive me, KrA! Friedman moves on, admitting that *"meeting up with Jenna was sort of like starting a spiritual quest by dining with the Dalai Lama. Balance seemed to come easily to her, ..."* Friedman is the kind of friend I'd like to have; she must be my soul sister, so readily she has been able to glimpse into my own insecurities and doubts and constant yearning for creative fulfillment and lay them all out in a raw and authentic manner, without criticism or self-flagellation. Her quest mirrors my own, and the conclusions she arrives at are quite like my own except I often failed to have the courage to voice them or even believe in them, so contradictory to popular opinion they are. --- ### *On the Nature of Ambition* > I think a lot of ambition is, at its heart, about control. We convince ourselves that with enough ambition we can master money, success, clutter, time, parenting, mind-set—our entire world. And then our fantasy of our life will finally match its reality. (The flip side of ambition fuelled by control is that whenever we fall short of our own expectations, we believe the fault is entirely ours. That we must simply *try harder*.) > ... > We love the image of the writer/painter/musician startled awake by the muse at 3 A.M. She grabs the notebook by her bed and scribbles furiously, committing her inspired vision to paper before it flees her brain. She loses track of time, is impervious to thirst or hunger. Eventually she notices the sun has risen. She hears people walking to work below her window. And once in a while, this scenario does happen. But mostly the words do not burst forth in a feverish dream state, so you wake up when your alarm goes off and start writing anyway. Or you go to work and write at night, or on the weekends when the kids are napping, or for an hour a day at lunch. > \~ *And Then We Grew Up*, by Rachel Friedman Friedman also highlights the role that luck has to play in the fruits of our endeavours, and how very few of the countless things that determine the outcome of our endeavours are really in our control. > *I have always treated my life like a chess game—focusing on right or wrong moves and what I believed to be their attendant outcomes—when it turns out a poker game is a much more useful analogy.* > *"Wrap your arms around the uncertainty," Duke said. "Accept it. Know that the way things turn out has a lot of luck involved so don't be so hard on yourself when things go badly and don't be proud of yourself when they go well."* > \~ *And Then We Grew Up*, by Rachel Friedman --- ### *Spirituality in Coping with Creative Disappointments* The book is filled with so many gems, I can't stop singing its praises. And just when I thought Friedman had said everything that could possibly be said on the topic, she called BS on yet another topic that I've not seen anyone really address when it comes to coping with failures and creative disappointments. > Over the years I've tried reframing my relationship to feelings of disappointment and failure by reading spiritual authors like Eckhart Tolle and Louise Hay. I'm as tempted as the next neurotic New Yorker by anyone who comes along promising serenity through nonattachment, affirmations, and positively manifesting my destiny. > But ... I don't know. Somewhere along the way I always get frustrated by the premise that we have a mind-over-matter relationship with everything from our illnesses to our love lives to our finances. I don't want to be a victim of my circumstances, but surely I don't have control over *everything*. > And as much as I'm drawn in theory to the idea of non-attachment, it doesn't feel like a realistic or necessarily even desirable goal. I'd rather cultivate what philosopher Todd May calls a "slightly less lacerating vulnerability." > Obviously, I care about the projects and people I put my love and energy into, and that means caring about the outcome of that effort. > \~ *And Then We Grew Up*, by Rachel Friedman This is the most practical advice I've come across so far in my life on my attitude towards the outcomes of my creative projects. It's OK to feel disappointed when things don't work out the way I want them to. We don't always have control over everything in our lives, but that doesn't make us victims of our circumstances either. Many self-help gurus tend to swing towards either one of these two extremes, claiming that if life is not going the way we want it to, then we must be thinking the wrong thoughts, manifesting the wrong things, and not taking full responsibility for our choices and actions. --- I can keep quoting passages from this book, and I'd end up writing out the entire book over here. Which is not a bad thing really, apart from the very serious issue of copyright infringement. Because if that's what it takes for these messages to seep into my subconscious and guide every waking moment of my life, then I can spend the rest of my life copying passages from the book on to a handwritten journal for private use. Art monster alert! I don't quite remember how I came across this book in the first place, but I am so glad I did because it provided me with much needed perspective on how to live my own creative life. Instead of throwing everything out of my life in the name of art, how about I fit art into my life like a responsible adult, without shirking the duties and responsibilities that adulthood and parenthood demand of me? Such an attitude would definitely make for a happier me, and also transform the energy I bring to my creative practice. And that's what I certainly want. For my practice to be pleasant and challenging, not filled with anxiety and angst. Thank you, Rachel, for such an amazing book! I loved it so much I've ordered my very own copy. I'll be reading this book over and over again to remind myself of what really matters in life, to remember that it's not what we create but who we become in the process of creating that matters more. Folks, go grab a copy of Friedman's book, and I'd be happy to discuss it with you at length any time of any day! So life-changing and life-accepting it is! ### (day 24): a day of resistance URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-day-of-resistance/ Last updated: 2023-04-24T16:27:38.000Z Resistance has been tugging powerfully at me since I woke up this morning. Since last night, in fact. So this is really a placeholder post, sorry. Something to prove that I showed up here today. Which is not how I want my writing challenge to pan out. But this is what's happening at the moment. I'm sorry! ### (day 23): contradictory feelings URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/contradictory-feelings/ Last updated: 2023-04-24T00:41:12.000Z Off late, D has been asking me about fame. He once mentioned he'd like to grow up and become an author and write a series of books that would make him famous. A few days ago, he suggested to me that I could get my books into the local library's bookshelves, so that lots of people would read them and I'd become famous. My response to him was "I write because I love writing, not because I want to be famous. Fame is something that's not in my hands." Two days later, I realized that my words had been utter nonsense! Total bullshit! Heck, I want to be famous! Of course, I want to be famous. I want thousands, if not millions, of people to read my books so that I may make a living writing and selling books. The writing part could perhaps happen in complete obscurity, although seeing how much I've been reaching out to my writing community off late, I doubt one could sit in a cave and keep typing book after book for years on end. Who knows?! Perhaps there is somebody like that out there; it takes all kinds to make a world. But the selling and making a living part doesn't happen in isolation. Anything that entails engagement with other people cannot happen in isolation. It was yesterday, on Saturday evening, when we were hanging out with friends and I was telling them how hard I often find it to keep going, especially when rewards are hard to come by. I admitted aloud that I want all the adulation and the awards, I'm not content with meagre sales anymore. I want all those material rewards that will motivate me to write more. And they were quick to understand how I felt and acknowledge how hard it is to keep going when you don't see the kind of rewards you wish to reap. Later, I read this lovely article about [ambition](https://perell.com/note/ambitious-people-need-each-other/) in last week's newsletter from Ghost. This had appeared in last week's newsletter, which I hadn't read properly. So imagine my surprise when there was no weekly newsletter from Ghost in my inbox this morning. A little digging around led to me last week's edition in which Ghost had given a heads-up about not sending a newsletter this week owing to an organization-wide event. I had completely missed the memo. Anyway, so last week's newsletter had a link to an article on ambition by writer, podcast host, and writing tutor, David Perell. > *Ambition breeds a particular kind of frustration, and the more ambitious you are, the larger it looms. Without like-minded peers, ambitious people become suffocated by life — chained by tall poppy syndrome and the dogmas of complacency.* > *As social creatures, humans need to feel validated by their peers in order to go all in on who they are. We become like the people around us, so it’s hard to sustain ambition in a complacent environment. This is why actors move to Hollywood, musicians move to Nashville, and basically every podcaster/biohacker/Internet-writer type lives inside a twelve-mile radius in Austin, Texas.* > *\~ [David Perell](https://perell.com)* I had never looked at it this way. I thought actors moved to Hollywood in search of more opportunities, but somehow I hadn't equated that to ambition in my mind. Of course, you go seeking more opportunities when you are ambitious in the first place, duh! When I went out for a walk this morning, it occurred to me that it's perfectly alright for me to want fame, especially through my writings. For a long time, I haven't been able to achieve the goals I had wished to, and to curb that disappointment I had convinced myself that ambition is a bad word. Because, to me, being ambitious meant I was discontent, and somehow that was a strict no-no! Because gosh, am I not a spiritual person? Which means shouldn't I be present and content with whatever is there in my life at present? What utter bullshit! Why was I tamping down my ambition thus? Was I afraid to put in the work? Perhaps. Was I afraid of failure, and the countless disappointments I'd meet en route to success? Definitely. --- Today I understand the meaning of the words: With great freedom comes great responsibility. When we are free to choose how we spend our time, we are responsible for the choices we make. When we are free to choose what kind of food to put in our mouths, we are responsible for the choices we make. When we have plenty of money and are free to choose how to spend it, we are responsible for the choices we make. I have always wanted the freedom, but when I had it, I've often squandered it. And there's almost always an element of fear involved in these decisions. --- This morning, I was quite overwhelmed at the thought of the countless little things I have on my agenda. This being a one-person operation is causing me a lot of frustration when it comes to managing the nitty-gritties of self-publishing and promoting my works. In the past, I've often let go of writing time to accommodate other life events. Those decisions, while gratifying in the short-term, almost always lead to frustration sooner or later. And this is the cycle I remain stuck in. I'm tempted to end this post with a bunch of to-dos, like wake up at 5:30 AM and exercise. Or should I wake up at 4 AM and write first? Or should I wake up at 3 AM, so that I have gotten both writing and exercise done before anyone else at home wakes up? I don't know. > *But one thing I've learnt today, is that it is perfectly OK for me to be ambitious and also be happy where I am.* > *It is perfectly OK for me to want fame and also enjoy my place in this world, however obscure, at this point in time.* > *It is perfectly OK for me to love writing and also feel frustrated at the lack of progress I'm currently making in my manuscript or the slow progress I'm making in terms of sales in the outside world.* > *It is perfectly OK to have love and also feel longing at the same time, no matter how much love we have.* One of my favourite [lines](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/) from Christopher Pike's *Thirst* series goes as follows: > *"Krishna means love," she said. "But Radha means longing. Longing is older than love. I am older than he. Did you know that, Sita?"* > *\~ Thirst No. 1 by Christopher Pike* So here's to ambition, and here's to finding ways to fulfil that ambition without losing my sanity in the process! ### (day 22.2): seeking unconditional love URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/seeking-unconditional-love/ Last updated: 2023-04-22T14:28:22.000Z There's certainly Sunday evening and Monday morning syndromes, I know from the years I spent working in the corporate world. These past few years, I've come to realize there's Friday night and Saturday morning syndrome too! Friday nights come with plenty of promise, but unless we've made plans in advance for the weekend, it mostly disappears in catching up on chores and errands and wondering why life isn't any more interesting than how it is turning out to be. Friday nights and Saturday mornings were also typically the times we reserved to speak with a certain family member. I remember the trepidation building up inside me ahead of those weekly phone calls. Over the years I've come to realize that family, in a broad, idealistic definition, is a person or a group of people who accept(s) you unconditionally for who you are. We shouldn't have to walk on eggshells to be accepted by family. We shouldn't have to lie and scheme and manipulate, we shouldn't have to become someone else, in order to deserve that belonging. But love almost always seems to come with conditions. It is a rare one that can be called unconditional. I've come to see that KrA's love for me has always been unconditional; I can't say the same for myself truthfully because I know I place too many demands on him. At least, I'm aware of it, and that is good enough for course-correction when it matters. Is my love for D unconditional? Of course, not! There are things I'd like him to do or ways I'd like him to be, but I know better than to express all that to him. That unconditionality is something I work on. I often resort to humour or silence when I'm at war with myself, my very human self wanting him to do something and my ideal persona understanding that my very demand is utterly human and utterly irrational, that no child or person should have to bear the burden of it. But I want it too, this unconditional love for myself. I want someone to be my cheerleader, someone who can encourage me to carry on on days when I feel like a complete failure, someone who can promise me they will always be there for me or that it will all turn out to be OK even though fate can prevent them from keeping their promises. I must have been 10 or 11 years old. It was pretty late at night and I woke up remembering that I hadn't completed a homework assignment that was due the next day. I woke up and told my mom about it, and she offered to stay up with me. She puttered about in the kitchen while I finished my homework. Just her company was a pillar I could lean on when life felt difficult. This morning, D wanted to do some homework and when he asked me to come up and join him, it reminded me of how I felt when my mom gave me company. And I was only super happy to sit alongside D and watch him do his work while also keeping my mouth shut as he joyfully experimented with writing his letters in all sorts of topsy-turvy ways. So much of parenting is sitting and watching and witnessing without giving in to the temptation to voice any judgement whatsoever. It's akin to meditation! > *I understand now why people turn to God or religion or self-love; the idea that there is at least one source of unconditional love available to us at all times, if only we paused to look for it, is very seductive and appealing.* Without it, we're all like flotsam and jetsam, residues of wreckage, unwanted goods, debris largely set adrift in deep waters with no destination in mind. Just an eternity of coasting along, feeling helpless, looking for that one thing or one person or one God or one great love that can come and save us from ourselves. Gosh! This is so depressing! I'd be better off reading a few more pages of *Homecoming* and taking a nap, even though it's not even ten in the morning. But we have a busy afternoon with friends coming over, and this is not the mood I wish to be in when they are around. I miss India so much. I miss home so much. But if you ask me what constitutes home for me, I can say it's not my parents' home or my in-laws' place, it's neither Ranchi nor Chennai where most of my relatives live, it's not Mumbai or Bangalore or Pune where I spent a lot of my childhood and adolescent years. It's probably that place in Thane, on the outskirts of Mumbai, where I spent a few years of childhood. Maybe not. In all likelihood, it's a place that doesn't exist. A place I could spend my entire lifetime looking for, a place I wish existed somewhere outside of fiction. Perhaps, rituals would help me. Now that I know I struggle on Friday nights and Saturday mornings, perhaps creating some rituals, something fun to look forward to at these times, would help. Or better still, I should get a dog. A panacea for all the sorrows of life, until the time comes for one of us to depart! It doesn't help that sleep has become elusive once more. I fell asleep at 8:30 PM last night, only to wake up at 10\. And after that I couldn't sleep until 2 AM. Then D woke me up at 4 AM, needing to go to the loo. Drifted back to sleep once more, then woke up at 7 AM eventually. Somehow I never manage to sleep in. Even if I've had the worst sleep or have gone to bed very late, my body wakes up at its usual time. Only, I wake up feeling listless and lethargic, unable even to look forward to an entire day of activity and fun. Lack of good sleep is certainly a major factor in how my moods swing up and down each morning. Anyhoo, I don't wish to wallow too much on all the could-have-been's and should-have-been's. In that sense, coming here to type my feelings is far greater therapy and catharsis than anything else, and I'm glad I chose to do that, knowing this is what I need in this moment. Now, I can look forward to the day and attend to the day's planned events with more optimism than I had been feeling until now. --- So, dear reader, you may be wondering what the point of reading these outpourings is. I share these thoughts to serve as reminders that there can be many reasons why we're unable to make it to the writing desk other than lack of discipline or grit or persistence or any of those faults we don't hesitate to accuse ourselves of. Yes, for some people writing is an escape from the realities of life. For some others, writing scenes of difficulty can bring up past trauma and halt them in their tracks. It's all OK. None of it is our fault. It's all OK. As long as we can remember that, we can be far more gentle with ourselves on this journey. We ourselves won't fall prey to the fallacy of basing our love for ourselves on certain conditions being met. Who knows? Perhaps we may become the one true and trusted source of unconditional love for our own selves. ### (day 22.1): the beginning of an ending URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-beginning-of-an-ending/ Last updated: 2023-04-22T13:24:10.000Z It is still technically the 21st, 11:23 PM to be precise, but by the time I post this, I reckon the 22nd would be upon us already. I've been asleep for two hours, and awake for a restless one after that. And I know, I know, I said earlier that today was a rest day. But ever since I finished reading *Thirst No. 4*, my heart has been in turmoil. And unless I stop talking to myself and give my thoughts a place to go, I'd go stark raving mad, I'm sure. For you see, *Thirst No. 5, The Sacred Veil*, is the last book in the series, and I have no desire to read it and complete the series anytime soon. I'd be devastated when I finally have to part ways with Christopher Pike's 5,000-year-old vampire, Sita, and I wish to prolong that eventuality for as long as possible. For someone who feels very alone in this world, friendship in fiction tends to grip me more than any other kind of relationship. I don't read much romance, but give me a story with lots of friendships that stand the test of time, and I'd lap it up, no questions asked. As soon as I finished reading *Thirst No. 4*, I wrote to dear friend H, who introduced me to Pike's works. This work, in particular. I was telling her how Sita was my least favourite character from Hindu philosophy back when I was a child growing up. As far as I can remember, and my knowledge of Hindu philosophy and mythology and culture is not even a drop in the ocean, Sita was portrayed as a very docile character. She gets abducted by Ravana, she keeps waiting for Rama to come and rescue her, and eventually when he does, he doubts her fidelity, which she is compelled to prove by jumping into a pyre. To me, it appears that this forms the basis of the kind of absurd expectations Indian society has of girls and women. Perhaps things have changed in the past 13 years since I left India, but expecting women to quietly bear the injustices wrought upon them was pretty much the norm, both in my own family and at my in-laws'. No wonder, when D's arrival into my life turned me into some kind of Mama Bear and unleashed who I really am – someone who bears little resemblance to Sita – I overflowed with rage at the kind of societal pressure and expectations I had unwittingly been putting up with my entire life until then. Naturally, I ended up distancing myself from family in the years that followed, both for their own sanity as well as mine, simply because of how traumatic it had been for me to keep complying with those kind of expectations that they still seem to hold of girls and women in general, including themselves sometimes, excluding themselves at others. Was it a wise decision? I don't know. The isolation has certainly taken its toll on me, especially as we went through D's early childhood years and, later, the pandemic pretty much by ourselves. In those years, I was reduced to a nervous wreck, fraught as I was with all that postpartum anxiety and rage and depression. There was not a soul I could call and talk to and simply state how hard I was finding it all, how hard it was to raise a child and figure out what to do career-wise, without losing my sanity in the process. I still find life hard on many days. Writing feels difficult. Playing with D feels hard. I'm too caught up in an incessant swirl of thoughts to be actually present and do what I can in this moment. I began seeing a therapist earlier this year, and simply knowing that there is a source of wisdom and support I can lean on in difficult times has boosted my mood and outlook significantly. Not entirely, but significantly. And sometimes I can't help but wonder: would things be a lot different in my life if I had some support? I reckon they would. For instance, I might be a little less risk-averse or be able to focus more on work and less caught up with more mundane daily concerns such as cooking and cleaning. So in that case, the question I have now for myself is this: how do I create support for myself in my life and my work? I don't have answers to this yet. Which is probably why I love the idea of friends one can rely on. People one can trust. Which is probably why I love Pike's Sita so much. She's quite an independent character, quite a badass, with an entire team willing to lay their lives down for her. And she does the same for them. Reckon I live too much in fictional worlds than I do in the real one. I'll really miss Sita when I finish reading *Thirst No. 5*, which is probably why I will not pick that one up yet. As it is, I've already started reading *Homecoming* by Kate Morton, and am loving it. It is helping pare of the grief of losing Sita soon, and also reminding me of why I fell in love with writing in the first place! ### (day 21): a rest day URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-rest-day/ Last updated: 2023-04-21T23:29:33.000Z It's only 1 PM, and I'm already done for the day. There's a strange kind of fatigue, the kind that tends to set in towards the end of a work/school-week. I attended to some more publishing-related matters this morning, did the laundry, went for a walk, had lunch (yummy fried rice that KrA cooked), then put together some veggies for dinner. And now I'm all ready to shut down my computer, then curl up to read, maybe indulge in a short nap, before heading to pick up D from school. Some days are like this. I can't even think on days like these. And then there are days when I can work non-stop and wish there were no interruptions in the form of real-life demands. All part of life. Just like the tiny piece of broccoli I found in D's shirt pocket after I had pulled it out of the washing machine and was hanging it to dry! ### tales for dreamers: open, sesame! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-open-sesame/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:45:09.000Z Ali read the signboard and scratched his head. Surely he wasn't lost, was he? He pored over the treasure map in his hands and mentally traced the path he had taken, comparing it with the trail scribbled on the map. It was an old map, directions and crosses fading on paper now crumbling to the touch. The cliffs and valleys denoted in the map no longer existed, their places usurped by tall structures of blue glass and steep stairwells that led to underground cities. Where Ali stood now was like a vast cave itself, several feet below the ground, made up of a criss-cross of different tunnels, each leading down unlit paths that disappeared around bends. He looked down at the map, then up again at the glass façade. He was certain he was right outside the mouth of the cave that had once held an endless trove of treasure and where his brother Cassim had met his fate. But the signboard confused him. *How could anyone be so foolish as to reveal the magic words so blatantly*, he cursed. Of course it was even more foolish to make no attempt at concealing the treasure within, he reckoned. He reached out for the signboard, intending to take it down and burn it, but it was suspended behind the glass doors. *Open Sesame*, Ali whispered. Nothing stirred. *Open Sesame*, he said louder. Nothing again. He walked around to the side of the glass-fronted cave, suspecting the 'main entrance' lay hidden here. Another set of glass doors. Another signboard there. This one read, "We are closed now. Opening hours 11 AM to 9 PM." Ali hadn't the foggiest idea what 11 AM meant but suspected it was a time of the day that clearly hadn't arrived yet. *Open Sesame*, he cried out again. No luck. In a fit of frustration, he kicked the glass door hard. It barely budged but promptly let out a prolonged howl that sounded to Ali like a wail of wrongdoing. And before Ali could say abracadabra, three men sprang forth from the darkness, dressed uniformly in dark blue garments, wielding metallic contraptions that they pointed at him with a menacing purpose. *Freeze*, one of them screamed. Ali stumbled backward and fell to the floor. The three men towered over Ali, their weapons aimed at his chest. One asked what business brought Ali to the underground passage at that time of the night. He truthfully replied he was trying to get into the cave but that the magic words did not work anymore. *What cave?* Ali pointed out. And why was he trying to get into the cave, another of the uniformed men asked. *To take home some treasure*, Ali replied. He and his wife had been down on their luck for a million nights now, and what with even genies demanding to be paid in gold for their services, he had had little choice but to return to the cave for more treasure. *Only the cave had changed, as had the forest around it, and so have the magic words unfortunately*, he explained. *You have a genie, eh?* the third man smirked. *I do*, Ali said but could have immediately bitten his tongue off. *And what are the magic words?* *Open Sesame*, Ali said. The three men guffawed. *I would normally not have told you but it is written there for all to read*, he said. *Time to lock him up*, the first man said. All three advanced towards Ali. *Perhaps you should ask your genie to come and rescue you, my boy,* the copper sniggered. A feeling of dread overcame Ali. He quietly slipped his hand into his pocket and rubbed an old little lamp concealed there. He rubbed it thrice and screamed, *Take me home, Genie.* A puff of cloud, a loud pop, and when the smoke cleared, Ali was gone. An instant later, he and the Genie found themselves in their cave in the woods of Persia having travelled a million nights back in time. *This world is coming to an end, Genie,* Ali said with a rueful smile. *The new world will not have magic in it.* *And no genies to boot*, Genie added. ### (day 20): what does it really mean to have fun? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-does-it-really-mean-to-have-fun/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:02:00.000Z One of the constant reminders we keep getting from contemporary prolific writers is to keep the writing fun. On days when the words flow, this piece of advice feels very common-sensical and obvious. It's a given that writing can be fun and easy and delightful and all those wonderful and pleasurable things artists seek when they set out to create something. But there are days when it feels like a chore to get to the writing desk, when the brain is all foggy and the story begins to feel like a big obstacle to surmount. Many seasoned writers, including Dean Wesley Smith, attribute this to Critical Voice. For a long time, I used to think that whenever writing started to feel like a chore, I'd simply have to attribute that to Critical Voice and plough ahead and then I'd be back in the game. That I'm not pushing through because of some fear, which is absurd because there is nothing to be feared when it comes to stringing words and telling a story. I sometimes see the rationale in this argument, but because language can sometimes be so limiting, I often felt as if I was missing something. I was failing to understand something essential. Because, truth be told, even though I've experienced days of flow, I also continue to experience days of sluggishness, slow days, days I'd much rather spend in bed reading a book written by someone else than writing my own stories. I thought that if I could only see what I was failing to grasp, then writing would become an everyday activity of fun again for me. If only I could find that missing element, I'd be able to jump out of bed, ready to start typing words even before my eyes have fully opened and gotten accustomed to the new day. And because that wasn't happening for me consistently, I began to think that every time I felt stalled, it was somehow my fault. That I was letting Critical Voice get in the way even though I know better. Over several years of grappling with this and observing this closely, I've come to the following conclusions. - ***Knowing that Critical Voice exists does not stop it from popping up.*** At this point, I've spent almost my entire lifetime with this voice in my head, so I can safely assume it will keep showing up, especially when least expected. - ***Knowing that Critical Voice exists does not automatically translate into me being able to stop it or overcome it and carry on writing.*** Some days the voice is really loud and insistent. Sometimes, I'm able to ignore it and get to the writing desk, and when the words begin to flow, the voice fades away for a long, long time. There are also occasions when the voice is too loud and putting down words feels very difficult, a struggle, in fact. - ***Sometimes it's not Critical Voice but an emotion drawing my attention to something else.*** I haven't been able to make any progress on the manuscript yesterday and today, and that was because I've had to attend to some publishing-related tasks that I had been putting off for far too long. I had been meaning to upload a second edition of *A Benevolent Goddess*, then upload a revised version of *Dying Wishes* with minor changes to the back matter, then update some back matter links in *The Mind Meddler*. I had been sitting on these changes for months now, but these tasks have been weighing heavily on my mind. Besides, publishing my books is just as important as writing them. Sometimes I have to clear the decks like these in order to give my full attention to writing. It's a one-person operation here, so I'm not doing myself any service if I were to simply keep writing words and continued to ignore all these publishing-related tasks that need my attention. - ***It is not my fault. I am doing the best I can.*** One of the biggest lessons for me in this era of hyper-productivity is to understand that I am doing the best I can. It is not my fault if a negative emotion arises and casts me into depression for a few moments. I can feel my feeling first. Then, instead of catastrophizing or blaming, I can label it, allow myself to feel it, and do what it takes to come back to a calm state of mind – journaling, yoga, meditation, colouring, playing the piano. And then in that calm frame of mind, I can get to the task of writing and enjoying the story unfold. I'd much rather come to my stories with a positive and restful state of mind than with an angry, restless energy. --- There is often a tendency to compare ourselves with other writers or creatives who seem to be able to plough on no matter what happens in their lives. The most important thing to understand is that we do not always have the complete information as to what's going on in someone's life, what kind of resources or support they have or don't have, and what kind of people they are to be able to respond the way they do. In short, it doesn't help to compare. For instance, I know of one very successful female entrepreneur who claims to be handling both motherhood and entrepreneurship. Hearing her speak of her juggling act often made me feel quite inadequate with my own attempts at parenting and writing. It was only years later that I found out that the entrepreneur's mother stayed with her and looked after the children while the daughter was out building out her business. It's a simple but crucial fact that was omitted to create an impressive illusion of achievement and a stupendous balancing act. This is why comparing ourselves to others never helps because we never have the full picture, our circumstances are not exactly identical, and we are nothing like the other person, which means we do not respond to situations in identical ways. All this to say that when we are unable to write or create on any given day and a well-meaning, seasoned artist advises us that it is Critical Voice that's stopping us and that we need to shove it out of the way, it's quite alright for us to pause and take stock of our situation. More often than not, it could be Critical Voice and we can deal with it, knowing what it is. Sometimes, we're unable to push through, and that's perfectly OK too. So to answer the question – what does it really mean to have fun? – I'll have to say that for me, writing is fun for the most part. Sometimes, it isn't. And instead of berating myself for it being that way, I can accept it and try my best on those days when the *fun* aspect of it doesn't feel spontaneous. Everything is cyclical. What goes up, comes down. And so it follows that what goes down, must come up too sooner or later! --- And today, I've struck the jackpot! I received a notification from the library that a copy of [Kate Morton](https://www.katemorton.com)'s latest novel, *Homecoming*, is ready for me to borrow! Morton's been one the earliest authors whose works influenced my own writing. It was her books that made me fall in love with the format of parallel storylines unfolding in differnet time periods. I've read and loved every book of hers. After I finish *Thirst No. 4*, which I'm currently reading, although I don't want it to end, I'll jump right into *Homecoming*! I feel like a little child who's just been told she can have as much ice-cream as she wants! 🤩 ![Paperback copy of Homecoming by Kate Morton, featuring a trail through the woods with a blue light at the end](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/43.1.-Homecoming-1.jpeg) ### (day 19): gifts from the Universe URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/gifts-from-the-universe/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:01:55.000Z I had to attend to some necessary publishing-related matters today, so writing took a backseat. Still, it was time very well spent. And I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I forgot to cook veggies for dinner this afternoon, so we ended up resorting to Maggi noodles! I also managed a solid 10 hours of sleep last night, having given up that atrociously bad habit of watching TV at bedtime. Jeez! Bedtime TV was really an awful thing for me to indulge in. Never again! Books truly offer me so much more comfort and nourishment than TV ever does. Anyhoo, when I came back home after picking up D from school, a package from Amazon was waiting for me. Usually, Amazon packages are addressed to KrA as it's his account we use to make purchases for home. This one was addressed to me, so I wondered what it was. I could feel it was a book. As soon as I entered home, I tore open the package and look what was in it! ![Paperback copy of Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil by Christopher Pike featuring a blonde-haired white woman with blue eyes](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/42.-Thirst-No-5-1.jpg) The instant I saw it, I knew who had sent it to me. It had to be Helen, bringer of all good things into my life, and to whom I was raving about Thirst No. 4 just a couple of days ago! And sure enough, when I pinged her, Helen said she thought I ought to have my very own copy of the last book in the series! Thank you, lovely Helen! You and your friendship are truly blessings from the Universe to me. ❤️ I was so happy and moved by Helen's gesture that I decided to start making entries in my (offline) diary about blessings received from the Universe. I began with yesterday when I received news of *Dying Wishes* having been shortlisted for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writers Award in the Speculative Fiction category. Helen's gift to me went into the list under today's date, alongside another email I had received this morning for a promo opportunity. I'm so happy today. I feel so happy looking back at these past several days. My daily posts on this blog as a result of taking part in the ongoing writing challenge have led to many eye-opening epiphanies and realizations. Life is so simple when I'm not trying to wrestle with it or wrangle it into my limited vision. When I demand nothing from it, life offers me so much more than I could have ever imagined in my wildest dreams! In that sense, life is truly like me. I am truly like life itself! ### (day 18): positivity URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/positivity/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:01:46.000Z I've been debating writing this post now versus later, but there are some things on top of my mind and it's best I put them out here, both for my catharsis and for the benefit of whoever is reading this, my future self included. ### *Short-term Delights versus Long-term Fulfillment* Firstly, I've figured out what's been causing all those sleepless nights and spells of dizziness from lack of sleep the following mornings. I've been staying up late watching *The Family Man*, and if there's something I've learnt from experience, it's that watching TV right before falling asleep is a sure-shot recipe for me to not sleep well, to wake up often in the middle of the night, and to be all grumpy and antsy the next morning. So I'm entirely to blame for this. TV has always been bad for me – it's way too much passive consumption – and it doesn't quite feel nourishing in a way that losing myself in a good book or a walk in nature or a visit to a new place feels. Even reading too many books one after another can stop being nourishing for me, especially if I've put my writing on hiatus as a result or if I end up staying up late and sacrificing a good night's sleep in the process. Sometimes the desire to know what happens next makes me give in to that temptation of just one more episode, or just one more page, until my eyes begin to protest and become too heavy for me to keep them open and they close of their own accord. But this is what choosing short-term gain over long-term benefits is all about, isn't it? This is what discipline is all about, isn't it? To discern and make the better choice in the moment. And to also understand that sometimes we make less optimum choices not because the temptation is so strong but also because we fear facing the discomfort that sometimes accompanies getting started on a project that holds some meaning and importance to us. ### *Taking Action Despite Extreme Discomfort* Dean Wesley Smith wrote a timely [post](https://deanwesleysmith.com/writers-often-see-the-dark-side/) today about how writers often see the dark side. He says that early-stage writers are often guilty of this as they complain about all the challenges they have to face, which causes them to look at their fiction writing as something onerous or negative. One of the ways he suggests to overcome this is to look at fiction writing as fun, as play, and not as work, not to take it too seriously or make it something so important that we are paralyzed into inaction. Towards the end of last year, I realized that the most important thing I needed to work on this year was my mindset towards this entire writing and publishing journey. Oh, I am guilty as charged of every mistake beginning authors make, right from wanting to selling a million books right out of the bat to wishing the words would write themselves (hey, now that is actually possible what with so many AI tools ready to do your bidding, but being the masochist that I am, we all know I'm not going down *that* route 😂) to demanding that I get an uninterrupted three hours every day to sit down and write to sighing and telling myself often and loud and clear that I would have written more only if everything else in my life had been smooth and easy, putting my writing down, cursing my love for writing and wishing I had been a *sensible* person who had opted for a regular 9-to-5 job and could be content making an income and raising two kids (instead of the *only* one I have, although little D is one of the greatest blessings of my life) and on and on and on ... I've debunked many of these myths for myself over and over again, yet I continue to fall into these traps of making life and writing difficult for myself instead of letting them flow naturally with the great ease with which life and creativity tend to unfold when not tampered with, when we're not clinging to our own limited expectations of how they ought to be. For instance, this morning I spent almost an hour debating whether I should write this blog post now or later in the day after I have written down some words of fiction. I could have very well used that hour to write this post, instead of questioning my urge to do so and squandering much time and brain power on a decision that felt supremely important in the moment but would actually turn out to be very inconsequential in the larger scheme of things. Because, as I can see, having poured out these thoughts, I am quite keen and eager to get back to the manuscript I have been avoiding for a long time. And boy, have I been avoiding it in some very creative ways – worrying about an upcoming doctor's appointment for D (which is still three weeks away), worrying whether my book will win an award it has been shortlisted for, waking up in the middle of the night worrying that D will fall off the bed, picking up a fight with KrA, fretting about having to do laundry – and the list goes on and on and on. Funnily enough, all these worries come roaring at me in full force when I've been away from the writing desk for too long for my own good. When I sit down and have fun and really enjoy the process of writing for its own sake, the rest of my life aligns itself miraculously in a way such that all problems disappear or at least feel entirely surmountable. I ride high on confidence and on faith and trust that these words of fiction I write today will spill out into the Universe and make someone's day lighter and happier, fuller and more inspired. But then, unaccustomed as I am to staying in this mood of positivity for long, I quickly slip back into my old ways and patterns, and the cycle continues. Call it self-sabotage or fear of success or a mere subconscious repetition of old patterns, it's a familiar beast. > *Known hell is better than unknown heaven*, my mom used to say when I was very young. > I often took that to mean that it is better to stay in a hell that is familiar to us than to make it to heaven, especially one that is new and strange and unfamiliar. > It didn't occur to me back then that to stay in hell, whether familiar or unfamiliar, is the worst thing we could possibly do to ourselves as human beings. And that to create our own heavens, no matter how unfamiliar, is the best thing we can do for ourselves. ### *Clarity Often Comes from Action instead of from Analysis* I think too much. I don't mean that in a bad or negative way, but I can see I don't have sufficient control over my mind. And the trouble with that is when I lack clarity in a situation, I often tend to brood and ruminate, and paralyze myself into inaction until I am fed up of remaining stuck or I come to some realization that sheds light on the path ahead. I wouldn't have minded this kind of thinking much were it not for the fact that it often tends to be critical and unhelpful, rather than constructive. I tend to focus on the problem rather than on the solution. I tend to think a lot about the situation and all the troubles that could possible arise from it rather than on the numerous ways I can respond to it. For instance, there's this particular book I'm in the midst of and I've been avoiding getting back to it. And in this chasm that I've put between myself and the manuscript, I've poured a lot of negative thoughts such as *'This story is no good'*, *'It is too dark'*, *'I feel depressed writing it, which means my readers will feel depressed reading it'*, *'The main character is too weak'*, and so on and so on, none of which are really true by the way. All stories are about the characters facing seemingly impossible problems, trying to solve them, and repeatedly failing and/or finding some small successes, until they get to the end where it's an epic win or an epic failure. (On an aside, I have decided that all my stories will end in epic wins. I will never leave readers without a ray of hope at the end, no matter what kind of dark and twisted turns the story may take. When I worry about writing dark scenes, I only have to remind myself that the Harry Potter stories are full of Dementors but they are also full of Patronuses and great friendships, that Voldemort exists but so does the courage and bravery of Harry and his friends. So it is certainly not merely about the kind of dark turns the story may take as it progresses but about the light at the end of the tunnel. That's the hope and message of positivity that I wish to spread in the world.) But if I get stuck in the dark turns of the book and don't get to the positive, winning end myself, then I'm depriving both myself and my readers the joy of reading something uplifting. I'm not even giving myself a chance to prove to my own self that my characters can navigate these dark and dreary times and take me along with them for the ride and come out at the end with surprising courage and strength of heart and mind. When I remain stuck in thinking mode and refuse to add words to the story, I do myself and the characters and my readers no service at all. In fact, I only keep strengthening the bridges of negativity in my brain and keep traversing them over and over again, remaining stuck in this action-paralysis and telling myself, '*See, I told you nothing good will ever come of trying this.'* ### *On Toxic Positivity* In my earlier avatar, I often remained entrenched in the negativity loops by telling myself that the situation was too difficult and that if I were to put a positive spin to it, I'd only be fooling myself and going down the slippery slope of toxic positivity. This gave me permission to stay in the modes of anger and fear and rage and anxiety and depression for a very long time. That gets really boring and tiring and sickening very quickly. Also, it becomes very addictive and that's the first reaction my brain springs to whenever it encounters something new or out of the ordinary, basically every time I step out of the house or even log on to the Internet. That is not to say I should deny any emotion that arises, but I can practise emotional acceptance and allow those feelings to be there instead of wallowing in them. For instance, last evening I came across an author I hadn't heard of before, and I was completely enamoured of their books – speculative fiction cozy mystery! – but alongside rose the feeling of envy. It filled my body with dread and my mind with every sort of critical thought. *'I'd never be able to write like this.' 'My stories are too dark.' 'Why can't I embrace my South Indian-ness and freely incorporate South Indian elements in the story?' 'I'll never be a success as an author.'* Gee! I am so sick and tired of the same kinds of thoughts cropping up in my head over and over again. I went to bed feeling miserable, especially as I hadn't gotten around to writing fiction yesterday, and despite the fact that only moments ago I had been riding high on the news of *Dying Wishes* having been [shortlisted](https://www.kobo.com/news/ninth-annual-rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize-shortlist-announced) as a finalist in the *2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize* in the *Speculative Fiction* category. Every other book on the list has been traditionally published. So I feel a special pride bloom in my chest that my humble indie-published book occupies a seat of honour amongst books published by these long-standing giants in the industry. Yet, the lustre of that news quickly faded as I found something to give my brain to feel anxious and angsty about. It didn't take me long to get on to that negativity bridge, did it? And what happened as a result was the following, and I complelely ashamed that it turned out this way. I fell into a restles sleep, then woke up a couple of times when D tossed and turned about, switched on the lights, woke up KrA, complained to him about how I've been spending so many nights sleepless, and asked D to go sleep with KrA in the other room, and it was only close to midnight at this point. Then, sleep having completely deserted me for the night, I watched the last two episodes of *The Family Man*, munching on a banana and a bowlful of chips and hazelnut-flavoured crispies alongside. Then I read *Thirst No. 4* by Christopher Pike until my eyes grew heavy, telling myself I'd never be able to write as wonderful a series of books – it was close to 3 AM at this point – and eventually I fell asleep until D called out to me from the other room at half past six in the morning, asking if I would still drop him off to school despite the drama of the previous night. All because I stumbled across a new (to me) author and began comparing myself to her and putting myself down, despite how much progress I have made in the past few years. ### *Am I ready for success?* Sometimes, I think this is why material success eludes me. I fail to celebrate and enjoy what I achieve. In fact, when I receive good news, I quickly devolve into a mess as Critical Voice is quick to drag me to the depths of hell that I am most familiar with and well-accusomed to, instead of letting me sit in the excitement of my newfound heaven. Apparently, there are terms for this: happiness anxiety, or even cherophobia. Whatever it is called, by my reaction of short-lived excitement and joy followed by aversion and dread, I'm sending the message to the Universe that good news bothers me. And the Universe takes the cue and decides to not send me any more good news so as to spare me all the anxiety and trouble. I want to pause here and give myself a big hug, because I recently learnt from doing a Big Life Journal printable with little D that we can experience a lot of conflicting emotions at the same time. We can feel both excited and worried about an upcoming event that we're looking forward to. We can feel both happiness and sadness at an event, like graduation or the completion of a course or even a wedding. Often, I get derailed by the sadness or nostalgia, I end up wallowing in them, instead of allowing myself a few moments to accept those conflicting emotions and stepping forward bravely, knowing that these emotions are fleeting and that I can handle whatever comes my way. It's usually the fear that I may not be able to handle new challenges that keeps me mired in the nostalgia, instead of fully stepping up and embracing the new situation, confident and trusting that I can handle this with a positive outlook, no matter what. At the beginning of this year, my only[ goal](https://thedreampedlar.com/looking-back-and-looking-ahead-in-preparation-for-2023/) for 2023 was to develop a healthy and positive mindset so that I can build a long-term career in writing and publishing fiction. This, I suspect, will remain the most important aspect of my days. Looking at the present and ahead with optimism, and enjoying every moment of it, trusting that I can handle everything, come what may! ### (day 17:) recognition URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/day-17-recognition/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:01:42.000Z I've had the most awesome news today! *[Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/)* is now a [finalist](https://www.kobo.com/media-hub/rakuten-kobo-emerging-writer-prize) in the *2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize* in the *Speculative Fiction* category. I heard this news from the lovely folks at Kobo, who've sent me a sticker to use on the book cover! Ta-ta-da-ta-daaaaaa ..... ![front cover of Dying Wishes by Anitha Krishnan featuring a full moon and a silhouette of leafless branches](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/Dying-Wishes---Catalogue-Cover---1800-by-2700-px_Kobo-Sticker-2_small-3.jpg) Isn't this the most awesome thing ever? 😀 I'm so happy and thrilled with this news, and I am incredibly grateful to be on the shortlist. But oh, I'm also dreaming of winning, and how badly I want all the adulation and the publicity, the praise and the awards! But I reckon I've wisened up to the fact that in this artistic journey of mine, longing and gratitude will often co-exist. So even as I yearn to win, I'm also filled with gratitude and joy for having made it to the shortlist in the first place. Thank you, Universe! 💕 --- I woke up this morning with the worst headache ever, quite hungover from yesterday's mad get-together with friends although there was no alcohol involved. I reckon it's the several sleepless nights of last week all taking their toll on me now. So it was a largely a day of half-sleeping and puttering about the house. I folded three piles of laundry. And I mostly read *Thirst No. 4* in between dropping off D at school in the morning and picking him up in the late afternoon. Some days are like this. Very little gets done. There was a time when I wished to eliminate such days from my life. I had deemed them an utter waste of time. But the truth is that such days are unavoidable. There are more of them than I'd like; sometimes, I can push through such days, but at other times, it's impossible. So now I know what to do. Let them be, and let them pass. Tomorrow is another day to get up and try. Perhaps this is what long-term thinking is all about. To not get caught in the daily details but to keep at what one does, to simply come back to the doing day after day after day. ### (day 16): a day with friends URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-day-with-friends/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:01:38.000Z Today turned out to be a lovely day, which didn't go according to plan, as expected. KrA was out with D all morning, and I had a good four hours to myself, which I had initially planned to spend writing. The morning got off to a slow start, however, and I even indulged in a mid-morning nap, having had some strange nightmare towards the end of last night, a nightmare in which I was escaping from a war zone and also looking up ex-crushes in a bizarre clash of scenarios! So I was quite foggy-headed in the morning, and even coffee couldn't help clear that, so I indulged in a nap, then cooked lunch, played the piano for a bit, and read a bit of *Thirst No. 4* by Christopher Pike. I have no words to express how much I love this series! Pike's stories have made fall in love with Krishna all over again! We had planned to spend the afternoon with friends and what we had initially thought would be a 2-hour affair at most ended up being an entire afternoon and evening together filled with lots of play and laughter and ice-cream and orange juice and a trip to an awesome Indian restaurant we didn't know existed in Burlington! Back home now, both KrA and D are fast asleep, and I am typing these words simply to record what a wonderful day it has been and also to keep this daily streak of writing a blog post a day going on until the end of the writing challenge. I understand now why we need to feel whole within ourselves before our friendships can truly blossom. It is only when we are whole and complete within ourselves that we don't enter into dysfunctional relationships or have unrealistic expectations of other people and can allow for a lot of spaciousness and warm open-heartedness in our friendships, which would make our friend cherish this relationship with us even more. Today was also a day of not writing fiction even though I had planned to. Earlier I'd have fretted about having missed a day of writing fiction. But now, even though I didn't get to the manuscript today, I am not worried. I will get there tomorrow morning when D has left for school, and even if I have a rusty start to begin with, I can keep at it. That's the difference this time around. When I look at a career in writing fiction spanning 30–40 years, one missed day does not make a difference. It was a day spent living and enjoying time with D and KrA and friends, and what can be sweeter than that! ### (day 15): an unusual Saturday URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/an-unusual-saturday/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T00:59:56.000Z I'd have normally given up Saturday and Sunday as non-writing days, but after yesterday's [epiphanies](https://thedreampedlar.com/resolutions-for-life/) about making rules that serve life and not the other way round and about approaching writing with a mindset of creativity and positivity, I made my way to the writing desk several times this morning for multiple, brief writing stints. And I finished a short story I had been working on! So, yay to me! And wow, how many myths I used to believe in! That I can't write if I have only 20 minutes of time, that I need an uninterrupted hour or more to do the work, that I need life around me to be completely sorted and great so that I can focus on writing and not on life-related stuff, blah ... blah ... blah ... Well, today I managed to step out of the myths, and that's a real win in my book. I realized something about truths today. That we need constant reminders of them. In this world full of distractions and doubts, it's very easy to forget what matters to us. We can easily fall prey to doing what's easy and shows quick returns, instead of sticking to doing what we care about for a long period of time. It all takes time. And boy, am I in a terrific hurry to get somewhere real fast, to this imaginary place where I think I'd be able to say, "I've made it at last." That's a myth that life has debunked for me many times, and that's a myth that Rachel Friedman debunks in her book *And Then We Grew Up*. That's a myth that Dean Wesley Smith debunks in his [blog post](https://deanwesleysmith.com/memory-and-perspective/) today. This is one of the amazing offshoots of doing the writing challenge alongside Dean. He has taken to writing many encouraging and motivational posts more often than before. These nuggets of wisdom keep offering me those constant reminders that I seem to need on this journey. Apparently, Dean used to write very frequently about having a long-term mindset back in the early days of indie publishing and many people have said that those teachings and motivational posts completely changed the way they wrote and published. I've been following Dean's blogs for only a couple of years now, or perhaps not even for that long. So I've often felt as if I had missed the boat, missed all the fun that happened back then in the early days. If I were to be honest with myself, I think it is a good thing that I did not come to the industry back in the days of the gold rush. Given the mindset I had back at that time and even until a little while ago, I'd have definitely crashed and burnt. I'd have become an 'art monster', an artist who is a jerk of a human being, as Rachel Friedman puts it. I realize now that where I am, which feels like the complete beginning, is the perfect place for me to be in right now. I have all the time in the world to keep practising adopting a positive mindset and ensuring that my writing remains fun, for me and for the reader. In fact, the truth is I've been in that place of "I've made it at last", only to realize that I still kept looking for happiness and lost a lot of things in the downslide from there – money, relationships, and my sanity too. So here's to learning from past experiences and moving ahead wiser yet also feeling very optimistic and with a whole lot of joy in my heart. There's only the writing, and making a career and a living from it, which takes time. A hell of a lot of time. Well, isn't it a good thing then that I get to do writing alongside parenting? Because in the world of parenting, everyone knows that the days are long but the years are short. Very, very short indeed! ### (day 14): resolutions for life URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/resolutions-for-life/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:00:04.000Z Happy Tamil New Year! Today marks the first day of the Tamil calendar, so wishes galore! I've been having some epiphanies off late. Perhaps it's all the sunshine and summer-like weather we've been having this week, or the fact that I read an amazing book titled *And Then We Grew Up* by [Rachel Friedman](https://www.rachel-friedman.com), or that I read something that resonated strongly with me in the latest issue of the fortnightly newsletter, *The Imperfectionist*, by [Oliver Burkeman](https://www.oliverburkeman.com) of the *Four Thousand Weeks* fame. Or it could also be this ongoing [writing challenge](https://deanwesleysmith.com/challenge-starts/) I'm part of, as a result of which I've been writing more fiction and also these daily blog posts alongside. But the penny has been dropping for me resoundingly loud on several fronts. In *And Then We Grew Up*, Rachel Friedman reconnects with friends she made at Interlochen, a summer camp and high school for children pursuing the arts, to find out how their artistic careers have panned out over the past decade or so. Alongside, she reflects on how at one point in time she used to be an excellent viola player, which is what led her to Interlochen in the first place, with aspirations to make it big in the music world, aspirations that never did materialize. But she continued to fantasize what life would have been like had she stuck with her *'talent'* and explored her *'potential'*. The entire book is a study of the fantasy of an artist's life versus the various complicated and nuanced realities that Friedman explores by sharing her own life trajectory and those of the friends she reconnects with for the book. That is a very simplistic description of this book. It is very hard for me to put in words how seen and liberated and acknowledged I felt after reading this book. The debate between doing what you love and living a responsible, functional adult life, earning your keep and fulfilling your responsibilities towards family is an endless one. It's something I've struggled with over and over again, often feeling that writing is an indulgence at best, which sees me spending the bare minimum time at the writing desk and then calling it a day, only to complain on weekends and holidays that I don't have enough time to write ... and so on and so on. Yes, yes, I can see the contradictions in the excuses I make. My first instinct after reading the book was to give up on my fantasy of trying to make it as an author earning a full-time living writing fiction. I decided that I needed to look for a part-time job at least, because anyway I wasn't writing more than an hour of fiction a day. How many times have you seen me ask this question of myself over the past 2–3 years? And shouldn't I be asking myself the more important question: why am I only writing an hour of fiction of day if, and that's also a big if, I really wanted to write more and build a body of work? All these thoughts were very confusing for me, and thinking more just kept me more entangled. So I took a break and started watching *The Family Man* on Prime Video, just as Friedman decided to go and watch a movie right after learning from her accountant that she owed four thousand dollars in tax, an amount that she didn't have in her savings account at that point in time. I needed some laughs because I didn't want to be sucked into those brooding thoughts all the time. Over and over again, I have backed away from writing full-time, worried that all my efforts will be in vain when it comes to earning a living from writing. It's been a rather vicious cycle, with me feeling too paralyzed to give it a go, and then remaining stuck in that place of not creating and not giving my creations a chance to be published. And, on the other hand, it's not as if I haven't been looking for a job. I have been submitting resumes for the last several months but I haven't heard back from many. The two employers that responded offered me too little, and I certainly think my time and expertise are much more valuable than what they have to offer. So this other notion that I have in my head of having a part-time job that will give me a reasonable income while I write fiction on the side is also turning out to be a fantasy in itself. And in all this, I have not been looking at reality with clear eyes to begin with. I spend an hour in the morning writing, and after that I go for a walk with KrA, then cook something for dinner if at all, then read or watch TV until it is time to go pick up D from school, and then lament that I haven't had time to write because I'm doing all this parenting! I can't help laughing even as I type these words, because on a day like this when my mind is clear, I know I can write in the morning or even in the afternoons. I have already proven to myself that I can write these blog posts in the evenings. These days, I go to drop D and pick him up as well from school, we spend some time outdoors in the evenings, I hang out with him before, during and after dinnertime doing random stuff like playing LEGO, listening to music, and chatting about the day. If I simply look at the time he spends at school, that in itself is quite a lot of time in which I can write much more than I do presently. Then why don't I? Quite often it's a case of Critical Voice stopping me in my tracks and telling me that the story is no good and what's the point of writing it when it won't have any audience anyway? See the vicious cycle I am trapped in? How do I get out of this? The answer to this I found in this week's issue of Oliver Burkeman's fortnightly newsletter, *The Imperfectionist*. Talking about rules to live by, Burkeman says that every weekday morning he aims to begin writing by 10:30 AM. And then he explains to those of us who believe that 10:30 AM is extremely late ... (In one of my earlier 'art monster' avatars – and you have to read Friedman's book to understand what 'art monster' means – I used to complain that if I couldn't begin writing by 9:30 AM, then the day was practically lost!) ... Burkeman explains that 10:30 AM is his no-later-than-time, having accounted for life responsibilities such as solo parenting mornings or realities such as waking up foggy-headed and needing to go on a walk or a run. He goes on to explain that if we were to try and emulate writers such as Haruki Murakami or Kurt Vonnegut who woke up at very early hours such as 4 AM or 5:30 AM, then we'd only be setting ourselves up for disappointment if our current reality does not allow for it. Wasn't it only a week ago that I was telling myself that I should try and wake up at 4 AM to get in some writing before the demands of the day begin to pile up on me? How conveniently I forgot that I don't go to sleep before 9 PM or 10 PM, and that quite often D wakes up in the middle of the night, disrupting my sleep in the process! Burkeman calls this a 'forcing function', a set of rules that we try to impose on our messy and imperfect lives to try and elevate it to some vision of perfection. The only outcome we achieve in this study of contrasts is a feeling of utter disappointment with our real, complicated lives. Another example that Burkeman gives, and one that hit me smack in the face because I am so guilty of doing it, is this: if we're convinced that we need to do three hours of deep work every day and find that our current reality cannot accommodate that but set it as a rule to follow and strive to meet anyway, then we're only setting ourselves up for disappointment. The solution is to have *rules that serve life* – such as getting to the manuscript by 10:30 AM because that is doable and practically achieveable – instead of having rules that life is forced to serve, which only ends up killing all the joy and fun. Which, I believe, is precisely what has happened with me and writing. In not being able to wake up at 4 AM and write, in not being able to spend three hours doing deep work because there's something pertaining to D that's occupying my mind, yet continuing to strive to attain those ideals because I got it into my mind that that is the only way to write, I converted writing into a chore. I became all bitter about it, and all this striving and trying to live up to the idealized, fantasy version of author life I had built in my head completely killed all joy in writing for me. I love Burkeman's newsletters, and I've loved his book *Four Thousand Weeks* too, but what he wrote in his newsletter this week came as very timely reality checks for me. All these rigid rules I was trying to impose on my life – that I must wake up at 4 AM and get my words in, that I must build my backlist at a breakneck speed, that everything that is not related to writing is a drain on my time and energy and resources – all of this feels like such bullshit I've been filling my brain and life with. Whereas all I really need to do is so simple. Wake up, hang out with D, write after he goes to school, go for a walk with KrA, write some more before and/or after doing chores, pick up D from school, hang out with him, have fun, get him to bed, read or watch TV, and call it a day. A day that is entirely mine, filled with writing and spending time with KrA and D! > *In the end, after all, the concepts aren’t what matter. Developing habits and achieving goals don’t matter in and of themselves. They matter to the extent that they lead you more deeply into a spacious and vivid and fulfilling experience of the reality behind all those concepts. It’s not worth bothering with the ones that drag you away from that reality, into a futile quest to become someone you aren’t. That’s no way to live.* > *Oliver Burekman, The Imperfectionist, 13 April 2023* So here's a resolution I make today. No more dithering on whether or not I seek to make a living writing. This is what I wish to do. This is what I love doing. This is what I will dedicate my time to. Truth be told, I am incredibly lucky that we can manage to live well enough on KrA's salary alone, so there is really no reason for me to allow financial anxiety to seep in and prevent me from writing. In fact, I think my financial anxiety as well as all those anxieties I have pertaining to family and D's health, all of those are simply attempts at self-sabotage, just another of Critical Voice's insiduous ways to keep me away from the writing desk. Yes, all those thoughts will continue crop up. Fantasies about having held on to the lucrative job I had back in Singapore, when KrA and I had enough in our accounts to spend on holidays without worrying about money, all those what-if questions – what if I had held on to that job, what if I was still earning today, what if I didn't have to rely on writing to earn me an income, what if I had had family to help me bring up D in the early days of motherhood, what if ..., what if ..., what if ... ***I have a very active mind, and the best use for it is in the writing of stories.*** ***I am a writer of stories. This is how I make a living. I may not be seeing a short-term income right away, but I am slowly building to something bigger and very sustainable.*** Every time an iota of doubt arises, I will label it as a thought or a worry, and carry on with my life's work. No matter what disappointments arise, I can face them. I can face all the rejections and difficulties. I can face doubts and questions from others, and I can also hold contradictory emotions of longing and certainty within myself. Most importantly, for me, parenting does not take away from my writing. I have plenty of time to write in a relaxed and joyful way. My stories are richer as a result when I bring an energy of creativity and positivity to them instead of angst and anxiety and fear and worry. Those are not the modes I wish to operate in. I am on cloud nine now as a result of these realisations. May I never forget this day's epiphanies. May I trust myself and the universe that I can and I will make a living by writing and selling fiction. This is the path I have chosen, and I will no longer stray from it. It is amazing what a clear, positive mind can believe in and achieve. Hurrah! ### (day 13): moments of reckoning URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/moments-of-reckoning/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:00:10.000Z I've had way too many conflicting moments of reckoning to put too much stock into any of them. First, I got it into my head that I have too much financial anxiety in the short-term to exhibit any kind of grit or perseverance to keep writing fiction and make a long-term career of it. Then, I decided I must look for a job, a real one with the promise of a regular paycheck, and that it must not be writing-related because I wanted to try my hand at something new, something that won't involve long hours at the writing desk in solitude. But when I looked at my résumé, it was evident that writing was all I had done for the past two decades, and even my *interests* and *hobbies* had to do with reading or playing with D! No running marathons or jumping off cliffs or kayaking or deep-sea diving for me to list as interesting pursuits. And then, it occurred to me that barring a handful of writers, most who've tasted success in the indie publishing area have a huge backlist. So why couldn't I sit and write and build a backlist without the promise of success, both near-term and far-term? Why couldn't I simply persevere and trust that I will find material success at some point? Then, at one point I believed that I had to write every day, come what may, in order to build a backlist. But this challenge is showing me that unless I have a deadline looming over me, I don't really feel like writing every day. But, to be honest, I don't know who I am or what my pattern is. The other day I thought I had it all figured out, that I was a morning writer, an afternoon daydreamer, an evening blogger, and a nighttime reader. After two good days of writing fiction, I was unable to make progress on the manuscript this morning. Too many such questions swirled in my mind, so I went for a walk, thinking that would help clear my head, but after that I ended up spending the entire afternoon watching *[The Family Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FFamily%5FMan%5F%28Indian%5FTV%5Fseries%29)*. It's hilarious! And now, because I've been blogging daily as part of the ongoing writing challenge, I'm here to pen my thoughts for the day. I think what I'm seeking is some kind of certainty, that if I were to keep writing, I'd find success some day in some way. But alas, no one can guarantee me any such thing. When that unknown is so inevitable, why do I let it rob all joy from writing? Not as if I want it to, but it's almost as if I'm a helpless bystander in this entire unfolding of events. With that, I'll end today's post, because this particular pattern – of writing with much joy, then worrying about having no short-term income to the extent that I'm unable to write, then getting back to the manuscript after a few days and wondering what all the drama was about, only for that cycle to repeat itself – has been going on for far too long. So I'm off now to continue watching *The Family Man*, while my subconcious works out how to untangle itself from this mess it keeps falling into. ### (day 12): all because of a nice breakup email I sent URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/all-because-of-a-nice-breakup-email-i-sent/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:00:22.000Z I used to subscribe to the *Every Intention* newsletter by productivity consultant, [Ashley Janssen](https://ashleyjanssen.com), whose website is full of practical wisdom. Earlier this year, in a frenzy of decluttering and simplifying, I unsubscribed from the newsletter, because I had come to see that in times of difficulty, I tend to run to books and blog posts on productivity – essentially, other people's words and opinions – instead of sitting with my own discomfort and figuring out what's impeding me in the moment. A couple of days after I unsubscribed, I got a brief email from Ashley inquiring why I did so. I was so amazed that someone would take the effort to reach out especially after a subscription cancellation that I was determined to write to Ashley at length. Only, it took me a month to do so! Besides, I had derived a lot of practical value when I read through many of her posts, and I wanted to reach out to her and thank her too. A few days later, Ashley mentioned that she was writing a post on reducing distractions inspired by my email, and I was all excited to see her unique take on it. And voilà! Ashley's [post](https://ashleyjanssen.com/in-a-world-full-of-distractions-how-do-you-get-your-focus-back/) is out on her blog today! ***In a world full of distractions, how do you get your focus back?*** Great question, indeed! And Ashley answers it with her usual practicality and wisdom. If this is something up your alley – and who doesn't wish to know how to become more productive and efficient with the time we are blessed with – head over to Ashley's site and take a look at what she describes as the nicest breakup email she has ever received! --- In other news, work continued on the manuscript today, but I've had some reckoning to do. This challenge is bringing me up close and personal to questions I hadn't wanted to answer before, questions I wasn't even comfortable posing to myself before, terrified as I was as to what the answer would be. And these are quintessential questions pertaining to the role writing fiction plays in my life. My thoughts on this have been forming for a long time, but it's only more recently that I have become more comfortable admitting it to myself. I am not yet ready to talk about it here, but I'm certain I will write at length on this in the coming days. Right now, I'm off for the day. It's been a summer-weather day here, and apparently tomorrow is slated to be even warmer. I love the sunshine but I don't much care for the heat, still I'm trying to make the most of this outdoorsy weather we're enjoying now. There's certainly a spring in my step and joy in my heart. And at times like these, life feels just perfect! ### (day 11): back at the writing desk URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/back-at-the-writing-desk/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:00:29.000Z Oh, what joy it brings me to be able to come back to the writing desk, open the manuscript, and start typing, picking up from where I left four long days ago! I love D, I love him being at home and all the silly things he does and all the love and joy that conscious parenting brings. But I also love writing and telling stories. Not doing that for a long stretch of time makes me mad. What also makes me mad is if I go even one day without connecting and playing and fooling around with D. How lucky I am to have both writing and parenting in my daily life! I'm in the midst of reading a very interesting non-fiction book titled *And Then We Grew Up* by Rachel Friedman, and I can't wait to get back to it. So I'll keep this post short and come back tomorrow to write more fiction and perhaps also some thoughts on this utterly marvellous book which calls BS on some very misguided conceptions of the roles that grit and perseverance and talent and luck play en route to success, especially in the artistic fields. Ciao! ### books you may love: Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan, and A Divided Loyalty by Charles Todd URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-vaseem-khan-charles-todd/ Last updated: 2023-04-11T17:08:58.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/33.1.-Malabar-House.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/33.2.Charles-Todd.jpeg) historical mystery fiction After having read Books 2 and 3 of the *Malabar House* series featuring newly independent India's first female police officer, Inspector Persis Wadia, I managed to read the first book in the series: *Midnight at Malabar House*! It was every bit as intriguing and rich with details of 1950s India as the other books in the series, and I absolutely loved reading it. The author, [Vaseem Khan](https://vaseemkhan.com), touches on many sensitive topics in India's independence history and weaves them into the tale with much grace and respect. Wadia's first interactions with love interest, Scotland Yard criminalist, Archie Blackfinch, are often quite hilarious and made me laugh out loud. I hope Khan has a Book 4 up his sleeve and I can't wait for that to come out soon! And then I returned to [Charles Todd](http://charlestodd.com), whose Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries have become very comforting reads for me. Any time I feel low, all I need to do is pick up a Charles Todd book and life goes back to being blissful all over again. *A Divided Loyalty* is rather a different kind of mystery in which Rutledge is tasked with investigating a case that another officer has already looked into in great detail and declared closed without having been able to find the culprit. It is an impossible mystery that Rutledge is asked to investigate, but under his persistent search, the thread begins to unravel. I won't say much more about the book other than to note that it is such an amazing thing to be able to find authors and characters we can return to again and again. > *Books have given me so much: friendship, loyalty, steadfast companionship, insight into human behaviour, empathy, and the ability to travel back and forth in time and across the world no matter where I am!* > *I can only hope my books offer readers the same joy too.* ### (day 10): what if? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-if/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:00:34.000Z The long weekend is coming to an end. As always, standing on the precipice of change, I feel a little grief, a little sadness. So here's me breathing into that little grief-shaped hole in my heart, breathing deeply into it, filling it with love and understanding at these emotions that arise and drift. As a mother, I always worry if I've done enough for D, if I'm doing enough for him. Mostly, I am clueless, because how does one get to define what is enough or too much or too little? How many playdates are too few? Could there ever be too many? How many friends should he have? How much time should he have to himself? I don't think there are any real answers to these questions. So I remind myself of a long-ago resolve I made to myself; that I will not try to manipulate or engineer life situations out of a desperation to change my current reality. Instead, I will show up as my best self in response to the situation on hand. So right now, instead of questioning myself to death, I will be grateful for the playdate D was invited to today and not worry about whether or when the next one will take place. Another thought just occurred to me. What if, at the end of this writing challenge, I realize that I no longer wish to write stories? Well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I've got a very interesting book to read, and I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep. Auf wiedersehen, folks! ### (day 9): best-laid plans and all that URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/best-laid-plans-and-all-that/ Last updated: 2023-04-19T23:59:50.000Z Hello, sleepless night! You came back again for me, my faithful friend! What would I ever do without you? Wait, I know the answer to that question. Without you, I'd sleep really well and be able to function the next day with a clear mind instead of wandering about like a zombie, just trying to keep my eyes open. But, to be honest, the real culprit was me. For, you see, I picked up a Charles Todd book and the story is so riveting I haven't been able to keep away from it all day except for a couple of hours in the morning when I was outdoors with D, who was having fun at an Easter egg hunt event. But no, that's me blaming myself again because like a good girl, I turned off the lights at 9 last night, only to wake up at 11 because of a nightmare. It was the kind of dream I hadn't had in a very long time. I used to have it when I napped alongside D back when he was 2.5 years old; it almost always entailed me walking all by myself in my neighbourhood, which was extremely deserted with not a single living soul to be found. And then I'd wake up and see my friendly Macedonian neighbours in their house across from ours, and I'd feel some semblance of safety and companionship. (Those neighbours [left](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/a-season-of-endings/) for Macedonia a year ago and sadly, John passed away just a couple of months ago having been diagnosed with cancer at a late stage.) Last night, after I woke up at 11, I couldn't go back to sleep. My eyes were tired and sandpapery but everytime I closed them, I could hear a child's breathy whispers, *Mummaaa... Mummaaa..*. It scared the bejesus out of me. D was asleep right beside me, so I knew it wasn't him. Still, I couldn't bring myself to close my eyes after that, and I stayed up for a while, reading the Charles Todd book, finding comfort in it as one would in a good friend. D has a day off tomorrow as well, so I wonder if I'll get any writing done although I do have an assignment to turn in by tomorrow night for a workshop I am attending. I thought I had a pretty good chance of waking up early in the morning and getting some words in before the day begins, but I haven't been sleeping well enough to do that. And I don't quite have a solution for these restless nights. Except, perhaps, the comfort of family, which again is wishful thinking at the moment and not a practical resolution of a very real and persistent problem. Let's see what ~~tomorrow~~ tonight brings! ### (day 8): a clean slate URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-clean-slate/ Last updated: 2023-04-19T23:59:56.000Z It's been a few days since I wrote fiction, as I've been unable to focus between blowing my nose every five minutes and feeling giddy to hanging out with D over the Easter weekend. It eventually catches up with me – that story clamouring for attention somewhere deep inside my subconscious, telling me to write it, write it, write it and not stop until it's written. Which is why Dean's [post](https://deanwesleysmith.com/keep-the-fun/) today on keeping writing fun and not letting Critical Voice interfere is a timely reminder for me. Which is why, instead of heading out with D for his classmate's birthday party, I'm at home, writing this, getting out all my thoughts that have been piling up from the past few days, and headed for a much-needed nap while KrA is ferrying the child to and from the party. --- I must pick up from Thursday, when we headed up to Toronto by train to keep an appointment for some paperwork. I had been worried about KrA and me driving up and down, while D stayed at school, simply because of how crazy drivers have become, especially on the highways. I was too focused on the problem and my panic and couldn't think beyond that, so it was KrA who came up with the solution of taking the train. It was a wonderful ride, the 50-minute journey whizzed past. I could spend an entire day looking out of the train window. We came back in time for me to be able to attend an event I had signed up for long ago at our local library. The Composer In-Residence of the [Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra](https://www.hpo.org), Abigail Richardson-Schulte, was scheduled to give a talk on the life of Franz Schubert interspersed with solo piano performances of some of his pieces. Abigail talked about various aspects of Schubert's life, including his great adoration for Beethoven and his desire to be buried next to Beethoven's grave, a wish that was eventually fulfilled. Although Schubert was very prolific, his works apparently found a devoted audience only posthumously. There was something that Abigail mentioned that struck a chord with me. Schubert's initial works were apparently written for the entertainment of the masses; it was later in life (by later, we mean when he was in his 20s because Schubert only lived until the age of 31) when he was struggling with health issues and was lawfully not permitted to marry a woman he loved because he wasn't earning enough money, that his compositions began to take on a darker and more sombre tone. I've often given myself grief for writing dark themes. As writers, we are often told that readers read our works for escapism. But I have a dark thread of something blue-black running inside me. It holds my depths of despair, and my stories are threaded with it. I don't know why but it used to bother me that some of the stories I write are dark. I suppose this may have been because after I published *[A Benevolent Goddess](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess)*, a dear friend of mine wrote to me saying that the sad ending of the story was too tragic for her and couldn't I find a way to change it? So I went and wrote an additional chapter, and put it up as a bonus chapter on my website so that whoever read the book could come and indulge in this extension to the story. But that wobble was enough to cast self-doubt on my work. So much so that it had become difficult for me to write for a while without wondering how it would affect the reader. I still love reading dark stories, so I couldn't quite explain that dichotomy to myself: that I could love other's dark creations but wouldn't encourage that in myself? I was being quite unfair to myself, wasn't I? So when Abigail talked about how Schubert's works became darker when he was going through a dark phase of life, it gave me permission to write what I could at any given point in time. How liberating! --- I wrote yesterday about learning that every experience in life can be looked at as a big bonus. We had a very tiring journey yesterday to Rochester with lots of unexpected delays, yet we managed to have a great deal of fun. A lot of it had to do with a willingness to put up with the delays and make the most of the situation on hand, instead of cursing ourselves for having forgotten something or for not having left from home sooner and so on and so on ... There is only this moment here, now, unfolding. All the should-haves and could-haves are simply not helpful. What is helpful instead is how we can best manage the situation on hand. That's all there is to it. Easier said than done, as always. Which is probably why I keep forgetting these life lessons. So OK, perfect example here. Instead of wondering over and over again why I keep forgetting these life lessons (i.e., focussing on the problem), I can do something else instead (i.e., focussing on the solution). I can set myself daily reminders. Perhaps I can write myself an intention to read and set every morning. > *Today, may I do my best to create a peaceful, loving and joyful experience for me and for those around me.* > *Today, may I approach every situation with courage and remember that I always have a choice in how I respond.* > *Today, may I remember that fear keeps me from taking action, but the only way to counter that fear is by taking action in the first place.* > *Today, as I move through the day, may I remember that my life is a tremendous gift and a blessing to me, and that every experience is a big bonus for me to learn from and grow.* --- So now, after this day of rest, I'll be back at my writing desk tomorrow morning, having fun penning down the stories that are waiting to be written. I can't wait! ### (day 7): an unexpected benefit of day-trips URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/an-unexpected-benefit-of-day-trips/ Last updated: 2023-04-20T00:00:02.000Z Good Friday being a day off for both KrA and D, we headed down to Rochester, NY, to visit [The Strong National Museum of Play](https://www.museumofplay.org). It is a museum unlike any other I've been to. It pays homage to the evolution of play and toys over the centuries, and is full of interactive and play-inspiring exhibits. I don't think we even managed to cover half of it in the time that we were there! We've only just gotten back home after an entire day out, so I am quite knackered, which means this will be a very short post. But as I just powered up my laptop for the first time all day and checked email, then looked at my phone and checked Whatsapp, it occurred to me that many of the messages I tend to deem as important, or even urgent, in the course of a regular day, had become completely irrelevant whatsoever. A message or an email that might have otherwise taken up mental space for the good part of a day now feels utterly and thoroughly dispensable. Nothing is indispensable, even if we may have convinced ourselves otherwise. What we need to get through this life is very little indeed. People who love and cherish us. And a willingness on our part to lean into the present moment as it unfolds for us, embracing this trajectory of life as one especially carved for us and us alone. I wanted to write about this [yesterday](https://thedreampedlar.com/thoughts-brewing/), and now I know I will leave this for a longer post tomorrow, but I once heard the Indian mystic, [Sadhguru](https://isha.sadhguru.org/ca/en), say in one of his videos that everything in life is a bonus. That we have received this life itself is a sacred blessing like none other. Everything else that comes into it, every one of our experiences, is a big bonus. He talks of an incident in which a man approached Sadhguru and sought his blessings. > *"Sadhguru," the man said, "please bless me so that I'll remain well and safe and protected, that nothing (untoward) will happen in my life."* > *To which Sadhguru replied, "What kind of a blessing would that be? I bless you so that everything will happen in your life."* > *Because, Sadhguru went on to explain, this is what we are here on earth for in this mortal form: to experience life. All its highs and lows, its ups and downs, its joys and sorrows.* Ever since I heard these words, they let loose something wild and untethered in my heart. Something runs free now within me, knowing that every experience in this life is a bonus, whether it's a loss or a gain, a delay or a gift, a death or a birth, every additional moment I am alive is a cherished gift. And the way I can show my appreciation is by leaning into it and savouring it, whatever it brings. ### tales for dreamers: conversations URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-conversations/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:44:12.000Z I’ve walked past you every single day this past fortnight. Twice a day, on occasion. At first, I spared you only a brief glance, so intent was I on reaching a predetermined destination. Until one day the wind lifted your sunlit flaxen tresses and they swayed in a private waltz. I still walk the same path every single day but now I pause at your feet and rest a hand on your trunk. I tell you about my day and I ask you about yours. You tell me about everything your highest branches can see, and I tell you everything my mind shows me. I talk to you of all the dishes I cooked today, and you regale me with tales of the mourning doves and robins that have come back to perch on your branches. It amazes me how you, who never moves from where you’ve laid roots, and me, whose steps are confined to this path and the sidewalk that leads to my home, have so much to talk about. I am the weary traveller, my mind still wandering to all the places my body is forbidden to go to, and you are the home I have always yearned to come back to. ### (day 6): thoughts brewing URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/thoughts-brewing/ Last updated: 2023-04-20T00:00:07.000Z Today's been a busy day and I have so much to share with you, but I'm still under the weather and have only just gotten back home long enough to switch on the laptop. It's almost four in the evening, and in about half an hour, I'll leave to pick up D from school. So these are my only words for the day. I was earlier tempted to promise that I'd come back later in the evening and tell you about all that has transpired since morning, all the epiphanies on life and art I've gained, but even I can tell that what my body needs right now is some serious rest. I finally slept fairly well last night, waking up only once at half past one with my body feeling sore but then I popped an Advil and that helped me sleep until past seven this morning. That was good, because it gave me enough energy to keep the appointments I had this morning and afternoon. But now, I'm exhausted. I'm saving the last bit of my energy to pick up little D from school, and after that I will jump right under the sheets and read and sleep. So you're going to have to wait until tomorrow to hear all about my trip to Toronto and a talk I attended on Franz Schubert and what I learned about saying a big, resounding YES to everything that life throws my way. Until tomorrow then! ### (day 5): a day of zero URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-day-of-zero/ Last updated: 2023-04-20T00:00:12.000Z I wrote nothing today. Not one word in the manuscript. I didn't even open it, in fact. Well, no, that's not correct. I did open the short story I had begun day before with much gusto and closed it within two seconds. I'm still under the weather and still unable to sleep for longer than 3 hours at night, and that's messing up with my brain in countless ways, affecting not only my fiction writing but also my thinking and reading abilities. I know I ought to cut myself some slack, but that has always been the hardest thing for me to do. To be OK with doing nothing. Sometimes it's as if I want even my '*doing nothing'-ness* to contribute to something in the long run, otherwise it feels like a waste. Rest must lead to greater productivity, otherwise rest is wasteful; that's the mindset I tend to operate on. Author and very wise and insightful coach, [Becca Syme](https://betterfasteracademy.com), says that this is typical of those who have the Achiever strength high on their list. Mine is at #3\. Apparently, telling Achievers to rest only stresses them out even more! So although I came here to simply note that today was a day of zero words, of zilch, of nada, now I feel like writing about some life lessons I keep learning and forgetting over and over again, especially when things get tough, like they did for me yesterday and today. ***1\. Other people are simply irrelevant when it comes to our life's work.*** I've often come up with many inventive excuses in the past as to why I need so-and-so person(s) in my life and how my life would be vastly different and much improved if only I had additional support from family and friends. The truth is this: people in real life are much, much more complex and unpredictable than those we encounter in fiction. Someone we trust to have our back can quite completely forget about us. Someone we have no expectations of might be the one to show up in a time of need. For most of yesterday and today, I've been very disappointed and upset over the actions of a couple of people I thought were my 'friends'. I overheard plans they were making to get together, plans I was clearly not part of, and that perception of exclusion made me feel extremely inadequate and insecure, unworthy and unwelcome. It took me an entire day to get over that and understand that what others do or don't do has nothing to do with me. Sure, if I had been counting on them to do something, I'd have to change my plans when they fail to deliver. That would be simply another situation I can respond to in the moment without blaming myself or even the other for their actions. Which brings me to the next point. ***2\. We do not have a choice in how others perceive us.*** When I feel a little disappointed at something someone may have said or done, my thoughts very quickly turn to that of self-castigation. I start to tell myself that if only I had more wealth or status or fame, then the other person wouldn't have dared to behave that way. But then I forget that whenever I've gone down this path in the past, chasing after that shiny thing that I feel will make people around me respect me more or treat me better or include me in their clique, I've almost always found out that acquiring the particular thing I was after – wealth or award or recognition – did not really change anything. It didn't change how I perceived myself nor did it change how others perceived me. And I end up back at square one, only this time with no zeal to keep after whatever goal I had earlier been working towards because I had been after it for all the wrong reasons in the first place. It's been that way with writing for me. I've got this subconscious belief that if only I can *prove* myself as a writer, either by selling millions of copies or having fans line up around the block to have me sign their copies of my books or living in a swanky mansion or driving a Tesla or having a Netflix show made of my books, then the world will look at me with adoring eyes. I had already [learnt](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-january-joys/) how false this belief was after publishing my first book. Yet, I convinced myself that maybe it's my second book that will do the trick for me, or my fifth or my twentieth. There's no end to this, is there? So if we do not have a choice in how others perceive us, then seeking to influence public opinion of us in any way whatsoever is a very poor reason to chase a goal. Which means I can only write because of how much joy it brings me, not because of how my story would possibly be received. Of course, I do the best I can and hope that readers like or love my story, but as a voracious reader I know how thousands of seemingly irrelevant factors can affect whether or not I like the book I'm reading. It could be anything from whether I had a fight with KrA that morning or whether I'm worried about an upcoming medical appointment for D. How little is really in my control! ***3\. But we always have a choice in how we respond.*** Very often, I react in anger and blame, rallying against a world that comes across as unfair when I assess and evaluate it against my personal parameters of justice and principles. Life is unfair. There's no two ways about it. My view of the world is based on too many factors to enumerate here but it is what helps me navigate the world the best I can. Similarly, everyone else has their own worldview, which helps them navigate their worlds the best they can. What may appear wrong or treacherous to me may very well be fair game to someone else. I can't expect anyone – let me repeat that in big, bold letters, ANYONE – to do or not do things the way I would. Sure, it is extremely frustrating when I find myself in situations where I have to make a choice between what's best for me and what's expected of me. It's always a tough call, and it's harder still to stand up for what I believe is best for me and respond accordingly, especially when I haven't had much practice in doing so. In the past, I used to simply do what was expected of me. It has led to a lot of grief, but eventually I learnt my lesson and began to do what I believed was best for me. But that wasn't any less painful. So instead of facing that tough situation, I got into a pattern of blaming the other person for putting myself in such a situation to begin with. *Why are people like this? Why would they do something like this? It's not fair. It's not right. Especially after all the things I've done for them, how could they treat me like this? It's not kind. It's not nice at all. At this rate, I can trust no one. How will D grow up to have friends then if things like these transpire?* That internal dialogue would go on and on, pitting me against the rest of the world, making me fear for myself and KrA and D and our futures, because what kind of a future we'd have if we didn't have anyone to count on? But do you see, this in itself is another belief to question the veracity of? Because (a) people will come and people will go and we can't count on anyone to be around forever, (b) help will come when I need it; it always has in the past, and I can trust that that will be the case in the future too, and (c) I can count on myself to find a way out if I remain focused on the solution and not get entangled in the problem and in blaming the rest of the world. ***4\. So that's what we need to focus on: who we become as we move through our day, and how we show up in our daily encounters.*** There literally is no other alternative. Trying to influence or second-guess others or manipulate situations in our favour, or looking for someone or something on the outside to soothe our anxieties over our perceived inadequacy, or believing that we need to establish and prove ourselves in some way to curry favour with the rest of the world – all these are tried and tested methods for achieving insanity, not for living a life full of joy, peace and love. --- I'm not new to what I've written so far. Every mystic, therapist, coach, counseller, anyone in the line of giving life advice, says pretty much the same thing in different ways. What's amazing though is how quickly and completely this knowledge deserts me in moments of crisis or difficulty. It can be really hard to make the choice to show up with courage and responsibility. But it feels so easy and oh, so so good, to engage in blame games and finger-pointing and angry outbursts and temper tantrums. It is really difficult to lean into the as-is*ness* of the situation, to accept that life will unfold in ways we don't expect it to, that people will do the very thing we wish they wouldn't. And that truth can be very, very difficult to accept. On the contrary, it is very easy to indulge in blame and envy, and lament at the unfairness of it all, because then we can excuse ourselves from putting in the effort and time necessary to make a difference. It is hard to accept that no matter what we do, life will always remain uncertain and unpredictable, and that we'd always feel groundless and helpless. And so it feels like an easy solution to display anger in an act of reclaiming control over what will clearly not be corralled and made to do our bidding. I suspect that the reason for this is because what I've been practising for long is what I've become an expert at. So if I want to make courageous and responsible choices more easily and naturally, then I simply need to practice doing that in every situation that shows up. For instance, I've got to attend to some documentation work tomorrow and that looks like it will take up most of my day. A conscious way to approach this would be to go through the prep work needed and keep everything in place tonight, so that we're not rushing out of the door in the morning. Instead, for several weeks now, I had been completely avoiding looking at the checklist provided and had been dreading the upcoming appointment and the journey I have to undertake for that, filling my mind with all sorts of fears and apprehensions. Today, because I have to keep that appointment tomorrow, I got down to looking at the details and it took me not even half an hour to make sure everything is in place and good to go. Half an hour to actually do something I had been fretting about in my head for weeks without taking any constructive action ! I find that this is a lesson that keeps coming up over and over again in my life. > **Fear keeps us from taking action, but the only way to counter fear is by taking that action in the first place.** I wonder why this is a lesson I forget so easily, no matter how many times I learn it. Reckon my brain just needs more practice to absorb this insight until it becomes second-nature. After all, it's not an overnight job to counter a response that's been conditioned over millennia of evolution. I will certainly get better with practice! ### (day 4): duality URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/duality/ Last updated: 2023-04-20T00:00:18.000Z Yet another night with only 3 hours of sleep plus the reality that I am nursing a cold and my head is splitting and also that I just finished reading *Midnight at Malabar House* by [Vaseem Khan](https://vaseemkhan.com) (the first book in the Inspector Persis Wadia/Malabar House series after [having read](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-ds-harbinder-kaur-series-inspector-persis-wadia-malabar-house-series/) Books 2 and 3 in that order), which left me feeling grumpy that such a fascinating book had come to an end, means today is not a day for writing fiction. Ha! [Yesterday](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-joys-of-driving-at-the-speed-limit/) I announced my creative pattern to the Universe, and today it showed me all that pattern-deciphering was mere wishful thinking! I kid, because now I understand that even knowing what works for me does not mean life and writing will unfold precisely that way 100% of the time. I have to make allowances for sick days and sleepless nights, as well as important life matters, such as filing taxes. Now where have I heard that one before? 😉 And so here I am, at half past ten in the morning, because a song is stuck in my head like earworm and I love it so much. *Die For You* by The Weeknd and Ariana Grande. I've heard it on the radio before but for some reason it was only yesterday that I listened to it several times, trying to learn the lyrics, singing out the chorus loud and with all my heart, and thinking what a wonderfully romantic song of heartbreak this is. It was when I was listening to Grande's part where her lines are being sung at two different pitches in harmony that I fell into the magic of the song. > *When I listen to a song, my ears invariably seek out the other – the other voice, or the other, softer, less obvious part of music that comes in the background and changes the effect altogether.* For instance, in Ace of Base's rendition of *Cruel Summer*, both in their original and Big Bonus Mix versions, towards the end of the song one of the singers adds her own melody to the main singer's ongoing chorus. It's not the loudest or the most evident part of the song, it sounds like something in the far distance, but I always keep my ears tuned to catch it. It's the *other*. There is something *otherworldly* about it. It renders a beautiful song haunting, magical, in a way only it can. And, it turns, out that the [official video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPD0QOGTmMI) of the version of the song with only The Weeknd singing it is a tribute to *Stranger Things*, which makes me love it all the more! --- In a very roundabout way, trying to listen to the vocal harmonies reminded me of duality – of two entirely different things contrasting and co-existing in harmony. It also reminded me of how some of the stories I enjoy are the ones told from [dual perspectives](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-stolen-book-of-evelyn-aubrey-by-serena-burdick/), from two different time periods. Another example of my interpretation of 'duality' that I want to share comes from an incident that took place when little D was about two years old. We had just returned from a park and he had wanted to bring home a pocketful of tiny pebbles. As soon as we entered home, he emptied his pocket and dropped all the pebbles in the doorway. It was a moment of enlightenment and liberation for me. I stood there, watching D admire his handiwork, a mosaic of pebbles on the floor, and it occurred to me this is what it is. This is what it means to be a 2-year-old. This is what it means to be a young, young child. And in two-year-old D, I could see two-year-old me, and I could tell her for the first time in my life that how she was as a two-year-old was exactly how she was meant to be at the time, irrespective of the labels she received: *too naughty*, *too mischievous*, *too disobedient*. But in that moment, I also understood for the first time the validity of a mother's dilemma, the truth of a parent's or caregiver's exhaustion, their frustration, and their completely understandable, although misplaced, desire for children to be *obedient* and *good*. Both are in stark contrast to each other, a child's expression and the demand placed on the parent to allow this natural unfolding as it were. Here too, a duality at play. Nothing right or wrong about it, but merely a collision of two different yet seemingly connected things. Sometimes frustrating, sometimes enlightening. Sometimes beautiful and tender, sometimes a thing to be spurned and avoided at all costs. Opposing forces, sometimes in tension, sometimes in harmonious union. All of life is like this. To pretend or wish it were otherwise, is probably the greatest folly we can commit. ### (day 3): the joys of driving at the speed limit URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-joys-of-driving-at-the-speed-limit/ Last updated: 2023-04-20T00:00:23.000Z There's a stretch of road called North Service Road that we usually take, if the highway is busy, to drop and pick up D from school. It runs parallel to the ON-403 highway for several kilometres. This is the road on which one gets to witness the impatience plague that seems to have afflicted most drivers in the region. The speed limit here is 60 km/hr, but it's not unusual to find vehicles whizzing past at 80–90 km/hr. Occasionally, there'd be a *'slow'* driver going at the speed limit, usually an elderly person, and there'd be an impatient vehicle tailing the slow vehicle, almost nosing its bumper. I've had bullies like that behind me on several occasions, and my instinctive reaction is to slow down even further just to spite them. I will not be forced to speed against my wishes. I've done the whizzing past at 80–90 km/hr a few times, especially if I'm worried I'd be late to pick up D from school. But I've noticed that it doesn't really save much time. It probably shaves just a minute or two from the usually less-than-15-minute drive. Oftentimes, I'd be cruising at 65-68 km/hr, my standard speed ever since I realized the futility (and danger) of going at those breakneck speeds, and I'd end up at a traffic light right behind the pickup-truck that would have been dashing at 90 km/hr just moments ago. Instead, when I stick to the speed limit, I find that I am much more relaxed and I enjoy the journey much more than when I'm trying to speed and cursing any *'slow'* drivers in front of me, wishing they'd speed up or get out of the way. > *I didn't realize it until I began writing this post, but the truth is that I am a very different person when I drive at the speed limit than when I'm speeding.* > *When I drive at the speed limit, I am more spacious in my heart and tolerant of the world around me, I am not stressed or rushed, and I trust I will reach my destination in good time and in a good mood, having enjoyed the journey and all it had to offer.* --- What does this have to do with writing, you may wonder? For a very long time, years now, I had been aiming to achieve a writing productivity of 2000+ words/day of fiction. It was some sort of a holy grail for me. I don't quite recall where I got that number from. Perhaps from Stephen King, who has famously said that he writes everyday, at least 2000 words/day, even on his birthday and on Christmas Day. Many other contemporary writers also have a similar or much, much higher daily output. I've often hit those numbers, but never for multiple days in a row. I'd have a 2,000-word day, and my output would gradually dip in the days that followed. I had never understood why. Quick to castigate myself, I often put it down to lack of discipline, or to a masochistic instinct for self-sabotage. I attended Becca Syme's [Write Better-Faster 101](https://betterfasteracademy.com/wbf101/) workshop in September 2022, and through that I learnt that not all writers can write everyday. Some need time to think and process their story subconsciously before putting words to paper. I've since started paying more attention to my own process, and I noticed a few things. **1\. I have to write everyday.** Not necessarily fiction. More on that below, but essentially if I don't translate shapeless thoughts into word shapes on paper or on the screen, it makes my skin crawl and my eyes bleed and my hair fall out. In short, all sorts of madness happens if I don't write everyday. **2\. I also like to have the time to think. More precisely, to daydream.** I do not actively think about story plots and such when I'm not writing; I prefer to leave all the good stuff to happen while I'm at the writing desk. But sometimes a 'What if?' question drifts into my mind when I'm daydreaming. Afternoons are the best time for me to daydream. I sit on my bed and look out the window at the skies, and whether it's a clear blue day or a rainy one, everything outside my window fascinates me in those moments of calm and quiet. --- As you already know, I'm writing these daily reflection posts as part of the ongoing writing challenge that [Dean Wesley Smith](https://deanwesleysmith.com/challenge-starts/) is conducting. I had [started](https://thedreampedlar.com/theres-no-equation-to-be-solved-it-is-all-a-mystery/) writing and tracking my fiction and non-fiction wordcount two weeks ago to prepare for the challenge. And I've had some wonderful epiphanies along the way. **1\. When it comes to fiction, my sweet spot at the moment is 1,000 words/day. This is my personal speed limit.** Some days, it's very easy. Some days, it's a challenging goal but not so out of reach that I'd give up without trying. I've arrived at this number after much trial-and-error. It appears to me that I'm much better off writing 1,000 words/day consistently – it is a sustainable pace of productivity for me and I don't feel stressed about it – instead of pushing myself to write 2,000 words one day only to not show up at the writing desk for the next two days. So, 1,000 words/day of fiction is the perfect number for me right now. Of course, the ambitious, high-achiever that I am, I'm always tempted to look at those clocking 5,000–10,000 words/day and try to make that work for me. But I have to remind myself, I am me, they are they, I am not them. Besides, 1,000 words is far, far greater than zero! And who knows, perhaps maintaining this steady space of 1,000 words/day over a long period of time might strengthen my writing muscles and help me get to a higher level after several months. But for the duration of this challenge, i.e., until the end of 2023, I'm going to stick to this most-appropriate-for-me goal of 1,000 words/day of fiction. This is the speed limit I can cruise at, while enjoying the drive, and stay behind the wheel for a long, long period of time. **2\. When I'm writing a novel, I don't seem to like working just on that one single story for a long time.** So if I need to take a break from the bigger project and indulge in writing a short story instead, as a palate cleanser, like I did this morning, I give myself permission to do that more often and shed the guilt and doubt that often accompanies this detour. **3\. I love blogging.** I absolutely love it. I have too many thoughts in my head and nowhere for them to go. It's akin to journalling for me, and although I have a very beautiful handwriting and I love beautiful stationery, I don't quite like how long it takes for me to write by hand. My thoughts race way faster than I can write but I can keep pace with them when I type. So blogging is not a waste of time for me. These posts are like *Morning Pages* for me, as suggested by [Julia Cameron](https://juliacameronlive.com), author of *The Artist's Way*, except I use them as *Evening Pages*, an exercise in daily reflection. I have often made the mistake in the past of telling myself that if I can write 1,000 words of fiction and 1,000 words of a blog post in a day, then I can just as easily write 2,000 words of fiction in a day. NO! A BIG NO! > *I have to remind myself that fiction and blogging are two very distinct forms of writing, each serving a different need for me.* > *Each has its own place and importance. I simply cannot sacrifice one for the other.* > *Each fuels the other. Neither detracts from the other.* > *This, I must always remember.* **4\. My daydreaming time is precious and important to my creativity.** It's not an act of indulgence or of laziness. It helps me rest and recharge. It helps my subconscious do its work, so that when I get back to the writing desk the following day, the words are ready to flow. **5\. After years of deluding myself that I needed to find internal motivation in some way, I've come to see how amazing and necessary external motivation is.** Just this morning, I was having trouble maintaining momentum in the new short story I had started, so I gave in to one of my usual temptations and went to check my email. I had written to Dean last night with my wordcount as of Sunday, April 2 – I'm taking his lead on maintaining a Monday–Sunday schedule for tracking and reporting my wordcount, which means I'll write to him every Sunday night with my total for the week and the cumulative total so far – and Dean had replied to that message with a "Well done all the way! Keep it fun!" That was all the impetus I needed to sign out of gmail and get back to the manuscript, and I spent the next hour happily typing away a story and enjoying the process very much indeed! We are social beings, and the less grief I give myself about wanting and needing supportive people in my life, the happier I'd be. --- So now, after years of trying and testing different methods, after many periods of desperation and determination, after many, many failures and some successes, I'm finally beginning to discern a pattern that works for me. > *Mornings are for writing fiction.* > *Afternoons are for daydreaming.* > *Afternoons/evenings are for writing these blog posts.* > *Bedtime is for reading.* How lucky I am to live such a simple, wonderful life! I thank my stars and everything in this Universe that has conspired to bring me here to this day, to this moment in time, where my life is full of the activities I love – writing and reading – and the people I love – D and KrA. Thank you, Universe! ### books you may love: The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey by Serena Burdick URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-stolen-book-of-evelyn-aubrey-by-serena-burdick/ Last updated: 2023-04-02T15:23:01.000Z More than a decade ago, I discovered [Kate Morton](https://www.katemorton.com)'s books and fell head over heels in love with her stories. I've bought and read every book of hers. I think this was around the time I got my first Kindle, reckon it was a birthday present from KrA, and I simply couldn't stop reading. Morton's stories are primarily set in dual timelines; one story unfolding in the past, typically around the time of World War II, and the other unfolding in the present as the protagonist tries to unravel the secrets of the past. This parallel unfolding of two seemingly disparate stories and their eventual convergence, even collision if you will, into one inalterable twist of fate is a journey I take much delight and reading pleasure in. Consequently, I am more drawn to books that have these dual timelines than I am to historical fiction in itself, i.e., books set in a different time period in history, although I love watching Bridgerton! ![Hardcover copy of The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey by Serena Burdick featuring a red journal against a bookshelf](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/04/24.-The-Stolen-Book-of-Evelyn-Aubrey-1.jpeg) *The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey* by [Serena Burdick](http://www.serenaburdick.com) is about a girl named Abigail, who never knew who her father was and whose mother recently died in a car accident. She is brought up by her grandparents. One day, Abigail finds a photo of a young man with her mother, and based on the timeline she deduces that this must have been her father. She doesn't even know his name. All she knows is that he is a descendant of famous late-19th/early-20th century English poet, Evelyn Aubrey, and her author husband, William Aubrey, and she heads to the UK to find out what became of that family and whether she can find her father in the process. Alongside, we get to read the journal entries of Evelyn Aubrey whose marriage to William begins on a high but quickly devolves into something dreadful and soul-sapping. All we know of them in the present moment is that Evelyn disappeared and William was accused of her murder, and this is a mystery that has remained unsolved for a century. I couldn't stop reading this book. Burdick's prose, the turn of events, the struggles of Evelyn and Abigail, everything simply held me spellbound. Even though I wanted to find out what really happened, I also didn't want the book to come to an end. Some of my favourite lines are from Sally, who is related to the Aubreys by marriage and lives in the mansion in England. Sally works as a florist, and she asks Abigal about her profession. But Abigail is unemployed and says that she does 'nothing'. And this is what Sally has to say in reply. > *"Oh phooey, that's not possible. You just haven't found a name for it. You could be an observer of life, a thinker. The world doesn't have much to say for people who wander around thinking anymore. They used to be called philosophers, now we call them unambitious."* > *... "Who says you have to do something with your life? Isn't living it enough?"* On another occasion, when Abigail gets a clue as to her father's whereabouts and that throws her in a state of panic, Sally has another astute observation to make. > *"It's frightening to come right up to the thing you've spent your life desiring. What if it doesn't solve all the problems you thought it would?" She took Abby's hand. "You can't stop what you've set in motion, love."* Reading *The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey* reminded me so much of Kate Morton's works and how much I loved reading them more than a decade ago. Morton's writings were among my initial sources of inspiration to try my hand at penning a novel of my own. There is an inimitable joy in finding an author or a book that inspires you too to tell a beautiful story of your own. That's what the works of [Neil Gaiman](https://www.neilgaiman.com), [Erin Morgenstern](https://erinmorgenstern.com), Kate Morton, and [Tanuja Desai Hidier](http://thisistanuja.com) did for me. Any of their books will move and delight, inspire and transform, and make you want to share your stories too. ### (day 2): 2 a.m. musings on holes in hearts URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/2-a-m-musings-on-holes-in-hearts/ Last updated: 2023-04-20T00:00:29.000Z I've barely slept for 3 hours. Lying here with this big drama-shaped hole in my heart, I try to breathe into it, to soften it somehow. Make it malleable. Like playdough. Press it and shape it into something beautiful. But it wants to remain solid and hard for now. It won't be thawed with tears. It won't be crushed with determination. It won't be sublimated by fiery responsibility. It resists alchemy. It just wants to be. I tell it that I accept it. But I have a hidden agenda. I know that if I accept it, it will dissolve and disappear of its own accord. And now that it knows my intentions towards it are less than pure, that by accepting it I'm in fact wishing for it to go away, it clings on tighter. As if it has nowhere else to go. I wrote a short story, title *The Alchemist* a few years ago. The premise was what if alchemy has remained an impossible science for the simple reason that none of the other metals want to be transformed into gold? What if they wish to remain themselves? What if they are happy being who they are? I wonder if that state of mind – remaining who we are, being happy with who we are – is even achievable. Because aren't we changing all the time in response to whatever's going on around us and inside us? Responding to kindness or to indifference? Recipients of understanding or false accusations? Each interaction with the world outside changes us a wee bit; put together millions of interactions in the course of a day, and we are a different person by the end of it. There is an inevitable groundlessness in the very fact of our existence. Nothing to hold on to. Instead of telling myself that I need something to lean on, something like a promise, something I can trust or look forward to, what if I stopped seeking that elusive something? What if I were to accept that no matter what I have, or don't have, nothing can eradicate this groundlessness? It is a scary thought. But not accepting it and wishing things were otherwise is also the reason I feel so stuck and miserable, so powerless in this material world. And I wonder if I've gotten it all wrong – all my ideas of right and wrong, of what works and what doesn't, even of what I want from life? What if we could live our lives without *wanting* anything from it? Why does life have to become something big and news-worthy or Instagram-worthy? What if my life today could simply involve sitting down and breathing for the day, just today, without thinking of running away or of the past and the future? ### (day 1): oops! off to a terribly wonky start URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/oops-off-to-a-terribly-wonky-start/ Last updated: 2023-04-20T00:00:33.000Z The [writing challenge](https://deanwesleysmith.com/challenge-starts/) has begun! I woke up at 2 a.m. from a very fitful sleep. I took D to one of his classmates' birthday party last evening at an indoor playground, and the constant noise and chatting with other parents kept a stream of background noise flowing between my ears all night. So much so that I had trouble falling asleep, and once I had fallen asleep I had trouble staying asleep. Social interactions, unless they are with good friends, almost always leave me deflated and feeling terrible about myself. D's birthday parties are a mix of kind, heartfelt interactions on one hand but also small talk and snobbery on the other. Yet, when I woke up at 2 a.m., instead of lying in bed, ruminating, I went to the manuscript and penned a few words down. Later in the morning, after I had cooked lunch and D had set off for his skating lessons, I wrote some more. It was suddenly amazing, how I could take 15 precious minutes of time and pen a few words down instead of waiting for a long, uninterrupted stretch of time to show up. Nevertheless, I was all set to go to the library this afternoon and spend a good 2–3 hours working on the manuscript but you know what they say about best-laid plans. Shortly after D returned from his skating lessons, all hell broke loose at home. I was already in a fragile state of mind in the aftermath of the party and it took very little to tip me over. The result being, I'm at home this afternoon, typing this post, shaking my head at how royally I've screwed up my life, and wondering ... *what if this is it? What if this is how the rest of my days are going to be? Stuck in anxiety, with a bleak outlook for the future and a hard-to-get-rid-off conviction that I'm going to stay at rock bottom, no matter what I do.* Even re-reading the above words is terrifying me. I look back at the past few years of my life and the patterns are there for everyone to see. It is hard to envisage something different. As a believer in subconscious patterns, I'm now asking myself: how do these patterns serve me? The very fact that I keep indulging in them makes it clear that they are helping me in some way, either by giving me some short-term benefit or by keeping me distracted from some deeper issue I need to address. --- Yesterday, my therapist asked me to think long and hard about the kind of person I want to be. Since then, I've come up with a lot of adjectives to describe my future self. > But the one thing that is coming to mind today is this: *I want to be the kind of person who is true to herself, the one who keeps her commitments to herself.* I don't like being the person who decides to go to the library on a Saturday afternoon to work but then doesn't follow through. I don't like being the person who is paralyzed into inaction because her present reality is too terrifying for her to face up to. I don't like being the person who comes up with grand plans but backs off at the first sight of trouble. --- Maybe I should set down some ground rules to follow for the duration of the challenge. **1\. Writing first thing in the morning, at 4 A.M.** I used to do this earlier, but often when I'd wake up this early, D would wake up too and would want me to play with him. He's older now and entertains himself for upwards of an hour by reading, drawing and many such activities. So I'm pretty certain I can go back to this. Only, this would mean ... **2\. Lights off by 9 P.M.** I often get engrossed in a reading a book and I'd keep on reading until its 10 P.M. or later, which dashes any chances of getting an early start the following morning. It's a vicious cycle, one I engaged in only a few days ago as I read an utterly delightful book that I will write about soon. So every time I am tempted by the short-term pleasure of reading just one more chapter in a book, I must remind myself of the long-term benefit of turning off the lights and getting up early the next morning to write my own books. **3\. Writing before the day begins.** I've been trying to write during the morning hours when D is away at school, but when the world around me gets busy and noisy, I start to think of other things like going for a walk or running necessary errands. And this has landed me in trouble very often. We have a bunch of paperwork to fill out, and neither KrA nor I have been arsed to do it. I don't wish to give up my precious writing time in the morning, and KrA's calendar gets filled with office meetings in the afternoons. Thus the days go by and nothing gets done. This again brings me back to (1). The earlier I can wake up and get to the manuscript, the happier I'd be in life. Not to mention that this is something I can do over the weekends too. Getting several words in earlier in the day. **4\. Checking email and Whatsapp only at 2 P.M.** There is nothing, nothing at all in my emails and Whatsapp chat messages that help me write. But there are countless things therein that keep me from writing. > *I find that any interaction with the outside world is loaded with emotion for me. If I hear from someone I trust and love, it makes my heart sing with glee. If I hear from someone I don't much care for, it causes me to fret and worry endlessly. Sometimes hearing from certain people triggers past trauma, and then the day very easily slips past in a molasses of messy emotions.* So I will check email and Whatsapp only at 2 P.M. And that shall be the only time of the day when I check it. I've noticed though, that often I check email and Whatsapp out of loneliness, much like I used to frequent FaceBook to assuage that sense of isolation. **5\. Fulfilling my deeper need for companionship** OK, so given this deeper need for companionship, there are other things I can do to address this. I had been considering volunteering in the local community for a while, so that's something I'm going to engage in once or twice a week. Earlier I'd have worried about such an activity being a time sink, but now that I've gotten rid of the true time-wasters, such as hanging out on social media, or frequently checking email and Whatsapp, I definitely have the time and enthusiasm to engage in offline activities. Activities in the real world! Another excuse I give myself to not volunteer over the weekends is that we may have plans to go out. But the truth is, weekends are taking up by Dhruv's activities/lessons, so we rarely ever go anywhere other than to his lessons or any of his classmates' birthday parties. So I might as well stop fooling myself on this front and sign up for a volunteer program instead. I can also meet up with a friend every other week for coffee in the afternoons before school pick-up time. --- There are also some things that I find are very detrimental to my sanity. Sometimes, when I'm in a good mood, I allow for these to happen, but those self-inflicted transgressions of boundaries take their toll on me in the long run. **1\. Being in the same room as KrA when he's engaged on a device** Boy, this one causes me endless agony. So the best thing for me to do is to keep myself out of the path of this trigger. **2\. Being in the same room as D when he's listening to Harry Potter audiobooks** This is another significant trigger for me. *The Prisoner of Azkaban* has been playing on repeat for the last few months, and it really gets on my nerves. I think this has got less to do with the audiobook itself and more to do with sound in general. I've become strongly sound-intolerant these past few years, which is why attending a birthday party at an indoor playground leaves with restless and sleepless, with residual noising buzzing between my ears for hours thereafter. **3\. No chocolates/snacks** While I haven't been snacking per se, I've taken to eating chocolate for stress relief. Naturally, that gives me short-term delight but costs me a whole lot in terms of long-term health, not to mention the crash in mood and energy I suffer an hour or two later. So, goodbye chocolate-y treats! **4\. Not honouring the schedule commitments I've made to myself above** I love making plans, but after two wonderful days of everything going well, I find myself clicking on email or whatsapp first thing in the morning, perhaps eager to see someone's response to my message or worried about receiving bad news from India about my parents' health. > *It is as if all the anxieties that would have abated in two joyful days of writing come roaring loudly and with great power on the third day, forcing me to buckle.* > *As if in some warped, twisted way, I have to punish myself for two days of pure writing pleasure with a day of self-inflicted misery.* It is a very unhealthy pattern to be in. --- I have to admit to myself that I've reached a point in life where I love being a writer more than I love being a mother. And I reckon I am finally OK with this. Earlier, I used to feel terribly guilty about wanting to write if that meant not spending time with D. The truth is, when I have my words down, I am a happier person, one that can spend more meaningful and quality time with D in a much more relaxed manner. On the contrary, if I haven't written my words, I go through the day feeling as though something is amiss, something terribly important is missing. Like a limb. Or my heart. I better acknowledge this as an indisputable fact of my life, as an inevitable part of my life. Because this is who I am. Trying to change this or thwart it in some way only leaves me frustrated and angry with life and everyone in it, including myself. But most importantly, I wish to approach writing from a place of joy. Not from a place of angst or frustration, not from the objective of seeking to escape my current reality by *writing* my way out of it. Bringing that kind of angst and desperation to my writing only stifles it. > *I reckon these next few months are going to form an intense period of reckoning. Of realizing that the way I've been going about life and writing, with an angry determination, is not sustainable in the long run.* > *What I need to cultivate, instead, is the softness of patience, the tenderness of understanding, and the gentleness of trust in the unknown.* > *Trust that no matter what happens, I will be OK.* ### (day 0): some endings, and some beginnings URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/some-endings-and-some-beginnings/ Last updated: 2023-04-20T00:00:39.000Z I spent all morning scheduling the *[Tales for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/)* posts for the paid subscribers until the end of this year. (I'm no longer taking paid subscribers for this weekly fiction newsletter, which will end in December.) I think there were 38 posts in all that I had to schedule, and this was something that had been on my mind for a while now, a deck that I felt I needed to clear ahead of the [writing challenge](https://deanwesleysmith.com/dean-challenges-two-of-them/) that begins tomorrow. But truth be told, this had little to do with the challenge and so much to do with my reluctance to bring a writing project to an end. *Tales for Dreamers* was how I began writing stories in the first place. Well, that's not really true, because I do remember penning manuscripts years before that. I've also written to audiences before, mostly blogs and poems. But *Tales for Dreamers* was something I started on a regular basis, little nuggets of fantasy and whimsy and fun and wonder. It's how I moved to the pen-name *The Dream Pedlar*, after years of starting and abandoning blogs under various other soliloquies that didn't really fit, that I didn't really care to stick around with for longer than a few months or a year or two. They were all names or personas that I took up in an act of imitation, trying to ape whoever or whatever was trending at the time, believing that if I could be that particular popular person, I too would find the fame and adulation I so desperately sought for my writings. Took me long enough to understand that the only person I needed to be, the only person I could possibly be, was myself. That's how *The Dream Pedlar* came into being in [November 2011](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-hello-dreamer/), and that is probably why I've never felt like abandoning it even though my writings on the site have seen a lot of start-stops over the years. I'm learning now that this is normal, something every writer struggles with, creativity rising and ebbing like the tides, like the seasons. But when I read the stories as I was scheduling them, checking for errors and such, I felt a pang of regret for old-me. Because the stories I was scheduling were so beautiful, written with so much flair and style, with such innovative and vivid use of language and imagery, and this was long before I had even set foot into my first creative writing workshop, which incidentally was in Sydney back in November 2015, when little D was merely a heartbeat in my womb. - I wish old-me had had the courage to persevere. - I wish old-me had found success in the publishing world over all these years. - I wish old-me hadn't felt insecure and unable to trust her own passion and love for writing. I have to take a moment to hug old-me and also turn my attention to present-me who now has the following to say in response to the regrets she just listed above. - *I wish old-me had had the courage to persevere.* Old-me did have the courage to persevere. I did keep writing over these years, even if it didn't always appear that way. True, I have lost much of my confidence, not having seen the kind of material success I wanted to, but reading the old tales I had written so long ago reminded me of the joy and abandon I experienced while writing. It is something I experience even today, when I get to the manuscript without ego or pressure, when I let it unfold at is pace without breathing down its neck all the time. - *I wish old-me had found success in the publishing world over all these years.* Old-me has been successful in terms of the number of works I have written and published, in terms of how much I have learnt, in terms of how whoever has read my works has mostly loved them, in terms of how the handful of readers I have are people I've gotten to know really well through my books. The tendency to talk about a 'lack of success' is also partially because of how things proceeded at breakneck speed with the introduction of the Kindle and countless authors and books began to appear on the scene, leading to a gold rush of sorts, which has died down, inevitably so, now that the market is super-saturated. But maybe mine is not an overnight success story, perhaps mine is a decades-long success story still in the making. - *I wish old-me hadn't felt insecure and unable to trust her own passion and love for writing.* This reminds me of the scene in Harry Potter Book 7 when Ron comes back to Harry and Hermione, with the aid of the Deluminator. And he feels remorse about having left them in the first place and says that Dumblebore must have known all along that he would desert his friends. To which Harry replies that Dumbledore must have known all along that Ron would want to come back to his friends, which is why he left him the Deluminator to show him the way back. Perspective! Makes all the difference. So instead of looking at all the times I went astray, feeling insecure and devoid of confidence and trust, I will look at all the times I've come back to write more and find joy in writing! So here's to saying goodbye to the past and to looking ahead where plenty more adventures lie in store. ### tales for dreamers: the tower of the guardians of the world URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-tower-of-the-guardians-of-the-world/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:47:57.000Z Grandma said the tower was built by the Guardians of the World so that they could climb atop the tower and keep an eye on any danger that was seen heading towards our world. But that does not make sense, I cried, because I could see that the tower is not very tall and is very easily dwarfed by the maple trees that surround it in the park. Grandma looked up, put her hand above her eyes as if to shield them from the setting sun, and tut-tutted that that top of the tower was nowhere to be seen. I pointed to the top and said it was right there, and how could she not see it, maybe her eyes were playing tricks on her, because the top of the tower was as visible as clear daylight. She turned to me, her blue-grey eyes naughtily twinkling with secrets and mischief, and I worried that she may not have believed my claims. So before she could say anything, I told her I would scale up and down the tower in less than a quarter of an hour, it really wasn’t that tall, to which she replied that I could very well proceed with my monkey tricks and that she was only happy to wait for me for she had all the time in the world to spare and that she was in no hurry to be anywhere else. It was an easy climb; the tower offered several footholds and cracks and crevices, all in the right places and just large enough for me to push my ten-year-old feet into. I climbed, higher and higher, and very soon I could see over the top of the trees and view the meadows that lay beyond, and I climbed some more until I could see the clouds coming to kiss my feet, and then some more from where I could see as far as the edge of the world and the sun slowly slipping behind it, and I kept going until it grew dark and there were stars in the night sky above me and below me and all around me. But I couldn’t find the top of the tower, and seeing the black sky all around me I started to feel a wee bit scared, and my thoughts turned to Grandma who was perhaps all alone in the dark park now and I worried about her and started to climb down. On the way down, I crossed the silver stars in the black sky, and then white clouds in a purple sky, and then there was the red sun still reluctant to slip behind the edge of the world, and at last I could see the top of the maple trees and finally the top of Grandma’s head, and when my feet finally landed on the ground I ran to her and hugged her and excitedly described to her all the things I saw, and I could tell that this time she believed every single word of it. ### (day -1): a little encouragement to show up URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-little-encouragement-to-show-up/ Last updated: 2023-04-13T22:22:08.000Z Yesterday, D declared that he wanted to grow up and be an author and write a series of books and become famous. I was out of sight in another room when he said this, so he didn't hear my heart sink with a resounding thud nor did he see my face fall. And I am glad he didn't because in that moment there was nothing encouraging I could have told him. Luckily, I didn't have to say anything as I was in a different room, and I heard KrA reply, "Sure, you can be an author if that's what you like to do." --- We've never asked D in all his 6+ years of life what he'd like to be when he grows up. Sometimes he'd volunteer that information himself, his earliest desires ranging form wanting to drive a freight train to becoming a Dada (*"I'll have three children; one for you, one for me, and one for Dada,"* he used to explain). (On an aside, I know someone who drives a freight train for a living and they claim to hate every moment of it.) So D's latest declaration out of the blue took me by surprise and revealed to me all the misgivings I harbour about my own profession. It's funny how self-fulfilling prophecies can be. > *When we believe something is too hard to achieve, we're less inclined to put forth our best effort, which in turn yields less-than-stellar results, which in turn convinces us that yes, this was an impossible goal anyway.* > *On the contrary, if we believe that something is within our reach, we'd be looking for opportunities to achieve it, which in turn will increase our probability for success.* Why do we live so much of lives based on fear? Trying to play it safe? Take the tried and tested approach, when even that fails to foolproof our future. The future is the present moment woven to the next moment, in turn woven to the next and so on. What we do in this moment, and in the one after that, reshapes our future. Yet, despite knowing this, I have often found myself caught in the throes of fear, paralyzed, my heart frozen and shrunk, and not at all empowered. --- Today turned out to be another day of KrA being ill, of me dropping D off to school, then looking forward to meeting my therapist in the afternoon, then going gift-shopping for two of D's classmates who are celebrating their birthdays in the coming days, then picking him up from school, building an Easter LEGO set with him, dinner, laundry (yet again), then hanging out with him till he fell asleep and I could get to the laptop to write. I haven't looked at my manuscript much this past week, and that is beginning to get on my nerves. A friend mentioned to be earlier this week that when work seems to be going at a slow pace, we can tell ourselves that life is long and there is no urgency and that we have plenty of time to achieve our goals and realize our dreams. Conversely, when we're in the midst of flow, we can work as if there is no tomorrow! So I tell myself, the season for writing fiction will return, if not today, then tomorrow. I will wake up tomorrow and show up, and see what I can do. That's all that's being asked of me. To show up. To simply show up. ### (day -2): all my feelings are OK, the trick is to not act on them URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/all-my-feelings-are-ok-the-trick-is-to-not-act-on-them/ Last updated: 2023-04-13T22:22:13.000Z Yesterday, I [wrote](https://thedreampedlar.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-an-adult/) what it meant to me to be an adult in how I go about my day-to-day life. > *To do what the day demands of us, without complaint or resentment, and trust that all of what life throws at us is fuel and fodder for the dreams we're chasing, not impediments.* But later it occurred to me that that's something of a tall order, especially the *'without complaint or resentment'* part, because when I woke up this morning, resentment had hijacked my brain once more. KrA is still unwell, which means I had to drop D off to school, and I also had another appointment in the afternoon, and in between all this I came down with a stomach bug myself. So working on the manuscript was something that didn't materialize as much as I wanted it to today. I felt resentful a fair bit, but I didn't throw a tantrum as a result. And eventually, that feeling passed away. When I went to pick up D from school, I had to pick up one of his friends as well and drop her off at her friend's place, only a short drive away from school. Having D and his friend in the back, joking and laughing and singing silly songs, made me so happy that when I dropped her off, loneliness came and sat beside me once more. Along with envy, because the house I dropped her off at was of the kind I wish I lived in, large and spacious with lots of children within. I was filled with loneliness and envy on the way back home, and on any other day I'd have either criticised myself mentally or thrown a tantrum. The stars must have aligned in my favour today because what came to mind was a little poster D had made and put up in his room. It's a printable craft from [Big Life Journal](https://biglifejournal.com/collections/printables/products/emotional-intelligence-kit), titled *'All My Feelings Are OK'*. > *All my feelings are OK.* > *And yes, it is OK to feel jealous and lonely.* > *The trick, I learned today, is to not act on them.* Sure, having those feelings lodge themselves in my body caused me intense discomfort. There's nothing more I'd have liked to do than run away or throw a tantrum and yell at someone, just to get that feeling out of me or to get away from that feeling in any way whatsoever. > *But when I said to myself today, that all my feelings are OK, there was no need to fight them or rationalize them or question why they exist or do something to get rid of them or distract myself from them.* All that mental dialogue I used to engage in, badgering myself with questions such as *'How did I screw up so badly in life?'* or *'Why am I feeling envious?'* or *'Why am I not grateful with what I have?'* didn't occupy any place in my mind. > *I feel lonely. And that is OK. All my feelings are OK.* > *I feel envious. And that is OK. All my feelings are OK.* And that's it. After a while, the feeling passed, the mood shifted, and now the evening breeze is playing with the still-bare branches, tossing them this way and that in the path of the sunlight, casting leaf-shadow on the wall in front of my desk, making them shimmer and ripple like the sunlight-kissed surface of a lake. And now, once again I am in love with the life I have, with the words I write, with this west-facing room I write in where the evening sun peeks inside and sees me at work and warms my heart and whispers to me on his way out, *"Life is beautiful. Your life is very beautiful indeed."* ### (day -3): what does it mean to be an adult? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-an-adult/ Last updated: 2023-04-13T22:22:17.000Z Today was a day of being an adult. KrA fell ill last night, yet he woke up this morning to make breakfast and prep D's lunchbox. Then I took D for his physiotherapist appointment for his leg saga, then dropped him off at school, did some grocery shopping, stopped by to chat with a neighbour who has sold her home and is leaving (she has already left by the time I write this), did the laundry, had a little nap, went to pick up D from school as well as takeout food on the way back home, gave little D a shower (a joyful experience I have not indulged in in far too long as it's usually KrA who does this), had dinner, loaded the dishwasher, then folded all the laundered clothes, and now I'm here, writing this, while waiting for D to finish reading the book he's engrossed in and go to bed. What an ordinary day! What a joyful day! --- Back here now that D is in bed, having fallen asleep after talking about what made him grateful today (his answer was me and KrA), and the sun has slipped beneath the western horizon, smearing the sky a watercolour orange. This is my favourite part of the day, being able to come here and write. Some thoughts. Some musings. A recollection of the day gone by, and lessons learnt. Today, as I was attending to the calls of life, I was reminded of all the times *'life got in the way'* and I couldn't write. And I wondered why we say *'life got in the way'* when all the things we do on a daily or near-daily basis, such as cooking, eating, caring for a child and/or a partner, buying groceries, doing the dishes or the laundry, are essential activities for living. Why do we treat them as chores, as inconveniences, when these are the activities that ensure our basic needs are met? That we have food to eat, clothes to wear, and a clean, comfortable home to live in? I've often heard of writers or any other passionate creators who say they are OK with messy homes or with a sinkful of dirty dishes. With a child at home, I find it impossible to let my home go to seed while I sit in my room, door closed to the rest of the world, and write. That's the dream, sure, but ah, *life gets in the way!* This is hilarious. I have great ambition and a strong desire to write many, many stories. At the same time, I love spending a lot of time with D and being around for him and KrA. I don't want to approach my writing with a frenetic, aggressive kind of energy, one that resents the existence of a home and a family to look after. Both – my writing and my family – are intrinsic, invaluable parts of my life, and I make space in my days, each day, for both. This has often been a challenge for me, I will admit. Especially when I have writing plans for the day and something happens, such as D or KrA falling ill, that compels me to change my plans, I can't help but feel resentful. And I think, more than getting down to what needs to be done in that moment, it's the resentment and my internal fight against it that weighs me down tremendously and takes up way too much mental space and energy. I've often noticed that on days when I get through the errands or whatever the day demands of me cheerfully, with an *'All this is part of life and I've got this'* attitude rather than a *'Why does life always get in the way of my writing?'* attitude of misery and torment, more often than not I have plenty of energy and enthusiasm to get to the writing desk in the evening after everyone has gone to bed. > *I suppose this is what it means to be an adult. To do what the day demands of us, without complaint or resentment, and trust that all of what life throws at us is fuel and fodder for the dreams we're chasing, not impediments.* In the run-up to the writing challenge I have now officially signed up for, I've gotten into the habit of blogging every evening about my day and whatever learnings I may have gleaned from it. This is turning out to be an excellent exercise in self-awareness and, consequently, self-improvement. I'm showing up in day-to-day life as the kind of person I want to be, as the kind of person I know I inherently am – kind, generous, courageous, capable – when I am not seized by anxieties and insecurities. How much of this is turning out to be a mind game! How much of life is turning out to be a mind game! When I am in a good frame of mind, not getting hijacked by worries and anxieties, which in turn are merely constructs of my very imaginative mind, I find myself capable of handling whatever the day sends my way. On the contrary, even a beautiful day can be easily ruined when I'm caught in mental spirals of fear and worry, not to mention all the time and energy that is squandered in these imaginings. I've observed this over and over again, yet I haven't found the silver bullet, that *mantra* or specific action that will propel me into action when my fear-mind is screaming at its loudest. Reckon I'll figure that out over the next nine months, the reminder that I need to focus on the task at hand, instead of squandering the present moment at the altar of the past and the future, both utterly imaginary constructs at this point in time. ### (day -4): the universe truly conspires URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-universe-truly-conspires/ Last updated: 2023-04-13T22:22:21.000Z If you've been reading my daily posts on the writing challenge, you know how much I've been dithering on it. One hugely influential factor that has kept me from signing up so far, one that I haven't mentioned in any of my posts so far, was the cost. USD 300 amounts to almost CAD 450, and I couldn't bring myself to put down that amount to secure accountability for writing. It is an investment, but I feared that the worry of investing such an amount alone would compound my fear of failure and prevent me from meaningfully participating in the challenge. I recently read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – neither the book nor the author need any introduction – solely to set eyes again on that magical sentence "... *when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.*" So when DWS announced a [50% off](https://deanwesleysmith.com/five-months-ago/) on his website this morning, I took it as a clear sign from the Universe and immediately went ahead and signed up for the Half Challenge. Yay! I'm in! And I'm so excited about it all, about being part of the challenge, about sending in my word count for the week to Dean, and about the miraculous way in which this surprise discount came about at just the right time. The other strange thing that happened today was this. After I realized yesterday how I tended to [resist my reality](https://thedreampedlar.com/remembering-what-matters/) by catastrophizing and blaming, I woke up this morning with the intention of facing the day as it came. D had spent another sleepless night, waking up and crying out in pain often. When I woke up it was already 7:30 and D and KrA were still asleep, no doubt exhausted from having slept fitfully, so I went straight to my computer and logged in an absence request from school for D. We also had plans to head to the doctor's later this morning. As they were still asleep, I opened up my manuscript and started writing. Ten minutes later, D was awake, and the morning began. D asked if I too could come to the doctor's, and despite my initial resistance I agreed. Then something changed. As KrA was preparing breakfast, D realized he was feeling much better and was able to walk, albeit unsteadily, on his own. And he came up with the idea that he could head to school after the doctor's visit. And so began a bit of a scramble as KrA prepped his lunchbox and I tried to fill D's backpack with all his school supplies as he had brought them all home over the March break. At the doctor's, we waited for about 45 minutes only to be informed that we'd have wait another hour or that we could take an appointment to come back after school. We opted for the latter, dropped D at school, then came back and I had the entire afternoon to myself to attend to writing and other life stuff. Funny, how life twists and turns of its own accord. Now if only I can remember these learnings, especially when I need them the most. > *To trust.* > *To accept.* > *And to attend this single moment on hand wholeheartedly, without squandering it in regretting/romanticising the past or dreading/awaiting the future.* ### (day -5): remembering what matters URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/remembering-what-matters/ Last updated: 2023-04-13T22:22:25.000Z The sleepless nights and restricted days continue as D remains unwell. Although his fever has subsided, his legs are strained, and he has been unable to walk ever since he woke up. It's been a hard few days; I worry a lot when D is unwell as any parent would for their child, and being sleepless and homebound makes me grouchier than usual. It occurred to me this morning that [what we resist, persists](https://medium.com/@weirdfulstar/what-we-resist-persists-embrace-it-will-dissolve-4c415bdca33e). Why am I so resistant to the fact that D woke up with a health problem today? Instead of settling down to help him, I began to *catastrophize* (What if this ends up being a lifelong health problem for him? *or* At this rate, I best not take part in the writing challenge) and *blame* (We should have had more help from family in looking after our child all these years). I am sorry, D. Please forgive me. It's funny, but had I not been hell-bent on trying to write daily in preparation for the challenge, I wouldn't even have seen the pattern I was in, the pattern of resisting my day-to-day reality and catastrophizing and/or blaming others for it. The other timely nugget of wisdom I received today came from [Big Life Journal](https://biglifejournal.com). In this week's email, founder Alexandra talked about doing a worst-case scenario exercise when we find ourselves engaging in procrastination. 1. As part of this exercise, we ask ourselves what the worst-case scenario of working on a project would be. For instance, what is the worst-case scenario of my participating in this writing challenge? Answer: I fail the challenge, and not meet the target wordcount. 2. And then we ask ourselves, knowing that this worst-case scenario might happen, are we still willing to proceed? I hesitated to answer this one. My initial answer was 'No'. 3. The last question to ask ourselves is this: 'If we do NOT work on this project, will we regret this later?' My answer to this question was a resounding 'Yes'. Of course, I'd regret not taking the chance to write my stories whenever I can. I went back to the second question – Knowing that I might not meet the target wordcount and that I might fail the challenge, am I still willing to proceed? – to which I had answered 'No', and then I asked myself 'Why not?' > *The answer was that I am not ready to accept failure, which means that instead of not taking on a project I might fail at, I better work on my mindset and capacity to handle failure and disappointment.* She explains this process in her latest podcast episode: [*How to stop procrastinating on your dream*](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1vb4xfdskZEGh7QbwPCHiP). So no more dithering. I am signing up for the challenge. It will get me to the writing desk more often than otherwise. And I am determined to try it, and also accept that life will throw many things my way, and I don't have to try and overcome anything, I simply have to accept it. > Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away. > \~ Pema Chödrön ### March Medley: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-march-medley/ Last updated: 2023-03-26T07:00:56.000Z Hello, Dreamer! Whether it's to do with all the wonderful sunshine we've been getting here offlate, or because the robins are back and trilling most magnificently, or because a sci-fi movie won the Best Picture award and *Naatu Naatu* was judged the best song at the Oscars this year, or because I've just found my new favourite fictional protagonist, or because I'm no longer on social media and this place here, thedreampedlar.com, is my only abode on the world wide web for all time to come, March has certainly brought back a smile to my face that the darker, shorter days of winter seemed to have stolen! [the most important thing I learnt by quitting social media... what I had been seeking in that non-stop flow of images and videos and boxes of text on the screen was a salve for my loneliness.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/7.1.-duy-pham-Cecb0_8Hx-o-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-most-important-thing-i-learnt-by-quitting-social-media/) But quitting social media made me aware of how I had unknowingly been using those platforms as a salve for loneliness. As a result, March also brought back that feeling of *hiraeth*, that deep longing for home, for a place from my childhood that exists nowhere else but in my memory although I'm not entirely sure memory serves as a reliable guide. Consequently, I've been indulging in a lot of Indian movies on Netflix – *RRR*, *Mission Majnu* (based on an Indian spy mission in the 1970s), *The Romantics* (a docuseries on the life of late Indian filmmaker Yash Chopra), *Jodhaa Akbar* (a historical romance featuring one of India's most renowned Mughal emperors and a Rajput princess, and I watched it for the first time this month, 15 years after its release), *War* (another action-thriller involving an agent gone rogue) – and we even managed to watch [*Pathaan*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathaan%5F%28film%29) in the theatre. Wow, that's a lot of screen-time for someone like me! Even D now loves the soundtracks from these movies, namely *[Ghunghroo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFkNATtc3mc)* from *War,* and *[Jhoome Jo Pathaan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxWlaYCA8MU)*, although my translation of these Hindi lyrics into English for his comprehension leave much to be desired. ![weathered Bollywood movie posters pasted to a blue and green wall](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/brian-mcgowan-xFMWa-TByaI-unsplash.jpg) Hindi movie posters / Photo by [Brian McGowan](https://unsplash.com/@sushioutlaw?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/xFMWa-TByaI?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- ### *childhood memories* Given the frame of mind I've been in for most of this month, I thought I'd take you down memory lane to a place called Thane, on the outskirts of Mumbai (Bombay, as I knew it growing up) where I spent six very impressionable years of my life, from the ages of 6–12, in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Back then, my dad worked for Voltas, manufacturing cranes, and we got to live in a housing colony meant for some of the company's employees and their families. There were only six apartment buildings, all three-storeyed structures with six units each, complete with a large garden and lawn, an outdoor play area for children, as well as an indoor recreation centre well-equipped with table tennis, [carrom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrom), and other tabletop/board games. Surrounded by lush, green hills (called Yeoor Hills) on three sides, the buildings faced a serene lake (Upvan Lake). With no other residential properties for miles around, it was a very secluded but self-contained property, quite like a resort. ![green meadows and hills](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/claudio-testa--SO3JtE3gZo-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Claudio Testa](https://unsplash.com/@claudiotesta?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/-SO3JtE3gZo?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) It is the kind of place that'd likely come to mind as an idyllic setting, in the lap of nature, the perfect place to spend one's childhood in. There was no dearth of children to play with. The concept of playdates was a very foreign one; we could simply run out and call out to our friends. The colony was gated and secure with security guards positioned round-the-clock, and the area was so vast we rarely ever needed to venture out alone, but we did so quite often, trekking around the lake, climbing up the hills, and exploring the nearby areas. Standing on my balcony on a hot summer's day, I could often see trekkers in the distance climbing up the hills, looking as small as ants and meandering just like them. There were a few shanties not too far from our colony, and the children from there would come to the lake for a swim every afternoon. I had no idea how much this scene had imprinted itself on my heart and soul until I wove it into one of my earlier works, *[Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/)*. In *Chapter 29, Outside The Window*, to be precise. ### *curiosity lured this big cat* There were lots of stories too to tickle the imagination. Rumour had it that a wild tiger lived in the hills and that, every night, it jumped across the six-foot stone wall crowned with barbed wire fence that separated our colony from the jungle beyond, and prowled the grounds at night. Apparently, a security guard once saw it and locked himself inside his cabin all night long, shivering and praying to every God he possibly could. At around this time, a Bollywood movie named *[Junoon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junoon%5F%281992%5Ffilm%29)* was released; it was about a man who changed into a tiger every full moon night because of a curse. That movie terrified me back then; now, despite the deluge of shapeshifter fantasies on bookshelves, many with romantic arcs, I find it impossible to convince 11-year-old me that within 2-3 decades, we'd go from being beast-fearing to beast-loving people. ### *visit from a stranger* On another occasion, some of us were playing in the indoor recreation centre when the door to the restroom opened and out came a tall, muscular stranger, dressed in nothing but a short wraparound garment from waist to thigh. He also held a long stick in his hand. As tall as the doorframe, he headed out in long, purposeful strides, went up the rear lawn that led to the stone wall, climbed up the wall and stepped over the barbed wire, then jumped into the jungle on the other side and disappeared into it. All of us were shocked, and when we were later asked to recount the details to the grown-ups, we couldn't quite agree on who or what we had seen. --- It was certainly a different era and a very different way of life. I wonder if the colony exists in its original form now. Google Maps shows me that countless high-rises have sprung up around the lake, no surprises there; it was prime real estate, and we were lucky we got to enjoy it all for ourselves before it drew the crowds. But if you were to ask me what I really miss about that time, I can easily answer that it is not the people nor the place itself, but most certainly the jolly carefreeness of childhood that these memories evoke. The unquestioned sense of possibility. The utter lack of doubt. That whole and absolute inhabitation of the present moment, without past memories or future worries to weigh me down. I see all this in 6-year-old D, and it reminds me of 6-year-old me, full of unbridled optimism and courage. And I can't help thinking, what a blessing that was, what an incredible blessing it was to have felt that way even once in my lifetime. Because if I could feel it once, I can certainly feel that way again, and again, and again. ![three children running across a meadow in a black-and-white image](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/jordan-whitt-b8rkmfxZjdU-unsplash.jpg) childhood / Photo by [Jordan Whitt](https://unsplash.com/@jwwhitt?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/b8rkmfxZjdU?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- #### WHEN DID IT HAPPEN? *by Mary Oliver* When did it happen? "It was a long time ago." Where did it happen? "It was far away." No, tell. Where did it happen? "In my heart." What is your heart doing now? "Remembering. Remembering!" \~ [Felicity: Poems](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24611522-felicity) by Mary Oliver > *So what is it that your heart remembers about your own childhood? Will you be so kind as to share your fondest memories with me?* --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### an orange offering Call it serendipity, but I had written this tale two autumns ago but never got around to publishing it. It is a very autumnal tale. It is also a tale of longing for home, of *hiraeth*. I had no alternative but to share it with you today. [tales for dreamers: an orange offeringWhat does the colour orange remind you of? The answer depends on where you come from.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/35.-an-orange-offering.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-an-orange-offering/) --- ## Books You May Love In keeping with the theme of *hiraeth*, the books I read either had Indian-origin protagonists or were set in India. And I read three books by two amazing authors, both featuring Indian female detectives, one snooping around in an English seaside town, another breaking barriers in 1950s Bombay. British crime author, [Elly Griffiths](https://ellygriffiths.co.uk), has two standalone novels featuring Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur, who's now my favourit*est* fictitious person, my imaginary friend, if you please! And another British crime author, [Vaseem Khan](https://vaseemkhan.com), has been writing the *Malabar House* series featuring Inspector Persis Wadia, India's first policewoman, and set in post-independence India. I read *The Lost Man of Bombay*, the third book in the series, after having read and enjoyed the second book, *Dying Day*, a few months ago. Apparently, the fourth book is slated to be released later this year, so I'm going to go and read book 1, *Midnight at Malabar House*, in the meantime. And you know what I do when I read something that I absolutely love: I blog about it at great length. So here's all the wonderful details on these books and how much I've enjoyed reading them; perhaps that will coax you into checking them out! [books you may love: DS Harbinder Kaur series & Inspector Persis Wadia (Malabar House) seriesSpreading book cheer in the world, and some enlightening thoughts on diversity and representation in fiction!![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/11.4.-dan-dumitriu-3w1XBUGj4ds-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-ds-harbinder-kaur-series-inspector-persis-wadia-malabar-house-series/) I also read *The Alchemist* by Paulo Coelho in order to set my eyes once again on those immortal words: "... *when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.*" 💡 In addition, if you're looking for some diverse science-fiction to indulge in, take a look at [The 2023 World SF Bundle](https://storybundle.com/scifi) curated by Lavie Tidhar. I purchased the 2022 edition of the bundle when it came out last year, and I've been eagerly awaiting this year's bundle. Let me know if you grab a few books or the entire bundle, and we could read along. I've begun with Silvia Moreno-Garcia's *Signal to Noise* and I'm already loving it! --- With that, dear Dreamer, it's time to say goodbye! Next month, *Monthly Missives* would have completed one rotation around the sun! The first edition of this newsletter went out in April 2022, titled [*April Alchemy*](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-april-alchemy/). I just went to take a look at it, and guess what I talked about in that first missive? *Hiraeth*, of all things on earth! Reckon some things will never change. So many of you have been with me since that very first missive, and so many of you have joined me along the way. Whenever or however we met, I am very glad you are here. I hope these words I write continue to fill your heart with much joy and delight. I am grateful for your support. Always. Thank you! 💕 \~ Anitha ### (day -6): this too shall pass URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/this-too-shall-pass/ Last updated: 2023-04-04T16:42:44.000Z Take me to the most beautiful house, even the most magnificent palace, and no matter how attractive the interiors may be, there's only one place I'd gravitate to: the window. And having spent a few moments at the window, taking in any view it may offer, I'd not be able to resist the urge to run out and be *in* that panorama, be a part of it, instead of merely at a distance, observing it like a witness. After an entire day of being homebound and monitoring little D's temperature (his fever simply raged all day) and yet another sleepless night, I was determined to step out of home and go for a long walk this morning. Only, it started to pour cats and dogs. But I was not to be thwarted. If I couldn't walk, I'd drive. At mid-morning, I stepped out to run a few errands, which took me a little ways up north, where I drove beside low mist-laden hills, pretending I was back in the mountains of Vancouver. I returned home with a much lighter heart, yet the prospect of heading to the computer and opening up the manuscript filled me with dread. Once again, I started to have doubts about participating in the [writing challenge](https://deanwesleysmith.com/dean-challenges-two-of-them/), because what I'm realizing is that I'm not an everyday writer. I write in sprints. My writing would flow for a handful of days in a row. And then I need a day or two off to rest my brain, to refill the creative well, so to speak. And when life happens, such as D falling ill, it takes a lot out of me, physically, mentally and emotionally, ~~even if~~ especially when we spend the entire day at home, making sure he is well-rested and recovering. Naturally, I spent most of my morning and afternoon under a cloud, which lifted of its own accord in the evening, when I went back to being my usual optimistic self, ready to participate in the challenge. So here's what I'm beginning to see having gone on this trial run of a week ahead of the challenge. 1. There will be good days and bad days. (For the sake of this discussion, good = high word-count days, and bad = low or zero word-count days.) 2. The point of observing the good days and the bad days is not to figure out what led to a good day and try to replicate that over and over again in a bid to maximize the number of good days and minimize the number of bad days. 3. The point is to acknowledge that there will be good days and there will be bad days, and that the latter will exist despite our best efforts. The more I try to resist or eliminate the existence of bad days, the harder I find it to get through them. And that's when I begin to sink into the fear spiral of doubt and negativity. 4. I can approach a bad day in one of two ways: either try to bulldoze my way through it, or take a break. Sometimes the first alternative works, but even then it is only a temporary solution, and I eventually end up going down the second route. 5. Since going down the second route is an inevitablity, as I've observed countless times in the past, I might as well learn how to acknowledge and accept it and do things I love, such as reading books, instead of falsely believing that I'd never have a career writing and selling stories because I wrote on *only* four out of seven days this week. 6. The thing to remember, whether I'm having a good day or a bad one, is that this too shall pass. No good day will last forever. Neither will a bad one. 7. Trying to make every day a good day is a futile endeavour. As is trying to prevent any bad day from happening in the first place. 8. Cherish the good days without greed. Rest and recharge on the bad ones ~~without~~ despite the fear or guilt. I was texting a friend throughout this afternoon. Her older son and D are in the same school. She also has a nearly 1 year old child. She was telling me how much she's now looking forward to school resuming this coming Monday after the March break. > *As we were texting, I realized and shared with her that yes, some days with D at home were absolutely splendid, while some others felt like a slog.* > *"It's funny," I texted her, "I used to think it was parenting that made me feel this way, but frankly I think I've felt like this ever since I became an adult! And parenting just made all these feelings more intense and more obvious. Being a grown-up sucks sometimes!"* I reckon this is how I feel about my writing journey as well, and going into this challenge is simply making these facts of the cyclical and seasonal nature of my creativity more intense and more obvious. No matter how much I write as part of this challenge, I'm pretty certain I will emerge a different person on the other end. The person I'm hoping to become is the one who can accept 'bad' days as part of the plan, as part of life, and not let them completely derail her. ### (day -7): 1 a.m. musings URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/1-a-m-musings/ Last updated: 2023-04-04T16:42:37.000Z Another sleepless night, so here I am, writing more words as a new day has technically begun. I made the mistake of making my way to Netflix this evening to watch the German murder-mystery, *Close to Home: Murder in the Coalfield*. Bad decision. Not because the series is bad. I watched 2 of its 6 episodes, and as far as I can tell it is just as riveting and suspenseful as many other good shows in that genre. I know, because there was a time, when D was 2–3 years old, when this was the only kind of show I liked to watch. The kind that Netflix describes as *gritty*, *dark*, and/or *suspenseful*. I steer clear off the ones labelled *ominous*; I have never had any stomach for supernatural horror. Turns out, I no longer have any appetite for gritty murder mysteries either. Especially the ones that come up with supremely ingenious ways to inflict trauma on the victims. It makes me sick now to watch all that, and that old friend anxiety surfaces once again in that out-of-control way at the insiduous knowledge that horrible things happen in the world little D is growing up in. I am not naïve. I do know awful things happen in this world but that's no reason to keep reminding myself of only that aspect of reality. Because it is also true that the world can be a kind and compassionate place, when we expect it to be so. A couple of years ago, I learnt that readers of books and viewers of shows such as police procedurals and murder mysteries often love these genres because the criminal is caught in the end and brought to justice. Seemingly these shows provide intense emotional satisfaction to those of us who feel helpless in the face of all the injustice in the real world. I still love cozy mysteries though where the murder is off-screen and the focus is more on solving the mystery in a comfortable, often hilarious, setting, and not filled with upsetting details. One such series is the *[Patricia Fisher Mystery Adventures](https://stevehiggsbooks.com/what-sam-knew-patricia-fisher-mystery-adventures-book-1/)* series of books by hugely prolific British author Steven Higgs. Patricia is a child-free, middle-aged woman who catches her husband cheating, so she walks out on him after wiping out his bank account and using almost all the money to buy a ticket for herself on board a cruise ship. She solves a number of mysteries on board the ship, and I believe in one such story, she helps out a *Maharajah*, following which he provides for her accommodation in a palace with 70+ roooms, which is where she's residing when the first book in the *Mystery Adventures* series begins. It's a laugh-out-loud mystery, and I enjoyed reading the books a while back. Reckon I'll pick up *What Sam Knew* now. It will give me a few laughs and help me fall back asleep, safe and secure in the knowledge that even the worst depravity in the world can be made palatable through the lens of humour and light-heartedness. --- ***8 a.m. update*** Little D came down with fever last night. At 2 a.m., his body was raging, and after the meds had worked their magic, we had a 3 a.m. snack of milk and biscuits. It's been a pretty sleepless night, so today is going to be a day of hanging out with D, pottering about the house, reading a lot, and generally staying away from the screen after I have posted this. Bye, bye, my home on the Internet! I'll pay a visit either later tonight or tomorrow at the latest. Here's to a day of rest and recovery, of relaxation and recharging! ### tales for dreamers: the clandestine meeting of gods to discuss the growing wish-lists of human beings URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-clandestine-meeting-of-gods-to-discuss-the-growing-wish-lists-of-human-beings/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:41:27.000Z The Gods come from afar, and one by one they plant themselves on the wall. The ones that arrived first have chosen the best spots they could find, but more and more Gods are on their way and there is growing concern there may not be adequate room for all. Such a congregation of Gods is an extremely rare phenomenon, so much so that the Gods have no choice but to execute it in absolute secrecy. (Can you imagine the riot that would erupt on earth were humankind to get wind of this clandestine rendezvous?) The Gods all bring with them reams of paper filled with the unfulfilled wishes and prayers of their people; the Gods have all fallen behind schedule on fulfilling people’s wishes and are hoping to gain some insights and new suggestions from their counterparts from all over the world on how to work their way through the lists swiftly and efficiently, all while managing well their stress and time in the process. Some prayers they have been able to categorize and label accurately, like the prayers of 10-year-olds looking for lost pets, or the prayers of parents seeking wisdom for their wayward sons. Other prayers do not fall into any precise category, such as prayers for everlasting happiness or wishes for true love, for everyone has his or her own unique ideas about happiness and love. Some Gods have longer lists than the others, and their paper bundles are heavier, and that explains their choice of mount. Some choose to ride a horse, others prefer unicorns for speedier transportation. Some others turn to wild cats especially if the wish-lists they carry are confidential and must not fall into the devil’s hands at all costs, while some mount eagles or dragons to avoid the dangers that lurk on land. The most powerful and swiftest of all Gods simply choose to fly in the night sky. They are a noisy, raucous bunch. High on nectar, they flirt with the moon and illuminate the sky with fireworks that dazzle more brightly than the stars. If you look up at the right moment, you will bear witness to the goings-on in the sky but you will most likely mistake the boisterous Gods for shooting stars. And you will make yet another wish, upon a shooting star. But the flying Gods are too busy having fun to add your new wishes to their lists. > ✨ *🎵 Reckon disco beats would pair well with this tale? Check out the narrated version and let me know! 😉* > ✨ For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar)! ### (day -8): a slow day, yet a meaningful one URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-slow-day-yet-a-meaningful-one/ Last updated: 2023-04-04T16:42:22.000Z After I had taken a break from writing fiction yesterday in order to ensure I had my newsletter ready and all set for delivery this coming Sunday, I had made up my mind to get back to the manuscript first thing this morning. Unexpectedly, little D asked me if I could drop him to school today. When my child asks me for something non-material, such as time or attention or an answer, I never refuse him. But a school run had not been part of my plan this morning, so I hesitated at first but decided that sure, I could drop him and then head to the library to work there. So I got to a slow start, which cost me some decision-making ability. First, I couldn't decide where to park the car. Then I had to walk back thrice and check if I had locked it or not. Once inside the library, I couldn't make up my mind where to sit although my usual favourite place – in a quiet zone by a large floor-to-ceiling window overlooking a small yard with a towering maple tree at its center – was available. I dithered, walked around exploring other places in the library, then caught myself dithering and delaying for no real reason other than the lack of momentum that had crept in because I had not looked at the manuscript yesterday. So I sat down at my usual place and got to work. An hour later, I was satisfied with the progress I made, and so I spent some time browsing the bookshelves before returning home. My usual morning walk with KrA followed. Then lunch. Then I finished the newsletter, headed out for a physiotherapy appointment, and am back here now, typing this, and now I have to leave in a few minutes to pick up D from school. Back home now after picking up D – he's now lying in bed reading a book – and I have to acknowledge I'm feeling a little low, now that I've finished the newsletter and scheduled it for publication on Sunday. I always feel a little grief at the end of something I've poured my heart into. I also feel grief at seemingly irrelevant stuff, like the fact that one of our neighbours is moving this weekend. We're hardly close to them, yet the ripple of change reminds me of how fragile life is, how tenuous it can be. One blink of an eye, and the world can turn upside down. Which is probably why it is important to remember that only this moment matters at this point in time. Because that is all that exists right now. When I think along these lines, I also can't help thinking about death, having lost two members of my family in the past year alone and many more in the preceding years. > *And I wonder what it would be like when I die. Of course, I will find out some day and not live to tell that tale; but wouldn't that be the most magnificent story of all? The one that everyone would want to read?* Ever since I've started having thoughts like these, I've come to loathe that pithy saying *'Live every day as if it is your last.'* That's putting too much pressure! Because if someone were to tell me that today is my last day on earth, I'd be torn between wanting to finish this post and spending time with KrA and D and travelling to some beautiful place on earth I've never been before. Sure, death can come any instant, but that doesn't mean we have to remind ourselves of it every moment. Such a course of action would only paralyze us from thinking long term or undertaking a project that would last several days or weeks, such as writing a novel or building a house or planting a garden or travelling to some place new. I remember writing a short poem voicing this sentiment and posted it on a long-gone Instagram feed on New Year's Day in 2022\. And that is what I will leave you with: a wish for us all to live with awe and wonder, trusting in the unsolveable mystery, the *Tao*, that lies at the heart of it all. --- *I wish not to live as if it were my last day on earth.* *I wish to live as if it were my very first.* *Opening my eyes for the first time,* *taking my first breath, my first big gulp of air,* *hungry for my first slurp of milk,* *content only when I am sated,* *crying out loud until my demands are met,* *looking at everything and everyone* *with wonder and curiosity,* *eager to see and touch and hear and smell and feel,* *exploring this new life with no consideration* *for how easy or difficult it might be,* *ignorant of fear and knowledge and judgement,* *my spirit still unsullied by the ways of this world.* ### tales for dreamers: an orange offering URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-an-orange-offering/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:36:00.000Z The path to the God residing in the highest abode is strewn with golden leaves. Yellow, orange, and golden, and every hue in between. To him, it appears as a carpet of marigolds. A beloved summer flower of India. An auspicious flower to adorn temples and wedding halls with. The sight of it pleases him no end. It is a little reminder of the land he once thrived in before his most ardent devotee carried him in her heart across several seas and the continents that divide them, as a constant reminder of the land she too had once grown up in. In this new world, where the ground is white and the trees are leafless and the air is cold for most of the year, where spring is a brief interlude but her newborn leaves are a throbbing green, where the summer sun is harsh, annoyed at being given so little time to play, the worshipper and her God miss their old home and its vibrant colours. So every year, they pine for autumn and the burst of colours she brings with her. The reds and yellows and every shade in between. Even the sky is bluer in autumn than at any other time of the year. But it is the indescribable orange they wait for. The orange of juicy, ripe mangos. Of marigolds. Of golden brocade threaded in intricate designs on the borders of brightly coloured *saarees*. Of golden jewellery glinting on brown skin in the sunlight. > ✨ *🎶 Listen to the sound of nostalgia in the audio version of this tale!* --- For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! ### (day -9): the truth of what it takes to succeed URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-truth-of-what-it-takes-to-succeed/ Last updated: 2023-03-22T22:10:34.000Z This morning, I needed to work on this month's newsletter – going out this Sunday! – and a couple of other posts pertaining to the books I have been reading and some thoughts on diversity and representation; I knew I wouldn't rest until I had gotten those done, so I set aside fiction writing for the day and got most of my pending non-fiction work done. But the reason I'm coming to write this blog post before the day is over is because I realized something yesterday and this morning, about how I had been demanding success to show up in my life without me willing to put in the effort towards it. After two straight days of writing and aiming for a higher-than-usual wordcount for me, I was ready to [give up](https://thedreampedlar.com/all-the-ways-my-mind-is-telling-me-this-is-a-bad-idea/). Two straight days. That's it. Only two straight days. The third morning began on a slightly difficult note, and that was all it took me to start questioning my decision to participate in the challenge, to start wondering if I'd be able to keep this writing routine up for the next \~280 days, let alone a lifetime. > I felt a little ashamed of myself, at how easily I was willing to give up, yet how quickly I was willing to blame my lack of success on the whims and caprices of the market. > At how easily I tell myself that I could spend a lifetime writing books and telling stories, yet how easily I panic and crumple at the prospect of spending 2–3 hours a morning adding words to the manuscript. I could spend the next few hours or days or weeks lamenting my behaviour, this pattern of running away from difficulty that I've kept up for several years now without even realizing it. OR I could be grateful that I'm catching this now, that my eyes are opening to this now, so that I can course-correct now, and remember that yes, there will be days when this feels hard and that yes, I can do hard things. And perhaps, the other lesson to learn from this experience is that some things are difficult for me to keep doing alone, which means I can look to an external, trusted source for mentorship or support, for comraderie and companionship in this journey. Isn't that why I've been so keen on doing this [writing challenge](https://deanwesleysmith.com/dean-challenges-two-of-them/)? ### books you may love: DS Harbinder Kaur series & Inspector Persis Wadia (Malabar House) series URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-ds-harbinder-kaur-series-inspector-persis-wadia-malabar-house-series/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:04:25.000Z What a delight these past few days have been in terms of all the reader pleasure I've indulged in! It all began with a visit to the library a few weeks ago. I was browsing through the shelves that held mysteries written by [JD Robb](https://jdrobb.com) (a pseudonym for prolific and popular author, Nora Roberts), looking for the first book in a (so far) 52-book series titled *Naked in Death*, when one of the librarians who was stocking the shelves came by and asked me if I needed any help. At first, I politely declined, but then I asked her if *Naked in Death* was available. She looked up on her mobile system; it wasn't. But that sparked the beginning of a long conversation about books and TV shows. We shared so many favourites: the [*Inspector Ian Rutledge*](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-ian-rutledge-series/) series by [Charles Todd](https://charlestodd.com), the *Cormoran Strike* novels by [Robert Galbraith](https://robert-galbraith.com) (JK Rowling), the Murdoch Mysteries TV show, which is a long-standing Canadian favourite. Of course, the conversation then drifted towards British authors, and the librarian took me over to another aisle (our library has several aisles devoted to mystery!) and picked up a book by an author named [Elly Griffiths](https://ellygriffiths.co.uk). Griffiths is known for her *Dr. Ruth Galloway* mysteries, the librarian told me, Galloway being a forensic archaeologist! The first book in the series was not on the shelf, so the librarian pointed me to another of Griffiths' books, this one titled *[The Postscript Murders](https://ellygriffiths.co.uk/book/the-postscript-murders/)*, in which the investigating officer was a Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur! That completely piqued my interest, and even though it was the second book in the series, I didn't mind reading it. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/11.2.-The-stranger-diaries.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/11.1-The-postscript-murders.jpeg) The Postscript Murders & The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths featuring DS Harbinder Kaur And wow, have I fallen in love with DS Kaur! She's a second-generation immigrant, in her mid-30s, living with her parents in England, unmarried, and also gay. And she loves playing Panda Pop on her mobile phone! Kaur has an endearingly wry sense of humour, and Griffiths masterfully weaves in a funny sentence or two in the most unexpected of places, which made me stop and laugh and simply soak up the simple delight of reading a good book with quirky characters with varied backgrounds. In *The Postscript Murders*, a 90-year-old woman, Peggy Smith, dies of apparent heart failure but her carer, a Ukrainian woman named Natalka, finds her death suspicious and reaches out to DS Kaur to investigate. > 'We need to find out what it means before we decide if it's suspicious,' says Harbinder. 'And why does it say M. Smith? I thought you said her name was Peggy.' > 'Peggy is sometimes short for Margaret,' says Natalka. 'English names are odd like that.' > 'I am English,' says Harbinder. She's not going to let Natalka assume otherwise, just because she's not white. > 'I'm Ukrainian,' says Natalka. 'We have lots of strange names too.' > \~ *The Postscript Murders* by Elly Griffiths The book is filled with many hilarious yet deeply perceptive observations such as these. After having devoured *The Postscript Murders*, I requested for the first book featuring DS Kaur, *[The Stranger Diaries](https://ellygriffiths.co.uk/book/the-stranger-diaries/)*. This one was spooky as hell, beginning with a short story and reported hauntings of a school by the ghost of the wife of the author of said story who used to live in the building almost a century ago. It was so different from *The Postscript Murders* at first that I wasn't even sure the same author had written it. But then DS Kaur makes an entry about 60 pages into the book and when the story began to be told from her point of view, all felt right with my world. There is sarcasm but not angst, there is humour but not ridicule, and there is diversity and representation done simply splendidly. > 'Murder consultant?' says Neil. 'What does that even mean?' > Harbinder counts to five. Her new tactic with Neil is to imagine him as a woodland creature, sly, slightly stupid but ultimately loveable. > 'I don't know,' she says, 'but I'd like to find out.' > 'Why?' Nibble, nibble, washes whiskers. > 'A woman is dead and it turns out she's a murder consultant. Aren't you even the slightest bit curious?' > 'The police don't pay us to be curious.' Examines nut, twitches tail. > 'They don't pay us much at all.' > \~ *The Postscript Murders* by Elly Griffiths Griffiths labels these two novels featuring DS Kaur as standalones on her website, and I do hope there are many more to come. --- I was quite morose after I finished reading *The Stranger Diaries*, so I promptly picked up *The Lost Man of Bombay* by [Vaseem Khan](https://vaseemkhan.com), this one being a historical mystery set in 1950s India and featuring India's first policewoman, Inspector Persis Wadia. It's also the third book in the *Malabar House* series. ![Front cover of The Lost Man of Bombay by Vaseem Khan featuring a cobra](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/11.3.-The-Lost-Man-of-Bombay-3.jpeg) The Lost Man of Bombay by Vaseem Khan I had read the second book, *[The Dying Day](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-august-aspirations/?ref=the-dream-pedlar)*, several months ago and enjoyed it, so I tore through this one during a single sleepless night. There's much to be enjoyed in Khan's exploration of 1950s Bombay, the post-independence era fraught with a lot of confusion and growth for India. Wadia is caught in the midst of an existential angst. Most of her male colleagues outrightly disrespect her. Her love interest is an Englishman and a coworker, so that aspect of her life too is riddled with angst. She has been mother-less since she was seven, and her relationship with her father seems to comprise brief exchanges of barbs and stony silences in equal measure. And not to mention the backdrop of a newly free India, which provides the perfect hotbed for a lot of crime and racism and old grudges to surface. It's a difficult period, and even though I loved reading the familiar names of streets and places which have long been renamed (I grew up at a time when Bombay had not yet become Mumbai, when Victoria Terminus (VT) had not yet been changed to Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), and apparently it has since been further renamed to Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and so on), it evoked in me a deep, disturbing nostalgia for a place that's long gone, thanks to Khan's masterful descriptions. As in *The Dying Day*, there are codes and ciphers to be cracked in this novel too, and the snake on the front cover makes an unexpected and perfectly satisfactory appearance towards the latter half of the book. > I've been reading mysteries for a long time now – who among us hasn't? – and for me it's no longer so much about trying to solve the case before the author does but getting deeply immersed in the characters of the people involved, the criminal and the victims, the inevitable foibles that come with being human. > And having spent a long time away from home, give me a protagonist of Indian origin/background or a book set in 50s-90s India and I'll be drawn to it like a moth to a flame, no questions asked. Which is why I loved reading the works of both Khan and Griffiths, and I can't wait to explore more of their other books. --- A few months ago, I chanced upon an anthology of crime stories, *[The Perfect Crime: 22 Crime Stories from Diverse Cultures Around the World](https://www.amazon.ca/Perfect-Crime-Vaseem-Khan/dp/0008462321/)*, edited by Vaseem Khan and Maxim Jakubowski. In the introduction, both the editors talk about how crime and mystery writing had been essentially 'white' until a couple of decades ago and how this has been rapidly changing with many new, diverse voices from all corners of the world. Khan's words, as a non-white writer trying to establish his place in a genre that had until recently been dominated by white writers and readers, resonated a lot with me. > Diversity in the publishing industry holds a very personal meaning for me. I wrote my first novel aged seventeen. Over the next twenty-odd years I wrote six more novels, collecting enough rejections to wallpaper a house, until finally receiving a four-book deal for my first crime series set in India. > The interesting thing about that long journey is that only one of those novels featured *any* non-white protagonists. As an avid reader, I had taken on board the idea that books of the type I was trying to write – genre fiction/commercial fiction – simply didn't feature non-white characters. In my mind I could only hope to be published by writing white characters because those were the sorts of characters readers wanted to read about. > ... fiction – especially crime fiction – provides a lens onto society. Literature is a powerful means by which we can change that society for the better. As individuals, we often formulate our views about the world through artistic media. Thus, when we underrepresent minority backgrounds in our artistic output, we run the risk of aiding divisiveness rather than helping to correct it. > The industry makes assumptions about audiences. One prominent assumption is that white readers won't relate to stories about non-white characters. > ... Yet some stories *need* to be told from certain cultural perspectives and won't make sense if you shoehorned in a diverse cast of characters for the sake of political correctness. But the fact is that an industry based purely on human imagination does itself no favours by setting limits on that imagination. > The world is changing. A new generation of readers are emerging who *are* attuned to diversity, who live in a globalized, interconnected world. Similarly, many traditional readers, for want of a better phrase, are increasingly willing to take risks. > ... Readers have an increasingly important part to play in this. The industry responds to readers' buying choices. If readers are willing to take a chance on books featuring diverse characters, the industry will take heed. > \~ Vaseem Khan, introduction to *The Perfect Crime* --- Before I published my first book, I toyed with the idea of using a pseudonym that would suggest a white female author. Apparently, Ashwin Sanghi wrote his first book under a pen name, [Shawn Higgins](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/best-selling-author-and-businessman-ashwin-sanghi-on-money-mythology-and-motivation/articleshow/16480685.cms), that was an anagram of his original name. Taking a cue from that, I jumbled up 'Anitha Krishnan' to come up with 'Kristian Hannah' or 'Kristina Hannah', but that was too close to the name of a best-selling author Kristin Hannah, whose books I love! Eventually, I decided to go with my own name Anitha Krishnan, adopting the attitude that if someone didn't want to purchase my books because of my name, then that's their problem, not mine. When I started writing *[Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/),* a lot of Indian mythology began to seep into it involuntarily, much to my dismay, because as Khan says about crime, fantasy too has largely been a white-dominated genre and besides, who'd care to read about Hindu culture, that too South Indian culture which is *so not* Bollywood, written by an unknown author? Eventually, using any name other than my own, even resorting to initials to hide my gender, felt tantamount to trickery to me. And so I stuck with Anitha Krishnan. I won't say I was glad about it right away, but in hindsight I am mighty glad about the path I chose to take and also about writing tales that have sprung from my background, which although very global in outlook is also unabashedly and unapologetically Indian in origin. What I can give to the world is myself. And I can't do that if I keep trying to be someone else or rejecting myself in any way whatsover. So here's to more diversity and inclusion. When we all are free to be who we are, the real world becomes the kind of place that we seek in fiction: kinder, more compassionate, and encouraging. ### (day -10): all the ways my mind is telling me this is a bad idea URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/all-the-ways-my-mind-is-telling-me-this-is-a-bad-idea/ Last updated: 2023-03-21T16:56:01.000Z I had a great time writing yesterday – I even got back to the manuscript I had been stalled on for weeks now and wrote to my heart's content and more with such joy and delight – so much so that my mind came up with the most inventive excuses to not take on this [writing challenge](https://deanwesleysmith.com/dean-challenges-two-of-them/) at this point in time. These were literally the thoughts that ran through my head when I woke up this morning. - Your arse has become so fat. Shouldn't you spend time and money on losing weight instead? - You will write for a day or two, and then you'll run out of ideas. - What's the point of writing so much? Who's going to read all these stories any way? - It's going to be summer soon. You don't want to spend all that time indoors, writing! And so on, and so on ... Today I had the sense to not run away with these thoughts but instead let them come. Oftentimes, I felt really bad at the things my mind was saying to me. I mean, how could someone say such mean and nasty things to themselves! I've also seen that the meanness ramps up in tandem with any success/happiness I'd have experienced recently, as if to compensate for that joy, as if to stop myself from getting too used to being happy because who knows what curveball will come my way next and topple me from that podium of joy? It's partly my fault because after a good writing session yesterday, I stayed up a little later than usual to finish reading a murder mystery I was in the midst of. And then I didn't get enough sleep, and woke up completely tired and exhausted and not in the least prepared to face this expected onslaught of thoughts. But what follows is even better, and shows me that I'm on the right track. Because the morning had gotten off to such a rough start, I knew I'd head for email and Whatsapp first thing to soothe myself, so I was mindful enough to not do that. I also knew that I wouldn't write much if I were to stay at home, so I offered to drop D at camp at his school so that I could head to the library from there. And I spent a delightful hour, writing more than my daily threshold, although a little less than I managed to yesterday, but it's still a massive win in my opinion. Alternate-me would have given it up as a non-writing-day and deserted writing fiction in favour of working on the newsletter instead, and then told me that this is proof enough that I'd be aiming too high if I were to sign up for the writing challenge. I am truly amazed at all the ways in which our minds can quickly work against us and not in our best interests if we're not careful. Experts say that this is the mind's way of protecting us from what it perceives as a threat. For instance, it could keep me from writing so that I won't have to face rejections or a bad review. But if our mind is so intelligent, why won't it also allow for the fact that I'm so much happier and energetic and positive and cheerful after having written than if I were to skip writing that day? Why won't it allow for the fact that I can only write what I can write, and that there is no way to guarantee a 5-star review or a huge spike in book sales? > This is why we can never understand how much it truly takes to stay on the path to success unless we try it out ourselves. It is very easy to look at other's successes in hindsight and fail to perceive the effort and staying-power and mindset that journey would have surely demanded of them. Movies and memoirs fail to capture this struggle without romanticising it. In fact, these snapshots of other people's success trick us into believing that if we're passionate enough, we too can be successful, and that if we're not able to achieve our goals then there must be something wrong with us. Of all the positive affirmations I tried to say to myself this morning to come out of that spiral of defeatist thinking, the one that worked for me today and the one I can say with complete belief in was this one: *This is really hard for me today, and I can do hard things.* ![a tiny sapling growing out of a grey rock](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/10.1.-nagara-oyodo-kE0o9syjDZQ-unsplash.jpg) growth in an unexpected place / Photo by [Nagara Oyodo](https://unsplash.com/@nagaranbasaran?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/kE0o9syjDZQ?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) I realized today that the thought of waking up and writing 2,000 words every day for the next \~300 days was terrifying me. Some days it excites me, like it did yesterday. Some days it terrifies me, like it did this morning. Because these feelings are so transient and keep shape-shifting, it is probably best not to use them as a guide for action. > High-performance coach, Sarah Arnold Hall, said in a recent podacast episode (or maybe she posted this on her [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/saraharnoldhall/)) that we should make four things part of our plan: dread taking action, undesirable outcomes, people not understanding, and extreme discomfort. This was a useful reminder to me this morning, that 'dread taking action' and 'extreme discomfort' were showing up in full force and that I'd succumb to them if I were not careful. And I am really proud of myself for showing up to work and for making the plan to get to the library so I could focus more. One hour, that is all I need, one hour, I said to myself over and over again. So yes, even though I haven't yet officially signed up for the challenge, I know I'm doing it no matter what my mind tells me between now and April 1st, or even between April 1 and December 31. > Yes, this can be really hard, and yes, I can do hard things. ### (day -11): and I forgot the most important bit - having fun URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/and-i-forgot-the-most-important-bit-having-fun/ Last updated: 2023-03-29T01:08:15.000Z I'm doing test runs this week in preparation for the [writing challenge](https://deanwesleysmith.com/dean-challenges-two-of-them/) that is scheduled to begin on 1 April. Yesterday, I wrote down the reasons I wanted to participate in the challenge and also made a plan to succeed. [there’s no equation to be solved; it is all a mysteryContemplating a challenge and planning for success instead of ruminating over the obstacles…![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/8.-Featured.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/theres-no-equation-to-be-solved-it-is-all-a-mystery/) Accountability, and the definition of consumable words that includes non-fiction (which means blog posts too) are the two main reasons I listed for participating in the challenge. And in planning for success, I wrote down a few things to bear in mind: - writing first thing in the morning - maintaining presence - showing up everyday in a healthy manner, and - accepting zero-output days I forgot to add the most important aspect to this list. - having fun! --- ### *what gets in the way of having fun?* Dean Wesley Smith often says that the key to having a long-term career in writing and publishing is to have fun. As with almost every other nugget of wisdom in my life, I understood his words intellectually but failed to see how I could apply it to my life, especially on days when the words wouldn't come and my mind was quick to condemn everything I've written and chose to run, completely naked, purely out of habit, down that oft-trodden path of self-flagellation and self-inflicted misery. This kind of thinking not only showed up in writing but also in parenting and, in general, in everyday life. For instance, the first sensation I'd experience when I woke up in the morning, eyes still closed but my body and other senses alert and waking up, was almost always that of dread. The endless train of thoughts that I woke up with were something like these. "I don't wish to get up." "When will this day end?" "How am I going to get through this day?" "I don't feel like looking at the manuscript." "Why is it so hard to write?" "What if I never make money as a writer?" "What if we all end up homeless?" "Why am I so depressed?" "Will D grow up to be anxious and depressed seeing me like this?" Needless to say, none of this was helping me get up and look forward to the day on hand. I had also grown extremely bitter about writing stories and every day I'd wake up deciding I no longer wanted to write. I had grown so sick of this kind of negative internal monologue that I sought out a therapist earlier this year, and seeing her has made a lot of difference in how I think and behave, especially when it comes to tackling anxieties pertaining to the future. --- ### *positivity as a strength* The biggest impetus for me to change how I think and stop myself from falling into those fear spirals came when I unlocked my [CliftonStrengths](https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx) report as part of a workshop I was doing at [Better-Faster Academy](https://betterfasteracademy.com). Gallup's CliftonStrengths assessment essentially tests for how your brain is wired based on 34 themes and gives you insights into how you function and how you can use your unique strengths to remain in alignment with who you are and create success for yourself. Imagine my surprise when my #7 strength was Positivity. It implied that I had infectious energy and enthusiasm, that I held an optimistic outlook on life, and that I am upbeat and can get myself and others excited about what we're going to do. I cried when I read that because for the longest time I had felt anything but optimistic. Racked with anxieties and worries about the future, I had been stewing in a nightmare of my own making, unable to see any way out. I had long lost the art of having fun as a parent and having fun as a writer. I had come to loathe school days off as well as days of working on the manuscript. How could I, this person who dreaded waking up each morning, have Positivity as one of her Top 10 Strengths? It reminded me of what a completely different person I had been years ago, in a different phase of life. Surely, I was capable of creating joy in my life once more, wasn't I? I asked this question in a coaching call and was told that given how saturated and unpredictable the market is, the best way to weather these ups and downs is to find ways other than book sales to feel positive about in our writing. --- ### *the possibility mindset* Last week, D was at home as schools were closed for March Break. After years of trying to write when he was at home, I've come to see that it is best if I manage to wake up in the morning and write or forego trying to write during the day. There's nothing right or wrong about it, and now that I have come to accept it, it's been liberating. Last week was nothing but joyful, because instead of worrying about all the words I wasn't getting in, I put my energy and time in planning fun trips out with KrA and D. And we all had such a blast! One thing that changed was this. Every morning I woke up with that all-too-familiar sensation of dread in the pit of my stomach, but instead of lying in bed and stewing over how I was supposed to get through the rest of the day, I changed the monologue. I started saying to myself things such as these. "I'm really grateful for this day." "Today is going to be an awesome day." "I'm really glad I can wake up and have a lovely time with KrA and D." "It might feel hard right now but I've got this, I can do hard things." When I became my own cheerleader, something flipped inside my head, and I began to jump out of bed with much joy and delight and our days were filled with immense happiness. Of course, that feeling of dread tends to crop up, especially when I'm supremely tired or not paying attention, but now I know how to address it and not let it derail my moments, my days, my life. So now as I prepare to join the writing challenge, the kind of which I've never attempted to date, I can adopt the same attitude of positivity and a mindset of possibility, which I know I am inherently capable of, which is already one of my innate superpowers, and approach my manuscript with much joy and delight, with much eagerness and rapture, curious to see what turns the story will take, what the characters will show me today, where they will take me in their story. Because this is the life I have always dreamt of living. Writing. Loving D and KrA. And now that I have it, why am I, myself, standing in the way of my own happiness? Because this is what life is made of. Moments strung together to form a day, days seguing into each other to compose a life. > When I'm not moaning the past or dreading the future, I can show up wholly, fully to this present moment. > And that is all there is to life. This moment. And then the next. And then the one after that. And so on. > And that is all there is to writing stories as well. This word. And then the next. And then the one after that. And so on. ![large uppercase letters spelling joy and lit with light bulbs](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/9.2.-kolby-milton-xpwRVmBcEK8-unsplash.jpg) JOY / Photo by [Kolby Milton](https://unsplash.com/@kolbymilton?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/xpwRVmBcEK8?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) > The goal of adulthood is to let go of the other possible existences and to make the best of the one. > A successful adult is one who understands that *it doesn't matter which life you ultimately pick*, only that you live it well. > The same potential for, say, happiness exists whether you are a construction worker, porn actor, or wealthy industrialist. > \~ Physician Chris Ballas, [The Last Psychiatrist](https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/07/a%5Fsurprising%5Fnumber%5Fof%5Fteens%5Ft.html) --- For *this* is my life. The one I have. Not the one I wish I had. Not the one I see other people living. But *this* one. This precious, beautiful one. It is all mine. And it is entirely up to me how I choose to live it, how awesome I can make it for me and for all those who drift in and out of it. It is entirely up to me how much fun I have living it. ### (day -12): there's no equation to be solved; it is all a mystery URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/theres-no-equation-to-be-solved-it-is-all-a-mystery/ Last updated: 2023-03-29T01:08:38.000Z The older I grow, the more I've managed to convince myself that life, everything, all of this, is one giant mystery unfolding in inexplicable ways. And that no matter how much we try to spot a pattern to emulate or replicate, concoct a multi-step process to follow, there really is no foolproof equation, no formula that can guarantee a certain outcome. There are too many factors at play, too many things that we aren't in control of. True, hard work and a willingness to learn and grow increases our odds of material success but they are not a guarantee of success in any way. Conversely, the ones who succeed have put in the effort and willingness to learn and grow. So in a mathematical equation format, or better still in the form of one of the multiple-choice responses to a GMAT question, it's a matter of A implies B but B does not necessarily imply A. --- ### *what works for others won't always work for us* Yet, even knowing that does not stop us from looking for that silver bullet or that magical solution, because all around us, everytime there is a success story, along comes the tendency to dissect that success to discern replicable patterns, perhaps because we all want to be assured that astronomical success and those rags-to-riches paths can be ours too. And then we mistakenly believe that just because Successful Person A woke up at 4 a.m. and meditated for an hour, then worked out for another hour, then spent three straight hours at work before the meetings of the day began, we need to do the same too irrespective of the fact that we may have a child who's also an early riser or that a morning yoga session may actually make us more drowsy than alert. Offlate there's been a shift from this one-size-fits-all approach, and instead of looking to others for their success patterns, we are encouraged to look at our own patterns instead. And then we fall into a different but similar trap when we try to identify and define a replicable pattern of success for ourself. ![close-up of pink flower petals](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/8.4.-akira-hojo-VC_Z_yJsFwE-unsplash.jpg) seeking a pattern / Photo by [Akira Hojo](https://unsplash.com/@joephotography?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/VC%5FZ%5FyJsFwE?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- ### *heck, what works for us today may not work for us tomorrow* For a long time now, I've tried to map out how I write, when I write best (mornings or evenings), where I write better (at home or in the library). And for the life of me, I simply can't find a pattern. But the one thing I know for certain is this: I can't seem to write when D is around. It's far too much fun being with him, and these days of his childhood are so fleeting I don't want to miss out on them. At the same time, I don't wish to postpone my writing endeavours too, so whenever he's around I try to write either before he wakes up (which is hard because he too is an early riser) or after he falls asleep (which is also hard because I too am usually ready to fall asleep by then and it doesn't help that the evenings have gotten brighter and stay that way for longer). Also, if I go too many days without writing, it drives me mad. So it's not an either-or choice for me when it comes to being a parent and writing, and as KrA keeps reminding me, writing *is* my full-time job, even though I don't behave like it on most days and that has very little to do with D and almost everything to do with me and my mindset. For years, I've tried to find a pattern or a schedule that will work. Something that will ensure I do my work and also not lose my temper or sanity in the process. And I've found none. Nada. Zilch. If something worked for me one day, trying to do the exact same thing the next day has almost always backfired, leaving me dumbfounded at best and annoyed at worst. --- ### *a quest for certainty* I recently learned that this quest for an answer is often a quest for a measure of certainty. A guarantee that if we were to follow steps 1 to 10 in that precise order, we'd get the expected outcome. Sadly, such a guarantee simply does not and cannot exist in this world. Anyone who promises you otherwise is fooling you and themselves too. I remember a Statistics professor from my MBA days mentioning that human beings have a tendency to look for and see patterns where none exists, even in a completely random series of events. You may be wondering why I'm posing all these questions to myself now. You see, Dean Wesley Smith has announced a [challenge](https://deanwesleysmith.com/dean-challenges-two-of-them/) wherein he intends to write 1 million words – fiction and some non-fiction, including blog posts – beginning April 1st until the end of this year. Writers can sign up to compete with him on the full challenge or aim to meet half of the set target i.e., 500,000 words. I'm tempted to sign up for the half challenge, and already the doubts are setting in. Will I find the time and discipline and focus to do this without resenting everything else that life brings – filing taxes, school pick-up, hanging out with D on holidays, summer, and whatever else life brings? On one hand, if this is my life's work, isn't this what I should be spending my days on, irrespective of what life brings? On the other hand, it is almost as if I don't want to sign up for the challenge unless I can be certain, one way or another, of completing it. But then, that wouldn't be much of a challenge now, would it? If I were to have a certainty of success? ![a child contemplating a long flight of steps rising up in front of him](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/8.1.-jukan-tateisi-bJhT_8nbUA0-unsplash.jpg) a challenge / Photo by [Jukan Tateisi](https://unsplash.com/@tateisimikito?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/bJhT%5F8nbUA0?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- ### *planning for success* This time around, instead of mulling over all the reasons why I wouldn't be able to pull off such a challenge, I'm going to try and think of all the reasons I want to participate and the ways I can make it work. **why do I want to do this challenge?** This challenge holds allure for me for two main reasons. - **accountability** I've often lamented that lack of accountability or external pressure often causes me to sabotage my own efforts. I've always been a very disciplined worker when I was studying at school or university and even when I was working in the corporate world. Without the Damocles' sword of deadlines looming over me, it's a lot of effort some days to motivate myself to get up and get to work. Reporting in to DWS every week, as well as having to pay up to sign up for the challenge, should hopefully keep me going. I can't say this with any amount of certainty but I've never tried something like this before, so how will I know unless I test this out? Maybe having skin in the game is the pressure I need to show up and do my best! - **consumable words** For the challenge, we can count both fiction and non-fiction writing, which means blog posts count! Yay! DWS runs other challenges including a short story a week, a novella a month, a novel every two months and so on, and I've always hesitated to join those knowing my tendency to get bored of writing in the same format for a long period of time. I love variety in what I write - both the format as well as the genre - so this broad definition of consumable words that includes both fiction and blog posts makes me happy. I'm thinking that on days when I make little progress on a story, I can keep up the word count by coming here instead, although I'm going to be wary of doing that too often because the reason I want to participate in this challenge in the first place is to up my fiction output! So if I were to constantly fall back on blog posts as a way to boost my word count, I'm not doing myself any service. Still, having that option gives me much needed leeway, one that I'm certain I will not abuse to my detriment. ![an ink pen placed across an open notebook](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/8.2.-alvaro-serrano-hjwKMkehBco-unsplash.jpg) writing one word at a time / Photo by [Álvaro Serrano](https://unsplash.com/@alvaroserrano?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/hjwKMkehBco?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) --- So now that I know what I like about this challenge and how it will benefit me, let me look at the ways I can make it work, which will also include listing undesirable past behaviour and ensuring I do not fall into those traps again. ***how can I make it work for me?*** - **writing first thing in the morning** Even though I claim I have not seen any patterns, I know from experience that when I get my words down first thing in the morning, before life and the world start to make their demands of me, I'm a much happier person than otherwise. So that's my plan, to get my fiction words down first thing in the morning. Everything else, including emails, Whatsapp, ([no more social media, yay!](https://thedreampedlar.com/fidgety-fingers-i-quit-social-media-now-im-free/)), reading updates from industry experts can wait until later in the day. If D is at home because of illness or a day off and I haven't managed an early morning writing session, I'll make it a point to head to the library for even an hour, so I can get at least a 1,000 words of fiction down. - **maintaining presence** One of the things that derails me the most when I take on a big project is that I'm constantly thinking about it, as if keeping my thoughts on it helps me make progress somehow. But that's not true. Thinking about the project does not help me make progress, especially not if I'm thinking about it when I'm with D or doing something else. And this is one of the things that singularly ups my stress levels: being with D but thinking about the words I need to get done, or conversely, writing and feeling guilty about not having spent quality time with D. So this challenge will prove to be an intense training ground for presence, because I want to do this but not sacrifice time with family at the same time. - **showing up everyday in a healthy manner** I will not sacrifice sleep or exercise for this challenge. In fact, I will sleep well and will also go on my daily walks without fail. There are a lot of other activities I indulge in that are simply a waste of time, for instance, having imaginary battles in my head with certain family members, or picking up a fight with KrA over something utterly trivial just so as to distract myself from how hard I'm finding it to either write or be away from the manuscript at that point in time. If I cut these two time-wasters out alone, I'd be a whole lot more productive and happier as a person in all arenas of life. ![man running downhill on a brown grassy slope with distant hills in the background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/8.3.-alessio-soggetti-GYr9A2CPMhY-unsplash.jpg) a long distance to run / Photo by [Álvaro Serrano](https://unsplash.com/@alvaroserrano?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/hjwKMkehBco?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) - **accepting zero-output days** Some days, life will happen and there will be nothing I can do about it. For instance, I spent all of last week hanging out with D as he is in the midst of March break from school. He is all set to attend camp at school this week, and I had been looking forward to getting back on my writing schedule, but he's just gone to bed saying that his throat hurts. So I'll have to see what tomorrow brings and map out my day accordingly. I do not wish to resent these curveballs anymore. I will learn to accept them as part of life and flow with them, knowing that I can always come here in the evening to free-write and if I miss that too, I can make a fresh start the following day. I suppose this is going to be my biggest lesson from this experience. Being able to flow with life. Being able to accept that despite my best efforts, some days will simply not be as productive as I'd have liked them to be. The best I can do is roll with the punches and move on as fast as I can, instead of mulling over what went wrong and how something like this, a.k.a. life, can be avoided the next time; that'd be a futile endeavour, no doubt. --- That's about all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll have a lot of learning experiences along the way, including dealing with slow days and no-writing days and other setbacks, but seeing DWS and others go through this alongside will probably be the support I need to pick myself up, dust myself, and make a fresh start the following day. That's how I'm going to approach this challenge. One day at a time. One word at a time. Wish me luck! ### tales for dreamers: revelations URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-revelations/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:49:13.000Z Look what secrets are pouring out of the sky this morning! Something has ruffled the heavens. --- Perhaps the restless stars stayed up all night, blinking and tinkling. And, when the morning sun came, they all scooted off, leaving behind newfound truths disguised as half-baked secrets and rumours in their wake. Or maybe all the Gods convened in secret to discuss matters that could change both their world and ours. Only, they ended up getting into drunken brawls. But somehow, they had enough sense to flee before the morning light could reveal their presence to us. And all we see now is the confetti they left behind for the clouds to sweep away. Or could it be that in the dark of the night, the trees reached out and drew their branches through the tresses of the sky, untangling all the invisible knots? And now, whatever had lain asleep on the other side since the beginning of time, is finally beginning to wake up? ### the most important thing I learnt by quitting social media URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-most-important-thing-i-learnt-by-quitting-social-media/ Last updated: 2023-11-05T00:11:05.000Z It's been just a week since I deleted all my social media accounts and, barring the first few days when my fingers would automatically type fa... on the browser only to quickly close the browser when auto-suggest would bring forth facebook.com, I haven't had the urge at all to go back on social media. [fidgety fingers: i quit social media. now i’m free!The day I finally accepted that I suck at social media and so I bade it goodbye!![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/6.1.-quitting-social-media_becca-tapert--A_Sx8GrRWg-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/fidgety-fingers-i-quit-social-media-now-im-free/) That's because I've known for the longest time that what I was looking for was not to be found in social media ... because even after all these years of browsing and posting and commenting, I had not found *it*. And frankly, I didn't even know what *it* was, whatever I had been looking for. ### why I believed I needed to be on social media: FOMO at play I would have quit long back but every time I told myself that I had stay because of the several indie writers' groups I was part of on FB. I worried that if I wasn't connected or clued in, I'd miss out on some important development in the industry, something that would directly impact my writing and publishing work. But that was FOMO all the way, because the truth was that I had long stopped following the conversations in those groups. In fact, I had snoozed/unfollowed several of these groups simply to keep their often repetitive, mostly angst-filled posts from showing up on my feed. A simple assessment further revealed to me that I don't, in fact, rely on my FB feed to stay in the know when it comes to publishing-related matters. (In fact, FB's algorithms kept insisting for the longest time that reels of men getting a shave and a haircut are what interested me the most!) All that I need to know about writing and publishing comes from exactly 3 newsletters that I subscribe to; two are weekly, and the third is less frequent, but all are from industry experts who walk the talk, and these are enough to keep me well-informed. I take the time to read these ones carefully, and that is enough for me to know what I need to know pertaining to the industry as it applies to me in the short-term. For instance, I'd like to stay updated on how AI is changing the industry, dabble in some of these tools myself, find out what works for me and what doesn't, instead of getting caught up in the pro-AI versus anti-AI debates that have been raging everywhere off late. Another example is that I don't need to know what kind of promotion strategies authors with 20 or 30+ books in their backlist adopt because I'm not there yet, and by the time I build up those many books in my arsenal, the market and those tactics would have changed drastically anyway. What works today would have most certainly become obsolete in 5, 10 years from now. I can cross that bridge when I get to it. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/7.1.-ed-robertson-eeSdJfLfx1A-unsplash.jpg) writing one book at a time / Photo by [Ed Robertson](https://unsplash.com/@eddrobertson?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/eeSdJfLfx1A?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) Instead, for the time being my focus is simply on writing and publishing and so, to me, everything else that I thought was of great importance and immediacy is not really deserving of the kind and amount of attention it seems to demand from me. ### why I really was on social media: a salve for loneliness It wasn't until after I had deleted my social media accounts and had spent a few days completely abstaining from these platforms that I could see for myself what I had been seeking in that non-stop flow of images and videos and boxes of text on the screen: an absolute salve for my loneliness. And the reason I realized this was because I broke down often this past week. I missed India with a painful pang. I thought of estranged family members and realized that as we grow up we can, and do indeed, grow apart from the people we love. It hit me hard how tenuous all this is – life, love, work, relationships. I looked at all the friendships I have; most in my current reality seem to have arisen out of a mutual need (children in the same school!) rather than a desire to know and love the other person for who they are (H, M and S, you come to mind and I am so very grateful for our friendships that began long before I became a parent). It took KrA's wisdom for me to see what I was doing. He said, "Just because D is friends with X doesn't mean you have to become friends with X's mom too." It was then that I understood the difference between friendliness and friendship. Being friendly is not the same as being a friend. Which is why stories of great friendship and true love, of bravery and courage in the face of all odds, of fierce loyalty and steadfastness in difficult times, have the power to touch our hearts and move our souls. Which is why I read too many books and watch too many Bollywood/Indian movies and, when I'm not mindful, commit the folly of seeking and expecting and demanding those ideals of myself and others in the real world and almost always end up disappointed, both in people and in my desperate need to be seen and accepted, to love and to belong. > But the inescapable truth is this: *Everything*, and I really mean, every person or being or object, that is external to us, is incapable of filling the void within. For a long time, I defined 'everything external' in a way that excluded KrA and D, sometimes even some of my close friends, but I've finally had to accept that they too are their own individual selves, and the fact that we live under the same roof or share great moments of friendship doesn't render them as solutions to my loneliness. At first, this sounded depressing. But the very next instant, it felt extremely liberating. For a while, I had been so enmeshed in my personal relationships – both the ones I have and the ones I've lost – that I had quite forgotten what it was like to truly turn inwards. ### redefining loneliness There is no one like clinical psychologist, [Dr. Shefali](https://www.drshefali.com), who calls out cultural BS the way it is. > We never truly make friends with ourselves. We never know what it means to sit in solitude, to sit under a tree in quiet, to be on our own on a beach or on a vacation or at dinner. We look at being alone as if there is something wrong with us. > We are living in a culture that doesn't encourage us to spend time with ourselves. In fact, we are encouraged to always be with other people or other things or distracted, but in truth, if we are at home with ourselves, if we truly feel as if we are our most valuable companion, then we will never feel lonely, you see, because we are with ourselves. > It's because we don't believe that we are ourselves a worthy companion, we are not fascinated with ourselves, we don't believe that a conversation with ourselves is important that we keep looking for others on the outside to fill this void. > ... the feeling of loneliness really arises from a feeling of not being at home with the self. But what if this were to change? What if you began to look at yourself as the most prized treasure and possession ever, that you look forward to your company every evening, that you desired your own solitude, your own thoughts, your own talk, your own conversation? > \~ Dr. Shefali [Loneliness Is a MythLeave a ❤️if this video resonates with you!We look at being alone as if the there is something wrong with it, but this is far from the truth.We are our own b…![](https://www.youtube.com/s/desktop/9318de79/img/favicon_144x144.png)YouTube![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/V8rIJ51ZpaA/maxresdefault.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8rIJ51ZpaA) By this measure, which happens to be the only measure that matters to me, the *'loneliness'* I have gained by quitting social media has truly been one of the greatest gifts I've ever given myself. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/7.3.-kinga-howard-j62EINa2zQk-unsplash-1.jpg) the joy of solitude / Photo by [Kinga Howard](https://unsplash.com/@all%5Fwho%5Fwander?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/j62EINa2zQk?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ### a rare mid-month reminder, as promised URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-rare-mid-month-reminder-as-promised/ Last updated: 2023-03-26T01:01:55.000Z Hello, Dreamer! No, it's not yet the last Sunday of the month! This is the rare mid-month post that I [promised](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-february-fun/) to send to remind you to take your gifts. ### The Mind Meddler: A Short Story First, a free copy of my short story *The Mind Meddler* is available for your reading pleasure for only one more day! ![ebook cover of The Mind Meddler depicting a psychedelic colourful combination of face silhouettes](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/The-Mind-Middler---ebook---website.jpg) The Mind Meddler #### The Mind Meddler *All it takes to seal your fate is a single thought. The Mind Meddler will sneak it into your mind when you aren’t looking.* True to his name, the Mind Meddler messes with people’s minds. He plants a single innocuous thought in his victim’s mind, then steps back and watches as it slowly ensnares and destroys them. The ghost-girl has the gift of pure sight. She sees nothing but the truth. The objective, unadulterated truth. Without judgement or deliberation. Thoughts do not trouble her. The Mind Meddler has never met anybody like the ghost-girl in his entire existence. Her uncanny ability is a challenge he cannot resist … *This speculative fiction tale by Anitha Krishnan secured an Honourable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest, 2nd Quarter (January—March) 2022\. So the gods that rule have deemed it worth a read!* You can read the story on this website right away using the link below. If you are prompted to enter your email address, please use the one at which you receive and read this newsletter. [fiction: the mind meddlerAll it takes to seal your fate is a single thought. The Mind Meddler will sneak it into your mind when you aren’t looking.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/02/The-Mind-Meddler-Kindle.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-the-mind-meddler/) 💡 Alternately, if you'd like to read the tale on your e-reader, you can also download it in your preferred ebook format [here](https://dl.bookfunnel.com/l2wtiw237i). Both the links will expire on the midnight (Eastern Time) of Sunday, 12 March, so make sure to read/download the ebook before then. --- ### Out of the Blue: 16 Books from 16 Authors The other gift is a discount offer on *Erased from Existence*, a paranormal mystery tale. ![Front cover of Erased From Existence depicting a woman disappearing](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/Erased-from-Existence---ebook_Website.jpg) Erased from Existence It is available for ~~$4.99~~ $2.99 as part of a promotional offer running during 1–21 March. The book is being showcased among a number of other works across a variety of genres. > Magic. Time travel. Humour. Family saga. Thriller. Crime fiction. Paranormal mystery. > Stories set in India, Thailand, Cambodia, Hungary, Mexico, England, Scotland. > 16 authors. 16 beautiful stories. Converging on one site on the Internet for a brief moment, before they whisk you away into their magnificent tales! Click on the link below to browse through the catalogue and see if any of the vast variety of titles catches your fancy! [Out of the BlueOut of the Blue is a collection of top quality fiction, written by a diverse range of authors. Our books don’t belong to any particular genre - they are aimed at people who want to read stories that cover a wide range of subjects and settings, told in a variety of styles. We hope you find something…![](https://static.bookfunnelimages.com/images/favicon.ico)![](https://bookfunnelimages.com/images/covers/y1tfjcatxy/header.png)](https://books.bookfunnel.com/outoftheblue/s3gded5uy6) ### First Lines I share below the first lines from these books, although I have taken liberty with the meaning of the term 'first line' wherever it pleased me. 💡 "I should have assumed with parents known to the world as Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ, I would be different." \~ The Bringer of Happiness by Karen Martin "Tomorrow, I'll be dead." \~ No Such Thing As Goodbye by Karmen špiljak "A lightning bolt split the night sky." \~ Overboard by Ivy Ngeow "There is no such thing as darkness, merely the absence of light." \~ The Budapest Artists' Club by Claire Doyle 💡 "The fine hairs on the back of her neck are damp with droplets of sweat that glitter in the light of the lamp. He wants to taste them." \~ Queen of Grime by Helen Forbes "Yellow light is shining from the attic at thirteen, Silver Street. A dark figure sits on the windowsill, his long legs dangling over the edge, gazing at night spread over the city." \~ The Liberation of Juno Jones by Mark Woodward "We want to reassure the public that we made valiant and incessant attempts to burn both this book and its author at the stake prior to publication. Nonetheless, under the agreements of surrender, we are required to offer it for distribution, over the deep objections of the country once known as 'The United States of America'." \~ Almost Over, Never Done: A Reluctant American's Pandemic Tragicomedy by Amy A. DeCew "The roads are slick with moisture, an unseasonal rain shower having stopped only moments ago. Light bounces off the puddles accumulated in the potholes that pockmark Delhi's streets like craters on the moon's surface." \~ Intersections by Poornima Manco 💡 "Call me Jennet," said Mrs. Sniffacre, hefting her basket, laden with packets of assorted animal feed. Then she fainted." \~ The Phoenix by Morgan Delaney "The first time I saw Marcus Ahlgren, he came stumbling out of the woods behind our farmhouse. He was moments away from death and looking for a way towards life." \~ Erased From Existence by Anitha Krishnan "Critics are evil monsters. On a closer read of Dante, it isn't difficult to find a remote, special place for their breed among the lower levels of hell." \~ The Crimson Inkwell by Kenneth A. Baldwin "He is back late. Later than his rash promise to his parents. And already feels remorse for his selfishness." \~ Miller Street SW22 by Jude Hayland 💡 "Every morning when Dave wakes up, during the last week, he feels like he's swallowed a stone." \~ The Point of Us by F. L. Rose. "The large wooden gate, with its arched top built into the compound wall, stood open all day. This gave the customers of Seenu's Cellphone Repair and Ration Shop a direct view into its courtyard. The daughter-in-law hated that door open, which was reason enough to keep it that way. At his age, there were few things that brought a man joy." \~ Daughters Inherit Silence by Rasana Atreya "Awkwardly, skinny Carl stepped off the plane and into his new life, in the city where he would die a few months later." \~ A Dead Man's Ice Cream by Alfredo Herrero de Haro "The first thing we heard was laughter, then the slamming of taxi doors." \~ Box of Tricks by Jeff Phelps **Now tell me, dear Dreamer, which of these lines makes you want to [read more](https://books.bookfunnel.com/outoftheblue/s3gded5uy6)?** I will write to you again in a fortnight from now, on the last Sunday of the month. Until then, let's keep reading, let's keep dreaming! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: a promising career as a pirate URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-promising-career-as-a-pirate/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:49:22.000Z The pirates are recruiting. They are looking for story-tellers, magicians, flame-throwers, illusionists, rainbow-makers, dream-weavers, mermaid-spotters and the like who can regale and entertain the pirates when they settle down amid their treasure chests guzzling bottles of rum after a long hard day at work. Applications are invited from anyone who can take figments of their imagination and convert them into reality. Prior expertise is not a requirement but candidates must exhibit a keen desire to learn and perform; the best candidates are usually the ones who are not embarrassed to make mistakes and be mocked at. Interested candidates are to address their applications to the pirates’ ship, Moonbeam Warrior, and successfully complete a series of tasks before they are called for an interview. \*(Finding where the ship is located is the first task.) Your remuneration will comprise half a treasure map, bottles of rum, coins of gold and silver (sometimes these may be fake as a testimony to your performance or lack of it), more bottles of rum, cigars, and the luxury of nights spent under the stars ; there is no such thing as health insurance, and God forbid, should you fall seasick, you will be tossed overboard without a second thought, so consider yourself warned. The more creative your application, the better your chances at being recruited, but the pirates are obviously not equal opportunity employers; the best job always goes to the one who supplies them with an endless stash of rum. The deadline for applications was a century ago, but as with every other rule, this too can be bent with a crate or two full of their liquor of choice. \*(Psst! Moonbeam Warrior, docked at the harbour, is hidden in plain sight; but busy drivers on the adjacent highway easily mistake her proud, rusty masts for worn-out streetlight poles.) ### fidgety fingers: i quit social media. now i'm free! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/fidgety-fingers-i-quit-social-media-now-im-free/ Last updated: 2023-03-06T07:58:23.000Z I deleted all my social media accounts today. Even the ones on Pinterest I didn't know I had. And it feels as if I've let go of a lot of mental weight I didn't realize I was lugging around all the time. Yipee! 😄 I am what people would be quick to label as a very impulsive person. In fact, the very first blog I started somewhere in 2007 was titled *Impulsively Me*. Over the years, I've come to realize that my impulsiveness is not necessarily a bad thing because more often than not, it's accompanied by a startling certainty, which likely originated from a long period of subconscious brooding. I couldn't sleep all night because of a nasty cough and at 4 a.m. I headed over to FaceBook to post about fellow writers' books as part of a promotional [campaign](https://books.bookfunnel.com/outoftheblue/s3gded5uy6) I'm participating in. And it occurred to me that for years, ever since I joined FB more than a decade ago (2011, it turns out), I had fallen into a pattern. First, I'd post too sporadically to gain any traction, then I'd commit to posting with greater frequency and regularity but soon get frustrated with the experience of being on social media and decide to back off, until the next delightful thing to post about would come to me and I'd fall into that loop all over again. I've done this for years. The latest fiasco was exactly a year ago. [a social media experiment: four weeks in - i quit. what a relief!After four weeks of posting poems on Instagram and Facebook, I quit social media. The relief I experienced as a result is divine!![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/7.-i-quit_adam-chang-IWenq-4JHqo-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-social-media-experiment-four-weeks-in-i-quit-what-a-relief/) With that realization I could finally accept the wisdom that author coach, [Becca Syme](https://betterfasteracademy.com), has been sharing from the outset; that being on social media does not sell books and that authors need not be on social media if they don't want to unless they like being on social media for its own sake. > In a more recent [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I%5FLwrV2rA), Syme talks about how when we try to do something and it doesn't work, we feel as if there is something wrong with us or the way we did it. > And we mistakenly believe that if we only kept bashing our heads against the wall, we'd somehow find a way to make it work instead of accepting that we tried something and failed at it and looking at it as a learning experience and moving on. (Listen for about 3-4 minutes beginning at the 40:00 minute mark for greater context). Hearing her say that reminded me of the number of times I stopped and then resumed writing and posting weekly short fiction, most recently under the tag *[Tales for Dreamers](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/)*, on an earlier version of this blog. I posted my first tale on the old blog back in November 2011; it's reposted [here](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-hello-dreamer/) as I slowly import all the old content over to this space. Back then I embarked on posting two very short fiction pieces every week. I tagged them *Tricks from my Hat*. I gained a modest audience who seemed to love those tales and asked for more. But after about six months of writing to this schedule, Imposter Syndrome kicked in and I was convinced I was prioritizing quantity over quality and I decided to scale back to posting weekly. Eventually, I stopped posting altogether! There were many start-stop phases that followed because I really loved writing those tales. In fact, as I grew wiser and learned more, I grieved for younger-me who had managed to convince herself that her stories were crap when they were anything but. No matter what I did, I'd eventually stop posting those tales. Sometimes life intervened, such as moving from Singapore to Canada, starting an MBA programme, becoming a mother. Sometimes I'd be disillusioned by the lack of likes/comments or even reach on FB in the first place. Sometimes I'd feel mad about posting them for free and not valuing my writing enough. It was a pattern set in stone, quite like the grooves I kept repeatedly treading in my relationship with social media. Last month, I decided to [kill](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-february-fun/) my latest (and most certainly, last) attempt to resuscitate *Tales for Dreamers* once and for all. That too was an 'impulsive' decision if I were to judge how long it took me to arrive at it. Not even half a day, I'm sure, even though I had been brooding over it for more than a decade. That instant I could accept that I was letting go of it, I couldn't wait to get rid of it fast enough. ![paperback copy of 'Failed It!' by Erik Kessels places beside a MacBook laptop on a writing table](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/6.3.-estee-janssens-RARH8b7N-fw-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Estée Janssens](https://unsplash.com/@esteejanssens?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/RARH8b7N-fw?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) It was the same thing this morning. With great clarity, I knew everything was going to go. My FB account. My FB author page for Dream Pedlar. My Instagram account. My Twitter account. I even went and reset the password on a Pinterest account I had signed up for ages ago but never used just so that I could delete it. KrA suggested to me this morning that I deactivate the accounts instead of deleting them altogether. I paid no heed to him. I knew with great surety in my heart of hearts that I was done with social media once and for all. Afterwards, there were several instances when my fingers would automatically start typing fa.. but the instant auto-suggest would show me the link https://www.facebook.com, I'd realize where I was headed and move away. I'm not arguing either for or against social media. It's a tool like so many others we use. So many people earn a livelihood because of social media. I've had my share of fun moments with social media too. Back in the days of Orkut, I once updated my relationship status to 'Committed', which prompted a lot of queries from relatives. When *[Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/)* went out into the world, I posted on FB and several friends and family members went on to purchase a copy to support me. It's just that I tried to use social media as well as I could and failed at it in terms of building and engaging with an audience for my writing, so instead of repeatedly trying to make it work, I accept that it's not for me. You know what works for me instead? Writing stories and books! Writing blog posts! Pouring my heart out here in words raw and unadorned, words that may touch you and speak to you, instead of trying to embellish my life in perfect pictures to stoke your envy and admiration, all the while keeping you hooked to the dopamine kick of scrolling and looking for something shiny and new, shiny and new, shiny and new ... endlessly seeking something that does not exist . ### tales for dreamers: essential instructions for weaving a magic carpet and using it well URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-essential-instructions-for-weaving-a-magic-carpet-and-using-it-well/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:49:55.000Z **1\. Choosing your Colours** First you must choose your yarns. There are many, many colours to choose from. Most customers make the mistake of choosing very few colours or only their favourite colours, which they soon outgrow. It is advisable to choose plenty of your favourites but also just as many as the ones that you are not particularly fond of. Choosing too many of one kind will render the carpet unbalanced. If none of the colours on display bear distinct appeal to your finer taste, we recommend you mix two or more skeins and wait for the colours to transform into surprising new ones. **2\. Elements of Design** Once you have chosen your colours, you will need to conjure up a design. It is recommended that no two of your favourite colours are woven alongside each other, because when the carpet starts to unravel, you do not want all your favourite colours falling out and apart all at once. (Please note, every carpet is guaranteed to unravel on several occasions in the course of its lifetime; there is no way to avoid such inevitabilities. The sole recourse on such occasions is to slowly put all the threads back together again; you could retrace the original design or create a new one.) Carpet-weavers are advised to first create only an initial draft of their design and to NOT plan its intricacies in vivid detail for reasons that are elucidated in the section that follows. **3\. Weaving the Carpet** When you start to weave, you will find that some, or many, yarns will simply not be woven according to your design. They will resist and turn and twist in directions other than where you’d like them to go. Some yarns can be browbeaten into submission but this is not at all advisable. Magical objects have minds of their own, and tampering with their wishes can yield consequences far more frightening than the human mind can conceive. Our advice is to let the stubborn yarns weave and coil themselves into patterns as they please. Happy yarns make a happy carpet. And more often than not, customers have been delighted with the new patterns that their yarns conjure up for them. **4\. Flying on the Carpet** Firstly, you must step on to the carpet gently. No carpet likes to be trampled upon, so please exhibit utmost care and tenderness especially on your first mount. Ensconce yourself in the centre. When you are ready, run your fingers gently over the threads and tell the carpet where you would like to go. When the carpet starts to tremble and quiver, and pretends as if it will knock you off, remember to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. For all the magic carpet asks of you is to have a little faith in its abilities. ### Out of the Blue: 16 authors, 16 stories URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/out-of-the-blue-16-authors-16-stories/ Last updated: 2023-03-26T01:02:07.000Z March has begun, which means a group of 16 authors have come together to present their stories to you. Magic. Time travel. Humour. Family saga. Thriller. Crime fiction. Paranormal mystery. Stories set in India, Thailand, Cambodia, Hungary, Mexico, England, Scotland. 16 authors. 16 beautiful stories. Converging on one site on the Internet for a brief moment, before they whisk you away into their magnificent tales! Go [here](https://books.bookfunnel.com/outoftheblue/s3gded5uy6) to browse through this fantastic collection called *Out of the Blue*! Available until 21 March only! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-11.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-12.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-13.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-14.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-15.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-10.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-16.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-2.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-3.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-4.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-5.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-9.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-7.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-6.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/03/cover_md-8.jpg) ### February Fun: Monthly Missives from the Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-february-fun/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:04:37.000Z Hello Dreamer! Although I'm no stranger to the relentless flow of time, I find it hard to believe that two months of 2023 have already (almost) gone by! But first things first ... here's a gift for you! 💡 To celebrate my five-year-anniversary as a published author, I'd love to give you all a free copy of my short story, *The Mind Meddler*! ![ebook cover of The Mind Meddler depicting a psychedelic colourful combination of face silhouettes](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/02/The-Mind-Middler---ebook---website.jpg) The Mind Meddler This story secured an Honourable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard's [Writers of the Future](https://www.writersofthefuture.com) Contest, 2nd Quarter (January–March) 2022\. So the gods that rule have deemed it worth a read! I dedicated this book to my dear friend, Helen, bringer of all good things into my life! ❤️ You can read the story on this website right away using the link below. If you are prompted to enter your email address, please use the one at which you receive and read this newsletter. [fiction: the mind meddlerAll it takes to seal your fate is a single thought. The Mind Meddler will sneak it into your mind when you aren’t looking.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/02/The-Mind-Meddler-Kindle.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-the-mind-meddler/) Alternately, if you'd like to read the tale on your e-reader, you can **download it in your preferred ebook format** [here](https://dl.bookfunnel.com/l2wtiw237i). The story, both on the website and in downloadable ebook formats, will be available for **free for only a fortnight**! So please grab your copies **before Sunday, 12 March**! --- Another gift coming your way in March is a **discount offer** on *[*Erased From Existence*](https://books2read.com/erased-from-existence)*, a parnormal mystery tale. ![Front cover of Erased From Existence depicting a woman disappearing](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/02/Erased-from-Existence---ebook_Website.jpg) Erased From Existence This **promotional offer** will run during **1–21 March**, and the book will be showcased among a number of other works across a variety of genres. You can take a sneak peek [here](https://books.bookfunnel.com/outoftheblue/s3gded5uy6) but the link will go live only on 1 March. I will send you a **special edition of the newsletter** on **Saturday, 11 March**, to remind you to download your free copy of the *The Mind Meddler* if you haven't already and to take a look at the abovementioned catalogue of books, some of which may be on sale. --- So, how has February been for you? For me, it has been a month of stillness and clarity, so much so that I've decided that henceforth I'll make any life-changing decisions not during the festive madness of December but in the calm and tranquility of February, long after the clamour of the holiday season has died down and after enough time has lapsed following the inevitable letdown that tends to linger for much of January. For instance, getting *The Mind Meddler* into your hands was something I wanted to do in January itself, alongside publishing *[In Seach of Leo](https://books2read.com/In-search-of-leo/)* in a newly formatted ebook version as well as in paperback (both of which are now available), but it wasn't until February that I seemed to be able to get my act and focus together on doing what needed to be done. In end-November, I had begun to take stock of the year that was ending and draw up plans for the year ahead. At the beginning of January, I had a huge list of all that I wanted to tackle in 2023, obviously a humungous list of the kind that one tends to make when high on optimism and the promise of *future* action, while being completely disconnected from reality. Sometime in February I had the sobering realization that I wasn't at all proceeding in the direction I wanted to. And that's because I had filled out my roadmap with all sorts of attractive detours and sojourns; so while it felt as if I was moving a lot, turned out I was simply meandering about in the same place. My focus was scattered, and I had spread myself too thin. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/02/Sink-or-Swim.jpg) --- High-performance coach, Sarah Arnold Hall, recently said something in direct, hard-hitting words, which resonated with me a great deal: > *Trendy "Success" Habits I Stopped Doing: Taking cold showers, Drinking extra water each day, Getting up early, Making my bed, Having the perfect morning routine.* > *I realized that NONE of these things matter for the goals I'm going after. But I felt the pressure to do them because it was what would supposedly make me successful.* > *After a while I noticed they were taking my energy and focus away from what actually mattered for my own success.* > *So now, these are the habits I focus on instead: Choosing thoughts that motivate me, Doing something everyday to move me closer to my goals, Simplifying my tasks to make them easier to execute, Uncommiting from anything that doesn't create results or joy.* > *\~ [Sarah Arnold Hall](http://instagram.com/saraharnoldhall/)* So if I were to take an honest look at the list of things I had deemed as important and must-dos – taking courses on the craft of writing and mindset, blogging about my learnings, reading more fiction and writing about those books – none of these in themselves were really moving the needle when it came to my two main goals, writing and publishing books, because all these other activities were crowding the centrestage and had stealthily pushed writing and publishing away to the periphery. The other wake-up call for me came from KrA, who pointed out to me a few days ago that I hadn't written a novel in 2022\. It's true that I published *[Erased from Existence](https://books2read.com/erased-from-existence)* last year, but I had written most of it in 2021, on the heels of finishing and releasing *[Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/)* out into the world. 💡 So in the quietude of February, I made the decision to discontinue the *Tales for Dreamers* paid subscription service at the end of this year. --- When I launched the weekly short story subscription service last November, I was lucky enough to have a number of readers who signed up for a yearly subscription to *Tales for Dreamers*. Since 3 November, they have received a total of 17 wonderful, whimsical tales, and I will send them another 44 tales, offering an additional four weeks of whimsy and wonder beyond the end of their subscription period. ![Fountain pen on a sheet of paper with handwriting on it and a bunch of lavender flowers](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/02/debby-hudson-DR31squbFoA-unsplash-2.jpg) Photo by [Debby Hudson](https://unsplash.com/@hudsoncrafted?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/DR31squbFoA?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) Several factors influenced my decision to discontinue this offering, and I shared those with my patrons earlier this week. But the one really decisive factor that continued to nag me, and which I want to share here, was the vast dichotomy between writing novels and short fiction. They require vastly different skills and frames of mind and, in my experience, gaining expertise in one form seemed to come at the expense of mastery in the other. The more I leaned towards writing short fiction, the more difficult it became for me to work on novels. Additionally, I found that I tended to write short fiction especially when I ran into trouble while tackling a longer manuscript. The quick win that finishing a short tale gave me seemed to compensate for my lack of progress on the WIP novel, but the longer I kept up with this, the more I realized that I was only fooling myself. And so I have to admit this to myself and to you that ... > *Writing novels is a greater priority for me as it provides a richer and more immersive emotional experience to you, the reader.* > *In a world of quick fixes and instant gratification, the unfolding of a story over several hundred pages is quite a treat, a luxurious indulgence almost. And in not providing more of that, I do no justice to my readers.* I have already discontinued new sign-ups to *Tales for Dreamers*, so only existing subscribers will continue to receive the weekly tales until the end of this year. 💡 But fret not! You will still continue to receive a *Tales for Dreamers* story in this newsletter every month! --- I share all this in great detail because we're all in this journey together and it gives me great joy when I come across something simple yet life-changing and I can't wait to tell you about it because who knows if it may change your days too in unexpected ways? And when it does, you will let me know, won't you? --- ### On Elsewhere-ness Many of you know that I've long harboured a deep longing for what is not, instead of accepting and cherishing what is. I came across a poem on this very theme by [Sarah Key](https://kaysarahsera.com); the homepage of her website is perhaps one of the loveliest little things that exist on the Internet. There is even a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShVwQtIFF8) of her reading the poem at an event. #### THE PARADOX *by Sarah Key* When I am inside writing, all I can think about is how I should be outside living. When I am outside living, all I can do is notice all there is to write about. When I read about love, I think I should be out loving. When I love, I think I need to read more. I am stumbling in pursuit of grace, I hunt patience with a vengeance. On the mornings when my brother’s tired muscles held to the pillow, my father used to tell him, *For every moment you aren’t playing basketball,* *someone else is on the court practising.* I spend most of my time wondering if I should be somewhere else. So I have learned to shape the words *thank you* with my first breath each morning, my last breath every night. When the last breath comes, at least I will know I was thankful for all the places I was so sure I was not supposed to be. All those places I made it to, all the loves I held, all the words I wrote. And even if it is just for one moment, I will be exactly where I am supposed to be. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### take a penny, leave a penny I can't quite remember where I took this picture but the visiting card in the image has the address of a bookstore based in Los Angeles. I simply can't remember this visit, and I suspect the talking skull in the picture decided to take more from me than the penny I was willing to offer it! [tales for dreamers: take a penny, leave a pennyGive the talking skull a penny, and he will reveal to you a life secret. But do you have enough pennies to hear all that he has to say?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/02/34.-take-a-penny-leave-a-penny-1.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-take-a-penny-leave-a-penny/) --- ## Books You May Love I've made little progress on that huge pile of books I showed you last month because I've been reading the Harry Potter books instead now that little D has taken a great interest in them. The last I read a Harry Potter book was almost sixteen years ago, in 2007, when *The Deathly Hallows* was released! We've also been listening to the audiobooks and by Jove, it has been such a treat immersing myself in that world again! But I do have another gem of a find to share. A new author I stumbled upon recently is [Anthea Sharp](https://antheasharp.com), and I'm presently reading her book *[The Dark Realm](https://antheasharp.com/books/the-dark-realm-feyland-book-1/)*, which is the first in her Feyland series. The premise of the story is a refreshingly new (to me) fairyland-as-a-video-game world, so there's much here that would appeal to fantasy lovers and video gamers alike. Isn't that an unusual and intriguing combination? I'm halfway through the story, which is exciting and also very well-written. I suspect this is a series I'll be working my way through in the coming weeks! --- It's time to part again, dear dreamer. We've had some snowfall, which had remained mysteriously elusive this season until now. After the snow clouds have unburdened themselves, the sky turns a beautiful blue, the sun shines a bright golden, and the snow sparkles in the sunlight as if tiny precious jewels are hidden just beneath the surface. ![A leafless maple tree on a snow-covered ground](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/02/Snow.jpeg) Snow It's Friday night as I write this, and I heard on the radio earlier that after today, the sun will not set before 6 PM in my part of the world for the next eight months! Hearing that brought a smile to my face, and on that happy note, I will bid you farewell. Remember to take your gifts. I made them for you with much love. It's alright if you forget, for I will send you a short, special reminder in slightly less than a fortnight from now. Until then, adieu! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: the secret work of road painters toiling in the night-time URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-secret-work-of-road-painters-toiling-in-the-night-time/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:51:30.000Z The road painters work together in large numbers, swiftly but quietly. They work only at night, always by the silver light of the shape-shifting moon. The colours they use come from various sources; green from the leaves, crimson from the setting sun, indigo from the rainbow, lilac from the rhododendrons, and very often they mix up the colours to create new ones that have not yet been named. The colours are always stolen but the road painters insist it is not so much *‘stealing’* as it is *‘borrowing’* because the signs they paint always lead the travellers back to where the colours originally came from. And, the road painters argue, they keep none of the colours for themselves but use all of their loot instead for the greater good. Tonight the road painters are painting blue leaves on the hard concrete; they have taken some of the blue from the skies and some from the ocean depths and have mixed the two together to create a new sort of an in-between but a familiar-I-have-seen-it-before kind of blue. Tomorrow the skies and the sea waves will look rather grey, having lost some of their blueness to the road painters. But travellers chasing the blue leaves painted overnight will find that the path eventually leads them to their own perfect piece of blue sky or a dreamy ocean, or whatever their idea of blue paradise may have been. The road painters like to think of themselves as modern-day Robin Hood and his Merry Men, stealing from the riches of nature to lure wanderers and lost travellers back to nature’s lap. But the road painters never steal the silver of the light-pilfering moon; it is an unwritten code of honour among thieves, they do not steal from each other. ### tales for dreamers: take a penny, leave a penny URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-take-a-penny-leave-a-penny/ Last updated: 2023-03-26T01:09:31.000Z ![black skull with a post-it stuck on its head, saying 'take a penny, leave a penny'](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/02/34.-take-a-penny-leave-a-penny.jpg) tales for dreamers: take a penny, leave a penny It begins with a low rumbling noise. The sound of something far away. Like thunder in the distance. Or water tumbling off the vertical slopes of a cliff. Rolling towards me urgently, surging in intensity. And if I listen keenly for a while, tuning out the rest of the world, I can begin to discern the chuckles and the words and then the sentences and what they mean. And I wonder from where all the words of wisdom are being hurled at me. And I look around to see the the grinning skull talking to me. His grin is evil, his laughter hideous, his eyes hollow with bottomless depths, but there is a sincerity in his words, which makes it hard for me to ignore him and walk away. The post-it stuck to his forehead says mysteriously, 'Take a penny, Leave a penny.' I deposit a coin in front of the skull, and he tells me a life secret. I fish for another coin in my purse and place it by his chin. He shares another life secret. He is eager for more pennies, and I for words of wisdom, and that makes him garrulous. When I run out of pennies, he says he can trade his secrets for mine. The rule, however, is to take only as much as I can leave behind for him. Momma says the talking skull is a big, fat liar and that I shouldn't trust him with my secrets. So I am thinking maybe I could trade in my stories instead. I hope he will like them enough. ### tales for dreamers: a mermaid stranded on the beach in winter URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-mermaid-stranded-on-the-beach-in-winter/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:39:49.000Z She’s washed up on the shore like a ragged doll. That’s what she appears like from a distance. It is not the season for mermaids, you remember, and that fills you with concern for her. As you approach, you see she’s clothed in winter gear, as though whoever or whatever plucked her out of the ocean had been thoughtful enough to make sure she didn’t freeze to her death on the beach. “Where did you come from?” you ask her. “From the ocean,” she whispers, her voice a strange underwater sound that makes you feel as if you’re in a dream. “Would you like to return?” you ask. She tries to nod but it is too much effort. “Yes,” she croaks. And then she says something else too but her voice is garbled and feeble and you have to lean in closer to try and catch her words. It occurs to you that she might be a being of magic and it may do you no good to stray too close to her. She could easily reach out and snatch your heart or, worse, your soul. Still, you don’t let that stop you from trying to help her. Sometimes, your kindness is your own undoing. But she does nothing of that sort. She’s touched by your concern. So she pulls herself up a little and makes an effort to speak as loud and clearly as she can manage. “B.. b.. but … I can’t … I can’t make … the j.. j.. journey … alone,” she says at last, then falls back on the sand, the last ounce of energy slipping away from her like a spent wave being dragged away from the shore. You look around. There are no other witnesses to this conversation. You look back at her. This little creature from the ocean, so out of place on the shore and in human garb. There is only one thing to be done. You take off your boots and socks. You slip out of your winter gear and drop it on the sand. A little clue, should anyone ever come looking for you. You change into your diving suit, the one you always carry with you no matter the season. Then you scoop her into your arms; she weighs no more than a newborn. And without hesitation, you walk into the freezing waters with her, determined to find a way to her home. Often, your kindness is your own undoing. --- *\*Image attribution: A rare public image of little D when he was five years old* ### tales for dreamers: a door of hearts URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-door-of-hearts/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:43:46.000Z There are twenty-nine hearts in all. Each has something written on it. Most likely a blessing or a pithy saying, like you’d typically see on the slip of paper curled inside a fortune cookie. Rarely, a command. One, only one, has a curse written on it. You can open the door to the other side only if a heart chooses you. And then its destiny becomes yours to carry, whether a blessing or the curse, or a vague aphorism that remains open to interpretation. They are fickle, these hearts, and there is simply no way to tell whether they’d like you enough to let you through the door. But if they do, don’t think twice. Even if the curse is yours to bear, you are better off with a heart than without one. ### tales for dreamers: the seeing eyes URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-seeing-eyes/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:48:07.000Z The eyes, they glow in the dark. They watch, even if only in turns. One keeps an eye (pun unintended) on your past to prevent it from slowing you down. Another keeps watch on your future, ensuring it remains unknown and unpredictable enough to make life and its living interesting for you. (No one watches your present, that responsibility is solely yours.) The third monitors your friends, and the fourth, your enemies. Too many of one and too few of the other throws life out of balance. The fifth eye keeps track of your luck, making sure you have enough when you need it the most, and that others get their fair share too. The sixth eye watches from behind a closed lid. Every move, every breath, every thought and every hope, every heartbreak, every moment crushed under the weight of despair, every laughter that filled you with an indescribable lightness of being, the sixth eye records and remembers. It flicks open only at the very end to help you remember an entire lifetime in a matter of moments. One last time, one final memory, before your past and future, your friends and enemies, your good luck and bad, all cease to exist. ### my late grandfather would have turned 100 today URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/my-late-grandfather-would-have-turned-100-today/ Last updated: 2023-01-31T02:02:29.000Z My mother's father, who died three years ago, would have turned 100 years old on this day. I have only a few memories of him, especially from the time of summer vacations in childhood. I grew up in a suburb of Mumbai, and every summer we used to take the train on a 24-hour-journey to Chennai, where we'd spend a month with my maternal uncle and his family and my grandparents. What I remember the most is that he had an unwavering faith in God and an absolute acceptance of fate that I've come to admire the older I've gotten. The more I see how little of life is truly in my control, the more I've come to admire my late grandfather's accepting, trusting nature. Remembering him fondly on this day ... ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/5.1.-50-years-ago.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/5.2.-Latest.jpeg) L: grandfather at the age of 50; R: in his 90s ### January Joys: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2023-january-joys/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:04:42.000Z Hello, Dreamer! I'm especially excited to write to you this month because I've just crossed a milestone in my brief publishing life. It's been exactly five years since I published my first book, a fantasy novella titled *[In Search of Leo](https://books2read.com/In-search-of-leo/).* To mark the occasion, I wanted to give the book a bit of an update now that I have access to fancy editing and formatting tools that I didn't have at my disposal five years ago. That task was taking way longer than I had anticipated, and so instead of spending more time on getting it done, I went and wrote an entire post on that. [pondering the mystery of time: why tasks take longer than they need toWhat if the single most important thing that keeps us from getting to our most important tasks is nothing and no one else ... but ourselves?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/2.-fabrizio-conti-EJQlF0GIvq8-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/pondering-the-mystery-of-time-why-tasks-take-longer-than-they-need-to/) But what I really want to share today is something I wouldn't have confessed to myself even a year ago. It's truly embarassing to admit and it's something I've come to see only in hindsight, and now I can look back at it and chuckle and shake my head and pretend I am much wiser now. So, here goes! --- In the days leading up to the book's publication, I was convinced that once I was a published author, the world would treat me differently. People would start to behold me differently, give me a look of awe and respect, perhaps even feel a little envy. Perhaps my skin would begin to sparkle or I'd have a fancy aura around me or a glowing halo around my head, something that would reveal to the world at first glance that I was someone special. Better still, perhaps I'd feel comfortable in my own skin at last, having finally accomplished something that was a long cherished dream of mine. Maybe I'd even begin to blow kisses to the person in my mirror! Of course, nothing of that sort happened. My book was one among the 6 million ebooks that were for sale on the Kindle store back in 2018\. (Apparently, that number is well over [12 million](https://justpublishingadvice.com/there-are-now-over-5-million-kindle-ebooks/) as of May 2022.) Well, that's still more than a drop in the ocean, so there's that. But I didn't end up with sparkly or glowy mutations. Nor riches, in case you're wondering. In fact, it would take me a couple of years and a couple more books after that first one to even feel comfortable calling myself an author, without feeling like a fraud. And another couple of years after that to understand that it's all a homecoming, that this entire endeavour of creating something, of designing and trying to live one's life with some intention, is all a [homecoming](https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-one-year-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/). > It all has very little to do with what you're trying to achieve and much more to do with who you are becoming in the process. ![Pie chart to answer the question "Why I set impossible goals?", indicating that 95% of the time it's "to become the person I want to be"](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/Why-I-set-an-impossible-goal-1.jpg) I had to ask myself the question: why did I want to write? Because I loved to write or because I thought it'd be *cool* to be an author having grown up reading so many books and admiring so many authors for their storytelling brilliance? My journey evidently began on the latter premise but over the years, humility has come to replace that initial egoic desire—and that has been a very painful process, in itself—but now I can say I am simply very grateful that I can write my books, hone my craft, and have amazing readers like you reach out and tell me how much my words and tales mean to them. Thank you for your endless support! --- This anecdote reminds me of a lesson in parenting and living that I learnt a few years ago from renowned clinical psychologist and conscious parenting expert, Dr. Shefali Tsabary, on [sitting with the muck of our ordinariness](https://www.drshefali.com/project/the-importance-of-embracing-the-pain-of-life/). I share excerpts from the video below, but it's only a 2-minute watch and filled with one of the most powerful teachings I keep coming back to over and over again. It's well worth a watch even if you're not a parent because parenting, as it turns out, is not really about the child on the outside but all about our inner child. > *I would say the common denominator in the reason we create dysfunction in our lives, period, across the board, is our immaturity and inability to handle emotional pain. We’ve become a culture and species obsessed with running away, avoiding pain. ... Instead of teaching resilience to our children, we’re really teaching them emotional avoidance.* > *Now, how do we teach emotional literacy to our children? The only way we can do that is first we, as parents, need to become comfortable in our own emotional skin.* > *We need to be comfortable with our emotional language, with our emotional depth, with our emotional ambivalence to handle the conflict of life and to be able to sit in that not-knowing space. And understand that through the tolerance of the pain of life, we actually grow stronger.* > *... To teach them to handle failure and sit with the muck of their ordinariness and teach them that in that muck is the ability to shine. Not through the success, not through the accomplishment, not through the lights and the glamour, but through the muck of ordinariness.* > *But because we are so avoidant of our own ordinariness, we simply have not taught our children this and this is the failure in today's parenting.* > *\~ [Dr. Shefali Tsabary](https://www.drshefali.com)* *The muck of my own ordinariness.* How much I've come to love that particular string of words now! And the realization that **we are so avoidant of our own ordinariness** was literally a slap in the face. It stung! But it also woke me up to reality! --- So now, five years since I published my first book with grand expectations, I can ask myself the following questions and answer them honestly. Would I still write my books even if no one were to read them? Would I still write this newsletter if I were the only recipient? Most days, the answer is "*Yes! Absolutely!*" ![Image of a dice to illustrate that it doesn't matter what outcome you roll and the question is, do you have the courage to roll again?](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/Outcome-2.jpg) But I'll also admit that just as often, I yearn for that joy of connection with readers, that thrill of knowing that the words that came through me touched another's heart and soul as deeply as they moved my own. Now tell me, what is the one thing you'd set out to do if you could be comfortable with failure, if you could be OK undertaking something simply for your own growth and not for a medal or some accolade for the outcome of your efforts? (You'd still crave the latter—we're only human, after all—but its absence would not deter you from keeping on coming back to the path you've chosen.) Then go forth and do it. --- #### [ORDINARY LIFE](https://verse-virtual.org/2022/December/crooker-barbara-2022-december.html) *by [Barbara Crooker](https://www.barbaracrooker.com/index.php)* This was a day when nothing happened, the children went off to school without a murmur, remembering their books, lunches, gloves. All morning, the baby and I built block stacks in the squares of light on the floor. And lunch blended into naptime, I cleaned out kitchen cupboards, one of those jobs that never gets done, then sat in a circle of sunlight and drank ginger tea, watched the birds at the feeder jostle over lunch's little scraps. A pheasant strutted from the hedgerow, preened and flashed his jeweled head. Now a chicken roasts in the pan, and the children return, the murmur of their stories dappling the air. I peel carrots and potatoes without paring my thumb. We listen together for your wheels on the drive. Grace before bread. And at the table, actual conversation, no bickering or pokes. And then, the drift into homework. The baby goes to his cars, drives them along the sofa's ridges and hills. Leaning by the counter, we steal a long slow kiss, tasting of coffee and cream. The chicken's diminished to skin & skeleton, the moon to a comma, a sliver of white, but this has been a day of grace in the dead of winter, the hard cold knuckle of the year, a day that unwrapped itself like an unexpected gift, and the stars turn on, order themselves into the winter night. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### the secret of the dream pedlar To mark this 5-year bookversary occasion with something special, I gift you an excerpt from *In Search of Leo.* Did you know the book actually has a character named The Dream Pedlar? Read the tale to find out what he does. [tales for dreamers: the secret of the dream pedlarA brief excerpt from In Search of Leo![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/ISOL_Facebook_Cover_Photo-2.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-secret-of-the-dream-pedlar/) If you're asked to log in, please enter the same email address at which you receive this newsletter and you'll promptly receive a link to log in and read the tale. If you run into any issues, please write to me (anitha@thedreampedlar.com or simply reply to this missive) and I will resolve them for you pronto! --- [Support The Dream Pedlar's writings!](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) --- ## Books You May Love I actually managed to read a number of books this past month! ![Front cover of Christopher Pike's Thirst No. 2 showing a pale woman with blood-red lips](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/1.-Thirst-No.-2-1.jpeg) My love affair with Christopher Pike's *Thirst* series continues! The ending of *Thirst No. 2* had me in tears, as you'll see in the post below. I have since finished reading *Thirst No. 3* too and will write an update soon. [books you may love: Thirst No. 2 by Christopher PikeIn which Christopher Pike inspires me to seek and find my very own Krishna in my life.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/14.-jairo-alzate-j_XTJ92oXjc-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-no-2-by-christopher-pike/) I also returned to another favourite author, [Lisa Jewell](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/93504.Lisa%5FJewell), who writes dark psychological thrillers with heart. A long time ago, I read *The Family Upstairs*, which was a pretty scary story about a cult and a very dysfunctional family. Little children and teenagers get caught in this madness, so it was with some trepidation that I picked up the sequel, *The Family Remains*. One thing I had forgotten is Jewell's remarkable ability to write about the darkest and most terrifying of human experiences in a way that actually restores your faith in humanity. Impossible to believe? That's what makes reading her books an absolute treat! ![Hardback copy of The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/2.-The-Night-She-Disappeared-2.jpeg) After finishing *The Family Remains*, I sought more of her works and read *The Night She Disappeared*, which is about a middle-aged woman looking for her teenage daughter who has disappeared, along with her (the daughter's) boyfriend, leaving their one-year-old infant behind. This is truly the subject of my terrors! Innocent children abandoned or caught in the madness of grown-ups. Yet, I read this book, led by Jewell's deft storytelling, turning page after page, rooting for the characters, and was happy when the last few pages caused my heart to soar with relief and joy. ![Hardback copy of Be A Triangle by Lilly Singh](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/3.-Be-a-triangle-1.jpeg) I also read Lilly Singh's short and sweet self-help book, *Be A Triangle*, and raved about it. [books you may love: Be A Triangle by Lilly SinghNo matter what new hurdles come your way each day, you can always come home to an understanding that you can design a life that fulfills you. \~ Be A Triangle by Lilly Singh![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/4.1.-cathal-mac-an-bheatha-7kbP7sMkjo0-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-be-a-triangle-by-lilly-singh/) And finally, I have this huge pile of books I'm currently reading. I've gone back to reading a number of books simultaneously, a few pages of this one, then a few pages of that one. This quite reminds me of that song, Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega. ![A pile of books that I'm yet to read](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/5.-TBR-1.jpeg) My TBR pile *A little bit of Pike in my life,* *A little bit of Kabat-Zinn by my side* *A little bit of Newport's all I need* *A little bit of Miro's what I see* *A little bit of Swain in the sun* *A little bit of Gaiman all night long* *A little bit of Holiday, here I am* *A little bit of your book makes me your fan ...* --- On that note, my dear lovely companions on this journey, I must bid goodbye. Thank you for being with me on this ride. Here are a few ways in which you can support my writings: - Sign up for [Tales for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/) to receive a short whimsical story in your inbox every week. - Grab a copy of *[In Search of Leo](https://books2read.com/In-search-of-leo/)* (it's up on Amazon as of now, and I'm working on putting it out on other retailer platforms and in paperback format soon) or any of my other [books](https://thedreampedlar.com/books/) - Spread the word about this missive and my writings to one other person you think might enjoy them. - Write to me and stay in touch! I hope 2023 has begun on a fantastic note for you! The best is yet to come. \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: the telephone booth URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-telephone-booth/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:37:10.000Z It is a plain-looking telephone. So although it has been placed in a cosy corner (and someone has thoughtfully set down a vase of orchids beside it) with a grand entrance announcing its presence and availability, the telephone remains mostly unused. The busy people zip along the corridor without so much as a second glance at the little black device. An emergency, and a smart but dead phone made me step into the telephone booth and pick up the receiver. I stuck out my forefinger to jab at the numbers that made up my mother's phone number. (I am proud to say I have an acute memory for phone numbers; the increasing ability of inanimate objects to remember and repeat has not eroded my memory.) Only there were no buttons on the dial pad. No numbers to dial. Where the dial pad ought to have been was a smokescreen, tendrils of white mist and rainbow colours swimming beneath the surface as if in a crystal ball. I held the receiver to my ear; that seemed to be the only thing left to do. *Hello*, crooned a voice so rich it seemed to spill warm golden sunlight on me. It asked me where I wanted to go and I said I had no plans to go anywhere and that I was only trying to place a phone call but that there was no dial pad on this device, which is strange, I added, because it says *Telephone* at the entrance and of what use is a telephone without a dial pad, I asked. The voice, which seemed to come from nowhere near but from all around me at the same time, enveloped me in a warm cocoon and said it was sorry to hear of my ordeal. And in order to compensate me for the trouble I have had to face, it offered to arrange for me to visit the person I was trying to place a call to. All expenses paid, it added. I said that was very kind indeed and that I would love that. *Very well, Ma'am*, said the voice, and with a clap and a poof I was gone and reappeared at the gate to my parents' house. I find it is a useful thing, this inconspicuous telephone. So far, at my bidding, it has sent me on little jaunts to many places across the globe. But time travel is beyond its capabilities, it says. It won't send me to a past or a future where telephones do not exist, for the simple reason that I wouldn't be able to return to the present, it explains. ### tales for dreamers: the secret of the dream pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-secret-of-the-dream-pedlar/ Last updated: 2023-02-10T17:47:43.000Z ![a hand holding a jar that catches twinkling points of light from a dusky sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/33.-the-secret-of-the-dream-pedlar_javardh-2q6C5zDJOsg-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Javardh](https://unsplash.com/ko/@%5Fjavardh%5F001?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/2q6C5zDJOsg?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) There is a man who sells dreams for a living. Dreams of all sensations and durations. Dreams that take your breath away. Fantasies that thrill and overwhelm. Illusions that leave you spellbound. Reveries for the noontime. Will-o’-the-wisps for the witching hour. Chimera that last barely a few breaths. Flights of fancies that never end. Age-old dreams that were dreamt into existence by the Gods themselves. Some others as pristine as a newborn. A few rare ones yet undreamt of. “Come hither, my dearies,” the man calls, “for your dream-rides.” But no two dreams are alike. To choose one, you must let go of the rest. Ah, choices! You have countless dreams to pick from, but only one can truly be yours today. If you ask him where the dreams come from, he will demur. But I know. I have seen him slip through the cracks between the worlds, slither from the light to the shadows, and knock on the doors of the ghosts of the living dead. They don’t let him in. They open their windows instead and throw out dreams they wish to discard, desires they could do without, like irresponsible residents littering their neighbours’ alleyways. The man gathers all the discarded dreams and loads them on to his cart. He then trundles back to his cave where he sorts and tags and places them in boxes and bottles and baubles and wraps them up in muslin and glitter and ribbons, and loads them on to his cart once more and makes his way to where you wander, trying to keep yourself from getting lost. And he sells you these broken dreams for less than a ha’penny because he knows, whether you know it or not, that only you can mend them. [Subscribe to Tales for Dreamers!](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) ### books you may love: Be A Triangle by Lilly Singh URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-be-a-triangle-by-lilly-singh/ Last updated: 2023-04-27T01:04:47.000Z When bringer-of-all-good-things-in-my-life and dear, dear friend, Helen, mentioned Lilly Singh to me, the first place I went to look up Singh was in the catalogue of my local library, the Burlington Public Library, not knowing that Singh is, in fact, a Canadian actress who first rose to fame as a [YouTube star](https://www.youtube.com/@LillySingh). No wonder Helen thought to ask me, "You do know who Lilly Singh is, right?" I've certainly been living in a cave of my own making for a while now, mainly writing (mostly fiction), reading (mostly fiction), and spending time with D and KrA (most definitely not fictional characters living in my head). So when I saw Singh has a book titled *[Be A Triangle](https://lillysinghbook.com)*, I wanted to read it pronto. She also has another book titled *[How to be a Bawse](https://lillysinghbook.com/#how-to-be-a-bawse)*, but somehow at that point in life I was more curious to find out what it meant to be a triangle. *Be A Triangle* is a short self-help book. I read it in one sitting, and then I promptly went back to the start and read it all over again. > Reading it was like having a conversation with a friend who totally gets me, who feels the things I do too, and so when the book got over, I wasn't ready for the conversation to end and decided to indulge in it once more. ![Paperback copy of Be A Triangle by Lilly Singh](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/4.-Be-a-Triangle_Lilly-Singh-1.jpeg) *Be A Triangle* by Lilly Singh So many parts of this book resonated with me so much. For instance, for years I've been trying to cultivate in myself that inner strength that Lilly talks about in her book right at the outset. Most self-help books recommend affirmations and journaling, but the beliefs and values and principles that we live by, that govern our lives whether we realize it or not, are deeprooted and cultivated and nurtured over decades of conditioning, both at home and by the world outside. And if we want to regain that inner strength, the work has to begin from within. > We need to create a home to return to. And when I say home, I'm not talking about a physical place or somewhere where pants are optional. I'm talking about a set of beliefs we return to after a day full of, well, anything. We need to dig a foundation so deep that it will exist and thrive even if our suface-level efforts fail. > What is left whan a harsh wind blows away my daily affirmation Post-its? What can I hold on to if a toxic person reenters my life? And what can I lean on if my journal is ripped from my hands? > I need to do more than just problem-solve to overcome daily aggravations and hiccups. I have to go deeper. I have to create something strong that can withstand any obstacle, even the obstacles I haven't encountered yet. > I need a belief system that is not at the mercy of my current mood. I want a foundation that stays solid no matter who is or isn't in the room and no matter what is or isn't happening in my day. > It's time to flip right side up. It's time for this book title to make sense. It's time to be a triangle. > \~ An excerpt from *Be A Triangle* by Lilly Singh And sure enough, Lilly shows us exactly how to do that, how to be a triangle. > I believe the foundation of our triangle needs to made up of two seemingly simple things: > ▲ A Relationship with Ourselves > ▲ A Relationship with the Universe > But let's be real — the world today is loud. The world today is a Beats by Dre speaker. In a cup. Back in the day, maybe we could have gotten away with just two tiers, but not today. So, I believe we also need to include the following supporting tiers to help maintain our foundational relationships: > ▲ Understanding Distraction > ▲ Implementing Design She goes on to explain what she means by these four elements, but it's all so simple and so stripped of everything extraneous that I can see why this book would appeal to anyone, no matter where they are on their journey of self-discovery and self-love. Whether you are a beginner or have been floundering on this path for years or have made your way to being at peace with who you are and what your life looks like in the present moment, Lilly's words will speak to you exactly where you are. If you are a beginner, this book has everything you need to know and remember as you set out on your own path. If you've been on this journey for a while, you'd find yourself nodding every so often and feel seen and heard, until the next gust of wind knocks you down and you look for another book or resource to help you make sense of everything. And if you've been on this journey for a long time, perhaps you'll smile and understand and feel understood, and know that no matter how much we've learnt, we all need little reminders like these from time to time. --- I won't delve into the details — you've got to read the book for that — but there were a couple of things that Lilly mentioned, which resonated very strongly with me and I wanted to share those here. ## the moment I understood that ambition is not a dirty word ![man standing atop a hill overlooking a range of hills against a dawn-orange sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/4.2.-colton-duke-QRU0i5AqEJA-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Colton Duke](https://unsplash.com/@csoref?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/QRU0i5AqEJA?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) > Here's what I know to be true: Nothing is forever, and you will change multiple times over the course of your life. And what you want in life will change as well. Your desires, relationships, priorities, and beliefs are constantly changing depending on what is happening elsewhere in your life. Lilly talks about how when she was in her twenties, she had only one desire: to be successful at her job. And she pulled all-nighters and would travel at the drop of a hat to attend a meeting and do all that she felt she needed to do to succeed. And here's the clincher! > And perhaps you're expecting me to say I was miserable, but the truth is, I was so happy. I was thrilled to be all work and no play. I felt fulfilled by doing way too much in twenty-four hours. And I regret no part of it. And then she goes on to say how as she moved into her thirties, her priorities began to change. But even as her desire to work as hard had begun to wane, her initial instinct was to beat herself up for feeling that way and force herself to maintain the status quo. It took her a while to see that resistance for what it was and allow for the change to happen. > That's not to say that I was wrong before and now I'm right; it's not about right or wrong. It's that I'm in a different place now and that's okay. We cannot expect to grow and also stay the same. > You are not one thing always. Nothing is ever one thing always. You are not a sad person. Your life doesn't suck. You're not hopeless. Rather, sometimes you feel sad. Sometimes your life can suck. And sometimes you feel hopeless. > \~ An excerpt from *Be A Triangle* by Lilly Singh After reading this, I think for the first time in my life I could really admit to myself how much I loved, loved, loved working 16–18 hours a day when I was in my twenties and thirties. And I knew exactly the kind of work that made me feel fulfilled and the kind that left me antsy and questioning the purpose of my very existence. In my late thirties, after I had little D, I outgrew a lot of my previous ambition but, as Lilly says in her book, I too was so resistant to change. I wanted to stay at home with D, and I did, but that choice was always so fraught with guilt, as if I was letting myself down and not living up to my full potential, as if I ought to have been doing something more, something different with my life because so many women are juggling family and careers and hobbies and a seemingly fantastic you-can-have-it-all life that it sucked that I had chosen just one or two things – parenting and writing – to focus on. Much of contemporary self-help advice is in the form of suggestions doled out to everyone, irrespective of where they are in their lives. Someone on their deathbed may look back and wish they had spent more time with family, but when you are in your twenties and young and the world is a treasure-chest you haven't yet started exploring, when you are a big mystery to your own self, of course you're not going to want to sit at home and spend more time with family. Instead, you're going to want to go out, leave the cocoon of your home and take some risks and have adventures and find out for yourself the kind of person you are becoming, the kind of person you want to be, the absolutely amazing kind of person you already are. And there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that. You can have ambition. You can want to be rich and famous. You can want every material thing this world has to offer. And there is truly nothing wrong with that as long as that is what you truly want at that point in time and you're not intentionally hurting yourself or anyone or anything else in your pursuit of what you seek. It was such a liberating moment for me to acknowledge that after reading Lilly's own embracing of her own ambition and endeavours at a time when that was what mattered the most to her. --- ## the moment I understood what a blessing my imagination is ![white and green grass under a blue sky](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/4.2.-vlad-kutepov-5paRSKtn6rc-unsplash-1.jpg) Photo by [Vlad Kutepov](https://unsplash.com/@kvtepov?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/5paRSKtn6rc?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) For the longest time, in the aftermath of an anxiety attack, I'd often curse my wild imagination for leading me down that depressing path of rumination or negative thought spiral. My imagination knows no bounds when it comes to enacting conversations with family members in my head or conjuring up the countless ways D and KrA could get hurt or injured. And instead of appreciating my imagination for the books and stories it helps me write, I almost always curse it and wish I didn't have this gift in the first place. > When we talk about creativity, we often think about art and artists. We imagine a poet, a fashion designer, or a musician. > But in reality, we're all creatives. We're all so good at creating chaos in our minds by making assumptions and overthinking. > Instead of wasting that creative brain energy on maddening thoughts, we should use our imagination to design a life that fulfills us. > In other words, if we can create problems that don't even exist, create fake conversations of confrontation with imaginary people while in the shower, and create anxious thoughts that keep us up at night, we can also create solutions, love, unity, and peace within us. > We simply must choose to spend our energy this way. Fake conversations of confrontation with imaginary people while in the shower?! Oh, I feel so *seen*, Lilly! How *seen* I feel! 😂 So instead of cursing myself for having a wild imagination that plays doomsday scenarios in my mind, I can make a conscious choice to imagine and create a fulfilling life for me and my loved ones. And later she goes on to say, > No matter what new hurdles come your way each day, you can always come home to an understanding that you can design a life that fulfills you. Towards the end she reminds us to keep in mind what's true, and to understand that everything else is a distraction that keeps leading us astray. Our job is to keep coming back home to ourselves. > I'm sure our lives will continue to get more complex. Noise will find new ways to distract us. Heartaches and stresses will present themselves time and time again. These things will never stop. > That is why we must always return to what we know to be true: our relationship with ourselves and our relationship with the universe. > Everything else is a distraction. And when those distractions lead us astray, we can be creative and design a path back home to ourselves. > \~ An excerpt from *Be A Triangle* by Lilly Singh --- ## being my own best friend ![heart-shaped lock on a string against a blurred background of a river and blue skies](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/4.4.-miha-arh-CzyKdV_Zjmo-unsplash-1.jpg) Photo by [Miha Arh](https://unsplash.com/@arhmi?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/images/feelings/heart?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) I've spent a lot of time these past few years, especially since D's arrival, questioning a lot of beliefs that I had assumed were the gospel truth. Unsubscribing from them is hardly ever easy, neither is it a one-and-done task. I would change a belief only to have the world throw something else in my way to make me question everything all over again. It is all a practice though. We are never done with the unlearning and re-learning as long as we are alive. But some things certainly get easier with practice. And the more we do this, the more we feel at home with ourselves. The more we find within ourselves that which we keep scouring the earth for. love. safety. comfort. trust. belonging. acceptance. And for the times when everything feels insurmountably hard, we can always go back and read *Be A Triangle*, and be reminded of what's essential and what's a distraction. That alone would make the next step easier for us to take. [Support The Dream Pedlar's writings!](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) ### Five years ago today I published my first book! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/five-years-ago-today-i-published-my-first-book/ Last updated: 2023-01-26T20:50:35.000Z My first work of fiction, *In Search of Leo*, went live on Amazon Kindle exactly five years ago today! I wish I had something poignant or wise to say on this occasion, but all I can think of is how lucky I am to still be spending my days doing what I love most – writing and sharing my works with you all! Thank you, dear readers and dreamers, for reading and encouraging and recommending and sharing my works. Much love to you all! 💕 ### tales for dreamers: the music of angels at ungodly hours URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-music-of-angels-at-ungodly-hours/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:39:15.000Z The angels play their most beautiful music at in-between times. Sometimes they bring out their horns between midnight and the thirteenth hour. Sometimes their music fills the skies in the moments between yesterday and today. They do not follow a schedule but it is said that they play their best melodies just after the blackness of the night sky begins to fade and turns into cobalt blue but just before the songbirds commence their dawn chorus. Their music floats into the aether at moments when one thing ends and gives way to the beginning of something new. When transitory, life-altering moments slice the grand concept of your lifetime into before and after periods. Not everyone can hear the music though. It is a privilege reserved only for the newborns and the dying. At the beginning of a new life or when an old one nears its end. I suppose that is when we feel most alive. ### making a case for dark art: questioning and shedding my old notions and beliefs URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/making-a-case-for-dark-art-questioning-and-shedding-my-old-notions-and-beliefs/ Last updated: 2023-01-11T23:29:41.000Z This morning, I was looking for gentle piano tunes on Spotify and it yielded me a playlist, the first song of which was titled *Van Gogh* by contemporary pianist, [Virginio Aiello](https://www.virginioaiello.com). [Virginio Aiello, On Piano - Van Gogh​Choose your preferred streaming platform to listen to it: https://bit.ly/2ZDg17NPiano Tutorial: https://youtu.be/2ESlH-fwxIcSheet Music: https://bit.ly/3bke...![](https://www.youtube.com/s/desktop/a98f809d/img/favicon_144x144.png)YouTube![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/l-fxH--8LFI/hqdefault.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-fxH--8LFI) As with everything I fall in love with, I've been listening to this on loop pretty much since morning. But more than that, this melody is has caused me to question and shed a long outdated view I've held on art until now. Please allow me to explain in my usual rambling, meandering, storytelling way. ## A late mystic's opinion on subjective and objective art Almost two years ago, in all my youthful naïveté, I wrote a [piece](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-art-of-hiraeth/) quoting the great mystic, Osho, and his take on subjective and objective art (although he makes a reference to the works of Picasso, not those of Van Gogh). I paste below the particular lines I refer to from that earlier post. > *Art can be divided into two parts. Ninety-nine percent of art is subjective art. Only one percent is objective art. The ninety-nine percent subjective art has no relationship with meditation. Only one percent objective art is based on meditation.* > *The subjective art means you are pouring down your subjectivity on the canvas, your dreams, your imaginations, your fantasies. It is a projection of your psychology in the same way it will be in poetry, in music, in all dimensions of creativity. You are not concerned with the person who is going to see your painting. You are not concerned what will happen to him when he sees your painting; that is not your concern at all.* > *Your art is simply a kind of vomiting. It will help you, just the way vomiting helps. It takes the nausea off, makes you cleaner, makes you feel healthier. But you have not considered what is going to happen to the person who is going to see your vomit. He will become nauseous. He may start feeling sick.* > *Look at the paintings of Picasso. He is a great painter, but just a subjective artist. Looking at his paintings, you will start feeling sick, dizzy, something going berserk in your mind. You cannot go on looking at Picasso's paintings long enough. You would like to get away, because the painting has not come from a silent being. It has come from a chaos. It is a by-product of a nightmare. But ninety-nine percent of art belongs to that category.* > *Objective art is just the opposite. The man has nothing to throw, he is utterly empty, absolutely clean. Out of this silence, out of this emptiness, arises love, compassion, and out of this silence a possibility for creativity. This silence, this love, this compassion, these are the qualities of meditation. \~ Osho* For a long time, I took Osho's words to heart and decided that I would create only when in a state of equanimity. Of course, that turned out to be a huge struggle for I'm only human, and placing that pre-condition on my creative process led me down all kinds of rabbit-holes. As intimately familiar as I am with the workings of my own inner mind, it troubled me to think that my creative output was a reflection of that terrifying inner turmoil. The thought that I was putting all this out there in the world gave me so much grief, my goodness! ## An exposition of beauty and the madness that lived alongside So this morning as I was listening to Van Gogh, the piano composition by Virginio Aiello, it reminded me of my visit to a Van Gogh immersion exhibit in Hamilton sometime last year. KrA and I were to attend it together, in what was to be one of our first outings after his 2-month bedrest following his [fracture and surgery](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/who-is-your-2-a-m-friend/). But little D fell ill and couldn't go to school that day, so KrA suggested I go there by myself. And what a treat it was! Like an artist's date. The little road trip to Hamilton, and then the exhibit itself. At the entrance were large picture frames featuring snapshots from Vincent van Gogh's life and many of the words he spoke or wrote in his letters to loved ones, especially to his younger brother Theo. > *"... find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful."* > *"trouve beau tout ce que tu peux, la plupart ne trouvent pas suffisamment beau."* ![Sunflowers by Van Gogh](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/3.2.-Van-Gogh-1.jpeg) --- > *"I also believe that it may happen that one succeeds, and one mustn't begin by despairing; even if one loses here and there, and even if one sometimes feels a sort of decline, the point is nevertheless to revive and have courage, even though things don't turn out as one first thought."* > *\~ To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, 22 October 1882* ![Almond Blossom by Van Gogh](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/3.3.-Van-Gogh-2.jpeg) --- > *"In life and in painting too, I can easily do without the dear Lord, but I can't, suffering as I do, do without something greater than myself, which is my life, the power to create."* > *To Theo van Gogh, Arles, 3 September 1888* ![Painting by Van Gogh](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/3.4.-Van-Gogh-1.jpeg) --- > *"... I always think that what we need is sunshine and fine weather and blue air as the most dependable remedy."* > *\~ To Theo van Gogh, Arles, 29 September 1888* ![bright white lights against a dark blue background](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/3.5.-Van-Gogh-1.jpeg) --- The exhibit itself was a thing of beauty. Imagine colours and paintings moving on the walls and ceiling all around you, as if Van Gogh's very paintings had come to life and could take you into them if you only dared to step forward. But images do little justice to the immersive experience itself. So here's a little video to give you a glimpse of how magical the experience was! 0:00 / 1× I spent a little more than an hour, filled with awe and wonder. On the way out, I bought a poster of Van Gogh's Starry Night, planning to buy a frame for it later and put it up on the wall against my writing desk. It was only later that I found out that Van Gogh had created this masterpiece when he was a resident at the Saint-Rémy-de-Provence [asylum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FStarry%5FNight), having voluntarily admitted himself there after the episode that entailed his self-mutilation of his ear. When I learnt that, it immediately reminded me of Osho's sermon on subjective and objective art. I could no longer look at the painting without thinking of the mental breakdown that had led Van Gogh to that place depicted in his painting. I was terrified that simply by looking at the painting, I'd absorb much of that mental instability through some eerily inexplicable phenomenon of symbiosis through time and space. And so it has been lying in the basement, still in its frame, as we couldn't figure out where else to put it. D said he'd love for it to be put up in his room, but if I was terrified of the effect the painting could have on *me*, my fear for D was a gazillion-fold. At one point, I was ready to rip the poster and throw it away and use the frame for something else. But I let it be. Cast away and out of sight. And that was the end of it until I heard Van Gogh this morning. The fact that the piece was titled thus intrigued me. And after listening to it, my heart was simply moved by the sheer of beauty of it ... and all the beliefs I had held on dark art were washed away like mud carried off by a raging river. ## Welcoming both the light and shadow aspects of me Osho, for the first time in my life, I will have to disagree with you. Or rather, I will have to revise my interpretation of your words. > Just because most of us humans can only produce subjective art does not mean we shouldn't create it in the first place. > We must create, whether from our light or from our shadow side, because all parts of us when expressed thus, through the medium of art, enable others to accept their own light and shadow sides. I have been writing for a while now, and many of my works tend to be steeped in melancholy. For a long, long time, I've felt ashamed of that. OK, so here's a list of all the things I've harboured deep shame about. - loving melodies in the minor scale (such as Van Gogh) - watching deep, moving tragedies and crying my heart out - reading books that rip out my soul and shred it into countless pieces, over and over again I don't stay in this zone all the time. I do love peppy beats and the occasional comedy but those are rarely ever my first choices. > I love all that is poignant and deep. The shallow and superficial always leave me thirsting for something more. > But darkness is always to be found in depth. We simply cannot walk into a place of depth without a beacon of light to show us the way. > And so, depth and darkness need not signal an absence of hope. > When you swim to the bottom of the lake and then come back up and break surface, that first gulp of fresh air is life-saving. > In the same way, we need not fear treading through darkness in our creativity. For some of us, that is the only way to light and hope. I no longer intend to deny myself the joy of meandering through the dark places that I inhabit so often. Author Joanna Penn talks about the shadow side and how it influences her own writing, and she has plans to write and publish her [shadow book](https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2023/01/01/my-2023-creative-and-business-goals-with-joanna-penn/), as she calls it, about writing from your dark side. It is something I'm very excited about and looking forward to later this year. I was just looking up on her website for references to authors who write dark fiction and I've just come across [David Wright](https://davidwwright.com) – I'm going to be looking into his [book](https://www.amazon.ca/Into-Darkness-Readers-Tablet-Singles-ebook/dp/B07W9F7R75/) on writing dark fiction – but here's a line from his book that Joanna mentions in a 2019 [podcast](https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2019/11/11/write-your-darkness/) in which he was the guest, and I love it. > "It might very well be necessary for my well-being to write dark books." > \~ David Wright And later on in the interview, he goes on to say, > ... writing is about dealing with dark things, but also trying to find hope. Trying to find the light in the darkness to hold onto. For me, I just find writing about it helps me to see the good things in the world as well. My, oh my! ![person in red hoodie with glowing skeletal mask on face](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/3.6.-sebastiaan-stam-RChZT-JlI9g-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [sebastiaan stam](https://unsplash.com/@sebastiaanstam?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/RChZT-JlI9g?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) A few years ago, when D was about 3 years old or so, I wrote a bunch of short stories that were all very dark, all entailing a parent and a child and things going haywire. It all came about because having a child completely changes your perspective and I faced so much fear and anxiety back then, and the only outlets I could find for it all was in writing. I wrote those stories but I've kept them hidden. Occasionally I toyed with the idea of publishing them, but then Osho's opinions on subjective art would come into my head and I'd squash the idea. > I didn't want to be putting dark stuff out there, even though these stories in particular did not have bleak endings. Courage was displayed. Trouble was overcome. Acceptance was gained. Resolution was achieved. > For you see, in those very dark times, it was only in fiction that I found the valour to fight and slay the demons and villains and tricksters and monsters that I was convinced I wouldn't be able to face in real life. > Yet, because of all the meandering into the dark to come out into the light, I kept self-censoring. But then I'd continue to go and read thrillers with serial killers and child abductors and terrify myself and wonder how those authors could write such things and I'd envy their courage to do so yet also shame myself for even wanting to read such dark stuff. So now with this newfound wisdom, I give myself permission to create what comes from my heart and soul, knowing that my writings will reach out to you and touch your heart and soul too. > There is a reason that darkness exists. It is so that we may bring forth our own light to navigate it. > And by navigating our darkness, we may aspire to create the kind of art that instills hope and courage. ## Objective art, in the words of Osho In parting, I will leave you with the part of Osho's message that speaks more clearly to me now than it did the previous time. Having embraced my dark side, I'm better able to appreciate both the light and the darkness that live within me. Osho's opinion on objective art now appears to me as the kind of perfection I can certainly aspire to, knowing well that the purpose is not to reach it but to keep heading in that direction, catching myself when I've gone astray and correcting course, over and over again. And that is the gift I leave for you now. > *Meditation brings you to your very centre, and your centre is not only your centre, it is the centre of the whole existence. Only on the periphery we are different. As we start moving towards the centre, we are one. We are part of eternity, a tremendously luminous experience of ecstasy, which is beyond words, something that you can be but very difficult to express it. But a great desire arises in you to share it, because all other people around you are groping for exactly such experiences. And you have it. You know the path.* > *And these people are searching everywhere except within themselves – where it is. You would like to shout in their ears. You would like to shake them and tell them that "Open your eyes! Where are you going? Wherever you go, you go away from yourself. Come back home, and come as deep into yourself as possible."* > *This desire to share becomes creativity. Somebody can dance. There have been mystics – for example, Jalaluddin Rumi – whose teaching was not in words, whose teaching was in dance. He will dance. His disciples will be sitting by his side, and he will tell them that "Anybody who feels like joining me can join. It is a question of feeling. If you don't feel like, it is up to you. You can simply sit and see."* > *But when you see a man like Jalaluddin Rumi dancing, something dormant in you becomes active. In spite of yourself, you can find you have joined the dance. You are already dancing before you become aware you have joined it.* > *Even this experience is of tremendous value, that you have been pulled like a magnetic force. It has not been your mind decision, you have not weighed for pro or for against, to join or not to join, no. Just the beauty of Rumi's dance, his spreading energy, has taken possession of you. You are being touched. This dance is objective art. \~* Osho ![Image of me against a backdrop of The Starry Night at 'Beyond Van Gogh' Hamilton](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/3.1.-Van-Gogh-1.jpeg) ### pondering the mystery of time: why tasks take longer than they need to URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/pondering-the-mystery-of-time-why-tasks-take-longer-than-they-need-to/ Last updated: 2023-01-11T11:43:03.000Z Next week will mark the 5-year anniversary of the publication of my very first book, *In Search of Leo*! ## An idea My debut book, it is a speculative fiction take on the stages of grief and the realization that the eventual acceptance of loss always makes way for something new. This was my very first book, and I published it at a time when I didn't have access to book formatting tools (I use the awesome [Vellum](https://vellum.pub) now) nor the knowledge and experience of writing book descriptions and blurbs. It is also the only one of my books that is available only in ebook format and that too only on the Kindle store. In all these years, I haven't gotten around to publishing it in print or on any of the other retailer platforms! For the last two or three years, I'd been mulling giving it a bit of a face-lift and uploading a newly formatted ebook version, with an updated description, in addition to a paperback version. But I never really got around to doing so because the thought of writing a book description always stalled me. The blurb is essentially sales copy, a few sentences that ought to be tantalizing and enticing enough to get the reader interested enough to turn to the very first page at least. Now that the 5-year anniversay is coming up, it seemed like a good enough deadline I could impose upon myself to do all that needs to be done to celebrate the beginining of my career in writing and publishing. ![Ebook cover of In Search of Leo depicting a young adult standing atop a rock and holding a lantern in the moonlight](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/ISOL-for-website.jpeg) In Search of Leo - Cover Design by [Pen Astridge](https://www.instagram.com/mightythepen/?hl=en) ## A Tool I've recently been playing around with [ChatGPT](https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/), an [openAI](https://openai.com/about/) tool that has become an assistant of sorts, a co-writer if you will, and I've begun using it extensively to write book descriptions. It's mind-blowingly brilliant, and even if it doesn't yield the result you are after in the first go, you can always tweak your input and watch the output change accordingly. The UI is a chat interface, so it's literally like texting a friend and asking them "Could you please write a book description for the following story?" And ChatGPT responds with utmost courtesy and intelligence! I haven't used it to help me write the stories themselves because I quite like the creative process of story-telling, even when I am grappling with doubt as to where the story is headed and all those nagging voices that keep telling me I'm wasting my time creating something worthless. Those voices are expert liars! For the past few weeks, I kept telling myself that I should check out ChatGPT for getting a book description written for *In Search of Leo*. And then I was beset with doubt that I wouldn't know what input to provide the tool to come up with a blurb. So that saw me avoiding the task for a couple of weeks. ## A Simple Task Until finally, yesterday, sick of my own dawdling and indecision, I logged on to ChatGPT and typed the following: *"Hello, Can you please write a book description for a speculative fiction story in which a young adult named Heidi loses her dog and she thinks he's lost in the woods? When she goes to look for him, she meets many characters who, unknown to her, represent the various stages of grief. Thank you."* And ChatGPT gave me something mind-blowing. *"Sure! Here is a book description for your speculative fiction story:* *Heidi is a young adult who is devastated when her beloved dog goes missing in the woods. Desperate to find her furry companion, she sets out into the forest to search for him. As she navigates the unknown terrain, she encounters a diverse cast of characters who each represent a different stage of grief. There is the angry man who refuses to accept his loss, the bargaining woman who tries to make deals with the universe, the depressed man who has given up hope, and the accepting woman who has learned to live with her pain.* *As Heidi journeys deeper into the woods, she grapples with her own grief and learns to process the emotions that come with loss. Along the way, she discovers that the forest is a magical place full of secrets and strange occurrences. As she navigates the ups and downs of her search for her missing dog, Heidi discovers the strength within herself to confront her grief and move forward. Will she find her dog, or will she learn to let go and find a new path?"* This was an excellent start! I proposed a few tweaks, worded my question in many different ways and finally got a result I'm sure I can use with some modifications. All of this took no longer than 10–15 minutes at most. And to think I had spent weeks procrastinating (not counting the last 2–3 years when I didn't have a tool like ChatGPT at my disposal) on a task that really didn't need more than 15 minutes of my time and concentration! --- ## The Big Realization > ***Often, it takes us far less time to tackle a task in reality than it does in our imagination.*** ![infographic comparing time estimates for a task based on whether we are thinking about it or actually working on it](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/2.-on-procrastination-1.jpeg) how long a task actually takes This is not the first time that I've come to this conclusion. Over and over again, I've found myself putting off tasks using one of the many excuses listed below. - This is a huge task and I will need an uninterrupted 2–3 hours to tackle it. So I'll put it away until I can get that chunk of time. (Good luck finding that as an adult, especially if you have little ones at home!) - I need to read up more on how to do this so I can do it perfectly in the first attempt. (After all, so many non-fiction books begin with the promise "*I made all these mistakes so you won't have to make them too*", while subtly following up with the disclaimer that "*What worked for me may or may not work for you.*") So to do something sub-optimally has become pretty unacceptable in our culture! - I'm going to totally screw this up. What's the point of even getting started? - This is not part of my job. I should be able to outsource anything and everything that is not writing or parenting. (As writers grow more successful, they do hire assistants for a bunch of non-writing-related tasks, such as marketing or social media engagement. But in the initial stages, when we are quite literally a one-person operation, we are called upon to wear many hats. And I've come to see that each of these experiences, which takes us a step ahead in our path, actually helps us grow rather than take away time from the core activity at the heart of it, which is writing, in my case. But it doesn't always feel that way!) - When many days pass without us having taken action, we start criticising ourselves. "I should have done this sooner." "This is still pending." "When am I ever going to get to it?" The cumulative weight of these worries soon becomes unbearable. I'm sure if I were to note down every thought that crops up in my head the next time I have to tackle a task I've been postponing, I'd come up with many more excuses to add to the list above. > But we probably don't need to expand this list to see the singular underlying theme that prevents us from taking action: fear of doing a *bad* or *mediocre* job. We can call it fear of failing, fear of being embarassed, fear of being exposed, fear of finding out that we're not as skilled as we thought we were. For me, because all my life I've been the child with the A grades and the first rank and the gold medals, it's the fear of doing a less-than-stellar job that does me in. > More than two decades ago, someone once wrote to me the following words: You have a tendency to live with regret than with failure. Even now, after all this time, I marvel at how largely true that statement continues to be in my life. It has almost turned out like a prophecy. So long as I don't stick my neck out and try something new and unfamiliar, I can continue to live in an illusion, in an alternate Universe where if I had only just tried that one thing, my life would have been vastly different now. It's funny how familiar and comforting that refrain feels. All the could-have-beens and should-have-beens form such a safe haven, who'd ever want to leave that refuge to find out what can be? ## A Sense of 'Wrong'ness in Making Mistakes I have no more than anecdotal evidence to back up my claims right now, but the more I think about this, the more I find that there is this deep subconscious belief that's holding me back. > *The belief that it is somehow wrong to have made a mistake. Because I should have known better. Because I should have done better to avoid that mistake in the first place.* I didn't connect the dots earlier but if we just take a look around us, we can easily see that we live in a culture that penalizes mistakes. (I am not talking about illegal deeds and crimes for the sake of this discussion.) One very obvious way this happens is when the first or the fastest or the one who scores the most in a game or a test is declared the winner or otherwise praised and lauded. We are not rewarded for effort, but for result. We are compared with our peers all the time and measured and ranked and told to improve rather than acknowledged for our effort. > So what happens when we live in an environment where mistakes are penalized, even if not outrightly so? > For instance, score less than stellar marks on a test, and our mind gravitates to the mistakes we made. > We cushion this under the pretext of learning from our mistakes so we won't make them again. > But this only reinforces the *'learned pattern of avoiding mistakes'*. > And this is a pattern we then spend the rest of our lives trying to unlearn by trying to *'embrace failure'*. Is it any wonder then that we live in such abject fear of making mistakes or producing work that we judge as *shoddy*, even if we're only doing it for the first or even the hundredth time? --- On the flip side, sometimes (or perhaps often) tasks do take longer than expected. ![infographic depicting how sometimes tasks take longer than our initial estimates](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/2.-on-underestimating-effort.jpeg) when tasks need to take longer than our initial estimate This may be because once we get started, we learn that we may need to spend more time to understand the task, acquire a requisite skill or resources, plan how we'd go about it, or some other factor that we become aware of *only when we are in the midst of the task*. If the sense of 'wrong'ness creeps in here – in the sense that our time estimate was 'wrong' and so now we've run into a problem – we can easily go down the rabbit hole of thoughts like these: - We should have planned better. - We should have anticipated this and accounted for this. - We should have consulted someone (insert name of an expert here). - We were not ready for such a big undertaking. We should have prepared better. > *And we forget that this ability to plan and do better can simply not be gained without first having tried and failed.* > *Yet, experience is no buffer against failure either because the world around us and the environment we operate in and the tools we use are forever changing!* It's not surprising that we subconsciously think along these lines because whenever something goes wrong, it's typical, especially in organizations, to look for a scapegoat to pin it all on. To find the person responsible and *punish* them for it. It's also typical for people to look back and think of all the ways they could have avoided this problem, chalking it up as a lesson for the future. > But the underlying implication that remains is this: if we run into a problem, the tendency is to think that this happened because we were wrong or our efforts were inadequate, both of which are undesirable in the course of life and hence, could have been avoided, should have been avoided, in fact, and the fact that we didn't avoid them and ran into a problem in the first place means we screwed it all up royally. This is what I've observed in myself and, on reflection, I've seen most members of my family go through this kind of thought process. When we went through a family crisis almost two decades ago, I saw my parents spend years after that wondering what they could have done differently and if they could have prevented it. Every day was a variation of this theme. It is only in the last few years, after more than a decade of first blaming themselves and then grieving what was lost, has acceptance seeped in. Because you see, it is not about fault-finding. We each are doing the best we can, given the skillset we have at any given point in time. And who we are at that point in time is a function of innumerable factors – upbringing, cultural conditioning, world events and how they affected us or our caregivers, genetics, and so much more – almost none of which is in our control. So now, how do we go about undoing these subconscious patterns and tendencies that keep us from doing what really matters to us in life? ## Making the mindset shifts that matter 💡 **Dare to be bad. \~ Dean Wesley Smith** I first came across this phrase in Dean Wesley Smith's blog post, where he talks about how he and fellow author, Nina Kirki Hoffman, used this catchphrase to keep themselves motivated to write a story a week and mail them out to editors. [Dare To Be BadA Great Catch Phrase… Following is a post I wrote almost exactly ten years ago. Very little has remained the same in publishing in ten years, and especially through this pandemic, but I figured it would be a good time to bring this forward, touch it up a little bit. Many of you have heard…![](https://deanwesleysmith.com/favicon.ico)Dean Wesley Smithdwsmith![](https://deanwesleysmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/cropped-Melody-Ridge-cover-art_Philcold.jpg)](https://deanwesleysmith.com/dare-to-be-bad/) Although the article is written from a writer's point of view, it is equally applicable to almost anything we do in life where the only risk is that of failing, and if we look at it through the right lens, we'll come to see that even that is not a real risk at all. --- 💡 **Ask yourself, "What am I afraid of? How would I be if I did not have this fear? \~ Dr. Shefali** I've been a follower of [Dr. Shefali](https://www.drshefali.com)'s wisdom teachings ever since I learnt about her, which was around the time D was born. [If You Can’t Get Out Of Bed In The Morning, Watch ThisThere is a feeling we have in the pit of our stomach when we have to prepare for a day that we don’t want to face, a sense of dread. But just because we feel...![](https://www.youtube.com/s/desktop/a98f809d/img/favicon_144x144.png)YouTube![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XCDOdVs9INE/maxresdefault.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCDOdVs9INE) In this video, she gives us some useful tips to tackle the fears that keep us from getting out of bed in the morning. These are the very tips we can use to tackle the fears that keep us from getting to a task. One thing she tells us to ask ourselves is this: *What am I afraid of? How would I be if I did not have this fear?* She goes on to say, "Do we feel worthy? And if we don't, we need to work on our self-love. We need to begin to understand how our past childhood patterns have created within us a deep sense of shame, a deep sense of unworthiness. Because it is only when we break that pattern of believing we are unworthy or not deserving enough, only then will we be able to face our lives and go and face new adventures and new challenges." --- 💡 **Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance. \~ Steven Pressfield** I first came across the term 'Resistance' as applied to the artist's journey while reading the books and blog of [Steven Pressfield](https://stevenpressfield.com/home/). He talks of how this resistance is something we have to face everyday. In fact, the higher the stakes (for instance, the closer we are to finishing a project and putting it out for public consumption), the greater this resistance grows. Many mornings I find resistance sitting heavily like a solid block of stone on my chest, pinning me to the bed. I used to think this meant there was something wrong with me, because after all, shouldn't I love my work so much that I should just be able to spring out of bed every morning, roused with passion and excitement? > People ask me sometimes, “When in your day do you first feel Resistance?” > My answer: “*The instant I open my eyes.*” > *\~ Steven Pressfield, [Resistance Wakes Up With Me](https://stevenpressfield.com/2019/10/resistance-wakes-up-with-me/)* There are endless articles on Pressfield's website on the [topic](https://stevenpressfield.com/?s=resistance) of resistance, and each is worth a read. --- 💡 **If resistance shows up everyday, then we need to show up for our dreams too!** Much emphasis has been laid on cultivating a daily habit or disciplining ourselves into doing something repeatedly, day after day after day. The following visual by high-performance coach, [Sarah Arnold Hall](https://www.instagram.com/saraharnoldhall/), puts into perspective what it really means to show up every day. ![infographic depicting that showing up daily means having many days of sub-optimal productivity](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/2.-showing-up-daily.jpg) We're not going to be able to sprint towards our dreams exactly the same way at the same speed with the same optimum momentum every single day. Life is way too random for that. But we can show up and continue to make the best effort we can on any single day, day after day. And often what happens is that when we think we're unable to put in 30 minutes of work but decide to show up just for 5 minutes instead, the momentum of simply getting started is sometimes enough to carry us until 30 minutes or even for much longer! --- ## In parting ![cliff climbing on a rock face above a sea of clouds](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/2.-jef-willemyns-mluUYXoTotY-unsplash-1.jpg) Photo by [Jef Willemyns](https://unsplash.com/@jefwillemyns?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/mluUYXoTotY?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) As I was writing this article and delved deeper into understanding why we inadvertently sabotage ourselves, a few more thoughts/questions occurred to me, and these are what I will leave for you as a parting gift. I'd be deeply honoured if you decide to answer these for yourself and/or share your insights with me. - What if we're judging ourselves harshly to armour ourselves against others' judgements? - What if we're rejecting ourselves pre-emptively so that others' rejection of us won't sting? - What if we're choosing to dismiss our work as sloppy and never publish it so that others don't even get a chance to dismiss our work as sloppy, whatever the odds of that may be? > *What if we're refusing to shine our brightest selves so that no one else will ask us to dial down our true essence?* > *How much that would hurt! And how much harder would it then become to carry on shining!* ### tales for dreamers: locks for runaway signals URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-locks-for-runaway-signals/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:36:38.000Z For the longest time, the signal did not know it had to stay in one place. Sure enough, it was installed a little ways away from the station, and it was made to blink red and green as the stationmaster deemed fit, and it knew it had a very important role to perform. But because it was so tall, it could see all the way to the horizon, which meant it could see the trains coming from afar. So it didn’t see much point in staying put, waiting for the trains to come closer to the station before it blinked green or red, when it could just as easily have run down the route and guided the trains on to the right tracks. It was such an exciting thing to do that the other signals soon followed suit. And that is how trains making their way to the beachside ended up on mountaintops. And trains making their way to bustling cities found themselves depositing their passengers in rural countrysides. Naturally, most people grumbled. Some did think it was all in good fun though, brilliant indeed, to set out on a journey not quite knowing where you’d end up, for isn’t that what life is all about? But as these things go, the naysayers won, and the stationmaster decided the signals would have to be locked in place so that every journey would end at its predetermined destination, and no digressions would be tolerated. So now all the runaway signals have locks on them, and all they can do is blink green or red as the stationmaster deems fit. Occasionally, they take to breaking down in protest and this often messes up the trains’ schedules. Naturally, most people grumble, but they’d rather put up with a few hours’ delay to get to where they want to go than risk the disorienting adventure of being whisked away to unknown destinations. ### books you may love: Thirst No. 2 by Christopher Pike URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-no-2-by-christopher-pike/ Last updated: 2023-01-01T21:52:51.000Z Clearly, I haven't expressed all of my love for this series in my previous two posts on [Christopher Pike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher%5FPike%5F%28author%29)'s *[Thirst](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5941233-thirst-no-1)* series. [books you may love: Thirst series by Christopher Pike“Krishna means love,” she said. “But Radha means longing. Longing is older than love. I am older than he. Did you know that, Sita?” \~ Thirst series by Christopher Pike![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/12/11.-Thirst_mohamed-arif-LffaIMOyGo4-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/) [books you may love: more on Thirst series by Christopher Pike“O Divine Krishna, Thou reignest forever in each heart that hears Thy heavenly flute.” \~ words from ‘Whispers from Eternity’ by Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/12/12.-Thirst_saubhagya-gandharv-qtsoL-ywCUI-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-more-on-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/) But to be fair, I had written both the above posts after having read only *[Thirst No. 1](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5941233-thirst-no-1)*, which contains the first three books – *The Last Vampire*, *Black Blood*, and *Red Dice*. Then I picked up *[Thirst No. 2](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6424184-thirst-no-2)*, which contains three more books – *Phantom*, *Evil Thirst*, and *Creatures of Forever* – and it has changed my life and soul in unimaginable ways. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/11.-Thirst.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/14.-Thirst-No.-2.jpeg) Thirst No. 1 & Thirst No. 2 by Christopher Pike In each and every one of these stories, there is at least one scene depicting Sita's interaction with Krishna. I have loved every scene. Heck, I have loved every word that Pike has written in these stories. And then I read something that I didn't see coming at all. It drove me to tears, which drove me to write this post. Without giving away any of the plots, imagine if you will an alternate Universe in which Sita is not turned into a vampire one fateful night five thousand years ago. Here is what transpires in that alternate scenario. > One moonless night, when I am twenty years of age, I am awakened by a sound outside. Besides me sleeps my husband, Rama, and on my other side is our daughter, Lalita. I don't know why the sound wakes me. It was not loud. But it was peculiar, the sound of nails scraping over a blade. I get up and go outside of my house in the dark and look around. > For a long time I stand there, expecting to meet someone. > But there is no one there. > Finally I return to my bed and fall asleep. > The next morning I am playing with my Lalita by the river when a strange man comes by. He is tall and powerfully built. In his right hand he holds a lotus flower, in his left a golden flute. His legs are long and his every movement is bewitching. I cannot help but stare at him, and I am delighted when he comes and kneels beside me on the bank of the river. For some reason, I know he means me no harm. > "Hello," he says, staring at the water. "How are you?" > "I am fine." I pause. "Do I know you, sir?" > A faint smile touches his lips. "Yes. We have met before." > I hesitate. He does seem familiar but I cannot place him. > "I am sorry, I don't remember," I say. > He finally looks at me and his eyes are very blue. They remind me of the stars at night; they seem to sparkle with light from the heavens. "My name is Krishna," he says. > I bow my head. "I am Sita. This is my daughter, Lalita. Are you new to this area?" > He turns back to the water. "I have been here before." > "Is there anything I can do for you? Would you like some food?" > He glances at me, out of the corners of his eyes, and I feel a thrill in my heart. There is such love in his glance, I don't understand how it can be so. "I was wondering if I could do anything for you, Sita," he says. > "My Lord?" I ask, and I feel he is deserving of the title. > He shrugs faintly. "I merely came to see if you were happy. If you are, then I will be on my way." > I have to laugh. "My Lord, I am not long married. My husband is a wonderful man whom I love dearly and God has seen fit to grace us with a beautiful child. We are all healthy and have plenty to eat. I cannot imagine being any happier than I am right now." > He nods briefly and then stands. "Then I will say goodbye, Sita." > But I jump up. "You came all the way here just to see if I was happy?" > "Yes." His eyes are kind as he looks at me for the last time. "Your happiness is all that matters to me. Remember me, Sita." > Then he walks away and I never see him again. > But I never forget him. Krishna. > \~ An excerpt from *Creatures of Forever,* *[Thirst No. 2](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6424184-thirst-no-2)* by Christopher Pike I read these lines and I cried. I cried for a Krishna of my own. A divine being who'd come to check in on me and assure me that all they care about is my happiness. Contemporary wisdom would tell me if I wanted to find the divine, I'd have to look for it within myself. I'd have to become the divine myself, and forget about my happiness but go about being the divine person who cares about nothing else but the happiness of all the other people in their life. But I'm only human. There are days, many many days of despair and despondency, in which I wish to be looked after and cherished and loved, the way an infant is usually showered with love and attention, at least in the first few days or weeks or months or years after birth, depending on how lucky he/she is. Is that too much to ask for? A glimpse of my own personal Krishna? Even as I write these words, tears well into my eyes because I do have not one but two personal Krishnas in my home. KrA and D. Two beloved beings who understand that right now, my heart will bleed all evening if I didn't come here to type these words out pronto. Now I wipe my tears so I may see more clearly the blessings I already have in this precious life of mine. And even as I spend this New Year's Day evening with the two loves of my life, my heart will also beat for all that lies beyond this human realm. For now, I'll continue to seek that indescribable divinity in all the stories that have been told and in all the stories that are waiting to be told. To be able to write and share a story is a genuine gift, not one to be sullied with doubt and fear. Now, thanks to Pike and Sita, I'll always remember that in my own writing endeavours this year. ### tales for dreamers: on the apple route URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-on-the-apple-route/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:36:26.000Z The train used to run on the apple route every winter. (Why apples, you ask? Oh, that’s because apples store well in winter.) But no one knew what the ‘apple route’ really was, not even the driver. The rumour was that the caboose and the lone freight car carrying all those boxes of apples tended to take off by themselves in the middle of the night when no one was watching and distributed apples to those in need. Rumour further had it that they came back to the siding before the first light of dawn, nothing different about them, not their paint nor their locks, everything intact, but only the apples gone missing from the freight car somehow. But the driver insisted he had never seen a train run without an engine in his entire life, and he had worked for the railways ever since he turned fourteen, and that was well over half a century ago, so surely he had gained some knowledge in all those years about how these things worked, hadn’t he? Nevertheless, he once stayed up all night to see what exactly transpired when he was fast asleep. And that was the night the door of the caboose opened by itself, even though the driver had taken great care to lock it before retiring for the night. And that was the night he went to investigate, not knowing that once he stepped through the open doors of the caboose, he wouldn’t be able to step out again. No sightings of the runaway caboose and the freight car have since been reported. Nor has there been any mention of the old driver. Not much effort was expended in looking for them. Few remember the tale. Fewer remember it as it truly happened. The officials who presently work at the railway station dismissed the story as an old wives’ tale when we inquired. But the children who live by the railway tracks outside the edges of the city have a different story to tell. They speak of an old man who rides up in a caboose with a freight car coupled to it on the night before the new year. *Did you know a train could run without an engine?* they say. *All it needs is some magic.* And he gives them boxes of apples enough to fill up their entire homes, enough to feed their mamas and their papas and all their brothers and their sisters and their cousins and their aunts and their uncles and their grandmamas and their grandpapas and their friends all winter. *He looks like Santa Claus*, they say, *except Santa ought to have arrived the day before Christmas and this one was always a week late. But to wait for only a week was a small price to pay; better than going hungry all winter*, they say. We went back to the railway station but the folks who work there insisted all this was just make-believe, a tale concocted by the crazy people who live by the railways tracks outside the edges of the city. *Those people likely stole the apples from the orchards on the other side of the tracks*, the railway officials declared. *Too bad no evidence of wrongdoing was ever found*. When we went back to talk once more to the children who lived outside the edges of the city, who was there to greet us but the legends themselves?! The caboose and the freight car, and the old driver who looked like Santa Claus. And he asked us if we’d like to join him, ferry apples all winter to feed the poor who lived outside the edges of the busy world, and he threw open the doors of the caboose as an invitation. And we stepped through, knowing well that we wouldn’t be able to step out again. It was a small price to pay to work on the apple route all winter. ### December Dreams: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-december-dreams/ Last updated: 2023-12-25T20:36:07.000Z Hello Dreamers, It's Christmas Day today, and I wish everyone celebrating many moments of happiness. If you celebrated Hanukkah or the Winter Solstice, or if you'll embark on Kwanzaa celebrations tomorrow, or if you're soaking up the end-of-year festivities and fervour in your own style and tradition, my wish is for you to end the year with celebration as well as with clarity, with rest and rejuvenation, and with inspiration as much as with intention. --- I'm writing this right after having watched Argentina win the World Cup in a very exciting final game with France. It's been ages since I followed any sport religiously, barring the occasional NBA game, primarily to watch Steph Curry in action. ![soccer ball and golden trophy on grass](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/12/3.-FIFA_fauzan-saari-cjYQBSKDSII-unsplash.jpg) Photo by [Fauzan Saari](https://unsplash.com/@fznsr%5F?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/fifa?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) Basketball and table tennis were the games I learnt to play way back as an engineering undergrad student back in India; we're talking of an era more than two decades ago. ### *Remembering the bravado of my youth* Every December, a contingent of 100 or so players representing our institute, in the ratio of approximately 1 girl to every 10 boys in the group, used to travel to other campuses by rail, setting out on train journeys often lasting nearly as long as two days. Over a period of two weeks (if memory serves me right), we used to compete against other institutes in a vast number of sports: track and field events, basketball, badminton, table tennis, hockey, cricket, and I'm pretty certain I've missed out on several others. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/12/1.-2001.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/12/2.-2002.jpeg) L: That's me sitting in the front row, second from right; and R: I'm the one adorned with bandages on many visible parts of my body. These images are from 2001–2002, and their ancientness makes me gasp the way I used to every time I held a photo album of my parents or grandparents in my hands and flipped those pages, peering at snapshots from another lifetime. We lost way more often than we ever won in those tournaments, yet I have some very fond memories of those times. What I remember most is our indefatigable fighting spirit. Year after year, we showed up, buoyed and led by the unending enthusiasm of our captain, Kitty. > Past failures couldn't weigh us down. The disappointment of defeat was never crushing enough to keep us from trying again. And then I graduated and stepped into the real world. ### *What goes up, comes down* Over the past two decades — through love and heartbreaks and marriage, through jobs and relocations to different cities, countries, and continents, through unemployment and self-employment, through stay-at-home-parenting and moments of losing it and trying to keep it all together, over and over again, through lost opportunities and disappointing outcomes — it's easy to say that there has been a gradual erosion of confidence and optimism. Indeed, when I look back I find that the last time I was doing really well personally and professionally, emotionally and mentally, financially and experientially, was back in 2013—2014 in Singapore. (Or that's what my memory tells me! That's the belief I've been clinging to.) In the years that have followed, I've long lamented the decisions that we made, believing that if only we hadn't made the choices we did, life would have been way different and considerably easier now. I was chatting with a dear friend a few days ago and he pointed out to me that the reason I'm struggling right now is because I've been unable to face the short-term consequences of the long-term decisions I made a few years ago. His wise words were the impetus I needed, and eventually I arrived at the following conclusion. > Just because things seem difficult now doesn't mean we made the wrong choice back then! ### *Rock bottom makes for a solid foundation to build upon* The knowledge that things can go wrong tends to instil a lot of fear in the best of us. Some may be motivated by fear or pressure, but I was certainly among those who become immobilized by it. In my annual review of my author business, I wrote about how I ran out of funds earlier on in the year, and far from looking for new and innovative ways to monetize my books and writings, I froze and shut down. In that anxious state of mind, writing ceased to be a joy and I couldn't progress on several of my fiction works. [looking back and looking ahead in preparation for 2023My plan for 2023 is to develop a healthy mindset as an author-entrepreneur and build my writing and publishing business on this robust foundation.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/12/13.-planning-for-2023_bart-kerswell-6mQED3hSgyk-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/looking-back-and-looking-ahead-in-preparation-for-2023/) My main focus area for 2023 is to build a healthy mindset, and I'm quite excited to be taking several measures towards that and, of course, that includes writing about it! > It's all too easy to talk about setbacks and failures in hindsight from the vantage point of success, but how does one carry on without any guarantee of reward, some external validation of success, when the future is and will always remain uncertain? This is what I'll be exploring and sharing in the coming days, but even at the outset, the main answers I can come up with to this conundrum seem to be that - we can live with intention, - we can remember why we chose our path in the first place, - just because we love it doesn't mean it won't be hard on ~~some~~ many days, - just because things seem difficult now doesn't mean we made a wrong choice back then, - we often don't get the results we expect and that's perfectly OK, and - we are free to shift gears and pivot anytime! --- Of course, Rumi says it way more elegantly. #### THE LIGHT **by Rumi* When you put a cargo on board a ship, you make that venture on trust, For you do not know whether you will be drowned or safely reach the other shore. If you say, 'I will not embark till I am certain of my fate,' then you will do no trade: The secret of these two destinies is never disclosed. The faint-hearted merchant neither gains nor loses; nay he loses, For he is deprived of his fortune. Only those who are zealous in their search, who faithfully seek the flame, find the light. Since all affairs turn upon hope, surely faith is the worthiest object of hope, for thereby you win salvation. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### all in a year's work This tale has been among my favourites ever since I first penned it almost a decade ago! In March 2013, to be precise. I clearly remember the Sunday morning and afternoon I spent on this piece. I had just embarked on publishing short whimsical tales on an older blog, twice a week. That particular Sunday, I didn't have a tale ready, but once I started writing, the story took on a life of its own. The elation I felt when I finished and published the piece is clearly imprinted in my memory! I hope reading the tale gives you too as much delight. [tales for dreamers: all in a year’s workHave you ever wondered how the months came to have a rather unequal distribution of days?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2021/12/23.-all-in-a-years-work.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-all-in-a-years-work/) --- ## Books You May Love ### *Thirst No. 1* by Christopher Pike I've been raving about [Christopher Pike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher%5FPike%5F%28author%29)'s [*Thirst*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FLast%5FVampire) series over on the blog this past month ever since bringer-of-so-many-good-things-in-my-life, my dear friend Helen, introduced me to Pike's works. The fact that sometime in the 90s, this American author wrote so beautifully about Lord Krishna from the perspective of a 5,000-year-old vampire named Sita is proof enough that telling lies for fun and profit a.k.a writing fiction is a noble calling indeed! [books you may love: Thirst series by Christopher Pike“Krishna means love,” she said. “But Radha means longing. Longing is older than love. I am older than he. Did you know that, Sita?” \~ Thirst series by Christopher Pike![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/12/11.-Thirst_mohamed-arif-LffaIMOyGo4-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/) [books you may love: more on Thirst series by Christopher Pike“O Divine Krishna, Thou reignest forever in each heart that hears Thy heavenly flute.” \~ words from ‘Whispers from Eternity’ by Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/12/12.-Thirst_saubhagya-gandharv-qtsoL-ywCUI-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-more-on-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/) I've only just finished reading *Thirst No. 1*, which comprises the first three books, so I have several more books in the series to devour with great delight. --- It's time to bid adieu, dear reader, to you as well as to this wonderful, crazy, topsy-turvy kind of year. What I wish for you in 2023 is the courage and conviction to live a life of your own choosing, a life of your own making, a life that you can own and rejoice in, a life that you can proudly say is uniquely yours. See you in the new year! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: upholding the promise of excellent customer service URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-upholding-the-promise-of-excellent-customer-service/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T12:25:36.000Z I don’t exactly know what this place sells but customers are known to have lost themselves while shopping on these premises. You won’t believe it looking from the outside, but rumour has it that the place is simply too vast and that whatever is inside is so enchanting and fulfils your every need and desire so much that those who walk in can easily forget to come back out. Those who do come out of their own volition are often at a loss for words when you ask them to describe their experience. They resort to adjectives such as “stupendous” or “magnificent” or “incredible” but are unable to explain why or provide more concrete details. But they go about their daily lives with more joy and delight than ever before, so you reckon whatever had happened to them here must have done them a whole lot of good after all. As for those who do not come out on their own, there is no need for concern. The place is known for its excellent customer service, and that is not merely a rumour. Right in the back is a yawning entrance, where a robot with a peculiarly human face stands on guard. If someone you love is lost inside, you can reach out to the droid and he’ll quickly trace and pick up and return the lost customer to you. It won’t take him even five minutes. And if there is someone in your life you wish to be rid of, you can drop them off right at this door. They won’t need much convincing anyway to check this place out. And the robot will whisk them away into the depths of this venue, where they can stay lost for as long as you want. They will be well looked after. No questions asked. ### looking back and looking ahead in preparation for 2023 URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/looking-back-and-looking-ahead-in-preparation-for-2023/ Last updated: 2023-11-04T16:42:07.000Z It's half past two in the night/morning and a nasty cough has kept me from sleeping since shortly after midnight. I'd have normally lamented '*Woe is me*,' but the truth is those two hours of sleep I've enjoyed so far this night indicate an improvement in my health this week. What began as a simple viral infection blew up into an eye infection and a chest infection to boot. Although the cough lingers, I'm not wheezing and breathless like I was two days ago, so things are definitely on the upward trajectory. So what better use of my time at 2:30 a.m. than sitting here, thoughts in my head, fingers on the keyboard, and dreams and plans and ambitions swirling in my brain, the stillness of the night allowing immense possibilities to emerge, making way for ideas and potential that are sometimes lost in the din and hubbub of daytime? For the last few days, I've been taking stock of how my author-entrepreneur career/business has fared so far in 2022 and where I want to go with it in 2023\. I've certainly covered a new lot of ground in 2022\. - Started the *[Monthly Missives from the Dream Pedlar](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter/)* newsletter in April, and have been sending it out every month since. - Relaunched *[Tales for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/)* as a weekly paid subscription service and it's even got a number of paying subscribers who've shown faith in my work by signing up for yearly subscriptions. Thank you! - In addition to releasing two new books, *A Benevolent Goddess* and *Erased from Existence*, I participated in two promotional opportunities and learnt how to navigate the logistics of doing so. - Explored publication of *A Benevolent Goddess* as an AI-narrated [audiobook](https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details?id=AQAAAED8HWFdjM&hl=en%5FUS&gl=US) on Google Play. - Became more familiar and comfortable with my own writing process. Took Becca Syme's [Write Better-Faster 101](https://betterfasteracademy.com/wbf101/) course and made peace with the fact that discovery writing is what works best for me especially when it comes to long fiction, given that Strategic is one of my Top 5 Clifton Strengths, whereas when it comes to non-fiction (such as the newsletter and blog posts) or even short fiction (Tales for Dreamers), I usually have it all formed in my head and then it's a matter of putting words on screen, while meandering as the muse dictates, if that's what she wants. - I've also gotten better at cutting out distractions and getting to the manuscript more often and spending a chunk of uninterrupted time writing each day. - I set out on a social media experiment at the beginning of the year, posting short poems to Instagram and FaceBook everyday. That one ended up being a disaster, because I pretty much ended up spending the whole day repeatedly checking IG and FB to see how many likes or follows I was getting. I [ditched](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-social-media-experiment-four-weeks-in-i-quit-what-a-relief/) the project four weeks in and it turned out to be the right decision for me and my mental health. So all in all, when I look back at 2022, I feel good about how far I've come on the writing front. I'm no stranger now to trying out new things and testing and seeing what's working and what isn't. > The one main factor that derailed me for most of 2022 — it led me to burnout and killed all joy that I used to find in making up stories — was my **mindset**. ### Financial anxiety I made the mistake that causes most start-ups to shut down within the first year or two. I ran out of money. Sometime in 2021, I ditched my freelance editing work in order to focus solely on writing and publishing fiction. The editing work had begun to pay less than before, and it seemed a better proposition to invest my time building more writing and publishing assets. But as my savings dwindled, and my books were finding fewer and fewer readers, the ensuing anxiety paralyzed me and left me unable to write. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, caught in the throes of a panic attack, wondering if I should just call it quits and go back to looking for a job. It's fortunate that KrA has a reasonably good job and although our standard of living is nowhere near what members of a two-income household would enjoy, we've noticed that we can live satisfactorily within our means. But something about not being able to earn an income ate away at me a lot this year. I too wish to provide for my family in a material way, in a way that is essential and inevitable in this material world, and not being able to do so, especially in these very uncertain times, ratcheted up my anxiety multifold. I spent a considerable amount of time applying for jobs, but even while doing so, I was caught in the throes of confusion. While filling out a job application, a voice inside me would nag that I was giving up too soon and that I ought to give this writing journey more time. While writing a story, that same voice would tell me that it could take me years to earn a livelihood from writing, and it would pester me to spend that time applying for jobs instead. It was very discouraging to be caught between these two alternatives, not really knowing which way to go. A month or so ago, I threw in the towel and said to KrA that I don't wish to write again, not at least until I've got a steady paycheck and then I can tell my stories as a hobby writer. What's wrong with that? In one of her Quitcast [videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXHdAYJI97I&t=57s), Becca Syme lays it out like no one else does. > She says we all wish the publishing industry was run by Captain America, who'd reward you for your hard work and talent. But the truth is it is run by Loki, an embodiment of the whims and caprices of each and every one of the 8 billion people in this world. > Success is not guaranteed. It could take a very, very long time to come. And certainly, the market has grown far more saturated and mature these past few years, and the initial gold rush era is long over. > So to come in, expecting to be rewarded fairly and justly for hard work, talent, consistency, and persistence, is only going to set us up for disappointment. > Essentially, the 'do your work and the rewards will follow' attitude could completely backfire and that too, for no fault of ours. This was the message I needed to hear. Every time I sent out a job application, I felt as if I was letting my writer self down. But after listening to this video, a huge burden lifted from my chest. I was reminded of something Elizabeth Gilbert had said, either in one of her books or in her TED talk, about how she had promised her creativity that she'd never burden it with the responsibility of earning her a livelihood. On the contrary, she promised her creativity that she'd support it monetarily so that it could play freely without being stifled by any terms and conditions. I went back to the job board with greater determination than before — I'm still only eyeing freelance or part-time roles because I don't wish to sacrifice time with little D either. And because I had stopped pressuring my fiction writing, in the time I had between job applications I found myself going back to my manuscripts and playing there with much joy and delight. I haven't found a job yet, but one decision I have made is that I will be applying for and taking up a freelance/part-time writing/copyediting role. My plan of action is to compose and send out two job applications every weekend, while I spend the weekdays continuing to focus on writing and spending time with D and KrA. This way, since I now have dedicated times to write and to apply for jobs, I know I won't be spending my writing sessions fretting about the lack of income, knowing that I am taking the steps to get an income. ### Being a multi-passionate creator Back in the day when I was an aspiring writer, I used to think that if only I didn't have a job and had all the time in the world, I'd spend my entire day writing fiction. But over the years I've come to realize that I like writing fiction as well as other works like this blog post, like the newsletter. I love writing about the incredible books I read, not reviews in terms of analyzing their plot and structure and characters but as paeans of praise to the authors who weave beautiful words and stories into something ethereal, something otherworldly altogether. One of the happiest times I remember was when I worked as a journalist based in Singapore, covering the Indian steel and iron ore markets. For the first time, my life trajectory made sense to me. Given my degree in engineering coupled with my passion for writing, I saw and loved the beauty in both steel and storytelling. It was during that time, back in 2011, that I wrote the [first post](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-hello-dreamer/) under the moniker *The Dream Pedlar* and started writing many short tales on the blog. I remember one particular Sunday; I spent the whole day writing a [tale](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-all-in-a-years-work/), and it was such a delightful endeavour. But when other weekends rolled along, I only wanted to travel, see the world outside, looking as I was back then for something on the outside that would plug the hole in my heart. My stories did that for me, I'm sure, but I was also the kind of person back then who wanted to stay in the seeking mode. I didn't really want that hole to be plugged because if it was, I'd no longer be a seeker-of-heart-hole-pluggers, and then who would I be? And so I only ended up making more holes in my heart, by ditching my biweekly tales even though the audience loved them. I self-sabotaged to ensure that I'd have a lifetime supply of holes in my heart, enough to keep me busy, seeking and plugging, seeking and plugging, an endless task that will never be crossed off the checklist as *'done'*. Anyway, I digress. What I want to say is that I've come to realize that I love writing both from analytical and creative angles. I don't have to choose one at the expense of the other. I can juggle both, and in fact, working on one seems to boost my output in the other. Now, the dilemma. ### Skillset gap Other than the freelance academic copyediting work I undertook during 2017—2020 and a summer internship at a pharma company in the summer of 2015, the last I had held a job was in 2014\. Eight years ago. Much has changed since then. Although I primarily wrote for the digital medium, the jobs that I see these days call for digital content marketing using SEO techniques. Although I have a passing knowledge of SEO, I'd certainly not call myself skilled in it. I started to look up courses and trainings on SEO and — I think this is where the problem lies — everytime I come across attempts to slot this giant randomness of the Universe (or the Internet) into some sort of pattern or formula, I resist. I'm sure there must be some credibility to it because digital marketers do use these techniques to boost their website rankings and visibility. Yet, it feels like more people trying to do the same things and I don't have first-hand evidence on how well it works. This is akin to the countless courses on writing that have flooded the market. So many story outlines, so many types of plot outlines. From what I've seen, there's no guarantee that if you were to follow a particular outline, your story would amass a fan following. But isn't it true that reading a story is a subjective experience? A tale that I may love could very well fall flat for you. It has happened so often that a story I thought sucked ended up being much loved by readers. Who's to say which one will click and which one won't? Heck, sometimes it takes me months to feel interested in a book, but the instant I pick it up, I end up tearing through it. There are so many factors that influence the writer and each reader at any given point in time. So a lot of these questions crop up in my head, and I don't have much clarity. But I find that I've grappled with these very questions for much of 2022, and I don't have any answers. And I'm done lingering in this colosseum of confusion. I've spent most of 2022 doing exactly that but sitting on the fence is rarely a good strategy. ### Creating a job that doesn't exist I was searching for my resume in my gmail account when among the search results was an article from creative coach, author and poet, [Mark McGuinness](https://lateralaction.com). The email was titled *Lesson #9 Do You Really Need a Resume?* It is part of his 21st Century Creative Foundation course, which is free and full of insights! In that lesson, Mark uses various examples to show how our work can (and really ought to) speak for ourselves, whereas resumes just become reasons for organizations to point out what's missing in terms of standard qualifications and experiences and reject applicants. That lesson included several examples of **creatives who've gone on to do the work without waiting for a job offer to start doing it**. > When I re-read that lesson, I looked at all the jobs I was applying to and asked myself: Would I do that job by myself even if no one paid me to do it? And the answer was a clear resounding No. I write novels and short stories without any promise of monetary reward. But I don't think I wish to write articles on technology or the financial markets unless I were doing it for the money. And we know how sustainable that kind of attitude is. > So this made me wonder then, what would I do as a passion project that I could possibly execute for an external organization but that would also be something I'd be motivated enough to do by myself even if no one hired me to do it, if only to learn something new, to build a portfolio of work? > The answer was simple: *building a healthy mindset as an author-entrepreneur*. I love growth. I love growing as a human being. A year ago, I realized that my journey as an author-entrepreneur was as much about me growing into the best version of myself as it was about me writing and publishing and selling books. It is all a [homecoming](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-one-year-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/). How I rise to every challenge I face. Whether and how I dare to persevere despite setbacks. Do I allow crises and failures to make me bitter? Or can I look at them as learning experiences? As mindset was the main factor that kept derailing me from my writing and publishing projects for most of 2022, I had already decided that **developing a healthy mindset has to be my main focus going into 2023\. That has to be the foundation of everything I do.** When I am in the right frame of mind, life feels easy and delightful. No goal seems impossible to attain. And I feel OK with what is. I love working towards my goals but my joy comes from the work, not from any anticipated result. But when I am in the doldrums, I can only see my life and the world through a very negative lens, one that I find myself unable to take off! And this fear and anxiety, this hopelessness and despair seeps into everything – work, family, relationships. Everything starts to look sucky and ugly, and it's really a terrible state to be in. And this is so important to me that it's a no-brainer that I wish to delve deep into this and share my journey with everyone. ### Word of Wisdom for the Week Change begins with intention. If I want to build a healthy mindset, I'll have to work on it. > I can read all the self-help books on earth and while they do provide a new perspective, a temporary jolt of enlightenment, real change happens in the moments when I'm not holding a book in my hand but when I'm in the thick of a situation that's calling me to be kind and compassionate and empathetic, not stark-raving mad and willing the situation or the people or this very life to go away so I won't have to face it. It occurred to me that every Sunday evening, I could set an intention for the week ahead. A word of wisdom. A theme. An inspirational thought. Something to guide my week, so that when I find myself falling off the wagon during the week, this word or concept or theme could be something I can use to bring myself back to what matters, to give myself that staying power, to remind myself of the reasons I love being on this path even if I have temporarily forgotten them. So this is what I intend to do. Set an intention for the week and post a short blog about it on the site on Sunday evenings. I'm also thinking of doing a mid-week check-in on Wednesdays, because it seems to take so little these days for us to fall off the wagon. And, the clincher is this. I will learn and adopt SEO best practices to write and promote my works, and this exercise will prove to me that I can do so without compromising on my creativity. This will help me accomplish a number of things: build a digital content portfolio, filled with writings on a theme that is close to my heart, that will help me grow and share my learnings with you to inspire you on your journey too. For now, I'll post these on the site. Once I establish a weekly routine, I'll open it up to subscribers. This will remain free. Because I know just as you'll find hope and inspiration from my words, I too will find courage and power knowing that you are along for the ride. > So this is my plan for 2023: *to develop a healthy mindset as an author-entrepreneur and build my writing and publishing business on the robust foundation of confidence in my life force and abilities, and faith in the mysterious ways of the Universe.* I don't intend to wait until 1 January to embark on this. I'll put up the first **Word of Wisdom for the Week\*** this coming Sunday. Reckon I'll have to come up with a shorter, punchier title before Sunday. Any suggestions? Please let me know using the comment form below this post, and you will have my endless gratitude. I'm so excited to embark on this and see how this unfurls. At the very least, it will instill in me the habit of approaching each week with intention. I've been letting stray winds toss me about for far too long, and it feels very empowering to know that if nothing else, I can still control the way I respond to life. With kindness. Respect. Courage. Reverence. And faithful surrender. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Bart Kerswell](https://unsplash.com/ja/@bartkerswell?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/cliff-diving?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* *\*Edited to add: Ever since I wrote this down, more and more ideas have been coming to me on this front, and so I've decided to not make an immediate start but I'm laying the groundwork for something new to begin in mid-to-late January. Stay tuned!* *\*Edited to add on 1 January 2023: Now that I've had more time to mull over this, I've realized that this is yet another ploy I've come up with to distract myself from writing fiction. My stories and novels are my greatest priority. I will continue to write about things that move me in this creative journey, as I've always done, perhaps 1–2 posts a month at most, if at all, but now I don't intend to turn this into a weekly or fortnightly or any such periodic endeavour. Anything that takes away my time and effort from writing fiction has no place in 2023 for me.* *\*Edited to add on 10 January 2023: I just wrote and published a post on procrastination and the fears that keep us from showing up to do our most important work. I think I will publish one such post a month, typically around mid-month, as I write a pretty thought-provoking and insightful newsletter around similar themes pertaining to creativity on the last Sunday of every month. I'll tag these posts as 'The Creative Life' to specify that these pertain to explorations on how I can develop a healthy mindset around my creative work this year. That is my one and only priority this year. Come take a look at the first post.* [pondering the mystery of time: why tasks take longer than they need toWhat if the single most important thing that keeps us from getting to our most important tasks is nothing and no one else ... but ourselves?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2023/01/2.-fabrizio-conti-EJQlF0GIvq8-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/pondering-the-mystery-of-time-why-tasks-take-longer-than-they-need-to/) ### books you may love: more on Thirst series by Christopher Pike URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-more-on-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/ Last updated: 2023-03-26T01:03:58.000Z I [gushed about](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/) Christopher Pike's Thirst series a few days ago. I've just finished reading the third tale in the Thirst No. 1 volume, and my head is spinning with how Pike has carried Sita's story beyond the first book. There are so many things I love about these books. Sita is a very powerful character, a woman (albeit a 5,000-year-old vampire) making her way all by herself in the world. There's truly something to be said about strong female characters. It's inspiring, empowering, emboldening even to read tales of strong women displaying endless courage and carrying out heroic deeds. But more than anything else, I am absolutely in love with Pike's portrayal of Krishna through the eyes of Sita. She is devoted to the God, and every interaction between Krishna and Sita is portrayed with a sensitivity and a deep and rich understanding of Hindu philosophy that may very likely be beyond the grasp of many present-day Hindus. It amazes me that an author based in the US in the 90s achieved this feat, and Pike has my endless loyalty to his writings as a result of this. In *Red Dice*, the third story in *Thirst No. 1*, Sita dreams of a conversation with Krishna when she feels lost about how to proceed with the real-world mess she has gotten entangled in. (This story has a top-secret government organization conducting experiments on vampires, and that's all I'll say about the plot itself. It's too rich and enjoyable to be revealed.) The lines below are from the dream. > He stands beside me on the wide plain, his gold flute in his right hand, a red lotus flower in his left. We both have on long blue gowns. He wears an exquisite jewel around his neck—the Kaustubha gem, in which the destiny of every soul can be seen. He stares up at the sky, waiting for me to speak. But I can not remember what we were discussing. > "My Lord," I whisper. "I feel lost." > His eyes remain fixed on the stars. "You feel separate from me." > "Yes. I don't want to leave you. I don't want to go to earth." > "No. You misunderstand. You are not lost. The entire creation belongs to me—it is a part of me. How can you be lost? Your feeling of separation gives rise to your confusion." These lines made me very emotional. The concepts of *separation*, *duality*, *oneness with the Universe*, are as old as the stars yet I came across them only a few years ago after becoming a mother. So it seemed miraculous to me that Pike understood the very essence of Hindu philosophy and portrayed it so beautifully, so authentically in these lines. I was raving to KrA about these lines in the book and my amazement that despite growing up in a very Hindu, a very God-fearing household, I never learnt the concepts of separation and duality all those years. KrA, benevolent as always, suggested that maybe we learn these lessons only as grow older and mature in life. And perhaps he is right. But I'm not entirely wrong either, because one of the biggest and longest internal turmoil I went through took place when D was around two years old. I had turned atheist by then, and I refused to put up the many idols and pictures of various deities that were packed in boxes and lying in the basement. We had packed them and kept them in storage before we left for Australia in fall 2015, and although we returned to Canada in early 2017, I brought the idols out of their boxes only in 2019 or 2020\. I don't remember exactly when, but I do remember feeling a little scared that leaving my childhood Gods uncared for might spell disaster for me. During my period of confusion about faith, I wondered about faith and what it really meant to have faith. Why do we keep praying to God for good health and wealth, for success and prosperity, even though we know and we see over and over again that life moves in its own mysterious fashion? In those times, the Serenity prayer was one I could relate to. *God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.* This made more sense, because it allowed for the fact that we don't necessarily get what we ask for. And because those early years of parenting were so especially hard, it took me a long time to accept that life will not bow to my will just because I want it to be that way, and that it has to be me to stop resisting and accept what is, to let go of all my fancy notions of how things ought to be and surrender to what is. It wasn't until October of this year, in preparation for Diwali, that something shifted and I cleaned the idols and decorated them with flowers and lit lamps with much love and enjoyment. I found a print of Krishna playing his flute all rolled up, and I taped it to the wall. Below the picture of the blue God are two lines excerpted from a book titled *Whispers from Eternity* by Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda. > O Divine Krishna, Thou reignest forever in each heart that hears Thy heavenly flute. I love these words. There's such a mesmerizing beauty in them that sometimes I just read them out aloud to remind myself that I can believe in Krishna simply because doing so makes my heart sing. And a 5,000-year-old fictional vampire named Sita came into my life and showed me how beautiful it actually is to feel such devotion, to have such faith in the force and spirit of life that is Krishna. > "What did I do on earth, my Lord?" > "You wanted to be different—you were different. It doesn't matter. This creation is a stage, and we all play roles as heroes and villains alike. It is all *maya*—illusion." > "But did I—sin?" > My question amuses him. "It is not possible." > I glance towards the waiting vessel. It is almost full. "Then I don't have to leave you?" > He laughs. "Sita. You have not heard me. You cannot leave me. I am always with you, even when you think you are on earth." > \~ An excerpt from *Red Dice*, *Thirst No. 1*, by Christopher Pike *Feature Image Attribution: Photo by [Saubhagya gandharv](https://unsplash.com/@saubhagya2304?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: a place for darkness to hide URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-place-for-darkness-to-hide/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:32:54.000Z There’s too much light everywhere these days. Even though the days have shrunk and the sun can barely lift itself up from the horizon. And on the rare occasion it manages to, it is content to remain hidden behind a sky that seems to have turned permanently grey. And so even though the days are grey and the nights are long, there is no dearth of light. Streetlights stand tall and proud like the sun, casting bright pools of light on the roads below. Headlights and taillights adorn every moving vehicle like sparkly jewels. Shopfronts scream out their names in psychedelic neon lights, even if they are closed for the night. Windows spill warm light out of homes, displaying the lives of the people who live there. Sometimes, a television flickers in the dark or a night lamp remains aglow and keeps the darkness at bay when everybody is fast asleep. Out there in the distant fields where there are no streetlights or vehicles to pierce the night, no neighbour for miles around you, the stars shine with a little extra gleam. And the silvery light of the moon drenches even the darkest of shadows. In the depths of the ocean that no light can breach, even jellyfish and corals know how to brighten their surroundings. In such a world where there is no place for it to rest in peace, what else can darkness do but come and seek refuge inside of you? ### books you may love: Thirst series by Christopher Pike URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-thirst-series-by-christopher-pike/ Last updated: 2023-03-26T01:04:04.000Z Several weeks ago, my very dear friend and bringer-of-good-things-and-joy-in-my-life, Helen, asked me if I had read any books by the author [Christopher Pike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher%5FPike%5F%28author%29). I immediately looked up Pike on Google and saw that he was the author of *[The Midnight Club](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/84075.The%5FMidnight%5FClub)*, which is a young adult supernatural horror series currently streaming on Netflix. A bunch of terminally ill young adults live in a hospice and they meet up at midnight to tell each other scary tales. I had watched two episodes, and I consider that a great achievement on my part, so easily spooked I am. But I was too scared to watch further although I had enjoyed what I watched. Helen referred me to another series of YA books by Pike, initially released as *The Last Vampire*, later rebranded as *[Thirst](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5941233-thirst-no-1)*. It is about a 5,000-year-old vampire named Sita, she said, which immediately intrigued me. And when my dear friend said that the series "planted in her a lifelong curiosity and passion for all things Indian," I had to read it. She did warn me though that it was written by a white guy in the 1990s although she found that he wove the gods and myths in the story with much love. After hearing that, the first book that came to my mind was *[Boy Swallows Universe](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37558445-boy-swallows-universe)* by Australian writer, Trent Dalton. While I loved that book, and I read it a really long time ago, I remember the one little annoyance that stuck out like a sore thumb for me was the feeling of not being very satisfied with the reference to Krishna and his story of swallowing the Universe. Maybe I missed the point but for a book that was titled after that story of Krishna, I couldn't quite understand the relevance of it although critics and reviewers have lauded the tale and the reference to the blue Hindu God. *[Hinduism goes mainstream](https://caldronpool.com/boy-swallows-universe-hinduism-goes-mainstream/)*, reads one such glowing review. But I found that the reference to Krishna's story itself only got a brief mention, which the book could have done without and still remained a fantastic tale. Nevertheless, I picked up *Thirst* with an open mind and with great faith in Helen's recommendation, and I completely, madly, utterly, absolutely, irreversibly, unequivocally fell in love with it. ![Front paperback cover of Thirst No. 1 by Christopher Pike](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/12/11.-Thirst.jpeg) Thirst No. 1 by Christopher Pike A little context first. Growing up, between the two most important epics of Hinduism, I much preferred [*Mahabharata*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata) to [*Ramayana*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana) and I never quite took to the character of Sita in the latter. She came across to me as a very passive character; this may partly be due to the fact that much of my knowledge of these two epics came from TV and Ramayana was certainly telecast as a very slow-moving series that my 8- or 10-year-old self didn't have much patience to sit through. But in *Thirst*, Sita is this old soul, but also a young blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman, who has lived as a vampire for more than 5,000 years with superhuman strength and the looks of a gorgeous teenager. In the first book in the series, titled *The Last Vampire*, Sita's creator Yaksha is seeking her out to kill her. Alongside the unfolding of the plot in the present day, we learn about how Sita became a vampire and her breed's encounter with Krishna. Yes, the very Krishna, the Lord of the Universe. Reading *The Last Vampire* made me fall in love with Hindu philosophy and gods in a way that growing up in India in a Hindu family couldn't. Somehow, Pike has reached out and touched the essence of who Krishna is, what his divinity means, and he portrays these with heartbreaking tenderness from the point of view of Sita. For instance, the lines below are Sita's remembrance of the first time she encountered Krishna. Sita and Yaksha have captured Radha, and are waiting for Krishna to come and engage in a duel. --- > We were all waiting. In that moment, even though I was not yet seventy years old, I felt as if I had waited since the dawn of creation to see this person. I who held captive his great jewel. > Krishna came out of the forest. > He was not a blue person as he was later to be depicted in paintings. Artists were to show him that way only because blue was symbolic of the sky, which to them seemed to stretch to infinity, and which was what Krishna was supposed to be in essence, the eternal infinite Brahman, above and beyond which there was nothing greater. He was a man such as all men I had seen, with two arms and two legs, one head above his shoulders, his skin the colour of tea with milk in it, not as dark as most in India but not as light as my own. Yet there was no one like him. Even a glance showed me that he was special in a way I knew I would never fully comprehend. He walked out of the trees and all eyes followed him. > He was tall, almost as tall as Yaksha, which was unusual for those days when people seldom grew to over six feet. His black hair was long—one of his many names was *Keshava*, master of the senses, or long-haired. In his right hand he held a lotus flower, in his left his fabled flute. He was powerfully built; his legs long, his every movement bewitching. He seemed not to look at anyone directly, but only to give sidelong glances. Yet these were enough to send a thrill through the crowd, on both sides. He was impossible not to stare at, though I tried hard to turn away. For I felt as if he were placing a spell over me that I would never recover from. Yet I did manage to turn aside for an instant. It was when I felt the touch of a hand on my brow. It was Radha, my supposed enemy, comforting me with her touch. > "Krishna means love," she said. "But Radha means longing. Longing is older than love. I am older than he. Did you know that, Sita?" --- > Krishna did not look directly at Radha or me. Yet he was close enough so that I could hear him speak. His voice was mesmerizing. It was not so much the sound of his words, but the place from which they sprang. Their authority and power. And, yes, love, I could hear love even as he spoke to his enemy. There was such peace in his tone. With all that was happening, he was not disturbed. I had the feeling that for him it was merely a play. That we were all just actors in a drama he was directing. But I was not enjoying the part I had been selected for. I did not see how Yaksha could beat Krishna. I felt sure that this day would be our last. --- And these lines below are on the duel between Yaksha and Krishna. I read these passages over and over again, amazed at the beauty in these lines, my heart singing at the essence of Krishna that Pike has so beautifully captured, my soul filled with a longing, a longing for Krishna, a longing for a world in which Krishna can come and pull out his flute and start playing his notes and simply make all the chaos settle down. I tried to choose only a few lines to share here, but I couldn't bring myself to chop up the paragraphs. > Finally, close to dark, Yaksha and Krishna climbed into the pit. Each carried a flute, nothing more. The people on both sides watched, but from a distance as Krishna had wanted. Only Radha and I stood close to the pit. There had to be a hundred snakes in that huge hole. They bit each other and more than a few were already being eaten. > Yaksha and Krishna sat at opposite ends of the pit, each with his back to the wall of earth. They began to play immediately. They had to; the snakes moved for each of them right away. But with the sound of the music, both melodies, the snakes backed off and appeared uncertain. > Now, Yaksha could play wonderfully, although his songs were always laced with sorrow and pain. His music was hypnotic; he could draw victims to feed on simply with his flute. But I realized instantly that his playing, for all its power, was a mere shadow next to Krishna's music. For Krishna played the song of life itself. Each note on his flute was like a different center in the human body. His breath through the notes on the flute was like the universal breath through the bodies of all people. He would play the third note on his flute and the third center in my body, at the navel, would vibrate with different emotions. The navel is the seat of jealousy and attachment, and of joy and generosity. I felt these as he played. When Krishna would blow through this hole with a heavy breath, I would feel as if everything that I had ever called mine had been stripped from me. But when he would change his breath, let the notes go long and light, then I would smile and want to give something to those around me. Such was his mastery. > His playing had the snakes completely bewildered. None would attack him. Yet Yaksha was able to keep the snakes at bay with his music as well, although he was not able to send them after his foe. So the contenst went on for a long time without either side hurting the other. Yet it was clear to me Krishna was in command, as he was in control of my emotions. He moved to the fifth note on the flute, which stirred the fifth center in my body, at the throat. In that spot there are two emotions: sorrow and gratitude. Both emotions bring tears, one bitter, the other sweet. When Krishna lowered his breath, I felt like weeping. When he sang higher I also felt choked, but with thanks. Yet I did not know what I was thankful for. Not the outcome of the contest, surely. I knew then that Yaksha would certainly lose, and that the result could be nothing other than our extinction. > Even as the recognition of our impending doom crossed my mind, Krishna began to play the fourth note. This affected my heart; it affected the hearts of all gathered. In the heart are three emotions—I felt them then: love, fear, and hatred. I could see that an individual could only have one of the three at a time. When you were in love you knew no fear or hatred. When you were fearful, there was no possibility of love or hate. And when there was hate, there was only hate. > Krishna played the fourth note softly initially, so that a feeling of warmth swept both sides. This he did for a long time, and it seemed as if vampires and mortals alike stared across the clearing at one another and wondered why they were enemies. Such was the power of that one note, perfectly pitched. > Yet Krishna now pushed his play towards its climax. He lowered his breath, and the love in the gathering turned to hate. A restlessness went through the crowd, and individuals on both sides shifted this way and that as if preparing to attack. Then Krishna played the fourth note in a different way, and the hate changed to fear. And finally this emotion pierced Yaksha, who had so far remained unmoved by Krishna's flute. I saw him tremble—the worst thing he could do before a swarm of snakes. Because a serpent only strikes where there is fear. --- And then there is that part in which we see the Krishna as Sita knew him and the Krishna that the rest of the world, especially 1990s America knows. Below are the lines in which Sita talks about Krishna to a character named Ray Riley. > "You remind me of someone." > "Who?" > "My husband, Rama. The night I was made a vampire, I was forced to leave him. I never saw him again." > "Five thousand years ago?" > "Yes. I knew Krishna." > "Hare Krishna?" > The moment is so serious, but I have to laugh. "He was not the way you think from what you see these days. Krishna was—there are no words for him. He was everything. It is he who has protected me all these years." --- There's a universality in all this that brings together an author's words, a friend's love, and my heart's longing for something undefinable, something made so conspicuous by its absence that I've spent a lifetime looking for it. Sometimes I find it in the writing of words and feelings, in between the pages of a beautifully written book such as the one above, in the moments spent in the presence of a friend, in the complete abandon I witness in my child's play, in the notes of melodious music, in the strokes and colours of a bewitching painting. But even those are fleeting; it is as if they light a spark but not strong enough for it to become a raging fire and consume me. The little flame is very easily doused the instant I come back to the real world. Which begets the question: what is real, and what is the illusion? I reckon if I'm looking for something eternal, something more lasting, I'll just have to call this unnameable feeling Krishna and leave it at his feet. All the cleverness and intelligence in this world are inadequate to answer these questions and the only choice we are truly left with it is to stop asking them in the first place, stop demanding to be convinced and take a leap of faith instead. Go ahead and give *[Thirst](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5941233-thirst-no-1)* a read, and we'll spend several evenings and twilights together, silently consumed by its beauty. *Feature Image Attribution: Photo by [Mohamed Arif](https://unsplash.com/@arifphotography?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/peacock-feather?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: cupcakes caught in the throes of an existential crisis URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-cupcakes-caught-in-the-throes-of-an-existential-crisis/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:33:53.000Z If you ask them, the cupcakes will tell you they don’t know where they came from. They don’t know who brought them here. Nor what the occasion is. This is the first time they’ve been let out of the box since they were born. But surely there are too many of them to count; they look around at each other and nod their heads in agreement. *Will there be enough?* one asks. *Enough cupcakes to go around?* I ask. *No, enough people to feast on us,* that one says. *Of course. Cupcakes are the reason most people turn up to parties and celebrations anyway*, I assure them. Turns out that answer isn’t satisfactory, and the cupcakes begin murmuring amongst themselves in voices too soft and low to be able to discern the words but loud enough to hint at their dissent. Finally, the one that spoke earlier pipes up. *Not all of us want to be eaten.* That was unexpected. *But that’s what you’re meant for. To be savoured and enjoyed.* The murmurs of dissent rise again. *But we look pretty too,* the spokes-cupcake says. I have to agree. *Why, yes. You do make for some very pretty decoration.* This elicits whoops of delight. *Here’s what we’ll do then. Those of us who don’t want to be eaten will shape-shift into sunflowers instead. Go grab a few vases.* Before I can say anything in response, there is a progressive explosion of sunflowers on the table. I can only hope that my guests don’t intend to turn up only for the cupcakes. Surely, there must be other reasons to attend a party. ### November Novelties: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-november-novelties/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T22:53:37.000Z Hello, Dreamers! November is unconditionally my favourite month of the year. It's my birth month, and my mum's too. November is also the month in which I came up with the moniker '*The Dream Pedlar*' more than a decade ago. And today, this very last Sunday of the month, happens to be the birthday of a dear friend of mine from undergrad days. Happy birthday, Kitty! 🥳 🎉 I wrote a silly poem to mark my turning 42 last Sunday; it's a nod to Douglas Adams' *tHGttG*, in which the supercomputer Deep Thought declares 42 as the answer to the *Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.* #### YOU TURN 42 ONLY ONCE IN A LIFETIME It is my birthday today, woo-hoo! For now I'm all of forty-two, and if what Douglas Adams said is true, I now should have all the answers to every question ever asked of me and you, every **how* and **why*, every **what* and **when* and **who*, but as it turns out, here I am again, pondering, wondering, going a little insane, with no questions left, getting a bit bird-brained, there's something amiss, a lack of restraint? Perhaps it is my brevity I seem to have lost in the bargain. Birthdays aside, the first snow typically falls at around this time of the year, bringing a firm and final end to autumn and ushering us irreversibly into winter. November has also been a very writer-ly month for me. After months of planning and preparation, I finally launched [*Tales for Dreamers*](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/), bringing back to readers those delightful short tales of whimsy and wonder. There's a free 4-week trial; go ahead and give it a try. It's quite something to receive a bundle of whimsy in your inbox at the same hour every week, so I've learnt from both experience and through the grapevine. My local library, the Burlington Public Library, had a literary festival going on throughout the month, and I had the opportunity to attend several talks, workshops, and panel discussions, and meet fellow authors, and independent booksellers and publishers, all the various members who constitute the publishing industry. All this makes me feel quite grown-up as an author, because until now this journey has felt more like a floundering about in an endless ocean than as an intentional movement towards a particular destination. For reasons that I can't quite remember now, November has become the month for me to take annual stock of my journey as an author-entrepreneur, to look back and reflect and then plan for the year ahead. [lessons learnt from two years of being an author-entrepreneurThe journey changes with time. And it changes us too.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/11/10.-lessons-learnt_two-years_sanjay-hona-2Q2dpVPY6XU-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-two-years-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/) When I sat down to write my annual 'lessons learnt' post, I couldn't help but reflect on how different this year had been compared to the one that preceded it. At the outset, shortly after I published my first full-length novel, [*Dying Wishes*](https://books2read.com/dyingwishes/), I was riding high on the promise of a fantasy, romanticising any hurdles I'd face on the journey. My eyes were on the big prize at the end, and I completely lost sight of the day-to-day. No wonder then that the following year, I struggled with every hurdle that tends to crop up because of the vast chasm that separates reality from fantasy. My day-to-day reality felt so bleak that I completely lost all hope of ever reaching the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and this, in turn, saw me turning away from my manuscripts more often than working on them. > It has been a very sobering experience, this plunge from the dizzying euphoria of embarking on something new straight down to the nadir of rejections and the lack of any kind of success or progress. > When the newness of a project loses its sheen, we somehow start to notice in great detail the cracks and crevices that had always been there but we had chosen to look away from initially, falsely believing that if we don't see them, they'd disappear of their own accord, that somehow all that euphoria and passion will carry us through and over the rough patches. > Doesn't ever happen that way, I've learnt now. Going through this roller-coaster of an emotional journey feels like a rite of passage somehow. No amount of reading about or listening to other's journeys can prepare us for the mental and emotional toll it takes on us. But right after this see-saw that has lasted two long years, I seem to have settled into some kind of a plateau, with a nice balance between the rigors of daily practice and the optimism that the vision of long-term success fills me up with. A balance between dreams and endeavour, between fantasy and reality. The penny dropped for me in this context several times this month. I'll share two instances here. One, you'll find in the *Books You May Love* section towards the end of the newsletter. The other came from a talk that career-author Dean Wesley Smith gave on writing and long-term productivity at a conference earlier this month. I don't remember the exact words but the gist of what DWS said was this: when we write (or undertake any endeavour for that matter), the process entails telling a story word after word, sentence after sentence. That's all there is to it. But when we stop in that endeavour and start to think about what will happen next in the story, how the story will end, what genre it'd need to be marketed under, how readers will receive the tale, will they like it or not – we've essentially pulled ourselves out of the 'process focus' and propelled ourselves into what he calls 'product focus'. And that kills our process then and there. I've fallen prey to this kind of thinking – worrying about how the story will be received when I'm in the midst of writing it – way too often this past year than I'd like to admit. Ever since DWS spelt it out the way he did in terms of the writing process, his words have managed to draw me back whenever I tended to go astray. This is precisely what the Bhagwad Gita also says about how we ought to work for its own sake (process focus) and not lay claim to the rewards (product focus) of our labour. And this is the state of mind I hope to be in as I move through the days ahead of me. Writing, for the simple joy of telling a story. But also marketing and promoting my books and stories, driven by the desire and hope that my works will reach and touch and inspire many more readers in due course of time. Doing both, but one at a time. More importantly, I'm no longer afraid of tackling difficult challenges or making mistakes or having projects blow up in my face for no fault of mine. It is all part of the endeavour. Isn't it amazing how the Universe suddenly dropped all these nuggets of wisdom into my lap the month I turned 42?! 😄 --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### a birthday wish For this month's tale, I went looking for something else in the archives but found this gem instead. *As we light the candles, I take in a huge gulp of air, puff out my cheeks, make a wish, and blow out. And all my hopes and yearnings mingle with the flames of the candles and the air and the wind and I grow more and more certain of this – I am one with the world, and the world is one with me.* I wrote the lines above and the tale (not so much a tale but a vignette) below nine years ago, and reading it made me see how much has changed yet how much has remained the same in all these years. Perhaps all my birthday wishes have indeed come true! [tales for dreamers: a birthday wishIf you could be any one thing in this world, what would you choose to be?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/11/IMG_5550.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-birthday-wish/) [Support Tales for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) --- ## Books You May Love This month's recommendation is [*The Ink-Black Heart*](https://www.jkrowling.com/book/the-ink-black-heart/) by Robert Galbraith, the pseudonym under which JK Rowling has been writing her Cormoran Strike detective series. I spent almost an entire week delightfully lost between the more-than-1,000 pages of this book. Rowling tackles online persecution in this book, and this is such a current-day book what with all the countless chat sessions and Twitter feeds that make frequent appearances throughout the book. It took me a while to get the hang of reading them at first, especially the concurrent chat sessions, but once I figured out what worked best for me, it was pretty easy-going after that. *(Tip: Don't try to read them concurrently. Read one in its entirety and then get to the next one. It all made much more sense to me that way.)* Two co-creators of a popular cartoon are attacked, leaving one dead and the other paralyzed and unable to walk. When Strike interviews the survivor, Josh, the latter is wracked with guilt and is also terrified about carrying on living with his disability. > 'All – all I wanna do right now is live long enough to see fuckin' Anomie caught and fucking jailed. After that ... I'll be checking out.' > 'No, you won't,' said Strike calmly. > 'Don't tell me what I will or won't be fuckin' doing,' spat Josh. 'You can still fuckin' walk!' > 'And you can still think and talk. Six months' time, you might have more function back. A year after that, they might've found a way to mend your spine. They're making progress on this stuff all the time. Stem cells. Implanted chips.' > 'And in the meantime—' > 'Yeah, well, that's the hard bit, isn't it? Acceptance of the present. You've got to stop thinking long-term for a bit.' > \~ The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith That was the bit that spoke to me unexpectedly and made me hyper-aware of the importance of remaining present in my own writing process. About not thinking long-term for a bit. About simply focusing on the next word and the next sentence in the story. About doing what I can in the present moment, without sacrificing it at the altar of imagined future scenarios. It was a very enjoyable mystery to read and as always, I loved the romantic tension between Strike and his partner, Robin. The detective agency has also hired a British-Indian investigator, and reading that made me happy. I've come to realise that just having that diversity of cast makes a book that much more rewarding for me to read. --- That brings us to the close of this edition, dear readers. As always, thank you for letting me share my journey with you. I hope you find in these monthly missives a little something. Perhaps a spark of inspiration to follow your own path. Or a salve to soothe your fears and doubts. Or even the realization that messiness is the very nature of it all, of every project, of life itself. And if we haven't yet found a way to bring order to the chaos, perhaps we've been barking up the wrong tree. Maybe chaos simply does not wish to be analyzed and slotted into patterns and made more palatable for human comprehension. Maybe it is time for us to denounce our cleverness and opt for bewilderment instead, as Rumi is supposed to have urged his people centuries ago. Maybe it is time to stop asking questions and seeking answers, to stop searching for patterns and looking for guarantees or predictability or certainty in all that we do. Because no matter what question we ask, the answer's always going to be 42\. 😉 \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: a birthday wish URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-birthday-wish/ Last updated: 2023-03-26T01:09:21.000Z ![lake with green trees and mountains in the background, reflecting the blue sky and white clouds](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/11/IMG_5550-1.jpeg) tales for dreamers: a birthday wish I want to be the crest of the wave that crashes on the shore and sweeps away all the seashells on its way out, the poetry that rides on the flutter of the breeze until the muse traps it on paper, the music that emanates from a hollow, broken piece of wood held together by strings, the melody that yields a new hidden note each time you replay it on the tape, the quiver in the singer's voice as she lets a note linger a tad longer than you can hold your breath, the story you want to read over and over again until you have committed each exquisite word, each beautiful turn of phrase to memory, the colours that bleed from the artist's brush on to the canvas, rich and resplendent at first, but fading away with the passage of time, the drop of water that glides down a wet lock of hair and hangs like a teardrop at the end, the memory that has lodged itself so deep into the recesses of your mind you know it exists but the more you try to retrieve it, the farther out of reach it slips, the heartbreak that sits at the base of your throat like a lump that won't go away, no matter how many tears you shed, the hollow in your gut that your sorrow carves out, inch by hurting inch, as you realise your loss is irreconcilable, the slow, steady movement of the second hand that stretches your wait to eternity, the faint flicker of hope that tries to warm your lonely heart on a cold winter's day, your thoughts, your memories, your hopes, your fears, your desires, your dreams, everything that makes your heart beat, that makes the blood course through your veins faster and furiouser. I want to be everything that makes you come alive. [Support Tales for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) ### tales for dreamers: an invitation to dance URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-an-invitation-to-dance/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:47:15.000Z You are invited to dance. Not that *you* need an invitation, but many seem to need a little coaxing these days. In the olden days, the sound of music was enough to get people to tap their feet. In these times, too many other noises tend to drown out the music: the sound of traffic, the clatter of busy-ness, the voices in your head that you can’t seem to get rid off, no matter what you do. So the dancers have learnt to dance without music. Sometimes they hum or sing to themselves, but that too is hardly a necessity anymore. They come dressed in the brightest colours. They sway their hips and throw their hands in the air. Their bangles and anklets clink and tinkle in rhythm with their moves. Occasionally, a crowd gathers to watch them. People clap to a beat, but the dancers follow their own cadence and the crowd finds it hard to keep up. The crowd is also not a necessity anymore. Eventually, most of the spectators give up and move on to other matters that demand their attention, other tasks they can contribute to and create a sense of purpose, some meaning, to their days. The dancers are forgotten, like a spectacle on the street, the occasional oddity one encounters in life without consequence. It doesn’t bother the dancers one whit. Sometimes, one or two of the crowd remain, watching and wondering. Long enough to eventually get up and join the dance. And when they do so, they find that they too need neither music nor applause nor an invitation to dance. > ✨ 🎶 *Perhaps you no longer need music to dance, but are you still curious to know what this story sounds like in audio format? Check it out!* > ✨ For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! ### lessons learnt from two years of being an author-entrepreneur URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-two-years-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/ Last updated: 2024-12-03T23:44:03.000Z A year ago, I [wrote](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-one-year-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/) about my learnings as a relatively new author trying to make a full-time living from this very creative profession. A month later, I wrote about the creative and business [goals](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/creative-and-business-goals-for-2022/) I wanted to pursue for 2022\. Well, we're not at the end of the year yet, but looking back now, it amazes me to take stock of how much I stayed on the path even though memory kept telling me until now that I had spent more time job-hunting than focusing on writing and publishing! ### Keep track of all wins. > Never trust memory. Rather, trust facts and data more than memory. Ask every writer who sets out on this journey, and I reckon we'll all give you the standard answer. That all we want to do is simply write our stories and have people read them. This was pretty much the case for me when I wrote and published my first two books, *In Search of Leo*, and *Dying Wishes*. Now that I have more books in my portfolio, more retailer platforms on which they are available, more formats (ebooks, paperbacks, audiobooks) in which they can be purchased, I'm beginning to see how vast the gap truly is between '*simply writing my stories*' and '*having people read them*'. It took me a long time to acknowledge and accept that bridging that gap is also part of the work. Initially, that bit was filled with so many unknowns and moving factors that it took me a lot of time and effort to overcome the resistance and actually get down to doing the work. Much of that resistance was because of fear of screwing it all up. Which begot the question: '*screwing what all up*'? With only a handful of books in that bottomless chasm that the world of ebooks (let alone, books) is, I was not even a drop in the ocean. I still am not even a drop in the ocean. So there was really nothing to screw up. Turns out what I was really afraid of was of '*doing the work*'. If I did something wrong or badly or made a mistake, I'd have to spend additional time and effort to fix it. When we read how-to books, authors of such books are always telling you that they made all these mistakes in their career so we wouldn't have to make them. I've come to realize with experience that no matter how well-prepared I am, mistakes will happen. Seeking to avoid them or worse, blaming myself for not having prevented them, only adds to the anxiety of it all. ### Dare to make mistakes. > Mistakes mean growth, progress. It's great when we make mistakes, because it means we are trying something new. It is all part of the experience. Everybody knows this, and I've known this too intellectually for a long, long time. But knowledge does not always translate into wise choices. It is in repeatedly taking action, failing to see the results we desire, and continuing to try by doing the best we can in that moment that we grow. Sure, we can invest in research and preparatory work, but each of us has to decide where to draw the line between preparation and taking action. No one else can decide that for us. Which brings me to my next point. ### Experiment a lot. > All advice is pretty much useless. Unless you try it out and test whether it works for you or not. As an indie author, there's no dearth of advice out there on what makes for a great story/blurb/cover, how to publish and advertise your books so that they reach a wide audience, and how to attract the kind of readers that will stay with you over a lifetime of creativity. A lot of advice in the present market is coming from authors who hit it big, having been in the industry and working at the time of the gold rush that began more than a decade or so ago. The market has changed dramatically now; it's a whole lot more saturated now that the initial gold rush is over. And it continues to change as AI tools are becoming more and more mainstream. Organic discoverability seems to have become a thing of the past as social media algorithms determine who gets to see which post of ours. All this means that while most people who've tasted success can tell you what worked for them, replicating those strategies is no guarantee of success. Which brings me to perhaps my most important lesson for this year. ### Success cannot be guaranteed. > There is no guarantee of success. But the longer we stay in the market, trying new things, the greater the probability of succeeding. Above all, we'll be richer for simply having tried out new and hard stuff. Almost every success story I've heard of or read about has come from writers who've published 20, 30, 50 or more books and gone on to try various marketing and advertising tactics to ensure their works find their audience. I've also heard of authors who hit it out of the park with their very first or second or fifth release, though I don't have data on whether they've been able to sustain their success and growth over a longer period of time. Much has changed for me in the last two years I've spent writing and selling fiction. Goalposts have shifted. I've learnt a heck of a lot of new things this year alone – setting up and delivering a newsletter, setting up and delivering a paid subscription service, creating an invoice for a wholesale order, meeting with local bookstore owners and learning how they stock and sell books. The local library organized a literary festival this month, which entailed a series of talks and workshops by authors, publishers, and booksellers. I attended a panel discussion in which an independent bookseller, who sells Spanish picture books for children, said something that resonated with my own experience. She noted how before setting out to sell books, she dreamt of owning her own bookstore with a cute little cafe in it. But reality turned out to be very different and currently entails the selling of books from her basement. Her words made me smile. > In my case, the fantasy was me spending long, uninterrupted hours at my writing desk, words flowing at a speed faster than that of light with a grace to match the divine, and my books finding their own magical way, as if they could walk on two or four feet somehow, to readers whose only reason to wake up each morning would be to read my words because that, and that alone, would give them the solace and courage needed to face yet another day of life. Obviously, reality is nothing like that. > This past year, reality has been panic attacks induced by financial anxiety as I stood gawking at the improbably wide chasm between writing and selling books, job-hunting in the hope of having a means of livelihood that does not entail writing fiction, feeling too burnt out to write another word, and wondering how something I used to love so much has quickly devolved into something I've come to dread more often than not because of all the pressure I've been putting on it to yield instant rewards. Which brings me to .... ### The journey changes us. Even if you're working on something that you're 'passionate' about, there will be hard days, days when you feel like quitting, days when you stop questioning your sanity because by now you know you've gone utterly and irreversibly mad. I won't say anything foolish such as keep going because one day you'll look back and find that it was all worth it. I won't say passion will help you get through the rough patches. Nor will I say that if you persist, you will make it. > I don't have the power to predict the future, but all I know is that when we show up and try difficult things over and over again, it changes us somehow. > We become the kind of people who can take on difficult challenges in life. > We become the kind of people who put their best foot forward, irrespective of the outcome. > We become the kind of people who can tolerate ambiguity and randomness, who don't need assurances or certainties to attempt something, and for whom failure becomes immaterial. > In short, we become the kind of people who live their best lives. > To me, that is a good enough reason to keep writing and selling my stories, to keep peddling dreams so that one day one of them would ignite a spark in your heart and inspire you to realize your own dreams. *Feature Image Attribution: Photo by* [*Sanjay Hona*](https://unsplash.com/@sssanjaya?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) *on* [*Unsplash*](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/himalayas?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ### happy birthday to me! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happy-birthday-to-me-2022/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:10:59.000Z ![a chocolate-vanilla birthday cake with Harry Potter candles lit](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/11/9.-happy-birthday-to-me-1.jpeg) happy birthday to me! > It is my birthday today, woo-hoo! > For now I'm all of forty-two, > and if what Douglas Adams said is true, > I now should have all the answers to > every question ever asked of me and you, > every *how* and *why*, every *what* and *when* and *who*, > but as it turns out, here I am again, > pondering, wondering, going a little insane, > with no questions left, getting a bit bird-brained, > there's something amiss, a lack of restraint? > Perhaps it is my brevity I seem to have lost in the bargain. I have waited for ages to turn 42, as if somehow turning a year older overnight would make me wiser and happier and more at ease and at peace with myself. All silly notions, I know, but the heart simply can't stop longing for certain things with stubborn desperation. Perhaps I should take Rumi's words to heart – "What you seek is seeking you" – and cease to seek those illusory answers and simply accept that some questions were perhaps never meant to be asked in the first place. As Rumi said, "Sell your cleverness and purchase bewilderment." So 42 years since the day I was born, I choose to drop all questions and stop seeking answers, and instead turn to simply seeing and accepting what is and admiring and relishing it all. ### tales for dreamers: inside the wacky shack URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-inside-the-wacky-shack/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:35:18.000Z “The name says it all,” the man at the door says. “But once you go in, you’ll never want to come out. Don’t say you weren’t warned!” You want to know exactly how wacky it is but he refuses to answer that. “There is no measure of wackiness," he insists. “What may seem crazy to you might be par for the course for someone else.” And you see the wisdom in his words, yet you feel the need to know exactly what you’re about to get into. You walk towards the exit where the brave ones tumble down an invisible slide. You ask them what it was like inside. They take a look at you, as if trying to make sense of your words. But then they only shake their heads and say they don’t quite know how to describe or explain it, although it was one helluva ride, they grin, and promptly make their way back towards the entrance for another round. You are impressed and terrified in equal measures, curious and cautious at the same time. All you want is a little clue, some indication of what lies in store, of what you’d find if you were to take the first step inside. A rolling drum? Moving shadows? The man at the door watches you in amusement. You know better than to try and squeeze any answers out of him. And so you watch the others for a while, the ones that enter and disappear inside, then come tumbling out after a while, their faces lit up with delight, only to want to go straight back inside once more. And you think it must be something special for why else would they all go into the shack over and over again? So you tell yourself to lighten up for once, give yourself up to a little adventure. And you step forward and show your day pass to the man at the door, who waves his arm in a broad, sweeping gesture of welcome. As if he had known all along this is what you’d decide to do. And you step in. No one ever tells you that once you’re in, the shack won’t let go of you until it is turned off for the night. But the man at the door did try to alert you in his own way. So don’t say you weren’t warned. ### Dying Wishes featured in Kobo's November 30% Off Sale URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/dying-wishes-featured-in-kobos-november-30-off-sale/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:11:58.000Z ![Ebook cover of Dying Wishes by Anitha Krishnan featuring full moon behind silhouettes of leafless trees](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/11/Kobo-Promo---Dying-Wishes---Insta-Post-1.png) Get Dying Wishes for 30% off on Kobo The absolutely wonderful folks at Kobo are running a 30% off sale on select ebooks this month, and I'm thrilled to announce that *Dying Wishes* features proudly on that list! Those of you who've read the book know that *Dying Wishes* is quite rightly a November tale, spanning a period of time (in the present-day parts of it) from Diwali and Halloween to the first snowfall of the season. Use the promo code 30NOV at checkout! You can find *Dying Wishes* on Kobo *[here](https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/dying-wishes-4)*, and browse the storewide sale *[here](https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/p/november-sale)*. And if you already own a copy of *Dying Wishes* (thank you, thank you!), you know it'd make an excellent gift for someone you love and who loves reading! ### tales for dreamers: a remittance for bear URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-remittance-for-bear/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:34:38.000Z To enter the cave, you must pay a levy of two fishes to the bear. If you have not brought the necessary remittance, fret not. (Though I must make sure the old guard who permitted you to enter these woods reminds every visitor of the rules, provided he remembers them in the first place.) If you carry down this trail, you will reach its end where it simply drops into the rapids. This is a good place to go fishing even if you have brought no gear with you. Simply dip a hand in the water and every fish, big and small, will scuttle to inspect the oddity, so few people have walked this way in centuries, giving you ample opportunity to grab one or more. Pay no attention to the signs that warn you to steer clear of the water lest you wake the monsters that slumber under the riverbed. They too went to sleep centuries ago when the humans forgot about this place. When you catch the fish, please don’t kill them. Bring them to the bear alive. And if all of this does not sound like your idea of an adventure, simply go back the way you came and return, at your convenience, with two fishes. It doesn’t matter what kind so long as they are alive. You could also offer your once-upon-a-child’s bath toy fishes. Children’s things throb with everlasting life even if it is not always obvious. The bear isn’t terribly discerning, although he knows what can go into his mouth and what shouldn’t, much better than humans do for that matter. Once you’ve paid the price, he will invite you to enter his cave. And you will find other forgotten lands to lose yourself in. ### tales for dreamers: a deal with the devil URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-deal-with-the-devil/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T08:49:02.000Z I had been trying to summon an angel but Satan showed up instead. He did not look particularly frightening; he looked like he had been painted near-black from head to toe with occasional splotches of verdigris and sienna, as if parts of him were peeling away to reveal a more colourful self hidden underneath. I tried to shoo him away but he refused to leave the pavilion where he had popped up. “You summoned me,” he stated the obvious. “I cannot leave unless I grant you a wish.” His voice was deep and smooth, rumbling up from the bottomless depths of his netherworld and rising up to his throat like a wicked yet sad laughter, both dangerous and poignant at the same time. I knew better than to make a deal with the devil, we all know how badly such things end, and so, touched by his generosity although I was, I nonetheless declined his offer politely. “No, you do not understand,” he stood his ground. “You summoned me. I am bound to you unless I grant you a wish. It is the rule of such things. I cannot leave until I have fulfilled what I was sent for.” “Isn’t it true that devils cannot grant wishes without taking away a part of the wish-seeker’s soul?” I asked. He hung his head sadly and gave a slight nod. “But I used to be an angel once, you know. A very, very long time ago. I am not sure if that counts for anything at all.” I could not think of a suitable response. “They used to call me Lucifer back then,” he continued, his gaze abstractedly fixed on something beyond the edges of the planet. “It means the morning star.” I made my wish then, and asked him to send me back in time so I could seek out Lucifer and summon him before he falls. > ✨ 🎶 *What does the devil sound like? Check out in the audio version of this story!* > ✨ For more *Tales For Dreamers*, check out the [archives](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/). For more audio-stories, head over to my [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamPedlar?ref=thedreampedlar.com)! ### October Offerings: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-october-offerings/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T22:54:19.000Z Hello, Dreamer! The autumn breeze is sweeping away red and golden leaves from the trees, and far from it all feeling like an ending, I find myself at the threshold of a new beginning! Buoyed by the encouragement and enthusiasm I received from so many of you who filled out last month's survey, I am ecstatic to announce ... drumroll, please!!! ... the launch of *Tales for Dreamers* as a weekly, paid subscription service! Every Thursday night (EST), so Friday for everyone east of the Atlantic/west of the Pacific, a new whimsical tale paired with an image will pop up in your inbox. Most of you are already familiar with *Tales for Dreamers*. I've been writing these short, zany pieces of fiction for more than a decade now – in fact, that is how *The Dream Pedlar* website came into being back in November 2011 – and readers have loved and cherished them. There's a free 4-week trial, so you can check it out for yourself, what it feels like, this experience of a wee bundle of whimsy and wonder slipping into your inbox at the same time every week. It comes with options for monthly or yearly subscriptions for you to choose from. [Hop aboard for a whimsical ride with Tales for Dreamers!](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) The first tale will go out this coming Thursday, November 3, which is also the day my mom turns 71! I can't wrap my head around that number. But why now, you ask? Because November is my birth month too, so this is as much a gift to me as it is an offering to you. And what's more, I turn all of 42 this year! As Douglas Adams so wisely enlightened us in *tHGttG*, the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is ... 42\. That makes me feel wiser and wilder at the same time, and I think to myself if that isn't a sign from the Universe, what else could possibly be? So sign up for the trial, and join me on a wild, whimsical, wondrous ride. You can always unsubscribe at any time. But I must warn you; once you're on board, you will never want to leave! --- We've had an incredibly long fall season this year. Autumn has typically been a blink-and-you-miss-it affair these past few years. So to be able to savour it at leisure and find ourselves stepping into red, yellow, orange, and golden worlds at every bend this year has simply been magical. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/1.-Fall.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/3.-Fall.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/4.-Fall.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/2-Fall.jpeg) Fall colours This is also the month we get to celebrate *Diwa-lloween*, as little D coined it. A combination of Diwali and Halloween. For the first time in years, I showed up for Diwali and Halloween with an attitude of celebration. For Diwali, I had *mehendi* on my hands and a *saaree* for my attire. I remember driving back home with still-damp *mehendi* on my hands, holding the steering wheel with my fingertips (an impossible feat!), and cupping my hands to keep inhaling the scent of the *mehendi* for days afterwards. We decked out our home in *rangoli* that D took great delight in creating, string lights and flowers, diyas and a floating candle set-up. Sparklers and sweets, which we shared with our neighbours, added to the festivities. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/5.-Mehendi-.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/6.-Mehendi.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/7.-Rangoli.jpg) Decorating my hands and home for Diwali For Halloween decorations, D and I went shopping at the dollar store after school one day and picked up stakes, glow-in-the-dark wall stickers, and stretchable skeletons. We even made a jack-o-lantern! KrA did all the carving, while D and I were content with scooping and admiring. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/12.-Original-jack-o-lantern_cropped-1.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/9.-Halloween-stakes.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/10.-Halloween-scarecrow.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/11.-Trick-or-treat.jpeg) Trick or Treat! --- I share these pictures to illustrate the fullness of life I experienced in showing up for the festive season after six long years. Six years – that is how long the dark night of my soul has lasted. I won't say I'm completely out of the woods either, far from it, but there is once again an eagerness to live and seize the day, and not merely go through the motions of day-to-day living. There is once again in me a desire to taste and savour whatever life brings, to show up in any way I can, not worrying if it is too little and not wishing it could have been so much more. For the first time in a long time, I've begun waking up in the mornings not dreading the length of the day stretching ahead of me, not wishing that the day were already over, not eagerly looking forward to the refuge of nighttime when I'd feel free to place no demands on myself for those few hours in bed in the dark, even if they ended in me waking up at 3 a.m., filled with dread and anxiety. If I had to choose a song to describe my life in those years, it would be Pink Floyd's *Sorrow*. > Sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land > Plumes of smoke rise, merge into the leaden sky > Man lies and dreams of green fields and rivers > But awakes to a morning with no reason for waking > He's haunted by the memory of a lost paradise > In his youth or a dream, he can't be precise > He's chained forever to a world that's departed > It's not enough, it's not enough > \~ Sorrow by Pink Floyd That was me alright, the one who '*awakes to a morning with no reason for waking*'. I don't know what has shifted now. Surely a lot must have changed within, but one lesson that seems to have seeped into my subconscious after ~~years~~ decades of trying to learn and re-learn it is this: *There is nothing, no one, and no situation in the outside world that is indispensable to our happiness and peace of mind. We can be OK, no matter what.* Of course, to know this intellectually is one thing. To feel it and to remember to believe in it, especially when in the throes of despair, is quite another feat altogether. This recently led me again to the concept of *amor fati*, love of one's fate. My earlier embracings of this concept were laced with a hidden desire to bend fate to my will by loving it enough, an impossible condition for both me and for fate to fulfil. Now that I've plunged into the depths of insanity and somehow, miraculously, come back, there is a greater understanding of and appreciation for Friedrich Nietszche's words. > My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it. In another text, he goes on to say the following: > For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed. > \~ Friedrich Nietzsche After years of floundering in regret and self-rebuke, harsh loathing and criticism directed at myself, this concept of radical acceptance—of myself, my life, the world around me, the world within me—comes as a breath of fresh air. It is liberating to adopt this stance that acceptance does not mean passive resignation or submission, but a letting go of all that is not in my hands and showing up to the life I'm living to the extent that I can, moment by moment. For the first time in a long time, I'm beginning to see how good it feels when I'm not spending my hours and days wishing I were someone else, somewhere else, doing something else. For the first time in a long time, I feel splendid to be me. Now that I've bared my heart and soul to you, it's your turn. So tell me, does the concept of *amor fati* speak to you in the same way? --- #### IN THE AUTUMN **by Khalil Gibran* In the autumn I gathered all my sorrows and buried them in my garden. And when April returned and spring came to wed the earth, there grew in my garden beautiful flowers unlike all other flowers. And my neighbours came to behold them, and they all said to me, “When autumn comes again, at seeding time, will you not give us of the seeds of these flowers that we may have them in our gardens?” --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### pumpkins in protest I was on a wagon ride when I saw this patch of pumpkins, and it appeared to me as if the pumpkins were rolling away. Running away from something. And that led to this month's tale, which I wrote only a couple of weeks ago. A dose of whimsy for you on this day before Halloween. [tales for dreamers: pumpkins in protestThe pumpkins are rolling away in protest. Can the farmer stop them in time?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/25.-pumpkins-in-protest.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-pumpkins-in-protest/) --- ## Books You May Love This month's recommendation is the English translation of a Japanese novel titled *The Easy Life in Kamusari* by Shion Miura and translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. It is a coming-of-age story of a high school-graduate and city lad, Yuki Mirano, who is forced to attend a forestry training programme in a remote mountain village of Kamusari. His parents enrol him in the programme against his will. Initially he seeks to run away from the place, and the story is all about how he eventually comes into his own, both professionally and personally. This book was so different from what I'd been reading lately that it took my breath away. The rural setting, the simplicity of life, the simplicity of the plot itself. No earth-shattering, world-saving schemes but the simple life and traditions and rituals of a community caring for the mountainside and making a living from forestry. It was a soothing book to read. Filled with plenty of humour and heart-warming moments. Like listening to a story narrated with great indulgence by my late grandmother. There was something timeless about it. --- Another couple of books I took great delight in reading were from the Ian Rutledge series by Charles Todd. I was introduced to this series through book #24, *A Game of Fear*, following which I read book #1, *A Test of Wills*, and then book #14, *The Confession*. I have many more books to go, but I absolutely love what I've read so far, and I loved these books so much I wrote an entire blog post on them. And the best thing is that there are many more books to be read in this series, so many more countless hours of reading pleasure to look forward to! [books you may love: Ian Rutledge seriesWhen books teach us more about courageous living than life itself can ...![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/clay-banks-w_qTfiPbjbg-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-ian-rutledge-series/) --- That brings us to the close of yet another edition of *Monthly Missives*, dear dreamer! I'm usually despondent when I write these last few lines, but this time I'm quite excited. Because right after bidding you farewell, I'll be off to put the finishing touches on the tales that will begin to pop up in your inbox in only a few days from now with weekly regularity. Only after you sign up, that is! [Subscribe to Tales for Dreamers for weekly whimsies and wonders!](https://thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) So go ahead and sign up, and I will see you on the other side of October. If you have any questions at all, please write to me at *anitha@thedreampedlar.com*. As always, I thank you for your enduring support. For what is a story without a reader? What is a dream without a dreamer? \~ Anitha ### celebrating wins URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/celebrating-wins/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:12:13.000Z I've noticed that while I tend to wax eloquent on matters of the heart, I keep forgetting to record my wins here. I was about to say *'small wins'* but if you were to ask me how I quantify a win as *'big'* or *'small'*, I don't have an answer to that. So let's just say *'wins'* for now. ### Local indie bookshop owner stocks copies of *Dying Wishes* Last week, I landed my first wholesale order for 10 paperback copies of *[Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes)*! It came about because a dear friend and reader, Helen, introduced me to her dear friend who is a local indie bookshop owner and creative entrepreuner, and raved about my book. This is one of those moments I'll be eternally grateful for, for having written the work and for the story to be finding its reader-lovers. ### *Dying Wishes* is sold at a charity auction to raise money Another awesome thing that happened is that the only autographed copy of *Dying Wishes* in existence to date was sold at a local auction to raise money for a local children's hospital foundation. I am thrilled to say that it raised CAD 15, and I wonder what it's value will be five, ten, fifteen years down the line. My heart and imagination say, "Priceless!" To me, the book is already priceless. When I look at it, at the story, at the hours spent writing it, at those who've read it and been deeply moved by the tale and the writing, it makes my heart sing the sweetest songs. ### *The Mind Meddler* (unpublished) wins an Honourable Mention in Writers of The Future contest I noted this earlier in last month's newsletter, but my short story *The Mind Meddler* won an Honourable Mention in the Jan-Mar 2022 quarter of the Writers of The Future contest. And they even sent a certificate to celebrate that distinction. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/Auction.png) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/Dyings-Wishes-description.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/Certificate.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/Sold.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/Wholesale-order.jpeg) This post sound so news-y, and writing it reminds me of my good, old days in journalism. Such fun. And so much drama too. Like life, itself. So here's to celebrating all the wins that come our way. At the end of the day, it is a long journey, one that has no beginning and no end. Because we don't pick up our pens for the first time and say, "Now, I start being a writer," just as we don't really put down our pens and say, "Now I stop being a writer." We keep writing, and some wins come our way as do many rejections and failures and missed opportunities or endeavours that don't take off as well as we had hoped/expected. And then there are these unexpected strokes of luck, a book falling into the lap of the right reader at the right time, a word of encouragement, a soft word of praise that explodes and becomes as loud and dazzling as fireworks. And unlike in a story, there is no single defining moment, but several ordinary moments strung together until they morph into something much larger than themselves! But all that I hold close to my heart is this moment of writing and that moment of parenting and that other moment of spending time with KrA and with myself. This is what my life is made of. This is what makes my life full and rich in every single moment, every single day. Everything else miraculously seems to take care of itself. Thank you, Universe! *Feature Image Attribution: Photo by [Susan Q Yin](https://unsplash.com/@syinq?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/books?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: pumpkins in protest URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-pumpkins-in-protest/ Last updated: 2023-09-14T10:57:22.000Z No one really knew what the pumpkins were protesting against. Even the pumpkins seemed to have no real consensus amongst themselves. But when the farmer arrived at their patch, they began to clamour. The farmer was a good one, the kind that paid attention to the life that grew on his land, and so he lent them a patient ear, trying to discern one complaint from another. He thought he heard some mention of wages, but what could pumpkins possibly have to do with money? There was some talk of aliens, but again he dismissed it as his misinterpretation. The pumpkins spoke in a strange language — ideally, those pumpkins shouldn’t have been talking in the first place — but the farmer was glad they had found a way to express themselves instead of taking to rotting in the ground and opening themselves up to swarms of insects even before they could be harvested. He also thought he caught the terms ‘jack-o-lanterns’ and ‘pies’ and ‘Halloween’ thrown into the mix, and assumed that the pumpkins didn’t want to be plucked and deformed for the entertainment of people. He had never thought on those lines before but now that he considered their point of view, he could see the merit in their arguments. For who in their right frame of mind would want to have a scary face carved into their very being or consent to being chopped up into little pieces to be roasted or baked or steamed? He promised the pumpkins he wouldn’t harvest them that morning and that they could have another discussion the following day, focussing on solutions rather than on problems this time. The pumpkins readily agreed and the farmer left them to their devices for the rest of the day. He lay awake all night conjuring up solutions to these unprecedented problems of the pumpkins in the patch. The next morning, he came to the fields, buoyed by the number of possibilities he was prepared to present to them. Only, the fields were empty. Not a pumpkin was in sight. It was as if he had not sown and grown a single one of them over the summer. He stood there, scratching his head for a while. Stranger things tended to happen in the fields, especially at this time of the year, he reminded himself. Besides, this was probably someone’s idea of a Halloween prank. But that night when sleep refused to come, he had the sense to look out of his window and up into the skies. Instead of stars, thousands of jack-o-lanterns grinned back at him from their celestial abode. Ah, those dratted aliens! The pumpkins did try to warn him about them. There was nothing he could do about it now, except hope that his precious friends were being well compensated for their time and effort. ### the dance of the heart and mind in grief URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-dance-of-the-heart-and-mind-in-grief/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:12:17.000Z I wrote [yesterday](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/in-memory-of-my-aunt-being-human-in-a-time-of-grief/) about feeling rather removed from the news of my maternal aunt's death. Grief didn't hit me yesterday, and I spent much of the day wondering why not. Turns out it was simply biding its time. Because it caught me unawares in the evening today, when anger and a feeling of unfairness, the senselessness of it all, knocked me sideways. All I could think of was what must have gone through my aunt's mind in those last few moments. The impact of the tail of the helicopter hitting an obstacle. Shock? Pain? Is that what she felt? Fear? Terror? Or nothing at all? Because it all had happened too soon? How long? A moment? Two? And then nothing at all after that? No thoughts left to think. No feelings left to feel. No person left to think or comprehend or feel any pain or terror over what had just transpired. Here, this instant. Gone, the next. I kept imagining this over and over again in my mind, wondering what she had felt or thought. And of course I don't really want to know, not firsthand at least, but somehow 'knowing', that desire for that knowledge, became significant in my mind for a few moments. As if knowing could help explain or justify what has transpired. There wasn't enough space in the helicopter for my uncle to board, and it seems he had asked her to wait so they could take the next chopper. In a split-second change of heart, she had forged on with her cousin and the latter's husband. Those two lives were also snuffed out in that incident. Somehow it seems important to know these small details, as if piecing them together could help construct a story that we can tell ourselves and everyone else in the coming days, a story that we can hold on to, a story of a possibility that things could have been otherwise, a story of a wish that the tragedy could have been averted. Would it have been easier to accept had my aunt died in any other way? Passing away peacefully in her sleep? But she was only 60, would have been the counter-argument. > Because this is the thing; what our hearts accept without blame or question, our minds cannot accept unless there is a logic or a rationale, because it is so much easier to see the could-have-beens, the should-have-beens, than to face what is not, who is not there anymore. The heart rushes to fill that absence with fond memories and affection, with an outpouring of love and grief. The mind busies itself, first with denial, and when that doesn't work out, with terror and anger and fury and rage and calls for justice, for punishment, for something to change, for a process to be improved, for something '*good*' to come out of this tragedy, for this sacrifice to be '*worth*' it. And the heart waits sadly, alone in its grief, watching the mind stray to every corner of the world barring the one place it needs to come back to, that place of loss and grief. It is a scary place. And at times it feels as we'd never come out of it, so kudos to the mind for wanting to prevent us from going there in the first place. But soon someone will come knocking on the door, could be someone asking for a bill to be paid, or another loved one looking to connect, and the mind will find its solace, its brief reprieve once more, no matter how fleeting. A little pause from the heavy crushing weight of grief. And the heart and the head will keep doing this little dance, one still and waiting, the other wandering and searching, until each learns to trust the other, until each lets the other do what it needs to do to cope, because there is no right or wrong way to grieve, just as there is no right or wrong way to die. ### in memory of my aunt: being human in a time of grief URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/in-memory-of-my-aunt-being-human-in-a-time-of-grief/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:12:23.000Z We received news this morning that my aunt had [died](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/helicopter-crashes-in-uttarakhand-many-feared-dead/article66025543.ece) in a helicopter crash while on pilgrimage in north India. I've been exchanging messages and phone calls with family and cousins this morning, but there's a remoteness to it all. Whether it has to do with the fact that we've not visited family in India for almost a decade now, or that death has come knocking on the door too often in these past few years, taking young and old alike, I don't know. > But one sentiment that seems to surface at times like these is this determination to only be our best, kindest selves going forward. > In the face of death, we find it difficult to reconcile this fleeting fragility of life with the ugly pettiness of day-to-day living. > But life is not ideal. There's pain and difficulty, dispute and despair, and even though most of the things that cause us pain in the moment may feel trivial in the face of something life-shattering like death, it's humanly not possible to find and live a life devoid of pain and difficulty. > Sure, we can live a life without suffering, but that is not the same as a life without pain. The former is entirely in our hands; the latter, not at all. I was chatting with my cousin in New Jersey and we shared this sentiment too, regretting any harsh words exchanged with anyone, not knowing it might be our last conversation with them, or thinking of a kindness not shown and wishing we had tried harder instead, and we had to remind each other that we are only human. When I published *In Search of Leo*, I sent a free pdf copy to my aunt and she took great delight in reading it and then writing to me about it. And we planned to have a late night conversation about the characters and all the emotions the story evokes, but of course that's a conversation that's not going to happen now. A few years later, when I published *Dying Wishes*, I was so determined to make more sales that I didn't send a free copy to my aunt because I had hoped she'd consider buying a copy instead. Had I sent her a copy, I know she would have read it with great pleasure and even enjoyed the various intricacies and details of the novel in a way only she could have, because it contained so much of my own childhood and I'm certain she'd have recognized all those elements. Yet another fantasy that will not be fulfiled now. My heart ached a little as I thought about that this morning, because that was probably among the last conversations I had with my Aunt other than wishing each other on birthdays and anniversaries. When I shared this with my cousin, he was quick to point my own words back at me. "Don't be too hard on yourself. You are only human." > If death makes us want to commit to living better, so does a new life. When D was born, I was so determined to be the ideal mom, exhibiting infinite patience, not letting myself get caught up in petty and trivial acts, but to be some idea of an elevated human being, transcending human foibles. > D called BS on that pretty quickly. When I rejected my own humanness in pursuit of some divine or transcendental way of living, it all blew up in my face in no time at all. This is why I have come to take a different perspective on that story that goes around, the one in which a nurse speaks with people on their deathbeds, and their only regrets happen to be not having spent more time with family or their kids or having spent their lives chasing the 'wrong' things. This anecdote is something that I realize I need to take with a pinch of salt. Because the view from a deathbed is very different than the view from the midst of life. When we are in the thick of the woods, we'd primarily be focussed on looking for a way out. When we reach the clearing on the other side, we can pause to look back and admire the trees and our own tenacity. Sure enough, when we are lost in the woods, we can fill up our minds with all kinds of anxieties and regrets and not focus on the task on hand, or we can make the effort to adopt a calm demeanour and focus on the present moment, on making it out safely, instead of wishing we were already in the clearing and didn't have to wade through the jungle. But we can't realistically take a rearview-mirror perspective when we're in the thick of a situation. All we can do is respond to the situation on hand as best as we can in that moment. > The more I see of life, the more I learn over and over again how it runs its own course. We truly have no control over anything, except how we choose to show up in the various situations that come into our lives. > And we are only human. Disappointment sets us back. Doubt gets the better of us more often than we'd like. Envy shows up when we least expect it to. Anxiety is always lurking around the corner. > No matter how much we love world peace, we find that we don't always get along with our partner or our neighbour or see eye-to-eye on every issue with every person we meet. > Wishing it were otherwise won't change it. Accepting that this too is a part of life, and an opportunity for us to examine our reactions and how we show up, is a wiser course of action. Although I can't recall the last time I spoke with my aunt, it must have been a couple of years ago, I clearly remember that when I was growing up, she was one of my favouritest persons in my life. Every summer, we made the train journey from Mumbai to Chennai (Bombay to Madras, as we said in those days) and spent a month with my maternal uncle and aunt (his wife), maternal grandparents, and our two cousins. To say that Kala Maami was the life of the family would be an understatement. She was the kind of person who lived life fully. She was the kind of person who could lift up your spirits within two minutes of you being in her presence, and this was even more admirable considering that she had faced innumerable difficulties in her life. Her sense of humour was remarkable indeed. Once, my cousin (her son) wanted a *dosa* that was white on both sides. Because of the way *dosa* is made, it becomes brownish on the surface that is in contact with the pan. But he was adamant. Eventually, Maami came out with an *idli*! Even my cousin burst out laughing and he was happy to accept this '*dosa*' that was white on both sides. And those are the memories of Kala Maami I wish to carry with me in the coming days. The life lived. The life that was. Not the one that could have been. Because the one that was lived was mighty splendid indeed! *Feature Image Attribution: Photo by [Nick Fewings](https://unsplash.com/@jannerboy62?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/grief?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### books you may love: Ian Rutledge series URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-ian-rutledge-series/ Last updated: 2022-10-17T17:40:11.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/A-Game-of-Fear.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/A-Test-of-Wills.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/The-Confession.jpeg) Books in Ian Rutledge series by Charles Todd Back in August, I picked up a book titled *A Game of Fear* by [Charles Todd](https://charlestodd.com). As I [wrote](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-august-aspirations/) back then, it turned out to be Book 24 in a series featuring Inspector Ian Rutledge of the Scotland Yard, a shell-shocked WWI veteran who lives with a voice inside his head, that of a fellow soldier he killed in the war. Rutledge is compelled to hide this affliction in order the avoid the social stigma that would have ensued otherwise. Last month, I sought out the first book in the series, *A Test of Wills.* It took me a while to get to the book but when I did, I tore through it in a matter of days. We get to see Inspector Rutledge on his first case after the war, and his naivete in the face of a superior who is hell-bent on making his life miserable is endearing, to say the least. I ran to the local library after that, desperate to get my hands on as many books in the series as I could. There was an entire row full of these books as well as books in the Bess Crawford series, also by Charles Todd. Eventually sense prevailed and I carried as many as I reasonably could without having to hunch over, pulled by the weight of all these stories that I wanted to read. I've just finished reading *The Confession*, which turns out to be book #14 in the series. As much as I love reading series in order, reading out of order hardly diminished the delight of delving into these books. Rutledge has his own personal story unwinding in the background, so sometimes I have to make assumptions about a particular character referenced in passing. But, to me, that takes away nothing from the case itself and eventually when I read the preceding books, I know the missing pieces will fall into place. But what I love most about these books is the voice of Hamish that lives inside Rutledge's head. Hamish keeps offering his advice and words of caution to Rutledge, sometimes taunting him, but most often acting as a friend of sorts. For some reason, it was in this book, the third I read, that I started to find the voice of Hamish very endearing. In the first book I read, I was simply blown away by the concept of Hamish and how beautifully Todd has captured it. The time period in which the book was written (1980s) and the time period in which the stories are set (post-WWI), both were not conducive to the those struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder issues. By the time I got to the third book, the voice of Hamish had grown upon me, and I now look forward to his thoughts and opinions as much as I enjoy reading Rutledge's analysis of the cases. > I am not tearing through the series at the exclusion of everything else, because I want to make it last longer. Also coming back to an Ian Rutledge book after reading something else is sort of like coming back to a cozy home from the rain outside, walking back to a warm hearth and a soothing mug of tea, and the certainty that in these pages, great courage will be displayed, difficulties will be surmounted, and justice will be served, but most importantly, I will be able to understand and appreciate people and life in a way I'm often unable to in real life. Here is an excerpt from *The Confession,* explaining how Hamish came to take up residence in a corner of Rutledge's mind. > There was a derisive chuckle. > Hamish wasn't there. Rutledge had told himself that a thousand times, but it was no comfort. Hamish was dead and buried in France, and that was no comfort either. > The doctors had called it shell shock, this hearing of a voice that was so real Rutledge answered it in his head—or sometimes to his absolute horror, aloud. Corporal Hamish MacLeod had fought beside Rutledge almost from the start, a young Scot, but with a grasp of military tactics well beyond his years. A bond had grown between the two of them, officer and man, because each knew he could trust the other implicitly, and both knew that the care of the men under them was paramount. Watching the maimed and the dying through two years of heavy fighting had taught them that. Green men, facing battle for the first time, had only a slim chance of survival. If their officers could double those odds, it counted for much. > And then on the Somme, in those first bloody weeks of fighting, Hamish MacLeod had put Rutledge in an untenable position: he had refused an order outright, in front of his men. His reasons were sound—he knew going over the top one more time after a well-concealed German machine-gun nest was insane, that more men would die needlessly. And yet HQ had ordered that it be taken out at any cost before the next assault, and Rutledge had had no alternative but to try, for the sake of the hundreds of British soldiers who would be crossing No Man's Land in only a matter of hours. The good of the few—or the good of the many. That was the choice. Hamish had chosen his bleeding and exhausted company. > No amount of argument could sway him. Even when, as an example to other weary and dispirited men, Rutledge had to threaten his corporal with a firing squad, it had not changed his mind. And Rutledge had had to carry out that threat, against his better judgement and against the weight of his own guilt. He had had to deliver the coup de grâce to the dying man, taking out his pistol and firing it point-blank, and watching the anguished eyes go dull. > He hadn't wanted this, he hadn't wanted Hamish MacLeod on his soul. Even his own mind had refused to accept what he had done. The burden of guilt had been insupportable. And in the way of damaged minds, his had created a living Hamish, proof that the young corporal hadn't died. Keeping him alive through two more years of grinding stalemate and death, bringing him home in the only way he could. > Military necessity had been paramount. Rutledge had almost hated Hamish for breaking, for forcing his own hand. But close as he was to breaking himself, he had known that the young corporal was right. Still, Duty was all. Compassion had no place on a battlefield. Obeying orders was the paramount rule. > There had been times when Rutledge himself had wanted to die, to shut out the voice hammering at him. And he couldn't, because when he himself died, Hamish would finally be dead as well. He'd led a charmed life in the trenches those last two years of the war — his men had commented on that again and again. But Rutledge had understood it for what it was. God had not wanted him. A murderer ... > \~ An excerpt from *The Confession* by Charles Todd *Feature Image Attribution: Photo by [Clay Banks](https://unsplash.com/@claybanks?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/reading?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### September Surprises: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-september-surprises/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T22:55:02.000Z Hello, Dreamer! Last month I was holding my breath in anticipation of life turning upside down once more: seasons changing, schools reopening, time giving of itself to me in copious amounts for my creative pursuits once again. But when I let go of that breath I had been holding, hoping to find acceptance and relief on the other side of the big transition, I first found frenzy and unease instead. The house was too neat and quiet, the days began to fall into too predictable and monotonous a routine of drop-offs and pick-ups, and I missed D with the agony with which one misses a cherished friend after having lived through a long adventure together. And now that I was faced with the task of sitting down and planning out my projects for the next few months, it felt like I was floundering in unfamiliar territory once more. I was going through the website with plans for sprucing it up ahead of a new project I'm tinkering with (I'll tell you more about it below in Tales for Dreamers) and I came across what my past self had written on the 'About' page. > In these past few years of writing and parenting, I've come to find, over and over again, that when I remain in the present moment without being dragged towards the past (best forgotten but thoroughly rehashed in my mind) or the future (just as exciting or nerve-wracking as I imagine it would be), magic truly happens. > Just like everything else in life, writing and parenting are then no longer filled with strife and doubt and anxiety. Instead, everything becomes effortless and immensely joyful. Except, the day I wrote and published the lines above (back in April of this year) was perhaps the last time I had been truly present. Back then, there seemed to be so much I wanted to complete on the writing front before D's summer holidays began. Then when summer was in full swing, there was this constant pang of guilt at all the words that I kept thinking I could have, should have, would have written but did not. And when school reopened, there was guilt of an opposite kind. Did I spend enough time with D in the summer? Did he have a good summer break? And how much I now miss the life and liveliness he fills our home with. The sound of his voice. The incredibility of the tales he spins. The fantastic songs he hums. How his little body zips from one room to another at the speed of light, it seems, faster than the wind, certainly. Four years ago, shortly before D was about to begin pre-school, I wrote the post linked below. Funny how I feel many of the same feelings even now. Will some things never change? [the gift of timeThe phone call came last summer, shortly before I had completed my last course for the degree I was pursuing. There was a spot available in the Infant Room of a daycare that had opened only the previous autumn. We had put ourselves on the waitlist after a visit in![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2021/06/The-Gift-Of-Time_o.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-gift-of-time/) But it has certainly been somewhat easier this time around to shed much of that angst of separation and that constant-guilt that seems to haunt parents. Maybe the foreknowledge, gained from years of experience, that this feeling would surface and eventually pass, helped. Or maybe I have grown wiser after all. Or perhaps my heart had known all along that this is what it means to love with great abandon – it is never without the exquisite but unbearable anguish of separation and doubt – and the rest of me was only just catching up to that nugget of wisdom. The wisdom of contradictions. No love without ache. No choice without doubt. No life without death. What gets me each time is the inevitability of these pairings. Like partners in crime. Together, always. And yet we can do nothing but love because we'd perish if we didn't, make those choices and plough ahead even if and especially when we're riddled with doubt, and live the best we can even though each moment of living brings us one heartbeat closer to death. --- New Zealand-based writer Jessica Urlichs speaks of this paradox in her poem, [Motherhood's Contradictions](https://www.jessicaurlichs.com/post/motherhood-s-contradiction). Her words apply universally to anyone who loves another soul. #### MOTHERHOOD'S CONTRADICTION by Jessica Urlichs I’ve been the happiest since I’ve had children. I’ve also been at my lowest. I’m a much better version of myself. I also haven’t always liked what I’ve seen when mirrors have been held up to me. I’ve never been in more company. And at times never felt so lonely. Some days I don’t want to end. Some days I wish away, oh and the guilt from feeling that when they grow so fast. I’ve never been so sure of who I’m meant to be. I’ve never wondered so much who I am. I’ve never felt closer with my husband. But at times, I’ve never felt more distant. I believe in myself, I trust myself. I’ve questioned myself and doubted myself. I always want to be better for them. But I’ve yelled and cried and wished I’d handled certain situations better. I’ve never loved so hard and so fiercely. And I’ve never felt so vulnerable. I’ve never been more broken. And I’ve never been more complete. I’ve never smiled so much. I’ve never cried so much. I’ve never craved alone time more. But when I am, I always feel like something's missing, like an arm. I’ve never been so excited to watch them grow. And simultaneously wished they’d stay little forever. Some days I feel like I’ve achieved nothing. But as I think of them at night, I know I’ve achieved everything. I’ve never looked forward to so much. And I’ve also, never looked back. It’s one beautiful contradiction. A journey of wrong turns that are probably still right. And dreams of the future even if you don’t get enough sleep to dream. Exhaustion but effortless love. The hardest and most rewarding thing ever. Motherhood. --- But, I'll admit, I'm so used to carrying around that deep longing in my heart that I tend to overlook another truth: that all the anxiety and sadness accompanying change eventually give way and make room for different experiences. KrA turned a year older this month, and to celebrate his birthday he and I went to the movies after seven years! With D happily in school, KrA and I went for a matinee screening of Bullet Train, an action-comedy movie, which is totally not my usual fare but is exactly the kind of movie the birthday boy likes. And both of us had a fantabulous time! Autumn and winter are typically when I'm at my most prolific, and much of that has to do with the expanse of time and the depth of silence that fill the house when D is away at school. Unsettling at first, they eventually help create the space I need to hear my thoughts once more. Long hours at the writing desk. Long late-morning walks with KrA. Long, leisurely moments of staring at the blue, blue skies and the green leaves jiggling in the cold breeze, changing colours and drifting to form leaf carpets on earth. And then the exquisite delight of reunion at pick-up from school in the late afternoon. It is an idyllic life, and I'd trade it for nothing at all in this whole, wide world. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### First, A Survey In November 2011, I published what would go on to become the first of many #TalesForDreamers. Original short tales of fantasy and whimsy, paired with an image, meant to evoke a sense of wonder and whimsy. After years of writing hundreds of them on a whim, sometimes with more regularity whenever life permitted, I'm exploring plans for weekly publication of these tales that many have claimed touched their soul or, at the very least, filled them with wonder and delight. So dear Dreamers, may I please request you to fill out a short survey (6 questions, won't take 2 minutes) to help me plan this launch? [Tales For Dreamers! SurveyWeb survey powered by SurveyMonkey.com. Create your own online survey now with SurveyMonkey’s expert certified FREE templates.![](https://www.surveymonkey.com/apple-touch-icon-180x180-precomposed.png)SurveyMonkey](https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2KCPY77) --- ### Of Talking Sculptures and Telling Fortunes This month's tale was written almost eight years ago, the summer I first set foot in Toronto. If I remember correctly, this was somewhere in The Beaches neighbourhood, where KrA and I found ourselves wandering one afternoon, wondering how our lives in Canada would unfold. I hope this tale fills your day with delight. [tales for dreamers: of talking sculptures and telling fortunesWhen you go in search of a sibyl and have to contend with a talking sculpture instead, you reckon he’ll tell you what your future holds?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/09/30.-of-talking-sculptures-and-telling-fortunes-2.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-of-talking-sculptures-and-telling-fortunes/) --- ## Books You May Love The only book I read this month was *The Shadows* by Alex North. It's about a bunch of high-school kids who did something very disturbing years ago, and a now older survivor of those times comes back to his hometown to visit his dying mother and the past comes alive in more ways than one. It was a very riveting and unsettling read; the haunting atmosphere that North had woven spooked me. The story is told in the dual-timeline format, the past unfolding alongside the present, which is something I love very much. And as I neared the end, many of the assumptions I had made earlier on in my reading were deftly overturned, speaking to the author's expertise in the craft. Apparently, North has gained much acclaim for his other work, *The Whisper Man*, which I haven't read yet. But knowing what likely awaits me, I think I'll wait until the days grow longer and brighter again before I dare pick up that one! --- It's that time again, dear Dreamer. Time to bid adieu, so that I can go back to writing more tales to delight you, more stories to fill you with a sense of wonder and magic. For you see, one of the most special things that happened this month was that my books and stories travelled around the world. A very dear friend of mine, Helen, took *Dying Wishes* on a vacation to Curaçao and read the entire book there. I can't imagine a more beautiful setting for a reader to immerse themselves in the novel, in which the seaside makes a couple of appearances too. The Room of Repositories, which holds all the tales that were ever spun since the beginning of time, sits beside an ocean. (If you've read the book, you'll know what I'm talking about.) How fitting that my story too received such an honour! Thank you, dearest Helen, for your endless support. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/09/Dying-Wishes_Cover.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/09/Dying-Wishes_Last-Page.jpg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/09/Erased-from-Existence.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/09/Certificate.jpeg) The Dream Pedlar's books and stories travelling around the world My yoga teacher decided to display *Erased from Existence* in her studio, and I hope the book finds its way into the hands of a reader who'll enjoy it immensely. And if you're ever in my hometown and looking for a yoga studio to head to, simply ask me and I'll be sure to point you in the right direction. And back in January, I had submitted a short story titled *The Mind Meddler* to the Writers of The Future contest, one of the most prestigious contests for science fiction and fantasy writers, and it secured an Honourable Mention. I take all these as signs from the Universe that my stories are reaching out and touching many more hearts and souls, and that alone drives me to my writing desk, to string together words and weave them into tales of hope and magic. Au revoir, my lovely one! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: of talking sculptures and telling fortunes URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-of-talking-sculptures-and-telling-fortunes/ Last updated: 2026-04-21T14:23:51.000Z I wanted to know what the future held in store for me but my mother advised against it. She was a skilled clairvoyant herself, so her refusal to read my fortune only made me more suspicious of the darkness I was sure lurked around the corner, preparing to engulf my path ahead. I made discreet inquiries in town and learnt of the old sibyl who lives by herself in a red-brick cottage with red doors in a forgotten neck of the woods. It took me six days and seven nights on foot to arrive at her door but when I did, the bust above the red doors said the old dame had given up the ghost last autumn. Dejected, I plonked myself on the doorstep and mumbled a bitter *sorry*, feeling more sorry for myself than for anybody else. But he told me not to be, for the wicked crone, *may her soul rest in peace!*, had never been any good at telling fortunes, he revealed. I asked him if he could tell me my future instead but he scoffed at the suggestion and said he did not hold with divination and fortune telling. Some things are simply not to be trifled with and destiny is one of them, he reasoned. He offered to tell me a story instead, as a little reward for my journey, and, weary as I was, I took him up on his offer. As I listened to his tale, for a brief while, I forgot to worry about my future. *(Tale originally published on Friday, July 10, 2015)* ### August Aspirations: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-august-aspirations/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T22:55:25.000Z Hello again, Dreamer! After the burst of excitement that July brought – long days of blue skies and summer sunshine, a vacation, and a new book release – August has been a rather quiet month. A sort of lull between the feral freedom of July and the back-to-school frenzy of September. And with little D not being so little anymore, now that he's grown more eager to discover the world of summer camps, I've had much time to indulge in my two favourite pastimes in a hiatus: gazing out of the window, and reading. But let's begin at the beginning, because this month it all began with *The Sandman*! The screen adaptation of [Neil Gaiman](https://www.neilgaiman.com)'s beloved comic book series was, like its main protagonist himself, an utterly gorgeous dream! I haven't read *The Sandman* comics, but I've read almost everything else Gaiman has written. In fact, stumbling across Gaiman's novels and short stories more than a decade ago was what brought me to writing fantasy in the first place. I remember the delight of reading *Neverwhere*, and just when I thought this must have been the best novel I'd ever read, I picked up *Anansi Boys* and was completely blown away. When I finished reading it, I went for a walk in the neighbourhood – this was in Singapore where we were living at the time – wondering what would happen if I were to go and knock on the door of this house at the end of the street that had been lying empty for months. It wasn't abandoned. It wasn't boarded up or anything. But it was empty. Lights did not come on, its windows were never opened, and no voices spilled out on to the street. And I often wondered if all I needed to do was knock or ring the doorbell and someone would come to the door and let me in to a secret party that was going on in full swing even though you couldn't tell looking in from the outside. Around the same time, I came across [Erin Morgenstern](https://erinmorgenstern.com)'s flax-golden tales and *The Night Circus*, and I was convinced that magic was to be found in the suburbs of North America. In the blood-red and golden leaves of its fall, in the unhurried flakes of snow of its winter, in the psychedelic-green leaves of its spring, in the beach waves, criss-crossing contrails, and popsicle tongues of its summer. How right I was! And how wrong, too! > Because while anyone can show you their magic, no one knows to tell you that the trick to finding your own magic is to make it yourself in the first place. > It took me long enough to figure out that the only kind of magic that won't leave me feeling as if something is wrong or missing from my life, that won't leave me with an achy longing for something more, something different, is the one I create. Often, I find it in that intangible capturing of an idea at 2 a.m., in the writing or typing of letters to form words and sentences on paper or screen. Like this one here. And the next. And the one after that. But then that too is just as fleeting, gone – *poof!* – as soon as the story or the book is finished and displayed, because all the magic had been in the *creating* and not in the *creation*, even though it is only the latter that the world gets to see*.* On one hand, it has come as such a relief to understand this, to know that looking outwards won't help, to understand that rephrasing the same question will not yield a different answer. Yet, it remains incredibly difficult to *follow* this nugget of wisdom, to remember to look inwards when all that comes into view is a big, crazy mess no one in their right mind would want to get all tangled up in, not knowing whether it can even be salvaged in the first place. Up on the wall in front of my writing desk is a small reactangle of paper bearing a quote attributed to the actress Sally Field. > The struggle is the work. It helps. On some days. On other days, poetry comes to the rescue. #### YOUR BOAT, YOUR WORDS **by Pat Schneider* Your boat, they will tell you, cannot leave the harbor without discipline. But they will neglect to mention that discipline has a vanishing point, an invisible horizon where belief takes over. They will not whisper to you the secret that they themselves have not fully understood: that belief is the only wind with breath enough to take you past the deadly calms, the stopped motion toward that place you have imagined, the existence of which you cannot prove except by going there. And then there are times when neither knowledge nor belief comes to the rescue, because there are other matters that tug at my heart. For you see, in less than a couple of weeks, summer will draw to a close and D will head back to school. The relentless hurtling of time towards that eventuality fills me with great sorrow. On the mornings we wake up early enough, D and I look out of the window for the moon. Off late, we've found her in the company of a large, unblinking planet that a random app on the internet tells us is Jupiter. On late afternoons, in the lull before dinnertime and bedtime routines beckon, we make our way to the sidewalk outside and watch the vehicles go by. Or we lie on the grass and look up at the blue sky criss-crossed with contrails. Or we stay indoors and watch the dance of leaf-shadow on the wall. In times like these, even as I savour the last few days of summer with my child, my inner and outer worlds feel very tenuous and fragile. No matter how many times I face change and loss, every new encounter feels like the very first and I find myself unprepared, unmoored, resisting, until there is nothing left to do but to let it all wash over me and take me in its flow. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### I asked the wise old lady where I could find happiness, and this was her reply This month's tale is from the archives. I can't remember where this picture was taken, but seeing as I wrote this tale in the summer of 2015 – lifetimes ago, it feels like – I reckon this was somewhere in Québec. I found the tale apt and in keeping with today's words on belief and magic and heartbreaking, beautiful life. So here it is. [tales for dreamers: I asked the wise old lady where I could find happiness, and this was her replyThe wise old lady will tell you where and how to find happiness, but you may not want to believe her.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/08/28.-I-asked-the-wise-old-lady-where-I-could-find-happiness--and-this-was-her-answer.JPG)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-i-asked-the-wise-old-lady-about-happiness/) --- ## Books You May Love I began this month reading a lot of mysteries, and all of them turned out to be historical mysteries by some strange and delightful twist of fate. But I've saved the best for the last, and that wasn't a historical mystery. First, I came across *The Vanishing Stair* by [Maureen Johnson](https://www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com), which promised to be a mystery – double mystery, in fact – set in a private boarding high-school, Ellingham Academy, located atop a mountain in Burlington, Vermont. The protagonist Stevie Bell sets out to solve a murder and a disappearance that took place nearly 100 years ago when the school was founded, and finds herself ensnared in a present-day murder as well. It was only after I finished reading the book, which ends in a cliffhanger although one of the mysteries is somewhat solved, did I realize that I had picked up Book 2 of a trilogy titled *Truly Devious*! I promptly grabbed Book 3, *The Hand on The Wall*, which was also a very enticing read and in which everything is nicely and neatly wrapped up. I intend to pick up Book 1 – *Truly Devious* – at some point, but there are more books in the series which follow Stevie Bell as she solves crimes outside of the academy. Book 4, *The Box in The Woods*, waits for me patiently on the bookshelf. --- Another book I was engrossed in this month was *A Game of Fear* by [Charles Todd](https://charlestodd.com/charles-todd-collection/ian-rutledge-series/), Book 24 in a series featuring Inspector Ian Rutledge of the Scotland Yard, a shell-shocked WWI veteran who lives with a voice inside his head, that of a fellow soldier he killed in the war. In addition to the solving of mysteries in the early 20th century, we get an insider's view into the workings of Rutledge's mind as he grapples with his mental and emotional issues. I absolutely loved this aspect of the book in addition to the mystery – it was also spooky and scary in all the right places – and the historical setting. Charles Todd was actually a mother-son duo, but the mother passed away a year ago. As with the Maureen Johnson book, I didn't realise I had picked up a book that wasn't the first of a series, which is great because now I have an entire series of 23 books to look forward to, and Book 1, *A Test of Wills*, is what I will begin reading later this evening. --- And then there was yet another historical mystery I lost myself in: *The Dying Day* by [Vaseem Khan](https://vaseemkhan.com). Much to my endless delight, this one is set in 1950s Bombay, shortly after India secured independence from British rule. It features a strong female protagonist, India's first female inspector, Persis Wadia, who solves crimes while also battling gender discrimination at work, family pressure to get married, and romantic feelings for her colleague, English forensic scientist, Archie Blackwell. It's a rather cerebral kind of mystery, one filled with riddles and puzzles, which reminded me of the daily cryptic crossword puzzle in *The Hindu*, a widely circulated English-language newspaper in India. And that brought to mind the elitism that was associated with intellectual prowess when I was growing up, one that I have jettisoned now in favour of contemplating the unsolvable mysteries of the heart and soul. Still, that didn't take away from the pleasure of reading *The Dying Day*. Again, this turned out to be Book 2 in the *Malabar House* series, which means more Persis-in-1950s-Bombay stories to look forward to! --- And now, the book that stole my heart and ripped it into a thousand pieces and put it all together again in the span of 300 or so pages: *The Book Eaters* by Sunyi Dean. At its very essence, the story is about a group of secret Families living on the Yorkshire moors for whom books are literally food. And when they eat books, they retain all the content. But it is also about so much more! Motherhood. Patriarchy. Systemic oppression. Loyalty towards family. Sibling dynamics. Love for one's children. True and trustworthy friendship. All these are portrayed beautifully against the backdrop of this very fascinating and engrossing fantasy world. I loved it so much that I wrote an entire blog post on it. [books you may love: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean″... we can only live by the light we’re given, and some of us are given no light at all. What else can we do except learn to see in the dark?” \~ The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/The-Book-Eaters.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-book-eaters-by-sunyi-dean/) --- And now after these moments of tender togetherness, we must part ways, dear Dreamer! Our lives wait for us to live them through all the heartaches and joys, the ceaseless change and stifling monotony of it all. In parting, I will leave you with the words of L. R. Knost, author and gentle parenting advocate. > Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful, it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. > And it's breathtakingly beautiful. > \~ L. R. Knost May every breath lighten our hearts, nourish our souls, and carry us with grace through the transitoriness of life. \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: I asked the wise old lady where I could find happiness, and this was her reply URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-i-asked-the-wise-old-lady-about-happiness/ Last updated: 2026-04-21T14:23:36.000Z “There is a place on earth,” she began, “where the blue of the ocean merges with the blue of the sky and it is no longer possible to tell where one ends and the other begins. "Somewhere in that place lies happiness. "You first see her from afar, like a sparkling jewel on the horizon. "The road bends and twists and turns under your feet and yields occasional glimpses of the blue paradise. "Another turn, and you think you will be close enough to reach out and grab her in your hands, happiness for you at last. "You will not, of course, because it is the annoying habit of things living on the horizon that the more you travel towards them, the farther away from you they will appear. "Eventually you will content yourself with seeing her from a distance – isn’t there already much joy in that? – yet you will tell yourself, surely, someday she will be yours." I stared at the wise old lady in incredulity, my brows arched up like fireside tents. “Surely you do not expect me to believe that?” She chuckled and gave me a toothless grin. “Any answer given can only be as good as the question posed, m’dear.” *(Tale originally published on Friday, July 17, 2015)* ### books you may love: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-the-book-eaters-by-sunyi-dean/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:12:42.000Z August was the month in which I came out of my reading slump that began sometime in late spring and lasted most of summer. I devoured many books (note the use of the word *'devoured'*), mostly in the mystery genre, and I was convinced I'd be writing about those books in this post before the newsletter goes out this Sunday. Only, I started reading [Sunyi Dean](https://sunyidean.com)'s *[The Book Eaters](https://sunyidean.com/product/the-book-eaters/)* earlier this week, that too because I was due to return it to the library soon (and it's already a couple of days overdue, yikes) but I didn't want to return it unread. And once I started reading, I couldn't stop. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/08/The-Book-Eaters.jpeg) The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean After a long time has come along a fantasy book that I enjoyed with all my heart. At its very essence, the story is about a group of secret Families living on the Yorkshire moors for whom books are literally food. And when they eat books, they retain all the content! It is a highly patriarchical setup in which the female book eaters are fed a diet of fairy tales while the males intake stories of adventure and bravery. Our protagonist is a female book eater, Devon, whose story is revealed to us in two parallel timelines. This format is one I've come to love ever since I started reading [Kate Morton](https://www.katemorton.com)'s fiction several years ago and all of her books have past and present timelines. This is a format I adopted for my own *Dying Wishes*. It is almost like reading two different but connected stories in tandem within the same book, and in the end the two stories come together in a way that explains so much more than occasional backstories alone can. So anyway, coming back to *The Book Eaters*, we follow Devon in her childhood as she grows up in her Family, and Devon in the present day, where she looks after her five-year-old son, Cai, who is not a book eater but is born a mind eater instead. And Devon has to find people she can feed to Cai to keep her son's hunger sated. And that is only a small though significant part of the overall story, because it truly is about so much more. It won't do the book any justice if I were to tell you about all the other different characters and storylines in the book. But what I can tell you is this: Dean's writing traverses the issues of motherhood, patriarchy, systemic oppression, loyalty towards family, sibling dynamics, and love for one's children, and also presents a beautiful portrayal of true and trustworthy friendship against the backdrop of this very fascinating and engrossing fantasy world. And if that is not convincing enough, video games too make an unexpected but very important appearance in this book about book eaters and mind eaters. At the risk of sounding like a book eater, I have to say that this book was truly a treat and I devoured it! I will leave you with some excerpts that won't reveal much of the story itself but will give you a glimpse into Devon's struggles and Dean's riveting storytelling. The one right below is at the time of the birth of Devon's son, Cai. > ... she was attached. Again. To another tiny creature who would snuff out her spirit when she lost him to the Families, only this time things were harder becuase he was a boy – horror! – and might grow up to be something worse than a bride: a knight, or even a husband. Or both. A hurter of women and a hunter of princesses. And still she would adore him, hopelessly; pine for his loss, endlessly. > For here was the thing that no fairy tale would ever admit, but that she understood in the moment: *love was not inherently good*. > Certainly, it could inspire goodness. She didn't argue that. Poets would tell you that love was electricity in your veins that could light a room. That it was a river in your soul to lift you up and carry you away, or a fire inside the heart to keep you warm. Your electricity could also fry, rivers also drown, and fires could burn; love could be destructive. Punishingly, fatally destructive. > And the other thing, the real bloody clincher of it all, was that the good and the bad didn't get served up equally. If love were a balance of electric lights and electric jolts, two sides of an equally weighted coin, then fair enough. She could deal. > That wasn't how it worked, though. Some love was just the bad, all the time: an endless parade of electrified bones and drowned lungs and hearts that burned to a cinder inside the cage of your chest. > And so she looked down at her son and loved him with the kind of twisted, complex feeling that came from having never wanted him in the first place; she loved him with bitterness, and she loved him with resignation. She loved him though she knew no good could ever come from such a bond. This one below is when Devon shares her story with another character and he asks her, > "Anything else you wish to share of your adventures, Devon? That is an invitation, to be clear, and not a demand." > Anything else? Well. She could tell them about the relief that alcohol brought as the months had dragged on; about the guilt-ridden dreams, and the compass with Salem's picture that weighed heavier than chains. About all those nights standing over her son's sleeping form as she thought about smothering him, then stopping herself. About the discarded victims she'd carried, one by one by one to a slew of homeless shelters over the months. > But if Devon talked about any of that, then she'd have to talk about how you really could get used to anything, with enough time and motivation; how her crimes swiftly dwindled form horrific and extraordinary to a facet of her everyday reality. > She had worked out at some point that this was how the Easterbooks conducted their trafficking without breaking a sweat; how the patriarchs overlooked the suffering and servitude of the mother-brides they destroyed; how humans could continue to exist in an infrastructure of misery. Trauma became routine, and cruelty mundane. Just life, innit. And these lines that Devon says need no context at all. > "But I *do* know we can only live by the light we're given, and some of us are given no light at all. What else can we do except learn to see in the dark?" Let me know if you read this book, and we can chat about its beauty until the end of our days. ### fantasy short stories: quick quests for the brave URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/fantasy-short-stories-quick-quests-for-the-brave/ Last updated: 2022-10-08T11:37:08.000Z Something fun is happening only for the next five days! The ebook version of *[A Benevolent Goddess](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess)* is free on all bookstores for the next five days, Aug 21–25. [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/08/A-Benevolent-Goddess---800-x-1280-px---Internal-Ebook-Cover-2.jpg)](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess) The short story is part of a [promotion](https://iasfa.org/Aug22) being run by The International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (IASFA) and for the next five days, you can grab a number of fantasy short stories, including mine, for free. The IASFA is a professional organization focused on aligning readers with authors. In my opinion, it is just as delightful for an author to find new connoisseurs of their fiction as it is for a reader to come across an author whose stories grab them by the heart and soul. You don't need to sign up to get this month's collection of free fantasy short stories. But if you like what you see, you can also join the IASFA monthly [newsletter](https://iasfa.org/get-free-books/) to get five free books across a variety of SFF sub-genres when you sign up and more free books every month. This month, IASFA included in its newsletter a brief brief history of the short story format in the fantasy genre, and it was so riveting I have included an excerpt from it below. Enjoy! ### Fantasy Short Stories: Quick Quests for the Brave > We think of fantasy as being epic. Enormous tomes, multi-volume novels, sweeping landscapes, and a hero’s tale. Can fantasy be told effectively in a shorter format? This month’s collection of fantasy short stories answers that question with a resounding “yes!” > The Fantasy genre has been around a LONG time. Homer’s *Iliad* and *Odyssey*—those almost three-thousand-year-old classics—are fantasy literature, complete with magic, perilous journeys, and mighty battles. > Short stories, on the other hand, are newer. Edgar Allen Poe was one of the first writers to use the term “short story,” and he wrote less than two hundred years ago. But short-form fantasy stories have been around for a while: ETA Hoffmann’s *The Golden Pot*, The Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales, and (Poe’s contemporary) Hans Christian Andersen’s *The Snow Queen*. And all of those were likely based on older oral traditions. > JRR Tolkien also wrote shorter works. His *Leaf by Niggle*, which was written shortly after *The Hobbit* was published, is probably his most famous. > Last month we talked about some of the great SF Magazines—most of them contained short stories in both Science Fiction *and* Fantasy. In the 1930s, Robert E Howard wrote his first *Conan the Barbarian* story which appeared in the magazine *Weird Tales*. Many consider Conan to be the original Sword and Sorcery stories. While there are more than fifty Conan novels, written by a number of authors, Howard penned 21 stories featuring the barbarian. > If you love fantasy, but have little time to indulge, check out the IAFSA’s gift of short fantasy stories. From August 21st through the 25th, grab free short stories about dragons, wizards, elves, sprites, knights, gods and goddesses and so much more. > > This collection is brought to you only by the mysterious high council at the IASFA. No signup necessary, but if you want more free Science Fiction and Fantasy books every month, join our newsletter. Next month is free Science Fiction novels! > I hope you will visit the [IASFA](https://iasfa.org/Aug22), spot and grab your free copy of *[A Benevolent Goddess](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess),* and stay to find many other books for your reading pleasure. ### Surprise! And a portal into more fantasy URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/surprise-and-a-portal-into-more-fantasy/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T13:53:01.000Z Hello, Dreamer! No, it's not yet the last Sunday of the month. Nor have I learnt the magic of time-travel yet. But I popped in to your inbox a week earlier than usual to let you know that the ebook version of *[A Benevolent Goddess](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess)* is free on all bookstores for the next five days, Aug 21–25\. (Hence, this unexpected missive that couldn't wait until next Sunday!) [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/08/A-Benevolent-Goddess---800-x-1280-px---Internal-Ebook-Cover-1.jpg)](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess) The short story is free as part of a [promotion](https://iasfa.org/Aug22) being run by The International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (IASFA) and for the next five days, you can grab a number of fantasy short stories, including mine, for free. And you don't even need to sign up for anything to access these tales! [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/08/IASFA-Short-Story.jpg)](https://iasfa.org/Aug22) The IASFA is a professional organization focused on aligning readers with authors. In my opinion, it is just as delightful for an author to find new connoisseurs of their fiction as it is for a reader to come across an author whose stories grab them by the heart and soul. You don't need to sign up to get this month's collection of free fantasy short stories. But if you like what you see, you can also join the IASFA monthly [newsletter](https://iasfa.org/get-free-books/) to get five free books across a variety of SFF sub-genres when you sign up and more free books thereafter every month. This month, IASFA included in its newsletter a brief brief history of the short story format in the fantasy genre, and it was so riveting I have included an excerpt from it below. Enjoy! ### Fantasy Short Stories: Quick Quests for the Brave > We think of fantasy as being epic. Enormous tomes, multi-volume novels, sweeping landscapes, and a hero’s tale. Can fantasy be told effectively in a shorter format? This month’s collection of fantasy short stories answers that question with a resounding “yes!” > The Fantasy genre has been around a LONG time. Homer’s *Iliad* and *Odyssey*—those almost three-thousand-year-old classics—are fantasy literature, complete with magic, perilous journeys, and mighty battles. > Short stories, on the other hand, are newer. Edgar Allen Poe was one of the first writers to use the term “short story,” and he wrote less than two hundred years ago. But short-form fantasy stories have been around for a while: ETA Hoffmann’s *The Golden Pot*, The Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales, and (Poe’s contemporary) Hans Christian Andersen’s *The Snow Queen*. And all of those were likely based on older oral traditions. > JRR Tolkien also wrote shorter works. His *Leaf by Niggle*, which was written shortly after *The Hobbit* was published, is probably his most famous. > Last month we talked about some of the great SF Magazines—most of them contained short stories in both Science Fiction *and* Fantasy. In the 1930s, Robert E Howard wrote his first *Conan the Barbarian* story which appeared in the magazine *Weird Tales*. Many consider Conan to be the original Sword and Sorcery stories. While there are more than fifty Conan novels, written by a number of authors, Howard penned 21 stories featuring the barbarian. > If you love fantasy, but have little time to indulge, check out the IAFSA’s gift of short fantasy stories. From August 21st through the 25th, grab free short stories about dragons, wizards, elves, sprites, knights, gods and goddesses and so much more. > > This collection is brought to you only by the mysterious high council at the IASFA. No signup necessary, but if you want more free Science Fiction and Fantasy books every month, join our newsletter. Next month is free Science Fiction novels! > I hope you will visit [IASFA](https://iasfa.org/Aug22), spot and grab your free copy of *[A Benevolent Goddess](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess),* and stay to peruse many other books for your reading pleasure. And we shall meet again next Sunday to mark the near-end of yet another month and the slow but steady inching of our lives towards the last four months of the year. Now, where did all that time go? \~ Anitha ### July Jollities: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-july-jollities/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T22:55:51.000Z Hello, Dreamer! How extraordinary it is that we're standing on the precipice of end-July, ready to tip over into August in only a few hours from now! There has been an unseasonal chill in the air these past few days. It was certainly a welcome respite from the heatwave that scorched this part of the world, and many others, in the preceding days. But it feels almost autumnal now. We have a Rose of Sharon plant that typically blooms in late-August/early-September, and it is already in full bloom now. It has been so chilly in the mornings that visits to the beach have been rather infrequent so far this season. We have more than a month of summer holidays to go as schools begin only in early-September. Yet, the local Walmart has already set up a section for 'School Supplies' right at the entrance, eerily similar to how Christmas lights begin to go up even before all the Halloween ghosts have been laid to rest. Now, my mind conjures up an image of a pair of hands reaching from the far-end of the calendar to grab me and drag me at breakneck speed through the rest of the year – the last month of summer, the beginning of a new school year, Diwali, Halloween, Christmas and the winter holidays – and beyond that, all is dark. A black abyss of the unknown. The impenetrable dark of the night that lies just beyond the pool of light cast by the lantern in my hand; the boundary separating the darkness from the light moves as I move, it keeps pace, it appears to relent a little but always stays tantalizingly out of reach. Like the horizon. This is how my imagination goes into overdrive on the cusp of a transition, which is perhaps why I seem to be able to do most of my fiction writing during autumn and winter. (Or maybe that has something to do with schools being in session in those seasons.) There is no dearth of transitions in our lives. Birthdays. Weddings. Anniversaries. Seasons. Sunrise. Sunset. Dawn. Dusk. That moment when the harsh heat of the afternoon sun suddenly dissolves into a balmy warmth. Births. Deaths. Arrivals. Departures. A [neighbour](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/an-apprentice-to-sorrow/) moving away. [New neighbours](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/the-limitations-of-language/) taking their place. Beginnings. Endings. Of a journey. Of a story. Of a life. Writing the beginning of a new story. Writing 'The End'. Releasing a new book into the world and watch its fate unfold. The first day of school. The last day of school. Holidays. Back-to-school. Sunday evenings, the end of weekends. The last Sunday of the month. Monday mornings, the beginning of a new work week. Everything compels me to pause and take notice. Everything has the capacity to touch my heart, as if for the very first time, as if for the very last time. > For years, I tried to 'logic' my way out of these feelings in the face of a transition – the racing heart, the shallow breaths, that sensation of unexpected groundlessness, of losing balance and falling, falling, falling. > Oh, I knew it all in theory very well – that life is full of uncertainties, that under the blinding lustre of something new lurks the thick, dark grief of losing something old, the death of something familiar, that change means loss and death and rebirth and these are always unfolding all around us. > But this 'knowledge' – that everything changes – used to do little to soothe the constant resurgence of those all-too-familiar anxieties whenever change steamrolled its way into my life. > And I've often worried that this would somehow make me unfit to live in this world, let alone survive or even thrive. Very recently, I read something that has allowed me to make more peace with this conundrum, this tug of war between feelings and knowledge, between the mind and the heart. As a reward for having published [*Erased from Existence*](https://books2read.com/erased-from-existence) (yes, that book is out now, and you are the first to know, and that new development is what has coloured this month's newsletter with the brushstroke of the transition theme, and yes, we will get to news of the book shortly), I decided to purchase a paperback copy of *How The Light Gets In: Writing As a Spiritual Practice* by the late American poet, Pat Schneider. I came across Schneider's poems only last week and their raw beauty took my breath away. In her book in which she shares more of her work and also about her writing life, she penned the lines below in a very different context, but her astute observation seems to apply universally. > "I can, of course, intellectually set aside those deep associations, but feelings have a deeper hold on us than our mental constructs. Changing our minds does not always change our feelings." > \~ Pat Schneider in How The Light Gets In: Writing As a Spiritual Practice And feelings always lead us to delve deeper into that liminal space, that vast expanse of groundlessness that opens up beneath us when the old and the familiar have passed and we are yet to settle into the new and the unfamiliar. But that simply won't happen unless we befriend the *death-space* we temporarily find ourselves in. > Out of perfection, nothing can be made. Every process involves breaking something up. The earth must be broken to bring forth life. If the seed does not die, there is no plant. Bread results from the death of wheat. Life lives on lives. Our own life lives on the acts of other people. If you are lifeworthy, you can take it. What we are really living for is the experience of life, both the pain and the pleasure. > \~ Joseph Campbell One teacher and author whose work revolves around the experience of transitions and anxiety is [Sheryl Paul](https://conscious-transitions.com), whose book, *'The Wisdom of Anxiety*'*,* has had a profound impact on how I have been going through transitions off late. > We habitually think of transitions as “hard” or “negative”, but what most people fail to recognize is that embedded in these predictable life-cycle occurrences are opportunities that invite us to spiral into our fears and grief so that we heal at deeper levels each time. Instead of powering through transitions as quickly as possible, we would benefit greatly by embracing them as the gifts that they are. > From a spiritual perspective, every transition is an opportunity for growth. As we learn how to let go into the ‘groundlessness’ that defines the in-between stage of transition between the end of the old life and beginning of the new, we move into a more effortless alignment with life. Life is ever-changing, and when we approach transitions consciously and with the intention of growth, we eventually learn how to accept this truth with grace. > This is not an easy task. Transitions require no less than the willingness to die (symbolically), to sit in the uncomfortable void, and to be reborn. Who would willingly embrace this task? > \~ Sheryl Paul in Conscious Transitions: The Seven Most Common (and Traumatic) Life Changes --- Is it any wonder then that most of my works of fiction delve into the themes of death and loss, grief and heartache? It is such a fascinating concept, this liminal space that hovers between the old and the new! If I were to string the moments of my life together like flowers on a garland, most of them would be the daylilies of transition. And so it is with my latest novel, [*Erased from Existence*](https://books2read.com/b/erased-from-existence)! It is a paranormal mystery. It is a ghost story. There are family secrets involved. And plenty of sunsets on a lavender farm. And isn't the cover simply gorgeous? If it were not for the title, how could we possibly tell if the woman was disappearing or coming into being? I absolutely enjoyed writing this book, and I hope it offers you too a lot of reading pleasure. Both ebook and paperback versions are available on Amazon. In the coming days, it will be available on several more platforms and [this link](https://books2read.com/b/erased-from-existence) will be updated accordingly. Grab your copy [here](https://books2read.com/b/erased-from-existence)! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/Erased-from-Existence---800-x-1280-px---Internal-Book-Cover.jpg) Erased from Existence *A lavender farm in summer.* *A fifteen-year-old girl who loves the colours of sunset.* *A handsome stranger who begs her to run away with him.* *It could have been a love story. Except, it is not that kind of a story.* When a strange man approaches Rebecca Classion outside her farmhouse in the dead of the night and begs her to not go back inside, she does what any sensible fifteen-year-old would do. She runs straight back into the safety of home and slams the door shut behind her. Only, it turns out to be the worst decision of her life. From that day on, Rebecca Classion fades away. From the memories of all who once knew and loved her. From the perception of everyone she encounters. Not a trace of her persists for more than a fleeting instant. Not her voice. Not a footprint. All she yearns for is to exist again in the world of her loved ones. But oblivion may be the only safe place. After all, to be seen is to be exposed. And some truths are better left hidden. *Start reading* [*here*](https://books2read.com/b/erased-from-existence)*!* --- And because we have spoken so much about moments of loss and metaphorical death, here's a poem from Pat Schneider who marvels eloquently at the aliveness she perceives in non-living objects. Because, how often do we even look at the cup that holds our tea or coffee patiently for us? #### THE PATIENCE OF ORDINARY THINGS **by Pat Schneider* It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How soles of feet know Where they’re supposed to be. I’ve been thinking about the patience Of ordinary things, how clothes Wait respectfully in closets And soap dries quietly in the dish, And towels drink the wet From the skin of the back. And the lovely repetition of stairs. And what is more generous than a window? --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### The Piano Man This story was written back in 2015, during a long-ago summer in Montréal. It was a pre-D, pre-pandemic era, but a liminal summer nonetheless, for we knew our stay there was only temporary, and we had made plans for where we'd be headed after that, but nothing could have prepared us for the biggest transition of all that was to come: parenting. [tales for dreamers: the piano manThe Piano Man is no Pied Piper for he makes no demands, but he too seeks something no mortal can give him.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/27.-the-piano-man.JPG)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-piano-man/) --- ## Books You May Love After not being able to offer you much in this section over the past couple of months, I am beyond thrilled to share with you this month's find. Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach. I can't help but laugh because, as it turns out, this story too deals with major life changes – transitions! – in a way that will mercilessly tear your heart and lift it up with innocent love at the same time. [books you may love: Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach“Your silence, it has always been the most perfect punishment.” \~ A tender line from Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/3.-notes-on-your-sudden-disappearance.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-notes-on-your-sudden-disappearance-by-alison-espach/) --- Now it's time to bid goodbye, dear Dreamer! Because we've spent our time together delving into the realm of the ephemeral, I'll leave you with images of the seemingly permanent. Many of you have read my [post](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/the-happiness-that-was-neither-in-the-mountains-nor-in-the-tesla/) earlier this month on our recent trip to Vancouver, and I'm sharing here a couple of photos we took from the same spots back in 2015 and this year too. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/1.-Howe-Sound-2015.JPG) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/2.-Howe-Sound-2022.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/3.-Diver-in-wet-suit_2015.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/4.-Diver-in-wet-suit_2022.jpeg) Howe Sound in 2015 and in 2022; Diver in wet suit off Stanley Park seawall in 2015 and in 2022 Sometimes when life feels like its being driven by a stuntbike rider inside a circus cage, perhaps these images could remind us of the fleeting nature of transitions themselves! As always, thank you for reading. In a world that is ever-changing, it is an honour for me to be able to knock on your (virtual) door and lay these words at your feet with a regularity of sorts. I hope they bring you both solace and delight in these fleeting times. \~ Anitha --- **Want to support The Dream Pedlar's writings? Here are a couple of ways to do that.** - Tell a friend. If you know someone who would enjoy what I write, forward this missive along to them. - Buy my [books](https://thedreampedlar.com/books/)! You can find them on various platforms, most in both ebook and paperback formats. - Write to me. (Simply reply to this missive.) So I'd be delighted to know that you're reading and enjoying these monthly labours of love and heart and soul. ### books you may love: Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-notes-on-your-sudden-disappearance-by-alison-espach/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:12:51.000Z After months of not being able to read any book beyond its first twenty pages or so, I devoured this book in a matter of three evenings. I love it so much that I do not wish to return it to the library. Perhaps I could simply keep it for as long as I can, until the overdue fees threaten to exceed the cost of the book itself. Of course, an easier solution would be to simply purchase a copy of this gorgeous, heartbreaking yet heartening book, but whenever have I striven to take the easier path? It was the title that grabbed my attention at first. *[Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58672976-notes-on-your-sudden-disappearance)*. And then that first ~~sentence~~ paragraph: > You disappeared on a school night. Nobody was more surprised by this than me. If I believed in anything when I was thirteen, I believed in the promise of school nights. I believed in the sacred ritual of homework, then dinner, and then the laying out of our clothes for the next morning–something Mom insisted on from the very beginning. It is about two sisters, Sally and Kathy Holt. Kathy is three years older than Sally and is a source of endless fascination for the younger sister. Kathy falls in love with a high school senior and local basketball star, Billy Barnes, and Sally too is infatuated with both Billy and his love story with her sister. And then, a tragedy befalls the trio, Kathy's disappearance in an incident in which Billy and Sally are the survivors. The entire story is about how Sally copes with her sister being gone and how her relationship with Billy changes through the years. The book is written from the point of view of Sally, as though she is talking to Kathy, narrating everything to her older sister, they way she used to when Kathy was still around and the two sisters would chat at night about boys and life and all the things Sally felt clueless about and believed that her older sister had the answers to. And even though the characters are young adults, or perhaps because they are young adults, there's a rawness and sincerity of emotions that I haven't come across in a book in a long, long time. There are so many tender lines in the book. So many raw emotions expressed in the simplest of language that I wanted to hold Sally's hand and thank her for all the times she lent words to the very things I've felt often and not known how to make sense of! Most certainly a nod to the genius of the author, [Alison Espach](https://www.alisonespach.com)! *These are the kinds of books I'm drawn towards. Books that are not about a bunch of people trying to save the world, but about how a single person's world can be upended by a single quirk of fate.* *Because in the end it is not the world that needs saving but our very souls. And while that might seem like a rather insignificant task, it is probably the most important thing we could do in our lifetime. Save our own souls.* I'll leave you with a bunch of excerpts here because any description I could give for the book would be sorely inadequate. > You pulled out one of Mom's beauty magazines and we did a personality quiz that determined whether we were Yellow People, Green People, or Red People. I didn't know these were kinds of people, I said. But you acted like it was science. You scored our answers and then announced the results. > "You're a Red Person," you said. > Even before you read the description, I knew it was not good. A Red Person liked symmetrical shapes, place mats, and feedback. A Red Person was rational, sensible, reliable. > "What are you?" > "A Green Person," you said. A Green Person was chill. A Green Person was ready for anything. A Green Person liked dreams, open seas, and crystals. A Green Person wore a string bikini to the pool and said things like, "Nudity is what you make of it, you know. In Europe, people are naked all the time and nobody cares." > And a Red Person felt upset by this. "They are?" > That couldn't be. An entire continent of naked people? But then again, Europeans were often naked in the paintings and sculptures we studied at school and our teachers acted like it was no big deal, pointed to their genitals with their fingers, and said, "What Michaelangelo is doing here is celebrating the beauty of the human form." > "I just mean, Americans are such puritans," you said. > "You're American," I said. > "I know." > I sat there and felt the fuzz covering my legs, two hairs almost out of every follicle, which was an outrage to me, but apparently my fate, according to Mom. "You're half-Italian, half-German," Mom always said. "This is what life is going to be like for you, Sally." And yet she still wouldn't let me shave. Mom hid the razors on the top shelf, then dragged me to the salon every six weeks, and I didn't understand–why did I have to keep my leg hair but was not allowed to keep the hair on my head? > \*\*\* Now she's talking about Hurricane Kathy, several years later. > Mom is sitting close to the television like we had as children, as if she is in love with the weatherman and maybe she is. Maybe that's what happens to the old women who have nowhere to go. They stare at the sea on TV and they lose their vision and inch closer and closer until they fall in love with the weatherman. > "I can't believe this storm," she says. "The weatherman says it will be a bad one." > "The weatherman is paid to be dramatic," I say. > Right now, he is explaining how we will all die in the storm. He claims that if we do not drown in our beds, then our windows will shatter and slit our throats. If we do not die by glass, then we will die by blunt force, high winds, and waves that will take the house. Like someone cleaning a countertop, in one sweep, and everything is gone. If the house stands, then we have to consider other dangers, things like flooding and electrocution. And we should definitely not go downstairs to get that thing we think we need but don't need at all, because downstairs, in the flooded basement, is where people die. > "It happens all the time during hurricanes," the weatherman says. > The weatherman seems excited about all of the death that is to come; he makes it sound like the different ways of dying are like different trails up the mountainside. > \*\*\* > Mom looks at the ocean on TV, which is flooded with surfers on their boards, waiting patiently, like you are something to have faith in. I feel I might scream. All of a sudden, I can't stand it here for one more second, the smallness of our house, the constancy of the waves, the inevitability of disaster. I can't stand how even now, after all these years, I sometimes look down the hall and expect to still see you, coming out of our bedroom, brushing your teeth, toothpaste building like sea foam. > Because you never are. You are dead–I know you are dead. I saw it with my own eyes. I read about it in the autopsy report, over and over again, and now I know too much about your death. Fun facts that are not very fun, things you do not even know about yourself, like that your brain weighed 1,360 grams. Three times what youre heart weighed. And your aorta, it was smooth and glistening. Teeth, hemorrhagic. A laceration on your left eyebrow. Cuts on your lower lip and chin area. Rigor mortis present in the upper and lower extremities. A contusion on the chest, and a broken right ankle, which somehow seemed beside the point. > And yet, I used to sit up at night, saying your name, waiting for you to appear before me, waiting for you to turn into Kathy again. Waiting for you to say something. Just one little thing. A simple "hello" would have sufficed. > But it was only silence that followed. And this silence made me feel so stupid. Your silence, it has always been the most perfect punishment. > \*\*\* And now, my favourite bit. The last few words of the book. > In the morning, when the power comes back on, the weatherman cuts through our house and wakes us all up. From my bed, I can hear him announcing what will happen to you: You will go north. You will become a tropical storm. You will make it all the way to Labrador, and that is where you will come apart. That is where your winds will spread over the ocean until you are no longer Kathy, until you are only air. > But you will return to us, I know. When we are repainting the house or making pancakes for breakfast or digging in the garden or laughing at something funny with our heads back and our mouths wide open–the way you always laughed–we will breathe you in without even knowing it. > \~ Excerpts from [Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58672976-notes-on-your-sudden-disappearance) by [Alison Espach](https://www.alisonespach.com) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/3.-notes-on-your-sudden-disappearance-1.jpeg) ### the happiness that was neither in the mountains nor in the Tesla URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-happiness-that-was-neither-in-the-mountains-nor-in-the-tesla/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:13:51.000Z It is said that the Universe teaches us the same lessons over and over again until we have truly learnt them. Patterns keep repeating in our lives, and the same kind of people and incidents keep showing up unless we face the unavoidable truths they're forcing us to see. One thing I've noticed in the past few years is not only my tendency to forget these oft-repeated lessons but the fact that it is often little D who shows me the truth when life brings me to my knees. A couple of weeks ago, we were holidaying in Vancouver, a place that KrA and I had first visited seven years ago and had the opportunity to revisit this summer with little D. I couldn't wait to show D how impossibly huge mountains could be, how beautiful the strait is that leads to the Pacific Ocean, invisible beyond the horizon. (Even as I write this, I can't help but laugh at my own arrogant naïveté, as I am only all too aware of the events that followed.) We arrived in Vancouver on Monday evening. When we went to pick up our rental car, an unexpected surprise was in store for us. While we had only booked a sedan, when we arrived at the counter, the agent offered us a Tesla at a marginal additional cost, an offer we accepted promptly. He had made the offer to another gentleman ahead of us in the line who had declined it. In fact, when we were waiting in line, KrA was mulling aloud that it would have been fun to rent a Tesla had the rates not been exorbitant. The agent informed us that he had offered the car to several other people who had baulked at driving a Tesla for the first time. I am by no means a tech enthusiast but KrA more than makes up for my deficiency in that department, and both of us love driving. So it was a no-brainer that we'd jump at the opportunity to drive the car. The Tesla was meant to come to us. When we got into the car, we realized it was a brand new vehicle. It hadn't even been driven for more than 50 km or so. It took KrA a while to figure out the display and the controls, and then we were off. We reached the hotel to find that our room was gloriously spacious. I find that space is always an uncertain factor when travelling. Photos on websites are rarely able to convey how large a room truly is. We were delighted with what we found, and with how our vacation had started on a great note. In our long-ago trip to British Columbia, it was in the beautiful land of Squamish that I had left a piece of my heart, and so my sole objective for this visit was to head back there. With one eye on the weather forecast, we decided to make our way up to Squamish the very next day as the forecast predicted rain for the rest of the week thereafter. For reasons I don't recollect now, I got into a nasty spat with KrA that morning and it was with a heavy heart that we set out to Squamish. I had looked forward to the drive on the sea-to-sky highway for months, but as we crossed the mountains that rose from the Strait of Georgia, I tried to lay my heavy heart at their feet but to no avail. The sights that I had wanted to show D passed us by as the child fell asleep during the drive, no doubt jet-lagged and exhausted from the previous day's flight. It is often said that a walk in nature can help soothe our distress and anxiety but that morning even the mountains of British Columbia seemed unable to help me. It got me wondering if I had fallen so deep down the dark hole of depression that there was possibly no way out for me anymore. Even back at home in Burlington, long walks to the lake or the beach don't always have the power to nudge me out of the doldrums. I have often returned from walks by the beach with the saddening realization that happiness is not in the waterfront. Ahead of the trip, I had held out hope that I'd be able to tell a different story from the lap of the mountains. Finding that happiness eluded me in the mountains too only caused my spirits to sink lower as we made our way to the place I had yearned to revisit over the past seven years. We went up to the summit and spent a few uneventful hours there, doing all the touristy stuff, including going on a trail that was especially designed for kids, and impressively so. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/Squamish-2015.JPG) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/07/Squamish-2022.jpeg) Howe Sound in 2015 (L) and in 2022 (R) When I crossed the suspension bridge that led to the view seen in the image on the right, I had a sense of déjà vu. I had seen this before, I knew, and later I was able to comb through the countless photos on my phone and come up with an almost identical one taken seven years ago. So little has changed in the mountains in these past seven years whereas I'm sure I wouldn't even recognize 2015-me if she were to turn up at my doorstep. I remember that in the summer of 2015 I was in the midst of my MBA program and I was curious about my future. I wondered where I'd be in the summer of 2016\. Where would I be working? Where would we be living? Not in my wildest imaginations would I have envisioned reality as it actually unfolded the following year, us in Australia with little D on the way and the dark, dark nights of the lost soul that were to follow. At the top of the mountain, I was sad. Sad that I had come all the way here hoping to find some sort of salve, some sort of relief that I believed existed in the lap of nature, only to find myself lost and confused all over again. If even being in the midst of such natural beauty could not soothe me, what hope was left? Where else could I go to find relief in the midst of despair? On the way back, I decided to drive the Tesla. A few moments on the road and that's all it took for me to steer the beauty down the gorgeous highway with those breathtaking views. And the happiness that had eluded me so far that day began to seep back into my heart. I love being behind the wheel. It is an almost meditative experience and more often than not, I prefer to drive in silence rather than switch on the radio or Spotify. It is also in the silence of the car that D and I continue to have our many interesting conversations with no other distractions. But life is nothing if not unpredictable. About a quarter-hour of driving bliss later, D announced that he needed to use the restroom. To p\*\*p. (It's funny how I wouldn't have minded writing the *f* word but hesitate to spell out the big *p* word!) In that remote drive, there were no exits nearby that could have led us to a coffee shop or any other such place where D could have done his business. The nearest Starbucks was by an exit about 20 minutes away, and we started heading that way. But little D was in a hurry. I was tearing down the sinuous mountain road way beyond the speed limit than I ought to confess, prompted by D's sense of urgency. The child's whines only grew louder and more frequent. He started to complain of a headache, and we kept telling him to not look at the gigantic display screen in the car but to look outside instead to prevent motion sickness. > "Look at those mountains outside, honey," I urged him. "They are so beautiful." > And darling D, that precious, precious child, said to me with the patience of a wise old man, "I know the mountains are beautiful, Mama, but not when I'm getting urgent p\*\*p." > There was nothing for me to say after that. What good is a majestic mountain when the body and mind are completely in the chokehold of an unavoidable urgency to execute an essential bodily function?! I continued to speed towards that Starbucks oasis and a few minutes later, D made a strange sound and said, "I vomited." And he continued to throw up as I found a spot to pull into and park. We spent the next half an hour first cleaning up the precious child, and then cleaning up that brand-new Tesla whose backseat was now covered in my little one's puke. We cleaned it enough to be able to drive back to the hotel, and later that evening, KrA spent another good hour cleaning all the nooks and crevices with anti-bacterial wipes. Later when I recalled the incident, I couldn't help but burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. What I had deemed essential for my sanity – a retreat into the mountains – had in fact shown me that it too was not an indispensable determinant of my happiness. I've often seen the meme that goes something like this: Money can't buy happiness but I'd much rather cry in a Ferrari. While I understand that notion, I'm beginning to see more and more clearly that the car you are in simply does not matter. I have plunged often enough and deep enough into the dark depths of soul-unhappiness to attest to this. Because when we are floundering in the depths of despair, no amount of external opulence and beauty around us can give our hearts and souls the salve they so desperately need. Instead, we sit there wondering how on earth we could possibly be so anxious and unhappy even in the midst of all that luxury. And very quickly that question turns into self-blame, a conviction that soemthing must be so horribly wrong with us that we're unable to enjoy the pleasures of life. That is not to say that we must live a life devoid of beauty and pleasures. But perhaps the important question to ask is this: is this object of beauty something I longed for because it spoke to me? Or did I want it because I had hoped it would transform me in some fashion, make me more likeable to myself in some magical way? > And I must confess, among many other things, my initial longing for travelling too was mired in this desperate search for a new way of being. Travelling would make me a new person, I thought, a wiser, kinder, more mature person. It would transform me into something I aspired to be, into something I was not. > All my friends who had travelled seemed to be fearless, more worldy-wise. Brave in a way I wasn't. Adventurous in a way I thought I'd never be. Full of stories to recount. They knew things I hadn't ever heard of, stuff I wouldn't have conjured up in my wildest dreams. As if the Universe had opened up to them somewhere in their travels and revealed to them the very secrets of life. > But we all know how the story goes. We only become more of ourselves as we go through the experiences life hurls at us. And so in this quest for a *better* version of myself, I went from place to place, naïvely believing that I could shed my old skin and discard it in the place I was leaving so that somehow I'd arrive at my new destination, transformed, metamorphosed. And to be honest, it would indeed feel that way in the initial euphoria of change. In a new place, I'd feel like a new me that had nothing to do with the old me. But after a few days of lying dormant, the old me would resurface with renewed vigour, demanding attention and acknowledgment, demanding the liberty to express itself fully. The old anxieties would resurface, only garbed in different disguises. Perhaps the only time I've travelled without any agenda, so to speak, is when I left my job in London and returned to India with little clue as to what I'd do next in my life. My parents had planned to go to Rameswaram, and I tagged along, wanting to be anywhere other than at home and with myself and my dark, desperate thoughts. My parents had the entire itinerary planned out. Visits to a few temples. Religious ceremonies to be performed. I literally had nothing to do except go along for the ride. It wasn't a trip that I went on to enhance my identity or pursue growth in some way. Instagram wasn't even a thing back then, although Orkut and perhaps even Facebook was, but those were the times when posts inevitably invited follow-up questions from relatives and we were sparing and sneaky in what we posted. I don't think I even have any photos from the trip, nor do I remember a whole lot of it, except for a long walk with my parents and a priest along a long, deserted stretch of beach, in an abandoned town called Dhanushkodi, where the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean collided into and mingled with each other. Perhaps it is only my imagination, but I vividly remember two distinct stretches of water in stark contrast with each other in their colour and hue. One turquoise, the other teal. One of a lighter hue, the other richer than the vast blue sky above. And amid the ruins of that ghost town that had long been destroyed by a cyclone and deemed unfit for living, I found a peace I hadn't even been looking for at that point. I had sunk so far deep into despair that I had given up hope of any future salve. And it was when I stopped thinking of relief as something to be attained in the future, that my eyes could open to its presence right there, all around me. > When we move from the closed confines of the walls of our homes, no matter how beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, to the vast expanse of space, I feel that the Universe is large enough to hold all my fears and desires, my worries and hopes. > In my room, where I take up a lot of space, all that my mind makes up forms a bubble around me, which grows and grows and pushes against the walls. And becuase it can't go beyond the walls, it pushes back against me, constricting my chest, squeezing the last drop of breath out of me. If I can, I run out of the house to a place where I can see the skies and draw breaths from the very core of its infinite blueness. If I can't, I go to the window and look at leaf-dance in the sunlight and the patch of sky that I can see from this vantage point, and try to settle in the knowledge that slowly this worry-bubble around me will ebb away and dissipate into the ether. And so it came as a surprise when the sight of those mountains on the road to Squamish did little at first to soothe me. But it wasn't the first time that I had been unable to find a salve in nature. On a few occasions last summer, I had been to the local beach, and I vividly remember coming back with the thought that *happiness is not in the waterfront*. > The only thing that seems to help is the passage of time. In our inability to wait for the anxiety to ebb, we fill our time with things or experiences that we believe would heal us. Like cooking or travel. And we mistakenly believe that those activities and experiences have the power to heal us the next time we find ourselves in the doldrums. Inevitably there comes a time when these too fail to soothe us, and we are left with the realization that happiness is always, always an inside job. The next day we went for a bike ride on the seawall around Stanley Park. The rich scent of pine enveloped me, and reminded me of a long-ago trip to the hills of Kodaikannal in Tamil Nadu that I went on with my friends from university. It was a short, crazy trip, and among other things I recollect the bunch of us sleeping on the floor in a gas station because the driver of our van was too sleepy to take us back to the hostel that night. I also remember the rich scent of eucalyptus, and eventually coming back to the hostel to find that news of an accident had been making its rounds and those who hadn't come on the trip with us had believed that we had met our maker on that trip. > Travel wasn't a loaded word back then. We had just wanted to go on a trip, friends making the most of the time we had remaining with each other. We weren't travelling with an intention to step out of our comfort zone or to broaden our horizons or to explore a new culture or to expand our identity. It was simply driven by a desire to do something fun. That is how it is for D right now. A trip is not a *getaway* as travel brochures so blatantly advertise. He's not looking to escape anything. But there are lots of fun elements he associates with travel now. Getting to stay in a hotel and eating cereals for breakfast and watching TV in the room, going to see new places from which he draws inspiration to build new LEGO models. Despite the events in the Tesla on the first day, he grew to enjoy the other aspects of the car, especially the gigantic screen that provided a real-time display of traffic around you. It even showed people walking and crossing the street or riding their bikes. It showed a pickup truck distinct from a bus. It even showed traffic lights. Discovering all this was quite fascinating for him and us too. D couldn't bear the new car smell though, so for the remainder of our trip, we mostly drove with the windows rolled down, which was a no-brainer in Vancouver for everytime we drove through Stanley Park, the rich scent of pine elevated our senses and rejuvenated us. It reminded me of my own childhood when Dad would want the car windows rolled up and the air-conditioning turned on, but that would almost always make me puke, and I preferred the windows rolled down and the sweep of the wind over my face and hair. Made it easier for me to empathize with and help my little one in his time of need. D is still of that innocent age where he does what he does for the joy it brings him. I am the grown-up one who assigns meanings and significance to this simple act of living, perhaps so that I too may claw my way back to what I fear I have lost. But one thing I have learnt. > There is no prescription for a good life. No one can tell us what it means to live well. > Doing something, or conversely not doing something, is no guarantee of a desired future outcome. > We may have deluded ourselves otherwise but all we can truly do is live this moment the best we can, live this moment for its own sake, without seeking to make some reparation for a past folly or to recreate a past joy or holding on to the hope of warding off a future trouble or creating a desired future consequence. > Because life is simply too mysterious to be encapsulated into a universal formula or prescription for good living. ### June Jubilations: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-june-jubilations/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T22:56:32.000Z Dear Dreamer, How delightful it is to find myself at my writing desk, penning yet another missive to you! It is like writing to a pen pal, a reader in a distant part of the world, with whom I can't help but share the deepest longings of my heart. So tell me, my dear friend. How has the month of June been for you? We're almost midway through the year, and somehow it seems to me that the latter part of the year tends to whiz by faster than the first half. But before I start to plan for the rest of the year, I must give June its due, for it has truly been a month of celebrations for us. We have a newly 6-year-old at home! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/06/D-at-beach_1.jpeg) In the years past, I used to be teary-eyed as we marked the passage of time, the lapse of yet another year since my child's birth. This year was markedly different, though. There was little space for sentimentality as the calendar this month was replete with occasions to celebrate–birthdays, of D's as well as many of his friends', playdates, a field trip from D's school in which I had the amazing opportunity to go along as a parent volunteer, catching up with a friend, the end of yet another school year, and the beginning of summer holidays. We were all caught up in a endless wave of celebrations each weekend, as if to compensate for all the joys of living we couldn't share with each other over the past two years. This month, I was alive in a way that I hadn't been, that most of us haven't been, in recent times. And this aliveness left little room for nostalgia or anxiety, for thoughts about the past or the future, in a wonderfully liberating way. It reminded me of a long-ago remark made by the late mythologist and writer, Joseph Campbell, in a [series of interviews](https://billmoyers.com/series/joseph-campbell-and-the-power-of-myth-1988/) on the power of myth with journalist, Bill Moyers. > Moyers: So myths are stories of the search by men and women through the ages for meaning, for significance, to make life signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find out who we are. > Campbell: People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that the life experiences that we have on the purely physical plane will have resonances within that are those of our own innermost being and reality. And so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive, that’s what it’s all finally about, and that’s what these clues help us to find within ourselves. That rapture of being alive! We look for it in the big constructs, the abstract ones, in the grandeur of vision, in the significance we attribute to purpose and meaning. But it was right there in the seemingly insignificant details of my daily life this month. In the birthday parties and in the field trips. In the laughter of children and in the unexpected hush of summer afternoons. In the dance of sunlight and leaf-shadow on the wall in front of me. In the violent but mercifully brief bouts of illness that KrA and I endured. In the first overseas trip for work KrA has embarked on since D's arrival – an entirely new experience for all of us in more ways than one. In the loop-listening to Kate Bush's *Running Up That Hill, A Deal with God*. Oh, yes! For I too have fallen in love with that song that Season 4 of Stranger Things has brought back to life, nearly four decades after it was first released! (On an aside, for someone who claims to not watch much TV, I have been binge-watching exactly one new show every month for the last few months. After *Bridgerton* and *Heartstopper*, it was *Stranger Things* this month. And after watching Season 4 (actually only Volume 1, because Volume 2 will be released only on 1 July, a clever move by the powers-that-be because it feels as if everyone and every ghost that haunts them are now holding their breath in anticipation for July to arrive), I went back and watched the first three seasons, one episode a night. As a writer, I had much to learn from the sheer story-telling genius of the team that brought *Stranger Things* to life.) And yes, that euphoria of being alive was also to be found in my everyday writing of new poems and stories, of words that I hope somehow soothe your soul. Like in the writing of this missive, as I think of you and hope that when you read this, something will light a little spark in you and that you too may experience the *rapture* of being alive. One such piece of writing that lit me up from within when I first read it is a poem titled *Antidotes to Fear of Death* by Rebecca Elson, the late Canadian-American astronomer and writer. In fact, I loved it so much that I wrote it down on a piece of paper and taped it to the wall in front of me. I hope it makes your day a little brighter too. #### ANTIDOTES TO FEAR OF DEATH **by Rebecca Elson* Sometimes as an antidote To fear of death, I eat the stars. Those nights, lying on my back, I suck them from the quenching dark Till they are all, all inside me, Pepper hot and sharp. Sometimes, instead, I stir myself Into a universe still young, Still warm as blood: No outer space, just space, The light of all the not yet stars Drifting like a bright mist, And all of us, and everything Already there But unconstrained by form. And sometime it’s enough To lie down here on earth Beside our long ancestral bones: To walk across the cobble fields Of our discarded skulls, Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis, Thinking: whatever left these husks Flew off on bright wings. --- It is perhaps this newfound joy of being alive that explains why, despite the incredibly busy month that June has been so far, I've ironically also found the time as well as the drive, one in snippets and the other in boundless measure, to make progress on my publishing projects. My new novel, *Erased from Existence*, is in the last stages of getting readied, and will go live before the end of July. You are the first to hear about it! Below's the cover and the blurb. I'm so excited about this book. It feels very different from all my books thus far. It's a *supernatural mystery*, and I've played around with genre conventions enough to offer my own gentle, mystical take that I hope you'll find refreshingly new yet familiarly Dream Pedlar-*ish* at the same time. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/06/Erased-from-Existence_Internal-Ebook-Cover-1.jpg) *A lavender farm in summer.* *A fifteen-year-old girl who loves the colours of sunset.* *A handsome stranger who begs her to run away with him.* *It could have been a love story. Except, it is not that kind of a story.* When a strange man approaches Rebecca Classion outside her farmhouse in the dead of the night and begs her to not go back inside, she does what any sensible fifteen-year-old would do. She runs straight back into the safety of home and slams the door shut behind her. Only, it turns out to be the worst decision of her life. From that day on, Rebecca Classion fades away. From the memories of all who once knew and loved her. From the perception of everyone she encounters. Not a trace of her persists for more than a fleeting instant. Not her voice. Not a footprint. All she yearns for is to exist again in the world of her loved ones. But oblivion may be the only safe place. After all, to be seen is to be exposed. And some truths are better left hidden. --- I am also delighted to announce that my short story, *A Benevolent Goddess*, is now available as an auto-narrated [audiobook](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess?format=audiobook) on the Google Play store! Google has rolled out a project whereby publishers can use AI-narrator voices to have their ebooks converted into audiobook format. I chose the voice of Mary, which Google categorizes as a 60+ year old American female with a US accent. The result is mindblowing! The technology in its current state is best-suited for non-fiction titles, which don't entail a range of vocal inflections, so it seemed apt to try it out for *A Benevolent Goddess*, which has only a few dialogues. Nonetheless, Mary sounds like a dear, older, wiser friend narrating a bedtime story. I could also *teach* Mary the correct pronounciation of certain words, including my first name. The audiobook version also includes the Bonus Chapter 7, which does not appear in the ebook or paperback versions currently. Grab yourself a copy [here](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess?format=audiobook) and give it a listen! The runtime is about 1 hour 30 minutes. [![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/06/A-Benevolent-Goddess---AudioBook-Cover---Smaller-Version.jpg)](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess?format=audiobook) *Countless gods you pray to. Only one answers. It will cost her dearly.* In a land where gods have long mastered the art of ignoring the prayers of human beings, a new goddess arrives. She desires nothing more than to help those who call out in faith. But every choice, no matter how noble, comes with its own consequences. Even the benevolent goddess will have to pay a steep price if she chooses to follow her heart’s desire. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### Reflections In a different lifetime, KrA and I visited New Zealand. If I remember correctly, we were on our way to Milford Sound in a bus when the driver halted at a place near a little creek and declared that the water was absolutely delicious and undoubtedly potable. We filled our bottles and I took tentative sips, worried that we might fall ill. We didn't, and the water truly tasted divine. This picture was taken near the creek, and the story followed soon after. [tales for dreamers: reflectionsMirror, mirror on the earth, if I were to peer into your depths, what will you show me in return? Something that lurks between death and birth?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/06/46.-reflections-1.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-reflections/) --- ## Books You May Love Alas, I have little to offer you on this front this month! I continue to struggle with reading. I've been picking up books, then letting them fall by the wayside. What I have below is a pile of books that I returned to the library, all of them unread. But I share them here in case any title catches your fancy. Each one of them did appeal to me at one point, which is why I lugged them home from the library in the first place, but somwhere between falling in love at first sight and making a commitment to stay with the book until the end, I found myself wandering away. And I wasn't even multi-timing this time unlike last month when I was thumbing through several books simultaneously–one on Kindle at bedtime and another in paperback during the day, or a non-fiction title alongside a work of fiction, shuttling between them as my mood dictated. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/06/Unread-books.jpeg) --- And now, I must bid farewell, dear Dreamer! It is Tuesday afternoon as I type these words. KrA's away on a work trip (he'll be back by the time you read this), D's happily at summer camp, and the house is doused in a peace and quiet that I've longed for, for aeons it feels like, but have only managed to enjoy today. It was only fitting that I spent all morning and much of this afternoon, composing this love note to you. Thank you, dear Dreamer, for once again allowing me this luxury of piping up in your inbox with my latest custom-made concoction of thoughts and words. It is a privilege I will never take for granted. May your coming days be filled more often with the rapture of being alive! \~ Anitha ### tales for dreamers: reflections URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-reflections/ Last updated: 2026-05-27T23:31:08.000Z The little boy skipped through the forest as surefooted as someone who has been on the trail a thousand times blindfolded. I had to run to keep up with him. He was leading me to the waters, so I paused for breath and drained the remaining drops of water from my canteen, but not without a second thought. "Hurry up," he whooped from somewhere far ahead of me. I stumbled after him, praying once again (to any God that cared to listen) I wasn't being misled. In my mind, I was convinced we were heading in the wrong direction. The cave from where the waters had gushed forth relentlessly, we had long ago lost somewhere in the wilderness behind us. The boy had said the best water would be found downstream, and although he was merely a child, he lent a certain conviction to his words and I had found myself incapable of doubting him. But that was then. Now I realised that with each step forward, the roar of the waterfall had subsided imperceptibly. At first it had reduced to the gentle gurgling of a little stream, and then there had been the occasional swish of water lapping over pebbles. And even that had died away when I wasn't paying attention. When I asked the boy about it, he said we had to leave all the noise behind and that the growing silence meant we were on the right path. Now and then I heard the sound of a drop of water falling but we were so far away from the waters now I was convinced it was just the voices in my head playing tricks with my mind. We had come so far ahead now that even if I were to retrace my steps, I wouldn't be able to make it back alive. Lost in these morbid thoughts I continued to plough ahead, head drooping so low in misery I didn't notice the little boy jumping up and down excitedly ahead of me nor did I hear him whisper out my name. He grabbed my hand when I reached him and pushed through a lump of overgrown weeds. On the other side was water, clear as day and quieter than silence. It lay in a narrow pool that stretched endlessly up and down the forest. The water was so still it felt sacrosanct to disturb it, I thought for a fleeting instant, before putting my lips to its cool, shiny surface and hungrily swallowing it in huge mouthfuls. Only when I was satiated did I lift my head and the waters returned to a stillness that did not seem incongruous to its nature. It carried in it the reflections of the clear skies and snow-capped mountains, as if a whole other universe existed peacefully in its confines, mirroring the one above, so you couldn't tell which one was real and which was merely an echo. I asked the little boy about it. And he said one was the other and vice versa too, so it didn't really matter which was which. Because, he explained, if you left the noise behind and stared long enough at your reflection, it would reveal your true soul. *(Tale originally published on Saturday, August 31, 2013)* ### May Musings: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-may-musings/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T22:57:01.000Z Dear Dreamer, An entire month has flown by with time travelling on wings and not feeling the need to pause, even for a moment, but leaving me completely breathless in its wake. So much has transpired in these days and weeks, and there is so much that I want to share with you, but writing to you today feels as if I am meeting a beloved friend after a long, long time. There is much to be said and shared, but the words simply won't come. Now that we are actually here, everything that I had wanted to say, everything that I had planned to share with you, feels insignificant somehow, unnecessary in fact. Instead, I want nothing more than to sit beside you and hold your hand and look into your eyes and smile, and ~~tell you~~ show you how delighted I am that you've yet again opened your heart to mine, that together we've yet again made space for my presence in your life and yours in mine, so here we are, conversing, heart to heart, in hushed words and also in soothing silence. \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ And now, having allowed for that pause, for that momentary stilling of time, when even the Universe turned around to bear witness to our joy, and now, having soaked up the moment of seeing you again at long last, I can share with you all that I have in store for you today. Read on! [Last month](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-april-alchemy/), I was raving about Bridgerton. This month, it is [Heartstopper](https://www.netflix.com/title/81059939). Originally a webcomic created by [Alice Oseman](https://aliceoseman.com/heartstopper/), it is a simple love story, a queer coming-of-age story, set in an all-boys school in England. Charlie Spring (played by Joe Locke) is an openly gay Year 10 student who has a crush on a popular Year 11 student and rugby star, Nick Nelson (played by Kit Connor). This is such a feel-good, romantic story that cuts out all the other drama that YA (young adult) fiction has now come to be replete with – drugs, murder, sex, nudity, political scandals. Not to say that these don't exist in the real world but when I watch something like that, it only amps up my maternal anxiety by a factor of several hundreds or thousands, because it sends me down the rabbit hole and I can't stop panicking, worrying and wondering about the kind of world D is growing up into. Heartstopper was like a breath of fresh air. About having a crush. About exchanging looks and smiles. I swooned every time Nick and Charlie met each other and said "Hi". I had forgotten how potent that first, shy smile could be, how secretive too, so full of unspoken longing and hope. Heartstopper is also about friendships. About growing close, growing apart, only to spring back together once more. > But what fascinated me the most was Heartstopper's relentless yet gentle focus on how things can go right instead of how things could go wrong, be it discovering one's gender and/or sexuality, finding acceptance in the form of supportive family and friends, facing difficulties, standing up to bullies, and finding the courage to own up to our mistakes and wrong decisions and do what's needed to make them right. > Somehow, it was a much-needed reminder that we can find in ourselves the courage to do what matters to us, and that we will be OK, no matter what. This is something that has been playing on my mind lately, especially as May has been a month of many happenings. Of old neigbours [leaving](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/an-apprentice-to-sorrow/) and new neighbours [taking their place](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/the-limitations-of-language/), of Mothers' Day and D's heartfelt thoughts, a weekend jaunt to Ottawa, of D falling ill, of D losing his first tooth, of his letter to the tooth fairy and her response. *(I had wanted to write about all of it, but I offer you a gallery of images instead.)* ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/1.-Mothers-Day.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/2.-Me-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/3.-Tulips.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/7.-Ottawa-River-2.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/5.-Letter-to-Tooth-Fairy.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/6.-Tooth-Fairy-s-response.jpeg) (From top: L to R) - D's Mother's Day creation, Me having stepped through a portal, Tulips, Ottawa River, D's letter to the Tooth Fairy, The Tooth Fairy's response It wasn't so much the incidents themselves, but the truth that had been staring me in the face all along. That I can be OK, no matter what. That we can be OK, no matter what. > Because despite all the upheavals that came our way this past week or month or these past few years, despite all the losses and griefs and heartbreaks and misunderstandings and lost opportunities and failures that we have seen in our lifetimes so far, we can somehow find the ability to value and cherish ourselves and this one, precious life we've each been blessed with. When D first felt his tooth wiggle, he didn't quite like it. Eventually he found himself being OK with his wiggly tooth and with the fact that his milk teeth will fall out and be replaced. When the tooth fell out, that prompted another bout of worry for him that lasted a few minutes. Once the tears were out and the questions were asked, even if not answered to his liking, and the letter to the tooth fairy was written, he found he could make peace with this fact of life. And now he simply can't stop flashing his beautiful smile every so often. A few days later, I was very heartened when I heard D talk to himself while playing and he said, "It's OK that I felt nervous. I lost my tooth. It was a big change for me." But even as I say this and admire my child's grit, I must admit I am no paragon of virtue myself. I worry endlessly, and knowing what I know, I worry about my endless worrying too! It's rather a frenetic loop. May the words of Mary Oliver in her poem, *I Worried*, serve as a balm to soothe and comfort our souls. #### I WORRIED **by Mary Oliver* I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not how shall I correct it? Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better? Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless. Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia? Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang. --- ## A Benevolent Goddess ### Chapter 7 – Reimagining [*A Benevolent Goddess*](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess) went out into the world at the beginning of April. A dear friend and long-time reader and sharer of writings and poetry and dreams and feelings read it promptly and wrote to me saying how beautiful it was and yet how sad she was that the tale ended on a tragic note. And she asked me if somehow the Goddess could find a happier ending. I promised my friend another chapter though I had no idea how the story could possibly be any different. Yet, when I sat down to write that new chapter, the words flowed. As if the Goddess had merely needed a nudge, a little prompting, an encouragement, in exactly the same way my friend had given me. Shreyasi, this one's for you! *(If you plan to read A Benevolent Goddess and haven't done so yet, I'd suggest you read this bonus chapter after you've finished the book as it picks up from where the book ends.)* [fiction: reimaginingBonus Chapter 7 of A Benevolent Goddess![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/Untitled-design.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-reimagining/) --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### A Temple for the Gods *They are building a temple for the Gods. But something hinders their progress. Perhaps you could help?* This month's tale is inspired by a structure under construction that we came across as we made our way around Parliament Hill in Ottawa. I couldn't find any details on the structure itself but it reminded me of a Japanese temple, and the story fell into my head from the Heavens. But it wasn't until we returned to Burlington that I sat down to pen the story. It isn't any different than the one that the muse had given me at the site. I'm happy to be able to present it to you in its original, unadulterated form. [tales for dreamers: a temple for the godsThey are building a temple for the Gods. But something hinders their progress. Perhaps you could help?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/2.-A-Temple-for-The-Gods.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-temple-for-the-gods/) --- ## Books You May Love I had fallen into a strange pattern of reading two or more books in parallel; one on my Kindle at bedtime and the other in paperback or hardback format when daylight and leisure are aplenty. And if I was reading non-fiction alongside, I occasionally found myself in the midst of four different books simultaneously, unless I made a conscious effort to avoid it. Needless to say, my lack of commitment cost me much reading pleasure until I forced myself to course-correct and am I glad I did! Because it led me to three amazing works, each vastly different from the other, and each extremely enjoyable. I've learnt my lesson now. No more multi-timing, and certainly not when it comes to books! ;-) [books you may love: humour, horror, hiraethThree titles. Three genres. Countless ways to enjoy them.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/5.-Books-you-may-love_to-use.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-humour-horror-hiraeth/) --- And now it's time to say goodbye, dear dreamer. We must part ways now. For there is an entire spring-summer (or autumn-winter if that's where you live) right outside our windows, beckoning to us. Thank you for this rendezvous. The next time we meet, it will be in a different month. But perhaps you could write to me in the interim? Tell me about your days. Tell me if you can see the moon and stars from your window. Tell me if you stand there and dream grand dreams. Tell me if you are travelling, exploring new worlds, and leaving a piece of your precious heart wherever you go. May this be a month of dreams coming true! \~ Anitha ### the limitations of language URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-limitations-of-language/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:13:47.000Z A little over a fortnight ago, I wrote [this](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/an-apprentice-to-sorrow/). About old neighbours leaving and new neighbours moving into the home beside ours. Yesterday, my new neighbour, Jana, saw me outside and came over to say Hello. She asked me to come over for coffee today. I went to her place shortly after lunch with a packet of Indian sweets in my hand. Jana speaks very little English. I speak no Macedonian. Yet, I spent almost an hour at her place, as we conversed with each other using discrete words rather than full sentences, plenty of gestures, and lots of laughter and smiles and hugs. She will turn 64 this coming Saturday, she has two sons, 41 and 36 years old, the older one has an 8-month-old daughter, Jana and her husband first moved from Macedonia to Canada about 20 years ago, their older son followed three years later, and her younger son followed several years after that. She and her older son don't each much meat, whereas her husband and her younger son are ardent meat-lovers. They first lived in Windsor for a decade, then in Hamilton for several years, before moving to Burlington four years ago. They go to church. There's no Macedonian church in Burlington, but there's one each in Hamilton and in Mississauga, and three in Toronto alone. She never went to school as she began working from an early age. She also speaks Serbian. This may seem like mere factual information at first but all this is helping me piece together the kind of person I perceive her to be. Warm. Generous. Someone who has faced struggles yet plowed on. I took with me a small box of Indian sweets for her, and I came back with a bunch of Macedonian goodies for D, who is nursing a cold and could not accompany me (and Jana understood it when I communicated that, and in response, she pointed out the window towards the overcast sky, attributing D's illness to the fluctuations in weather). She also thrust in my hands a bottle of red wine for me to share with KrA, who had stayed back at home with D. My visit to Jana today reminded me of KrA's dad's sister (whom we call *Bua*), who lives in a remote, rural village in Bihar Sharif. Several years ago, we found ourselves staying together for a few days in a rental apartment down south to attend to a family emergency. She only spoke Bihari. I spoke Hindi. People tell me there are similarities between the two languages, but there was none I could discern in those early days when Bihari was completely new to me. (It still is.) Nevertheless, there were occasions when *Bua* and I were the only ones at home, and we shared a jovial time with each other. > The lack of a common language to converse in meant that we were compelled to pay each other complete attention so that we could understand each other at the very least. > Comprehension demanded a lot more effort than usual. We had to pay attention to each others' gestures and facial expressions to make sense and derive meaning. This, in turn, compelled us to be completely present with each other. > Unlike in a conversation between two people speaking the same language, when two people are mostly ignorant of each other's language, there is never any expectation of being completely understood. Any misunderstanding is easily written off as miscomprehension and not attributed to malicious intent. Once I came back home to find that *Bua* had stitched up a rip in my *salwaar* of her own accord. I bought her a *saaree* on the way back home one day. > There is an exquisite simplicity and authenticity in such relationships despite, or perhaps because of, the very barrier that seems to stand between two people who do not share a language in common. > On the contrary, I have witnessed misunderstandings galore, utter lack of comprehension, and a stubborn unwillingness to even give each other the benefit of doubt when two people with the same mothertongue engage in conversation. One of the books I read and talk about in this month's forthcoming [newsletter](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) is Jhumpa Lahiri's [Whereabouts](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53438824-whereabouts). I will say little about the book itself in this post as I will talk about it at length in the newsletter, but it is relevant to our discussion now that Lahiri wrote it first in Italian and then translated it into English. I was looking up more of Lahiri's works when I came across an article in [The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/books/review/translating-myself-and-others-jhumpa-lahiri.html) in which Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Benjamin Moser, who lives in Europe, describes what it was like to visit London after the pandemic kept him away from the English-speaking city for two years. > Last fall, I made my first visit to London since the start of the pandemic. A routine commuter flight from Europe felt like a great adventure, and once I’d jumped through the bureaucratic hoops, I was excited to arrive. But the city looked disappointingly unchanged after everything the world had gone through. The only thing that really shocked me was something I hadn’t expected: hearing people speaking English. After two years away from it, I had never felt so moved to encounter my own language. > Hearing a mother tongue is like stepping into a warm bath. But one of the disquieting discoveries that studying foreign languages brings is the awareness that your own can be a trap. By providing a steady drip of prefabricated words and ideas, your only tool for thinking and feeling can just as easily become a tool for not thinking, for not feeling; and when forced to do without those words and ideas, you realize how many of your so-called thoughts are nothing more than clichés grafted onto you by the language with which you grew up. > \~ Benjamin Moser, an excerpt from [Jhumpa Lahiri Leaves Her Comfort Zone, The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/books/review/translating-myself-and-others-jhumpa-lahiri.html) Isn't that second paragraph breathtakingly beautiful? Doesn't it force you too to sit up and take notice of the words we utter, the ease and thoughtlessness with which we utter them, the words we hear, the half-attention we pay them as we juggle our own thoughts in our head simultaneously? I've often wondered why we use phrases in English such as "I broke my leg" or "I hit my head", as if we did those things to ourselves deliberately and it wasn't by accident that we ended up with a broken bone or a lump on our head. I have a feeling that I'd be spending more time at Jana's place than I ever did when my previous neighbours, John and Natasha, lived there. ### tales for dreamers: a temple for the gods URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-temple-for-the-gods/ Last updated: 2026-04-21T14:22:11.000Z Up where the sky kisses the earth, they are building a temple for the Gods. A simple abode, they claim, but each builder has painstakingly worked to construct this home for the Gods. No expense has been spared. No detail has been overlooked. It is a long trek upwards from where you and I live. But, they say, you and I can come here, lie at the feet of the Gods, and find respite from the stresses of day-to-day living. When you look out from here, from the lap of a God, all your worries and your pains will cease to exist, all your problems will appear so small you’d wonder why they had even rankled you in the first place. Relieved, you will skip back down the way you came, capering with a newfound levity under your feet. Construction at the site was mostly completed a century ago. But the builders are yet to declare the temple open and ready for public visit. Rumour has it that the Gods are not entirely convinced they should take up their abode here. Perhaps, an entreaty from you may help them make up their minds. ### books you may love: humour, horror, hiraeth URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-humour-horror-hiraeth/ Last updated: 2022-10-17T17:41:04.000Z I meandered through a lot of books this past month. Little on the reading and writing front seemed to hold my interest. Perhaps it was the weather, the blossoming of spring outside that beckoned to me loud and clear in the form of birdsong and golden sunlight. Or perhaps it was the multitude of social invitations that surprisingly came our way, and we found ourselves on weekends suddenly busy with playdates and visits or outings or even planning for these events. But the urge to reach for a book was always there whenever I fell into a moment of quietude. We often believe that a good book is all we need, but our own state of mind influences our reading experiences all the time. It's something we don't quite acknowledge because we're mostly not aware of it in the first place. So even though I was thumbing through titles, my restless mind couldn't quite settle upon anything to read. It was like going on a treasure hunt. I picked up several books only to abandon them a few chapters in. And then I stumbled upon three delightful reads. Each one gripped me in surprising and startlingly new ways! And they were as different as could be from each other and from anything I had read so far. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/1.-Alexa.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/2.-The-last-house-on-Needless-Street.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/05/3.-Whereabouts.jpeg) books filled with humour, horror, and hiraeth ## *Alexa, what is there to know about love?* by Brian Bilston ### A book of humorous poems Poetry and humour. Now that's a rare combination to me. I first came across [Brian Bilston](https://brianbilston.com)'s poem, [*You Took the Last Bus Home*](https://brianbilston.com/2014/09/26/you-took-the-last-bus-home/). I didn't understand it at first. It took me a few readings for the penny to drop and when that happened, I couldn't help but marvel at the utterly strange and hilarious oddity that a combination of words in the English language can concoct. I looked up some more of Bilston's work and secured a copy of his latest collection, *[Alexa, what is there to know about love?](https://brianbilston.com/2018/07/23/alexa-what-is-there-to-know-about-love/)* It is filled with rhymes on love and its vagaries and the various facets of love – wooing, dating, forgetting anniversaries, love in the time of the caveman – many outrageously hilarious, some unexpectedly poignant. It was with a smile on my face and a lightness in my heart that I finished reading the collection. The title poem remains my favourite because our own Alexa has proved to be a constant source of entertainment, what with little D asking her questions the grownups at home would never think to ask and coaxing out unexpected and often hilarious responses from Alexa. D: Alexa, what is 1 plus 1? Alexa: 1 plus 1 is 2\. But you already knew that, didn't you? \*\*\* D: Alexa, I love you. Alexa (singing with background music): Thanks for saying I love you, you're just as sweet as pie, know that I'll be here for you, as always, your trusty AI. \*\*\* Here is Bilston's poem on the joys and exasperations of interacting with Alexa. #### Alexa, what is there to know about love? by Brian Bilston Alexa, what is there to know about love? What is there to know about love? *A glove is a garment that covers the hand* *for protection from the cold or dirt and –* Alexa, how does a human heart work? How does a human heart work? *Blood is first received in the right atrium via* *two veins, the vena cava superior and inferior –* Alexa, where do we go to when we die? Where do we go to when we die? *Activating Google Maps. Completed activation.* *Would you like to start from your current location?* Alexa, what does it mean to be alone? What does it mean to be alone? *It is the silence left by words unsaid,* *the cold expanse of half a bed.* *It is the endless stretching of the hours,* *the needless tending of plastic flowers.* *It is an echo unanswered in a cave,* *the fateful ping of the microwave.* *It is the fraying of a worn shirt cuff,* *and the howl –* Stop, Alexa. That’s enough. --- ## *The Last House on Needless Street* by Catriona Ward ### A deeply unsettling but eventually satisfying read I must have placed a hold request for [this book](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54621094-the-last-house-on-needless-street) with our local library ages ago and forgotten all about it until I received a notification stating that the book was available for me to borrow. And so I did. I had no idea what to expect, and I decided to go with Stephen King's assertion that the novel is "a true nerve-shredder that keeps its mind-blowing secrets to the very end." And while that's true, or perhaps because of that, it is hard to explain what the book is about without giving away its secrets. It begins with a man named Ted Bannerman, his cat named Olivia, and his daughter named Lauren who stays with him occasionally, on the eleventh anniversary of the disappearance of Little Girl with Popsicle, his moniker for Laura Walters. Bannerman was accused back then of being involved in Laura's disappearance. Little Girl with Popsicle's sister has learnt about Bannerman after all these years, and she takes up residence in a ramshackle place down his street to keep an eye on him and rescue her sister. I try not to read stories in which children disappear or are harmed in any way. It stokes my maternal anxiety, which seems on most days ready to erupt like a volcano and I expend a lot of emotional and mental energy just trying to keep the lid on it. I began reading the book with trepidation, drawn in by [Ward](https://twitter.com/catrionaward?lang=en)'s haunting words and imagery. Chapters are written from multiple points of view, with even the cat, Olivia, having much to say about her life situation. I am trying really hard and utterly failing at explaining what an ingenious book it turned out to be. Throughout the story, there is a deep sense of foreboding but at the same time, Ward reveals very little of what is actually transpiring. Although the book has been labelled as a horror novel, there are no ghosts or monsters shrieking at you in the dead of the night. When the first big reveal came towards the end, I'll admit I was quite disappointed, for it seemed to be a very easy way to explain everything that had transpired until then. But then Ward lets out more and more surprises, which made me sit up and take more notice, and at the end of it all, I found myself sympathizing with Bannerman. It's the kind of book that merits a second read because so many things make sense after you know what's really been going on with Bannerman. And, in fact, it is even more spine-tingling and bone-chilling the second time around. --- ## *Whereabouts* by Jhumpa Lahiri ### A book that reads like a chat with a friend over steaming mugs of coffee I am pretty terrible at describing books, although I can tell you how a book made me feel. So let me begin with that. Reading the chapters of Jhumpa Lahiri's [*Whereabouts*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53438824-whereabouts) made me feel as if I were sitting at an idyllic café with a friend, sipping a latte, while she told me about her day, weaving all that transpired with remembrances and hope, memories and longings. The protagonist is a single woman in her forties, who gives us glimpses of her very quotidian life. She goes in to work, purchases groceries, meets friends, reads books, travels occasionally for work, visits her aging mother. Nothing extraordinary from the looks of it, but in Lahiri's words even the ordinary shines with a special kind of glow. Each chapter is short and can be read on its own, just as you could meet up with a friend over coffee without any preamble or afterword. But the more such conversations you share, the more you learn about her life. Apparently, Lahiri first wrote the book in Italian and then translated it into English. Lahiri has even titled her chapters based on everyday locations such as *On the sidewalk*, *On the street*, *In the office*, *In the pool*, *In my head*, *In August*, and so on, which grounded me, gave me a sense of location, and pulled me deeper into her narration. I remember reading Lahiri's *[Interpreter of Maladies](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5439.Interpreter%5Fof%5FMaladies)* back in the day, too many years ago, and marvelling at her observations and simple descriptions of everyday objects and happenings. Isn't that what good fiction is supposed to do? Make us see things and people and events in ways we'd have never considered before? *Whereabouts* also made me realize that I no longer find pleasure in tales of great heroism and daredevilry, of world rescue and adventure. But simple stories about the everyday lives of ordinary beings have the power to touch me deeply. Here is an excerpt from the last but one chapter. Actually, it is the chapter in its entirety. > **Nowhere** > Because when all is said and done the setting doesn't matter: the space, the walls, the light. It makes no difference whether I'm under a clear blue sky or caught in the rain or swimming in the transparent sea in summer. I could be riding a train or traveling by a car or flying in a plane, among the clouds that drift and spread on all sides like a mass of jellyfish in the air. I've never stayed still, I've always been moving, that's all I've ever been doing. Always waiting either to get somewhere or to come back. Or to escape. I keep packing and unpacking the small suitcase at my feet. I hold my purse in my lap, it's got some money and a book to read. Is there any place we're not moving through? *Disoriented, lost, at sea, at odds, astray, adrift, bewildered, confused, uprooted, turned around.* I'm related to these related terms. These words are my abode, my old foothold. > \~ An excerpt from *Whereabouts* by Jhumpa Lahiri I am holding off reading the last chapter of *Whereabouts* for a few more days because I don't want the book to end, I don't want these conversations with this imaginary friend of mine to conclude. I want her to keep confiding in me her deepest thoughts and her feelings, her longings and worries. When I turn the last page, I will miss her for a long, long time. So tell me now, dear dreamer, what have you been reading? ### an apprentice to sorrow URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/an-apprentice-to-sorrow/ Last updated: 2022-07-24T22:35:14.000Z My [neighbours](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/a-season-of-endings/) left yesterday morning. I have been a wreck ever since. I made my way to the yoga studio after bidding them goodbye, and I shed tears while on the mat. When I returned home, they were gone. Their cars no longer in their usual parking spot. The house, exactly the same in appearance, but completely changed in their absence. Another bout of crying at home. I busied myself with errands that afternoon. More tears fell when I was on my way to pick up little D from school. But he had a playground playdate right after, so I told myself I will cry later. Another almost violent bout of grief grabbed me by the throat at the beginning of dinnertime, even though we were dining outside. The new tenants, long-time friends of my neighbours, had been moving their stuff in gradually this past week. But strangely, they were not staying there for the night, so the house was dark. Even the porch light was not on. And because I knew too much, I knew who ought to have been there but wasn't, the house appeared desolate and foresaken to me. This morning, the new neighbour was pottering about. Lights were on in the kitchen and one of the upstairs bedrooms. It was odd. My previous neighbours, John and Natasha, had very little use for lights. They were sparing in their use of electricity. I know well their patterns of use. It was only last Christmas when their son and his family came to visit that their home was lit up and light poured out of every window of their home. The pattern has changed now. New residents. New behaviours. Lights coming on and staying on for longer than I'm used to. > Things are always changing. I am the one comparing and contrasting the old with the new, glorifying the old and finding fault with the new, clinging to the known and resisting the unknown. > And that's ok. My heart wishes to take its time, and I am in no rush. > There is no time to rush. > There is no time to rush. *"There is no time to rush."* I heard this line in a talk by [Tara Brach](https://www.tarabrach.com), who shared a story about a new mother who was diagnosed with a terminal illness shortly after her baby was born, and she found out that she (the mother) had less than a year to live. And that made her all the more determined to make the most of the time she was given with her infant – by being wholly present. For she truly had no time to rush. Grief hits me in waves. Right now, even as I type this, I feel a lightness, an optimism about the day ahead. I make plans. I rarely have a full schedule these days. I take care to not overfill my hours and days. Even so, I know, another wave of sorrow and grief will come cresting towards me. It's not going anywhere. If it's not about my old neighbours, it will be about something else, someone else. But the truth is that with each wave, our staying power increases. We no longer fear the ups and downs of life. And I'm beginning to see how these rippings and shreddings of our hearts have been teaching us the most valuable lessons we've needed to learn. > That our hearts are as innocent as little children and also as wise as the oldest souls. > That a thousand gashes can be inflicted upon them and yet, each wound carries within itself the power to heal and to strengthen. > That we will love with abandon, and we will lose who we love, and that loss will shake us so badly that we will never want to love ever again. But that is the job of the heart – to love, no matter what. It will not be denied that privilege. And so our hearts will love again, because love is greater than all the sorrow and grief that trail in its wake. > That we all start out as apprentices to sorrow. Tending to our griefs and broken hearts, over and over again, until we become skilled and wise enough to serve as apprentices to love. ### April Alchemy: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter-2022-april-alchemy/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T22:57:29.000Z Dear Dreamer! How wonderful it is to be able to send to you the very first newsletter from The Dream Pedlar's desk! Writing to you in this format feels way more personal and engaging to me than, say, writing and posting a blog on the website and hoping it would catch your eye as you scroll through the Internet, for work or for pleasure, a myriad other matters demanding your attention at the same time. So thank you for letting me take up the occasional space in your mailbox. For what am I without you? What are words without a reader? A dream without a dreamer? A story without an enraptured listener? Now that you are here, grab a cuppa if you please (you don't have to tell what you spike your drink with when no one's looking), and read on! After I sent out a new book into the world earlier this month, I sat down to watch [Bridgerton](https://www.netflix.com/title/80232398). I found Season 2 to be just as exciting and enchanting as Season 1, especially with Simone Ashley's smoking presence on the screen as she portrayed the very strong and admirably independent character of Kathani (Kate) Sharma, a performance that has completely changed how I see myself in the mirror. [the impact and importance of representationHow the casting of Simone Ashley in Season 2 of Bridgerton erased decades of cultural conditioning for me![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/04/75--What-need-have-I-.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-impact-and-importance-of-representation/) For days after watching Bridgerton, I continued to devour articles on the series, not wanting the enchantment of it to end. Until I came across this one, [*Beyond Bridgerton: what Regency romance was really like*](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/31/bridgerton-netflix-what-regency-romance-was-really-like-literature), and learnt that finding a romantic suitor in the Regency era was just as fraught with difficulties and platitudes as it is now. People back then were just as prone to engage in 'ghosting' and 'playing the field' as they are now. And with early 19th-century dental care being what it was – essentially non-existent – the ballrooms were probably filled with toothless viscounts and dukes. That burst my bubble and I was content to come back fully to the real world, happy for having watched such an entertaining series but no longer hankering to go back in time to any era other than the now. But that very familiar sensation of *hiraeth* – that deep longing for a home in the past, that nostalgia that has seeped into my soul, that homesickness that sits lodged in the very hole it carved out of my heart aeons ago – stayed with me for much of this month as life happened and paved the way for some of my loved ones to leave for other lands. [a season of endingsPeople are leaving. Sometimes it is the longing for a land they once lived in and loved. Sometimes death takes them away. Every departure brings a fresh wave of grief.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/04/biegun-wschodni-ZloDJXzcMGA-unsplash.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-season-of-endings/) This deep longing for the home of my past has often made me question the choices we make in the name of growth and progress. The journeys we make to distant lands. The search for someone new to love as we drift away from old loves. The seeking of new people to connect with, new activities to engage in, as what and whom we once knew and held on to for comfort and shelter suddenly feel strange and stifling. Intellectually, we now know that what we seek on the outside is something that we alone can offer to our ailing hearts, even if not with any semblance of constancy. Sure enough, we meet wonderful people on this journey, events happen that feel nothing short of miracles, but they all come with that inevitable transitoriness that marks every life on earth. Like waves on the ocean. Sometimes we sit on the shore, watching the waves rise and fall. Sometimes we find it in ourselves to leap into the water and allow ourselves the pleasure of meeting the waves in an exhilarating mid-crash. And yet, at other times, we find that we too can be the ocean, surprisingly so, savouring life and its rhythms and every being in it without wanting them to go one way or the other, the waves now a distant perturbance without the power to ruffle our hearts. Until the next colossal wave comes and drags us along with it, and we find ourselves on the shore or riding the wave or becoming the ocean once again. --- I recently came across a poem – [*Singularity*](https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/05/22/singularity-marie-howe-stephen-hawking/) by Marie Howe – which describes with breathtaking beauty this longing for connection and a yearning for an absolute dissolution of the boundaries (not always geological) and differences that keep us apart from the rest of the world. *(Click on the box below if you'd like to indulge in Howe's mesmerizing words right away.)* #### ****SINGULARITY**‌ ‌**by Marie Howe* **(after Stephen Hawking)* Do you too sometimes want to wake up to the singularity we once were? so compact nobody needed a bed, or food or money — nobody hiding in the school bathroom or home alone pulling open the drawer where the pills are kept. **For every atom belonging to me as good* b**elongs to you.* Remember? There was no **Nature*. No **them*. No tests to determine if the elephant grieves her calf or if the coral reef feels pain. Trashed oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French; would that we could wake up to what we were when we **were* ocean and before that to when earth was sky, and animal was energy, and rock was liquid and stars were space and space was not at all — nothing before we came to believe humans were so important before this awful loneliness. Can molecules remember it? what once was? before anything happened? Can our molecules remember? No I, no We, no one, no was. No verb. No noun yet. But only a tiny tiny tiny tiny dot brimming with **is is is is is* All. Everything. Home. --- ## Tales for Dreamers ### *The Price of Wonder* *If the gift of ceaseless wonder was yours for the taking, what would you cede in return?* An almost 8-km long path winds its way through many of the residential suburbs of the city I'm lucky to call home. About a block away from my home, a strip of asphalt concrete, narrower than a lane but wider than a sidewalk, unfurls under the vast sky. Flanked on both sides by large swathes of lawn, which are meticulously mowed and prettied by the city, it is a haven for walkers, joggers, and cyclists. This has been one of my favourite places to head out for a walk ever since we moved to Burlington four years ago. But when the pandemic hit in early 2020, more than two years ago now (wow!), I very quickly grew bored of walking down the same trail and its very similar offshoots over and over again. Out of that desperation for something new and different came this tale '*The Price of Wonder*'. I hope you love it! [tales for dreamers: the price of wonderIf the gift of ceaseless wonder was yours for the taking, what would you cede in return?![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/04/1.-the-price-of-wonder.jpg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-price-of-wonder/) --- ## A Book You May Love ### *Anxious People* by Fredrik Backman I picked up this book not knowing what to expect. It started out poignant enough to grab my heart. But a few passages in, it made me laugh out loud. And before I knew it, I was swinging like a pendulum between moments of pathos and moments of outrageous humour. A comedy as well as a drama, a mystery as well as a deep-dive into what it means to be human with all our foibles and our anxieties, this book was an absolute delight to read. It warmed my heart and soothed my soul in more ways than I thought a book could possibly do. [books you may love: Anxious People by Fredrik BackmanA comedy. A drama. A mystery. And equally, a meditation on what it means to be a human simply trying to do their best.![](https://thedreampedlar.com/favicon.ico)The Dream PedlarAnitha Krishnan![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/04/1.-Anxious-People-by-Fredrik-Backman-2.jpeg)](https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-anxious-people-by-fredrik-backman/) --- That's all for this month! Putting together this note for you has given me much joy. I hope reading it filled you too with wonder and delight. I will write to you again in May. If you have read my latest book, [*The Benevolent Goddess*](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess), a surprise awaits you in next month's newsletter. Until then, here's to more dreams coming true! \~ Anitha ### books you may love: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/books-you-may-love-anxious-people-by-fredrik-backman/ Last updated: 2022-10-17T17:41:12.000Z One of the craft lessons meted out to writers is that we ought to make a tonal promise at the beginning of the book and uphold that pledge until the end. In other words, if we begin a story on a hilarious note, we are taught to maintain that humour until the last page because that is what we've promised the reader at the beginning – a fun read. If this is a rule of some sort, then [Anxious People](https://fredrikbackmanbooks.com/books/fredrik-backman-anxious-people.html) by [Fredrik Backman](https://fredrikbackmanbooks.com/index.html) (and translated from Swedish by Neil Smith) is an absolute exception to the rule. It begins on a very poignant note, which is what drew me to it in the first place, but as it progressed, there were unexpected bursts of hilarity, the kind that made me laugh out loud, the kind that made the poignant moments even more so and the fun moments even more so. > Looking at real estate isn't usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. This is how the blurb of the book begins. As we read through, we learn more about the people who are being held captive and the robber who is holding them all hostage. Backman takes us on a wonderful journey of what it means to be utterly human with all our foibles and mistakes and how, even in the direst of circumstances, our stories have the ability to move or even save each other as we bumble through life. I was constantly torn between wanting to re-read entire chapters, simply to relish the ingenious descriptions, the authentic portrayal of emotions, and the often hilarious dialogues, and wanting to turn the page faster so that I could find out who the bank robber was and how exactly the robber evaded capture. It is a comedy as much as it is a drama. It is a mystery as much as it is a meditation on what it means to be a human adult, going through the motions of employment, marriage and parenting, constantly feeling as if we're failing at everything – a trend that has become much more evident in these anxious times we live in. In parting, I will leave you with an excerpt from the very beginning of the book. If you've read this book or intend to, please write in and let me know how you liked it. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did! > Chapter 1 > A bank robbery. A hostage drama. A stairwell full of police officers on their way to storm an apartment. It was easy to get to this point, much easier than you might think. All it took was one single really bad idea. > This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. So it needs saying from the outset that it's always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is. Especially if you have other people you're trying to be a reasonably good human being for. > Becuase there's such an unbelievable amount that we're all supposed to be able to cope with these days. You're supposed to have a job, and somwhere to live, and a family, and you're supposed to pay taxes and have clean underwear and remember the password to your damn Wi-Fi. Some of us never manage to get the chaos under control, so our lives simply carry on, the world spinning through space at two million miles an hour while we bounce about on its surface like so many lost socks. Our hearts are bars of soap that we keep losing hold of; the moment we relax, they drift off and fall in love and get broken, all in the wink of an eye. We're not in control. > So we learn to pretend, all the time, about our jobs and our marriages and our children and everything else. We pretend we're normal, that we're reasonably well educated, and that we understand "amortization levels" and "inflation rates". That we know how sex works. In truth, we known as much about sex as we do about USB leads, and it always takes us four tries to get those little buggers in. (Wrong way round, wrong way round, wrong way round, there! *In!*) > We pretend to be good parents when all we really do is provide our kids with food and clothing and tell them off when they put chewing gum they find on the ground in their mounths. We tried keeping tropical fish once and they all died. And we really don't know more about children than tropical fish, so the responsibility frightens the life out of us each morning. We don't have a plan, we just do our best to get through the day, because there'll be another one coming along tomorrow. > Sometimes it hurts, it really hurts, for no other reason than the fact that our skin doesn't feel like it's ours. Sometimes we panic, because the bills need paying and we have to be grown-up and we don't know how, becuase it's so horribly, desperately easy to fail at being grown-up. > Because everyone loves someone, and anyone who loves someone has had those desperate nights where we lie awake trying to figure out how we can afford to carry on being human beings. Sometimes that makes us do things that seem ridiculous in hindsight, but which felt like the only way out at the time. > One single really bad idea. That's all it takes. > \~ An excerpt from [Anxious People](https://fredrikbackmanbooks.com/books/fredrik-backman-anxious-people.html) by [Fredrik Backman](https://fredrikbackmanbooks.com/index.html) And if you've stayed this far, here is a little bonus. The last chapter, which connects back to the first in such a beautiful way. Life come full circle! > Chapter 74 > The truth? The truth about all this? The truth is that this was a story about many different things, but most of all about idiots. Because we're doing the best we can, we really are. We're trying to be grown-up and love each other and understand how the hell you're supposed to insert USB leads. We're looking for something to cling on to, something to fight for, something to look forward to. We're doing all we can to teach our children how to swim. We have all of this in common, yet most of us remain strangers, we never know what we do to each other, how your life is affected by mine. > Perhaps we hurried past each other in a crowd today, and neither of us noticed, and the fibers of your coat brushed against mine for a single moment and then we were gone. I don't know who you are. > But when you get home this evening, when this day is over and the night takes us, allow yourself a deep breath. Because we made it through this day as well. > There'll be another one along tomorrow. > \~ An excerpt from [Anxious People](https://fredrikbackmanbooks.com/books/fredrik-backman-anxious-people.html) by [Fredrik Backman](https://fredrikbackmanbooks.com/index.html) ### tales for dreamers: the price of wonder URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-price-of-wonder/ Last updated: 2024-10-16T12:54:06.000Z I know so little, yet I know too much. I know that spring follows winter, then disappears into summer, which wobbles into autumn. That the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. That the moon shape-shifts, and coaxes the waves of vast oceans to rise and fall endlessly. That the stars twinkle while the planets stare. That wishes may come true, and even when they don’t, it’s OK, because new wishes would have sprouted in their place. That night follows day, and day follows night, and on and on life goes, in an endless cycle, outlasting us all. --- But what if I could wake up and not know if the sun would rise today or not? If it will rain today or not? If today is the day for new leaves to sprout or for old leaves to dress themselves in the colours of sunset? If rain feels cold or warm? If so much snow will fall that my home will be buried under it? If I would have the same age-old conversation with you today or it would lead us down an unexpectedly new path? --- I know too much, and I want to know too little. In fact, nothing at all. So that life may present me with surprises at every turn. Knowledge is the price I am willing to pay for the reward of ceaseless wonder. ### a season of endings URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-season-of-endings/ Last updated: 2022-07-24T22:36:40.000Z My neighbours, a couple in their seventies, are moving back to their hometown in Macedonia after having spent three decades building a life in Canada, 20 years of which they spent in the house right beside mine. They'll be gone within the next couple of weeks. They'll be gone before April turns into May. They'll be gone before the weather is warm enough for them to resume their summer ritual of spending their days in their front yard, basking in the sunshine, inviting friends over for a meal and a smoke and drinks, their voices drifting up and into my open windows, their conversations in Macedonian incomprehensible to me but sounding like a familiar and soothing melody like the many languages of the country I grew up in, their door wide open all day long, an invitation – to anyone who wanted to take them up on it – to enter and spend some time with them, talking about the weather, about life. Someone else will take up residence there in their stead – their friends, I am told, another middle-aged Macedonian couple – and who knows if they too are fond of open doors and open hearts? Their constant presence next-door has been a salve for me in the past four years we've lived in this home beside theirs, only two wide strips of lawn separating our abodes. As a mother of a young child, I put myself under constant pressure to do more and more for little D, and was often anxious that I was unable to meet my very high, self-imposed expectations and standards when it came to parenting and being human. The sight of my neighbours, John and Natasha, simply enjoying each day without striving to make something special and extraordinary of it often gave me much-needed perspective. That it wasn't so much about pushing myself to do what other parents seemed to be doing so effortlessly – setting up playdates, taking the little one to community centres or any of the countless places to afford opportunities for socialization, worrying about not being able to do as much as I wanted to, worrying that I wasn't doing enough – but it was about honouring the situation I am in and making the most of what I have and what I could do, even if it was sitting in the yard with my little one and all it took were a few stones and sticks and bucketfuls of water to keep him enthralled. In their presence, I could shrug off the weight of my own expectations and disappointments. In their presence, I could breathe easily. When I learnt earlier this year that they were all set to leave, I cried for an entire day. The tears would simply not stop flowing. I have since then realized that to me, there is something about a matriarchical or a patriarchical figure, the presence of a wiser, older person, that I find reassuring. > When I find an older role model who has gone through 60–70 years of life and has emerged on the other side, still full of light and love and joy and kindness, it kindles hope in me. > It reassures me that no matter how difficult or unbearable life may feel in this moment, I can go through this period with grace and emerge with my love for life intact. > But even the wisest, kindest, and most precious of people leave. "Even my neighbour is my friend in Macedonia," John said to me yesterday. I can't recall the number of times Natasha has empathized with my plight, every time I admitted to her the difficulties and loneliness of bringing up a child by ourselves, so far away from the rest of our family back in India. When she lived and worked in Macedonia, the entire neighbourhood was the village that helped bring up her children, she used to say. And it is for this connection with other human beings that they've made the decision to go back to their hometown. Their journey is eerily similar to that of my parents. After almost 40 years of living in Maharashtra, my parents, now in their seventies too, moved back to a suburb of Chennai in the state they were born in and grew up in. Growing up, almost every summer we made the trip to Chennai to stay with our relatives for a month. But I see now how those trips failed to fill that hole that had been forever carved out of my parents' hearts, a hole that could be plugged somewhat only after they dropped the curtain on a 40-year chapter of their lives and returned 'home', to their land, to their people. To their childhoods, in a way, I reckon, or at least to something that vaguely resembled those initial few years after birth, when one more readily believed in possibilities than in limitations. John tells me he moved to Canada so that his children would have access to better education and prospects in life. It reminds me of my own adolescent ambitions, mine and my brother's, instilled in us by every well-meaning adult we encountered as we grew up – to make our way to the west, to the land of the free, the land of the rich, the land of meritocracy and progress, the land of efficiency, the land of ethics and honesty. And now that we are here, it doesn't feel freer or richer than the home I left behind, it doesn't feel like growth and progress in any sense of the word, and my heart pines for what it has left behind. The warmth of connection. The comfort of family. The knowledge that what we had could have been enough, and that it was not necessary to hanker for something more or something different all the time. But of course there is another reason that I feel so strongly about home and family today, something that I have been dithering from writing about, because it is too close, too personal, too raw. It's [this](https://www.week.com/2022/04/11/man-dies-when-kayak-overturns-mason-county-3-others-hurt/). The deceased in the news report is KrA's first cousin. We don't know much more than the news report itself states, but since we received news of the incident on Sunday, this distance of three continents and two oceans between India and Canada feels like it has suddenly become way too vast and unbridgeable. I want nothing more right now than to go and be with the family, but these utterly manmade rules of passports and visas make travel impossible for the time being. And so we are here, alone with the pain of losing a loved one, unable to reach out and comfort his parents and his sister as they mourn the loss of their son, their brother. Eleven years ago, a paternal first cousin of mine passed away in similarly unexpected circumstances. He was in the US, playing cricket with his friends, when he collapsed. And before he could receive much help, he was gone. Then, just as now, there was a lot of logistics involved in the transport of the mortal remains across three continents and two oceans so the family would have the opportunity to carry out the cremation and the final rites, and bid farewell to the one they loved and lost. > In this moment of grief, waves of nostalgia and homesickness wash over me, even though I have seen and learnt enough to understand that when we miss home and family, what we truly seek is understanding and acceptance. We think it is to be found in the midst of family or in the land of our childhood. > And perhaps, to a large extent, reconnecting with family or our homeland may indeed be the salve we need in the moment. A reminder that we need not shoulder the burdens of life alone. A reminder that no matter how different and difficult our journeys may be, at the root of all our longings is that simple human need to be loved and accepted and celebrated for who it is we are. > But it is just as easy to forget that family and culture too could cause us, even if inadvertently, to turn away from our true selves if that's what it takes to fit in, to find understanding and acceptance by way of submission and obedience. > For unless we are able to give our own selves the gifts of acceptance and belonging, no one and nothing on the outside – not even family or homeland – can give us what we so desperately seek. > As I stand here, feeling small and scared like a little child, wistfully longing for another older, wiser figure to appear and stand by my side as I navigate life, to cheer me on and celebrate my successes and encourage me through my downfalls, I realise that I have only myself to fulfil this role, both for me and for my little one, D. > We have to be that which we seek. > And we are only human, so we are bound to fail at this way more often than we'd like to, there is no escaping that. For a long time, I had known and understood this intellectually but I hadn't known how to be that wiser self, which is capable of nurturing that part of me that feels lost and scared and longs for care and connection. I have been listening to [Tara Brach](https://www.tarabrach.com/talks-audio-video/)'s talks for more than a year now, and in all her talks she includes a brief meditation based on the R.A.I.N. (recognize, allow, investigate, nurture) method of feeling our feelings in our bodies. In the nurture component, she asks us to imagine a higher self or any other being – could be a loving grandmother, a God if we believe in one, a spiritual person we look up to, a child, a dog, essentially any being that we trust can show us unconditional love and acceptance – and to further imagine ourselves being that wiser self, offering love to the hurt self, by placing a hand on the heart, or even by saying "It's OK" or "This too belongs." This is a technique that has been helping me immensely, especially when I find myself reaching out to something or someone on the outside for love. This is not to diminish the value of a good conversation with a friend or an open-hearted chat with a loved one, but everyone we reach out to is also human with their own foibles and constraints and may not always be able to tend to our needs as we'd like them to. Whereas the presence of our own wiser self is constant, we can access it anytime, anywhere, we only have to remind ourselves to do so. > We are all we need. Often, we have to meander through several heartbreaks and disappointments before we can come back home to ourselves. But that wise self of ours is always there, waiting, like a parent waiting for a child to come back home after an entire day spent at school. That reunion is then a most joyful one. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Biegun Wschodni](https://unsplash.com/@biegunwschodni?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/snowdrop?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### the impact and importance of representation URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-impact-and-importance-of-representation/ Last updated: 2023-11-23T14:44:13.000Z By now, either you've finished watching Season 2 of Bridgerton or you have no intentions of watching it ever. Either way, very minor plot spoilers follow in the next couple of paragraphs, so I must warn you. Having said that, it is a given that romance stories must have happily-ever-after endings. So it is no surprise that Kathani (Kate) Sharma and Anthony Bridgerton end up together at the end, despite the numerous seemingly insurmountable hurdles they face in their journey, the most influential one being that Anthony is engaged to be married to Kate's sister in a high-stakes wedding that none other than the Queen is hosting. But what I came here to say today, after having binge-watched Season 2 over the weekend, was that the casting of Simone Ashley as Kate Sharma, a deviation from Kate Sheffield in the books, has left a deep and lasting impression on me. > *It is only now that I truly understand, for the first time, the importance of representation in movies and books because works of art are so instrumental in shaping our culture, which influences how we view ourselves as individuals and as part of a larger community.* I grew up in an India obssessed with fair-and-lovely skin. Dusky-hued women were referred to as having a 'wheat-ish complexion' in matrimonial ads. It was considered a severe drawback to have dark skin. It was the 'complexion that shall not be named'! I received a lot of negative subliminal messaging about my dark complexion from very early on. In early childhood, during our annual visits to my grandparents in Chennai for the summer holidays, their first remark upon seeing me was either a joyful "Oh, you've grown fairer," or the more dreaded "Oh, you've grown so much darker since your last visit." It didn't help that the ads for Fair & Lovely, a skin-whitening cream, were ubiquitous on TV. In my pre-teens, or perhaps even earlier, my brother regaled me with tales of how Michael Jackson transformed his skin colour. Remember this was in the 80s, we were living in India, access to information about American celebrities was severely limited, and my brother did not curtail his imagination when it came to giving me suggestions on how I could achieve what Jackson had supposedly achieved – don't talk for the next half an hour, don't eat for the next five days, spend two full days lying in a special light-equipped box. (I should have known back then itself that he was giving me tips not to become fair but to become pale and bloodless like a vampire. Instead, I truly believed and hung on to every word he said.) I prayed to God, reciting shlokas 108 times in a single sitting, and asking the God/Goddess to turn my skin fair. I wholly succumbed to this notion of 'fair is lovely' in my teens. I remember washing my face with soap a million times a day, because right after each wash, my face would look a little paler, a little lighter in complexion. In the face of this singular *drawback*, nothing else mattered. Not my academic prowess. Not the fact that all my teachers loved me. Not the fact that I could learn anything when I set my mind to it. > *In those years, all I wanted was to somehow wash away my dark complexion into a lighter hue. I am pretty sure this was one of the wellsprings of the deep-rooted, haunting desire to be someone else, doing something else, somewhere else that has plagued me for as long as I can remember.* I remember grown-ups discussing how a fair-skinned girl could get away with average features whereas a dusky woman must have exceptional features to be considered beautiful. Attending family functions – weddings or any other occasions – almost always drove me to tears. No matter how beautiful a dress I chose to wear, how pretty it may have looked on the mannequin in the store, when I wore it, it simply did not have the power to rub and transfer some of its beauty on to me. These feelings of inadequacy have plagued me for years. Even now, I cringe when I wear a white or cream-coloured top, because – and this is the exact thought that runs in my mind when I look in the mirror – *it makes me look darker than I am*. > *The sight of the swarthy Simone Ashley commanding the screen with her strong, sizzling presence erased more than forty years of cultural conditioning in the mere span of eight episodes.* Shondaland had already hit it out of the park in Season 1 by presenting a Regency-era world in which Black people and whites enjoyed the same social standing and were not discriminated against on the basis of colour. And then they brought in a lead character of Indian descent. And that too, not the typical Bollywood kind of heroines who are still, for the most part, fair-skinned with oval or heart-shaped faces, but someone who is as dark as the night yet shines so resplendently, someone who is not discrimated against for the colour of her skin or her origins. In fact, the only complaint against Kate is that her stepmother married beneath her social standing. And they incorporated with such grace various aspects of South Indian culture, which even Bollywood more often overlooks or portrays with the intention to ridicule. What this weekend's binge-watching of Bridgerton has done for me is that I was able to look into the mirror at night before bedtime and fall in love with my own dark complexion. I'm pretty sure I must have had epiphanies and jolts of self-love on various occasions in the past (for there is a poem I once wrote in which I make a loving reference to my brown skin, which I'll share at the end of this post), but to see this kind of representation of brown skin as beautiful on an international screen was breathtaking. > *And for the first time, I truly understand why representation is so important. If I, as a privileged brown-skinned person can feel validated and empowered by representation, I am only just beginning to understand why members of the LGBTQ+ community, Indigenous people, and people belonging to so many other marginalized cultures and communities are fighting to be seen, to be heard, to be acknowledged.* When I first started to publish my books, I thought long and hard about using a pen name. I worried that using 'Anitha Krishnan' would put off readers of all kinds. Many authors I know use initials to hide their gender, but I was almost tempted to use an anagram of my name (and I came up with a very western name, Kristian Hannah) so it would bring out less prejudice in potential readers. But at the end of the day, I couldn't bring myself to do it even for the sake of selling more books. I simply didn't want to try and pass off for someone I am not. When I started writing [Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes), it was only meant to be a simple fantasy with neutral-sounding names of people and places. But somehow Ananya and Amma wrote their own stories, and my own Tamil lineage seeped into every page of the book. Does that limit its readability? ~~Maybe.~~ Definitely. But guess what? > *I finally feel proud of my differences – my brown skin, my very Indian name, my very South Indian origins – rather than ashamed of them. It is something I have now decided to wear with great pride, like my skin, instead of trying to hide it as if it were some sort of a deficiency, an inadequacy I've been taught to overcome.* This is something I am also changing gradually in terms of what I read and watch. I recently came across a [Storybundle](https://www.storybundle.com/scifi) collection titled 'The 2022 World SF Bundle - Curated by Lavie Tidhar'. (Click on 'World Sci-fi' on that page.) It's a collection of speculative fiction works from authors across the world. Tidhar's introduction says it all. > *It's hard to believe this is now the fifth annual World SF bundle I get the good fortune to curate. The first one was back in 2018!* > > *And yet with every year it's possible to find more great books – novels, novellas, anthologies and collections – that highlight the sheer talent and diversity of speculative fiction from around the world.* > > *The future doesn't need to be American anymore. Can it be Vietnamese? Italian? Nigerian? Chinese? You bet it can.* > \~ [The 2022 World SF Bundle](https://www.storybundle.com/scifi) \- Curated by Lavie Tidhar And now I will leave you with the poem I mentioned earlier. I wrote it way back in June 2014\. Funny how time flies, and we find ourselves twirling the same thoughts in the our minds, gripped by the same questions in our heads, learning the same lessons over and over again even after several years! > ***What need have I?*** > *What need have I for a princess’s jewels* > *When I have a frangipani perched on my fingers?* > *What need have I to swathe myself in velvet and cashmere* > *When my skin is singed like sienna and burnished by the sun,* > *And within it my heart is sheltered?* > *What need have I for heady perfumes* > *When I can merely lie down on the parched earth* > *And soak up the scent of the first showers of the season?* > *Yes, there is a word for it,* > *For the scent of rain on dry earth* > *Petrichor (how beautiful it sounds!)* > *It is now the fragrance of my skin* > *And all my desires buried within* > *What need have I for birthdays and anniversaries* > *When each day of life is a cause for celebration?* > *What need have I to fear the end* > *When I have given my all to life* > *And death has nothing left to strip away from me?* ### three new things: a book, a newsletter, and a story URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/three-new-things-a-book-a-newsletter-and-a-story/ Last updated: 2022-07-24T22:36:30.000Z I've been mulling the wisdom of announcing a bunch of new things, including a new book, on April Fool's Day, but as everything is good and ready to go, there truly is no better time than now! ## The Book ### A Benevolent Goddess I first present to you [A Benevolent Goddess](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess). It is a short book, a long-ish short story I wrote as a means of distracting myself from having to do all that needs to be done to publish the three other books (a novel and two novellas) I have written in these past few months. (Surely you didn't think I was hibernating all winter, did you now?) I love this book for many different reasons. I had the most fun writing it. It started out as a cheeky tale, and ended up having the usual dark undertones that often lace my stories - nostalgia, hiraeth, dilemma, choices, consequences. The works! This is also the first work of fiction I'm publishing exactly a year (and four days) after [Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes) came out, so this feels like a book-birthday celebration! It is the first book that I have dedicated to a dear friend, so it feels like a gift I am giving to her. I am terrible when it comes to choosing material gifts, but I suppose a work of fiction I have penned is the most personal kind of gift I can offer. I hope you will love it, M! It is also the first book in which I have also included a note of acknowledgements at the end, recalling those who've walked alongside me in this writing journey! And writing down the names of my dear friends and readers reminded me of how blessed I am! ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/04/A-Benevolent-Goddess---800-x-1280-px---Internal-Ebook-Cover.jpg) A Benevolent Goddess *Countless gods you pray to. Only one answers. It will cost her dearly.* In a land where gods have long mastered the art of ignoring the prayers of human beings, a new goddess arrives. She desires nothing more than to help those who call out in faith. But every choice, no matter how noble, comes with its own consequences. Even the benevolent goddess will have to pay a steep price if she chooses to follow her heart’s desire. Grab a [copy](https://books2read.com/A-Benevolent-Goddess) from a retailer of your choice! --- ## The Newsletter ### Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar In the days leading to the publication of A Benevolent Goddess, KrA and I took the time to set up a newsletter by means of which I can stay connected with you all, my dear readers, without being at the mercy of the countless social media platforms that are out there. [Subscribe to Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar!](https://www.thedreampedlar.com/#/portal/signup) Subscription is free! I will write to you once a month - on the last Sunday of every month, to be precise - with updates on the writing life, book recommendations, free fiction (remember [Tales for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/)?), and more! Click on the button above to sign up, or head over [here](https://thedreampedlar.com/newsletter/) to read more about why I've started this newsletter and what you can expect from it. --- ## The Story ### Hide-and-Seek When you sign up to my newsletter, you will receive exclusive access to one of my short stories, titled *Hide-and-Seek.* The tale won an Honourable Mention in the Spring/Summer 2021 issue of [Allegory Magazine](https://www.allegoryezine.com/), Volume 39/66, having found a place in the list of finalists (top 10%) out of more than 600 submissions. I've made this story available exclusively for subscribers to my newsletter. This is the only place where you will find it. You can read a [short preview](https://thedreampedlar.com/fiction-hide-and-seek/) here if you want to take a peek! --- So those are the new, shiny things I was hoping to entice you with when I started writing this post. But truth be said, I've missed posting here and sharing that with you on FB or Instagram. Now with the launch of the newsletter, I've been coming here quite often to carry out much needed work behind the scenes (with KrA doing all the techie work). And that's how we've overhauled the website too, and I think it looks a whole lot cleaner, more minimalist, more focused on the essentials now. What do you think? This also means I'll be here more often now, writing about writing, writing about reading, and posting short fiction. I love being busy! And I love being busy writing! And I hope you will enjoy being here too. So long! Feature Image Attribution: '[Dancing girl with red and bright ribbons](https://depositphotos.com/260398820/stock-photo-dancing-girl-red-bright-ribbons.html)’ by [YAYImages](https://depositphotos.com/portfolio-20524830.html?content=photo) on Depositphotos ### the murmur of bees URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-murmur-of-bees/ Last updated: 2022-02-06T13:42:29.000Z I spent a glorious week immersed in the reading of '[The Murmur of Bees](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42306076-the-murmur-of-bees)', a translated version of the work of Mexican author, [Sofía Segovia](https://en.sofiasegovia.com), who originally wrote the novel in Spanish. This past month alone I had started reading three books only to stop within 50 pages or so. The older I've gotten and the more I've read, the more selective I have become when it comes to the books I like to read. I'd like to say, more 'discerning', but that's not true. That would imply that some kinds of books are better than others, but to be fair, there are many books I'd have read and enjoyed a few years ago, but now I want something else. Some of the genres I used to devour but no longer enjoy reading are fantasy (gasp!), thrillers, mysteries, cop/detective stories. Through my continuing learning of the craft of writing, I have come to understand that people who love these genres are typically those seeking justice in fiction, the kind of justice that is sorely missing from the real world. In a world where innocents suffer and criminals seem to get away with their crimes, it is very satisfying to read a story in which the bad guy gets caught and the innocent one is avenged. I used to enjoy these stories very much, but I no longer want to read about the kind of physical violence one person is capable of inflicting on another. > Instead, the kind of stories that I continue to adore are these long, rambling ones with lots of characters, several intertwining stories, spread across generations. Stories that have a lot of emotional depth to them. > Reading books like these is like spending time with a friend who is in no hurry to go back home and attend to her chores, but has chosen to spend this day, this afternoon or evening, with me and only me, ready and willing to give me her entire attention and not demanding anything but my full presence and attention in return. And The Murmur of Bees was one such book. The blurb itself gives away nothing. It talks of an old woman, Nana Reja, who finds a baby abandoned under a bridge and covered in a living blanket of bees. The child, Simonopio, is brought up by the Morales family, and as he grows up, it becomes apparent that he can see visions of what will befall the family, both the good times and the bad. Oh, but this is not even a tiny fraction of the story. It is the undercurrent, yes, but the story is so much richer and delves into the lives of so many of these characters and their children's, against the backdrop of the 1918 influenza pandemic (which is also only a small part of the entire story) and the broader Mexican revolution with a focus on agrarian and land ownership issues. Oh, I don't even want to say the above things because no matter what I say, it will fail to capture the breadth and scope of the novel, which is so much more than any of the above incidents alone. It is the story of a family's lifetime. The lifetimes of various members of the family, of the people who work for them, of the people who weave in and out of their lives. I found myself reading the book, curious to know what will happen next, but also not wanting to read too fast because I didn't want it to end. Segovia employs simple words, but her expressions of emotions are so raw and soul-stirring, it was a treat to delve into it all, soak it all up. The book was published in 2015, so I found it even more amazing that her description of the pandemic and the people's experiences through it so easily captured what all of us are experiencing right now. The isolation. Too many loved ones living too closely for comfort. The story is mostly told from various third-person points of view, but it is also interspersed with a first-person narration and for the longest time I couldn't even guess who the narrator was. It all added to the intrigue and allure of the tale. I finished reading the book last night and predictably, I woke up this morning with a heavy heart. I shed a lot of tears. I am sad that the book has ended, that I have come to the end of the tale, that my journey with these characters has come to an end. I loved each and every one of them, with their quirks and desires and the different ways in which their lives unfold. I will leave you with this passage that comes at approximately the halfway mark in the book. > It's been an incredibly long time since I was last in these parts, but I don't think the journey ever felt shorter. At my age, one realizes that time is a cruel and fickle master, for the more you want it, the faster it appears to vanish, and vice versa: the more you want to escape it, the more stagnant it becomes. We are its slaves–or its puppets, if you prefer–and it moves or paralyzes us at its whim. Today, for instance, I would like to reach the end of this story, so I wish I could have more time–that time would slow down. You, on the other hand, might want this \*\* you've just met to be quiet so that you can put on your music or think about something else, so perhaps your journey is taking forever. > But let me tell you what I know, what I've concluded: it doesn't matter whether time passes slowly or quickly. What you can be sure of is that, in the end, all you want is to have more. More of those lazy afternoons when nothing happens, despite your best efforts to the contrary. More of those annoying arms that picked you up to stop you doing something crazy. More tellings-off from the mother who you thought was a nag. More glimpses, even, of your father hurrying somewhere, always busy. More soft embraces from the wife who loved you all your life, and more trusting looks from your children's young eyes. > \~ [The Murmur of Bees](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42306076-the-murmur-of-bees) by [Sofía Segovia](https://en.sofiasegovia.com) \*\* The words here would have given away the identity of the first-person protagonist, and not knowing who it is at the outset was one of the very charming things about this book. I certainly don't wish to spoil that for you. And even the above excerpt can tell you only so little about the book itself. I think everyone should have a Simonopio in their lives. A sort of guardian angel. A guiding light. Someone who can see what lies in wait. Someone who can look out for you and protect you and your loved ones, or at least give his all in trying to do that even if he may not always succeed. I am very sad that the tale of Simonopio has come to an end. I am very sad that in my own life I miss the companionship and safety that comes with the presence of a friend, the physical presence of a true friend, even though virtual relationships are about as real as things seem to have become in these times. Because what I yearn for is not the conversations, but the soft silence that comes from sitting beside someone who doesn't need words to understand how I feel, who doesn't need to spell out to me what they feel because I understand it all too. All my fears and insecurities, especially when it comes to writing and parenting. All those questions to which there are no answers. Am I doing it all well? Am I doing enough? Shouldn't I be doing more? Why can't I do more? Why am I unable to do more? Why am I not enough? I don't seek answers. I just want to share that these are the questions that keep swirling in my head and take me out of this moment, out of the here and the now. All I want is a presence next to me that brings me back to this moment, with all its pain and its longing and its uncertainties, and trust that I can face it all, so that eventually I can trust myself to bear it all with courage. I guess I am asking for an imaginary friend, after all. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Anson Aswat](https://unsplash.com/@ansonaswat?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/bees?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### on being versus doing URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/on-being-versus-doing/ Last updated: 2022-01-23T13:06:26.000Z > We think that when we are not doing anything we are wasting our time, that is not true. > Our time is first of all for us to be. > To be, to be what? > To be alive, to be peace, to be joy, to be loving. > And that is what the world needs the most. > So we train ourself in order to be. > And if you know the art of being peace, of being solid, then you have the ground for every action ... because the ground for action is to be. > And the quality of being determines the quality of doing. > Action must be based on non-action. > \~ [Thich Nhat Hanh](https://plumvillage.org/mindfulness-practice/#resting) I read this quote a long time ago, it was probably a forward on Whatsapp, and it struck me as both true and impossible at the same time. Becuase so much of life entails *doing* \- going to work, cooking meals, nurturing relationships. While I understood in theory how the way we show up to all these activities determine their quality, I've also experienced that even when I try to do the bare minimum – in meeting only the necessary demands of family and work life – the less time there is to *be*. And it is a vicious cycle from which there seems to be no exit. Thich Nhat Hanh passed away [yesterday](https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/thich-nhat-hanhs-health/thich-nhat-hanh-11-11-1926-01-22-2022/), and it was only in reading more about him on this occasion that I learnt he had been speechless for the past seven years following a stroke he had suffered long ago. I came across the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh during my occasional meanderings through the practice of mindfulness. As always, what makes a lot of sense in theory feels almost impossible to practice in daily life. Especially in the current times, with the pandemic still raging, I find it almost impossible to get up each morning. More often than not, I'm filled with dread at the prospect of facing yet another day, almost identical to its predecessor in its unfurling, and likely to be identical to the one that will follow. As someone who thrives on a having a variety of experiences to fill up my days and life, this sameness has been slowly stifling me, filling me up with an anxiety and existential dread that threatens to explode and spill over, affecting everyone around me. Writing has been the foremost thing on my mind yet the last thing I feel like doing. I don't want to write when I'm in this state, although I'm told that the antidote to getting out of this state of misery is to indulge in the activities we love. That's the irony of it all. I don't find that I love many things anymore. Even playing with D feels like I'm fulfilling an obligation these days. My heart is not in it, and the guilt that accompanies it makes it even worse. And while I am at it, can I also blame the weather? Despite all the snow, the cold and the white-grey skies add to the gloom and doom I seem to feel almost every day these days. In these times, Thich Nhat Hanh's words come back in all their wisdom. *Being* has become so much more essential than *doing*, but I'm also finding it more difficult now than ever before. This reminds me of what Osho had said about subjective and objective art. I had written about it in an [earlier post](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-art-of-hiraeth/). > **(In objective art) man has nothing to throw, he is utterly empty, absolutely clean. Out of this silence, out of this emptiness, arises love, compassion, and out of this silence a possibility for creativity. This silence, this love, this compassion, these are the qualities of meditation.* > **Meditation brings you to your very centre, and your centre is not only your centre, it is the centre of the whole existence. Only on the periphery we are different. As we start moving towards the centre, we are one. We are part of eternity, a tremendously luminous experience of ecstasy, which is beyond words, something that you can be but very difficult to express it. But a great desire arises in you to share it, because all other people around you are groping for exactly such experiences. And you have it. You know the path.* > **This desire to share becomes creativity. Somebody can dance. There have been mystics – for example, Jalaluddin Rumi – whose teaching was not in words, whose teaching was in dance. He will dance. His disciples will be sitting by his side, and he will tell them that "Anybody who feels like joining me can join. It is a question of feeling. If you don't feel like, it is up to you. You can simply sit and see."* > **But when you see a man like Jalaluddin Rumi dancing, something dormant in you becomes active. In spite of yourself, you can find you have joined the dance. You are already dancing before you become aware you have joined it.* > *\~ Osho* This is why I don't feel like working on my manuscripts these days. There is so much angst in me, it feels as if I'd only be pouring all of it out on paper and spreading that into the world. When I feel so full of dread and anxiety, how could I possibly create something that would touch and move someone who reads it? I don't have any answers yet. I'm only jusy trying to get through the day without any emotional casualties. Even that has become almost impossible offlate. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Raimond Klavins](https://unsplash.com/@raimondklavins?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/monks?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### the paradox of choice URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-paradox-of-choice/ Last updated: 2022-04-17T23:49:23.000Z Today, D will stay at home and continue to learn online while most of his classmates will be back in school. This was to happen two days ago but with the blizzard we experienced on Sunday night through Monday afternoon, the streets and sidewalks could not be plowed in time for people to resume their morning commute. D's school reverted to online learning for the past two days given this scenario, so all his classmates were at home. Today will be the first day when his friends go back to school and we have made the choice to keep him at home for a few more days. Having spent a good part of the night sleepless, I woke up late this morning and found that familiar angst had taken root again in the base of my throat and in the pit of my stomach. I am so terrified that my child will 'miss out' by not going to school when most of his friends are there that it is showing up as this ball of anxiety in me. You may wonder what's the big deal about missing a few days of school. I asked myself the same question too, and it led me down yet another path of exploration, which is why at 7 AM this morning, while D and KrA are engrossed in their Lego play, I have decided not to write fiction but instead focus all my attention on these thoughts that are swirling in my head, the worries that are clutching my heart, the ball of anxiety that is swelling up and pushing against my throat and my belly, and write it all down. The first thing that came to my mind was the paradox of choice. D has often been the only child to stay home and attend classes online during a period of recovery from illness while his friends were in school. On those occasions, even though the fear of missing out did grip me tightly, I could tell myself, "He's unwell, so we don't have a choice." Now, when I'm choosing to keep him home for a few more days before sending him back to school right away, I find myself buried under a truckload of doubt and guilt. Because I'm making a choice here, it's not the situation that is compelling me to behave one way or the other. And this is the paradox of choice for me, I have come to see. > When I am given the ability to choose, and I make a choice that runs countercurrent to what the rest of the world is doing, I rail against it, I rail against myself. > And then I quickly want to override my initial choice, the decision that I'd have arrived at after careful consideration and listening to my gut, and throw it all out the window for the assumed safety of being part of the crowd. Our decision to keep D at home for a few more days was based on many factors. Given that KrA is still home-bound, and in fact bed-bound for the most part, I haven't been able to go out and get the recommended 3-ply or 4-ply of N95 masks for D. The child has also receieved only one dose of his vaccine yet, and will receive his second dose in early Feb (although we don't plan to keep him home for that long). The healthcare system in Ontario is overwhelmed right now, and access to tests and medical support is quite limited. Even though we have accepted the reality that the question now is not 'if' but 'when' we will be exposed to Covid, we are already quite severely constrained on the home front. The last thing we need right now is an avoidable exposure to Covid when KrA still can't walk around much, my herniated disc is flaring up, and we don't have a network of family or friends nearby who could help look after D if we are further incapacitated in any way. So very early on, when the province announced that all children will return to in-person schooling this week, KrA and I immediately arrived at the conclusion that it would be prudent of us to wait for a few days before sending D back. But as the date of return drew closer, I started to wobble and began to reach out to some of D's classmate's parents to find out what they had decided. Most were sending their children back to school. Some had already gotten their children double-vaxxed sooner than the recommended interval of 8 weeks between doses, which came as news to me. I asked his class teacher and she said that two other children had opted to remain online – this was as of last week, I don't know if things have changed in the interim with the snowstorm delaying return to in-person school. > The instant I started looking to the world outside for guidance, I found myself derailing from the path we had chosen. I started to doubt our decision, I started to question our judgement, and I began to operate from a mindset of lack and fear and scarcity. I hastily started to inquire avenues for getting D his second shot sooner than the 8-week interval. I felt mad that I hadn't kept up with the news and that I hadn't contacted people sooner, for if only I had, D would have been double-vaxxed by now and we'd have been able to send him to school, knowing we've done all we could to protect him. It didn't take long for me to convince myself that it was all my fault that D was missing out on school and the socialization opportunities being in school with other children brought. Eventually I had to sit down and confront what was going on inside of me. Because, truth be told, D mentioned only once that he'd like to go back to school too, but that it was OK if he had to stay back home for a few more days. And so, I couldn't understand my own resistance and struggle in the face of my child's willing acceptance of his situation. About a year ago, two Burlington-based authors launched a project called '[Writing the Roller Coaster](https://writingtherollercoaster.com)' for which they invited Burlington residents to write about their experiences of the pandemic and submit their pieces, which they planned to compile into an anthology. (A [PDF](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xXIdOczK3W6viKCitVNtLLL8iGZwJsiv/view) version of the book is available online. My pieces are on pages 97 and 101.) Writing for the anthology was a cathartic experience, to say the least. The first piece I submitted was titled 'Finding Self-Love in the Time of Coronavirus'. That piece is all about the isolation I had been feeling since I went on bedrest for several weeks when I was pregnant with D. Looking back now, I'm pretty sure that feeling of isolation had been haunting me for decades but were exacerbated when I found myself confined to a hospital bed for most of my pregnancy. While writing the piece, I came to the realization that all my FOMO - fear of missing out - had stemmed from my efforts of trying to find something in the world outside to fill a large, gaping void inside of me. Fruitless efforts, to say the least. I concluded the piece with the following passages. > It took me a pandemic and the innate wisdom of my 4 year-old to understand that the most important relationship we can nurture in our lifetime is with ourselves. How we love and value ourselves shapes how we perceive the outer world and our place in it. > Socialization then simply becomes the ability to present our true, authentic selves to the world and embrace everyone for who they are. > It has little to do with whether or not we have friends and playdates, birthday parties and backyard barbecues. It has everything to do with the ease with which we become our own best friend under all circumstances, irrespective of any external achievement or lack thereof, so that authenticity, and not desperation, drives our decisions and relationships. And the most beautiful truth is that children are naturally adept at this fundamental life skill of self-love. > \~ An excerpt from my piece 'Finding Self-Love in the Time of Coronavirus' in the Writing the Roller Coaster anthology Barely a year later, I seem to have forgotten my own learnings, especially when it comes to socialization opportunities for D. I still moan the lack of play date mates for him. I still beat myself up for not having more friends and family to fill our home with. I still look to the world outside to tell me what to do. I still doubt the merit of the decisions I make for myself when I see others making different choices. > When I make a choice today, I inevitably want a validation, a guarantee, that in the future that something 'good' or 'favourable' will come from the choices I make today so that I can then look back in time and tell myself, "Oh, I did the right thing back then, how awesome!" When we decide to keep D home from school for a few days, I am secretly hoping something would happen that would validate our choice. Something like ... dare I even say it out loud? ... an outbreak or classes being cancelled because of extenuating circumstances, whatever those may be, so then I'd be able to say, "Gosh! Wasn't it a good thing we chose to keep D at home?!" When I decide to pursue a full-time career as an author, I want a guarantee that I'd be raking in the moolah five years from now, so that then I can look back and say, "Wow, I followed my passion despite all odds, and now I certainly deserve the fruits that I'm reaping as a result of the tough choices I made and my perseverance in the face of all odds." > Even as I write this post, a tiny voice pipes up inside me and suggests I should post this on my Facebook page, despite my decision of only a few days ago [to stay away from social media](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-social-media-experiment-four-weeks-in-i-quit-what-a-relief/) even while continuing to create so that I'm not caught in the trap of constantly checking whether or not I've received the validation I so desperately seek. > See how I want people to read this post and tell me how awesome it is, how my words echo their thoughts, and what a gem of a piece this is? > It is not enough that in the writing of this post I am unearthing something about myself, discovering something about my own life experiences and behavioural patterns, and moving to a place of more clarity and self-assurance. > I want someone else to grade me, give me a 100/100, write 'Excellent' or 'Very Good' on my paper, for it is their stamp of approval that matters to me more than my own. > The trouble with living life thus is that it never feels satisfactory, it never feels like our own, it feels like a life in which we allow the wind to buffet us whichever way it likes, and when the wind dies down, we find ourselves lifeless and limp, unable to move of our own accord, having forgotten completely what it feels like to do so. While I have waxed eloquent about acceptance and self-love in my writings, clearly I am coming up against more and more situations that call upon me to deepen this practice. And I have the best guru right here in my own home. My 5-year old. Little D. Lucky me! So, yesterday KrA had a physio appointment, and D and I decided to make use of that time to go sledding. Only, when we reached the sledding hill after dropping KrA, we had to park about 300 metres away from the usual parking spot at the base of the hill because the area had not been plowed and all the spots up ahead had been taken up. Well, actually, we had driven up all the way but I didn't capitalise on the chance to snag a spot because I had gone too far ahead and a pick-up truck behind me had already moved in. The only course of option left to us was to park at the farther location and trek through a large field of snow to get to the sledding hill. Which wouldn't have been an issue otherwise, but we had to go pick up KrA within half an hour when his appointment would conclude, so we figured we'd barely have enough time to plow through the field and back. I mentioned this to D, adding that I had missed that spot up ahead, and he said, "That's OK, Mumma. I understand. These things happen. We can have fun playing here too." ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/8.-Field-of-snow.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/8.-D-trekking-through-snow.jpeg) a field of snow and a very happy trekker KrA called us just we traversed the length of the field and reached the other parking spot (where the car is parked in the image above). His clinic was open for another hour, so we decided to get to the hill, sled down once, and then make our way back to pick up KrA. And that's what we did. The sledding itself was not of the usual speedy type. The snow was too thick and the sled came down in slow motion. Nonetheless, the funnest part of the adventure was our trek through the field of snow, those unsteady steps, not knowing how deep our legs would sink. After every few paces, D would dive into the white, powdery snow. It was truly a delightful experience. D's acceptance of any given situation inspires me to accept my reality rather than rail against it. Funnily, KrA's stoic acceptance of any situation used to irk me, and I'd get all caught up in concocting plans to make things happen faster or sooner or go my way somehow. But the same trait in D feels magical somehow, even though I know he inherits it from KrA through and through. I have not an ounce of patience in my bones. It is this same acceptance that D exhibited when we decided he could stay at home for a few more days before rushing back to in-person school. He did mention he'd like to go back to school and be with his friends, but he also quickly made peace with the fact that he'd stay home while most others would be at school, and having made up his mind on that front, he went off to continue building his awesome LEGO creations. (The Monster Family in the second row is my absolute favourite. Oh, heck! All of them are my absolute favourites!) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/5.-Assortment-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/4.-Fire-vehicle-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/1.-Assortment-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/2.-Custom-vehicle-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/3.-Monster-family-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/7.-Tiniest-car-ever-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/01/6.-Fire-truck-and-trailer-2.jpeg) D's LEGO creations D loves spending time with us. I suppose, instead of wishing that away, I can honour and appreciate that. I am so lucky that my work is flexible. And truth be told, I prioritize D and KrA over writing on occasion, but I'm meant to write, and I can't go too long without writing. Take today for instance, when I was able to understand my need to express these feelings, and could thus attend to myself first, even if only a little bit (for it is late evening now by the time I've come back to write this.) > "There’s just no peace living with a dog bred to do a job who hasn’t done it." > \~ Vaughn Roycroft on [Writer Unboxed](https://writerunboxed.com/2022/01/17/how-my-pup-taught-me-a-few-things-about-writing/#comments) Roycroft wrote the above as part of a comment on someone else's post, but it's so true. When we do not do the work that we are meant to do, we are not at peace with ourselves, and no one around us can find peace either. Sometimes I think of how I can organize more social outings for D, once we're past the dangers of the current wave of the pandemic. And I often come to the conclusion that I am not a very social person either. Well, that's not true. I love talking to people, but I find that conversations often tend to dwell on the past – boasting about what we did, the places we went, the fun experiences we had – or on what we plan to do – the adventures we're about to embark upon. Very rarely do conversations veer towards what matters to me a lot – about feelings and emotions, deep pontifications on life and what it means for us to be here in this moment of space and time, together, with each other, our paths crossing, who knows for how long. In '[If You Want to Write](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/248954.If%5FYou%5FWant%5Fto%5FWrite)', Brenda Ueland talks of her friend, Francesca, as among the *"two or three very rare, extraordinary, creative people I know, when they are truly magnetic, fascinating, oracular, seem to be living in the present."* > "Francesca, for example, always seems to be living in the present: now! Now! You can never get her to gossip chattily, to repeat long narratives or listen to them, not because she disapproves of gossip, far from it, but because to her, I think, mere narrative is not a thing to bother about becuase it is only memory, a recounting of the past in which nothing new can come in. It is not inspiration, the present. > No, she never says very much, but sits looking at you with loving, shining eyes, gently swaying as though to unheard music, and listens to you and understands perfectly, and wisdom seems to descend into her gently from some place, from beyond some place, as though she heard and understood in that moment St. Joan's voices. And she says something (without beginning) that at once seems to me so remarkable, true and important and filles me with something that is wonderfully consoling and illuminating. > \~ Brenda Ueland in [If You Want to Write](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/248954.If%5FYou%5FWant%5Fto%5FWrite) I want a friend like Francesca. And her children can be D's playdate mates. Have you noticed how, when little kids get together, they just start playing without any preamble? We grown-ups are the ones who teach and compel them to say "Hi" and "Hello" and "How are you?" and extend formal invitations "Do you want to play with me?" And we truly have the audacity to think that we know more about our children's social and socialization needs than they themselves do! It was a video from Dr. Shefali that settled the debate on this matter for me. What she says is nothing you'll expect. And the truth hits hard. And the truth sets me free. > "... the experience of being alone doesn't mean that they have to be lonely... The feeling of loneliness comes because we resist our own company, so we seek other people to fulfil our inner needs." > \~ Dr. Shefali As I sat down to write this post this morning, I remembered a song I learnt when I was 11 years old. In 6th standard, or Grade 6 as we say here. It was Whitney Houston's [Greatest Love of All](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYzlVDlE72w). For some reason, I was curious enough to look up the lyrics of the song. I only remembered the first few lines after all these years, so when I looked up the lyrics, I was gobsmacked. It is all about loving our own selves and not looking to anyone in the world outside to show us the way. Our entire class learnt this song to perform at a competition at school. I remember how a few of us had brought our little keyboards for practice, but on the day of the performance itself, the two mics were positioned facing the singers, which was essentially the entire class. And whatever the few of us played on our little keyboards was drowned in the vocal music that was louder and amplified. Our class teacher was so mad at us that she yelled at the entire class when we got back. "Shame on you all! You made such fools of yourselves on stage." Which was ironical, because the song itself is all about loving ourselves whether we fail or we succeed. This was probably why I never tried to listen to that song in all these years, even though Whitney Houston became one of my favourite singers in my teens and I have loved and learnt so many, many songs of hers. Writing about self-love reminded me of the song with its title 'Greatest Love of All' and I wondered what she could have been referring to. (The song apparently was [originally written](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FGreatest%5FLove%5Fof%5FAll) almost a decade before Houston performed it.) And I was completely taken aback by the realization that I had had my first cognizant brush with self-love more than three decades ago. Yet, here I am. Straying from that path and trying to return, over and over again, each day, each moment of this precious life. It is all a homecoming. *Flower Image Attribution: Photo by [Marivi Pazos](https://unsplash.com/@marivi?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/flowers?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### a social media experiment: four weeks in - i quit. what a relief! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-social-media-experiment-four-weeks-in-i-quit-what-a-relief/ Last updated: 2023-03-14T12:53:29.000Z I've been coming back to this piece of writing over and over again these past few days. This is literally Take 4! It's Monday morning as I write this. Last night's storm has left snow on our threshold. No steps are visible. And it continues to snow. KrA is attending to D's online school, so I'm back here now, wanting to close this chapter and move on. So here goes .... --- A few days ago I announced on my Facebook and Instagram accounts that I was taking a hiatus from social media. The day before that, I didn't post my [#dailypoetry](https://www.instagram.com/thedreampedlar/) for the first time after having kept at it for four weeks in a row. The relief I felt by giving up and stepping back from social media was inexplicable. When I first started the project, I was quite intent on keeping at it until at least the end of June this year. I never once imagined it would culminate in four weeks, that too with me quitting social media. As soon as I posted that announcement on my Facebook and Instagram accounts, I deleted the Instagram app from my phone, and it was literally like letting a giant rock roll off my shoulders, a rock I wasn't intellectually aware I was carrying, but one that my body and mind had begun to sound alarm signals about by sending me into spirals of anxiety every other day. But before that, I want to pick up from where I [left off](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-social-media-experiment-one-week-in/) the last time, and share some insights I have gleaned on this journey. The last I wrote about this project was about my experiences one week into it. Several things happened in weeks two, three, and four, some great, some revealing, and this post is to capture all of those. - **Who am I writing for?** *(Or, is it 'Whom'?)* When I started the project, I had written about 14 poems upfront. It felt like a lot of inventory at the beginning of the project, but days have a tendency to pass by quickly, and I soon found myself left with only four or five more poems to tide me over for the next few days. I was so stressed about it that getting to work and writing down stuff became a nightmare. I remember that one day when the words wouldn't come, and my mind so full of the thoughts of these elusive verses, that I was hardly present during the moments of the day. Whether I was cooking or playing with D or running errands, I was just not there. Not present at all. But caught up in this massive swirl of thoughts - I need to write, I wish I had more time to write, Why am I cooking?, Why did KrA end up with a fractured leg?, I wish D were in school, I am not doing enough for D, I shouldn't worry so much otherwise D will become like me, Gosh, what will happen if D ends up like me with depression or anxiety or worse?, D doesn't have any friends or family around, D doesn't have playdates, D has begun sorting his tiles by colour, is that a sign of anxiety? ... and so on, and so on ... It pained me to observe myself struggling thus. This was supposed to be an experience in the joy of writing and not end up becoming a massive struggle to put words out there for the sake of external validation, but that is what it had quickly become. It was only my second week, and I was already panicking. The following day, I sat down to write with a clearer mind and a clearer heart, and the writing was such joy. A few days later, when it was time to write more, I fell into the same spiral of anxiety. > Truth be told, I know I spend more time 'thinking' about stuff that needs to be done than I actually spend doing those very tasks. I know this intellectually, but knowing what's right and behaving accordingly are two entirely different things. Now that I have stepped off social media, I can go back to writing without pressuring myself to put that writing to use. Sure, I will publish my works – which is what my original plan for this year was, in my head at least, a year dedicated to writing and publishing in book format rather than focussing on marketing efforts at this point. Which was the other thing that hit me hard. - **Why am I doing this?** OK - so people were reading my poems, and then what? There was no call to action for them, no newsletter for them to sign up to, no book for them to purchase, so it all quickly began to feel like a very wasteful exercise. I was generating all this IP and I was giving them away for free without putting in place any opportunity to engage with readers and invite them over to peruse my other writings. My initial argument was that say, 1-5% of the people who read my snippets on social media go on to love my writing and buy my books, but all that fiction writing fell by the wayside. Even though I tell myself I'm in this for the long-term, when one or two days slip by without me getting my words out on the manuscript, the panic starts to build up very quickly. One day of non-writing easily gets extrapolated in my head to years of non-productivity, and I worry that five years from now, I'd be in the exactly same place I am now, all because I didn't write for one day. I have somehow gotten on to this hamster wheel of productivity, pushing myself without realizing how much I can actually take on, how to allow myself grace for when things don't go according to plan, how to hold myself in compassion and simply be present without letting my mind catastrophize my life. > Catastrophizing is an extremely useful skill in writing fiction, but when it comes to real life, it feels like being in a constant chokehold. - **What is all this telling me about myself?** There's a certainly a lot going on right now and I'd miss the point if I were to blame my current lack of motivation and creativity entirely on the situation at hand. Yes, KrA is bed-bound. Yes, D is at home and away from school. Yes, last week they announced schools are reopening, but we have made a choice to keep D home for another couple of weeks until the cases taper off somewhat. Yes, I see other parents who've made the decision to send their little ones to school and I worry endlessly about whether I've made the right decision or not for D. But this is what I realized this morning. > We make choices based on what feels 'right' to us, but even 'right' is such a 'wrong' word to use here, because who can ever say with confidence what the 'right' thing to do is. We once used to use hindsight as a tool to measure how right or wrong our decisions are. Business schools are full of case studies of industry leaders, whose decisions we mercilessly investigate in hindsight, sitting in the comfort seat of revealed knowledge, and picking apart decisions made in the dark unknown. It is presumptuous, to say the least. I will share something personal with you here. There was an estrangement in my family several years ago. I don't want to share the details of that, but for several years, I saw my parents ask themselves over and over again if they could have prevented what had unfolded had they made different choices. It was heartbreaking to see that, their constant anxiety, and following that, their inevitable struggle but also deep desire to accept what was. Now, as parents of a five-year old, KrA and I debate with ourselves endlessly whether we're doing the right thing by choosing to keep D at home for a couple of more weeks. Sure, Covid is not going anywhere. Depending on which news report we read, it appears as if more variants will keep emerging and we'll keep facing these cycles of lockdowns and exposure based on how stressed the healthcare system gets. We can't stay cooped up in our homes forever, but this is where I have to remind myself – 2 weeks is not forever! > Two days of not writing does not imply two years of non-productivity. > Two weeks of D being at home while many of his classmates are back in school does not necessarily mean he will grow up to be a child who is socially damaged. It is this kind of catastrophizing and extrapolation of difficulties that makes me react in a way that is out of proportion to the situation on hand. It takes me out of the present and puts me in a distant future of which I have already built a nightmarish vision in my head, and I spend my days and nights worrying about how we'd survive and tackle such a future, completely removed from the fact that the present is nowhere near as catastrophic and what is being asked of me in the present is far less than what I've inflated it to be in my head. I understand this fear. This fear of being 'wrong'. This fear of reaching that distant future and finding out it is worse than anything I've experienced so far. Sure, there's also the other possibility that it will turn out to be something quite amazing, but my fearful mind does not want to entertain that thought, not when it is gripped in this spiral of anxiety. And so I let go. I let go of the need to be right. Of the need to know that the things I do today, the choices I make today, will guarantee a safe and successful passage for me through life. Let me live today for today's sake. Let me live this moment for it's own sake. Not with the expectation of any reward or guarantee of safety or well-being in the future. I don't have to be reckless. But I don't have to be grasping and clinging at the same time, running away from the present so far and so fast that I find myself always catching my breath. But it's not been all disaster and doom. I received several unexpected gifts along the way. - **Connection is the most precious gift I received.** My posts on Instagram led a long-lost friend from my teenage years to reach out to me and reconnect. On Christmas afternoon, we spent an hour and a half catching up after more than two decades. Turned out both of us had been looking for each other all this while. I had often thought of her, she was one of the closest friends I had had. It was an easy friendship without judgement or pretence, I remember. Another long-time reader left encouraging comments for me whenever my poems tended to delve into the deep dark. Yet another reader and classmate shared her experiences on writing and publishing and finding not validation but criticism from the external world, and how that hurt so much. > As a writer, these are the connections I seek. When the words that come out of me coax more words out of others too, and we can rest comfortably in each other's presence, knowing that there is hurt, there is pain, and there is a lot of understanding too. --- The snowplow has come and gone, making a courageous attempt at paving a path through knee-deep snow. More snow has since fallen, rendering that path invisible once more. KrA has an appointment for physiotherapy this afternoon, and I had been wondering how we'd navigate all that snow. It's slated to snow until afternoon. Our shovel is broken and we hadn't gotten around to buying a new one; it had barely snowed so far this season, and with KrA being bed-bound, it hadn't been much of a priority until now. I look out at the window, thinking I'd borrow a shovel from my neighbour, and guess what I see! My 70+-year-old neighbour shoveling snow out of our driveway and all the way up to the front door step, so we'd have access to the street. Over and over again, life has shown me that all I am required to do is remain present. I only need to attend to the needs of this moment. The future takes care of itself - whether by means of help from unexpected quarters or a newfound ability in me to accept and surrender over and over again. This is all I want to remember from this experience. > Life gives. > Life gives much more than we could possibly ask for. > Life gives much more than we could possibly imagine asking for. > And life asks very little of us, in turn. > All it asks us to do is remain present, do the best we can in this moment, and that's it. That is all there is to it. > The present moment is all we have. It is truly all there is to life in any given instant. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Adam Chang](https://unsplash.com/@sametomorrow?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/snow?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### creative and business goals for 2022 revised URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/creative-and-business-goals-for-2022-revised/ Last updated: 2022-01-13T00:40:15.000Z Who knew life would throw so many curveballs within the first 12 days of this year? With KrA still bed-bound, D on online-school so far, (and even though schools are reopening, we're considering keeping him home for another couple of weeks), I have broken most of the streaks – both writing and non-writing-related – I committed to at the beginning of this year. So here I am, not even 12 days into the new year, revising my goals from when I [wrote](https://thedreampedlar.com/creative-and-business-goals-for-2022/) about them a fortnight ago. - ****Creative Goals** (1) Write 1,000 words per day on a daily basis. Still my #1 goal, and I've already fallen off this bandwagon, distracted by other stuff. So here I am, pulling myself back on to this wagon. (2) Editing, cover design, and publishing for 1 hour/day. I haven't made much headway on this front, instead spending this time on writing #Instapoetry or checking social media at all random hours of the day. My time on social media has been on an all-time high so far this year, so it's time for me to cut back on that one. (3) Work on [#talesfordreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) and [#Instapoetry](https://www.instagram.com/thedreampedlar/). I'm giving up on daily #Instapoetry. Aside from the writing of the poetry, I've been spending too much time thoroughly distracted on social media. I thought I'd have a handle on that, but I clearly don't, and I don't want to waste more time trying to fight the unconquerable. Social media is designed to keep us glued to our screens and our networks, and I've been a fool to think I can just dip in and out in a minute without getting sucked into the quagmire. So I'm stepping back. I'll still be writing poetry, but I won't rush to post it on Instagram. Instead, I'll publish a compilation later this year. (4) Take Becca Syme's course on [Strengths for Writers](https://betterfasteracademy.com/sfw101/) Maybe. Maybe not. I'm still keen on this one, but I'm also keeping a big eye on budget, and trying to regain focus on writing and publishing without jumping on to every new, shiny thing that comes my way. So let's take a rain check on this one later in the year. - ****Business Goals** (1) Publish wide *This remains a key focus area!* (Right now, my books are primarily on Amazon. One of them is on Kobo. One of them is only in eBook format. As I write and publish more, I'm aiming to put my works on more platforms. Apple, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, and so on. I'm still debating between going direct on these major platforms versus utilizing D2D for some of these as well as for other smaller platforms. So this is definitely a big focus area for me this year.) (2) Start sending out a monthly newsletter. *This is another key focus area!* (This is something I've been working on behind the scenes and I hope to have the first newsletter out in March.) (3) Submit to [Writers of the Future](https://www.writersofthefuture.com) contest every quarter. *Yes! I will persist with this. I've already submitted for the January–March quarter.* (I'm sure to be writing short stories, so it would be a good thing to send them as an entry to this contest and see how they fare. Submitting one story a quarter is not effort- or time-intensive, so I can do this.) (4) Submit 1 new short story every two months to leading speculative fiction magazines. *Yes! I have made a couple of submissions already. So this too will remain a focus area.* (As speculative fiction magazines are good paying markets and having a story published by them would help more readers find my work, I'll aim to submit a new short story every two months to the top leading magazines in speculative fiction.) (5) Explore StoryOrigin in July 2022. *Maybe. Maybe not. It really depends on how much inventory I will have managed to build this year. So let's take a rain check on this later in the year.* ([StoryOrigin](https://storyoriginapp.com) seems to be a good way to attract a new audience, so assuming I've built a bit of inventory in the first half of the year, I will focus on exploring StoryOrigin during the second half of the year.) So there, these are my **revised** goals for 2022. Good luck to me! *Image Attribution: Photo by [Nick Morrison](https://unsplash.com/@nickmorrison?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/writing?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: memory exchange URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-memory-exchange/ Last updated: 2024-01-26T17:58:15.000Z You can trade in your memories for different ones at the Memory Junction. There’s no ‘old-for-new’ exchange here, because all memories are old. And the older they get, the heavier they become. The more memories you have, the more onerous they become. Fear not, for you have come to the right place for what ails you. Heartbreak. Nostalgia. Grief. Pour your memories of all those feelings into a large bowl, and wait. Wait for someone to approach you and inquire what your bowl holds. Invite them to take a peek. Maybe your memory of heartbreak might help them come to terms with theirs. Perhaps the story of your grief might help them make sense of theirs. Wait for more inquisitive ones to approach you, and share your memories with them. It may take a day. Or a week. An entire year, perhaps. But eventually the bowl in your hand will feel lighter. Each memory becomes less threatening, less worrisome somehow, the more you share it, the more you put it to good use. One day, your bowl will disappear. And you will know you are ready. For now comes your turn to visit the others who may be standing there, holding their own bowls of heavy memories, waiting for someone to share their burden and ease their pain. You know what you need to do. It is a fair exchange, after all. ### Happy New Year! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/happy-new-year/ Last updated: 2022-01-01T23:54:06.000Z Were it not for man’s invention of dates and time, we may not have had new years or birthdays or new centuries. Or, on the contrary, every day would have been a new year, a new day, a new century, a new cause for celebration. However you choose to look at it, the energy and excitement surrounding the birth of a new year is undeniable. So this is my wish for us in 2022\. May we find in ourselves the ability to look at the world with a renewed sense of wonder as if we were stepping into it for the very first time. Happy New Year! I leave you with the [#dailypoetry](https://www.instagram.com/p/CYL5uawu6BB/) I posted on Instagram today. > I wish not to live as if it were my last day on earth. > I wish to live as if it were my very first, > opening my eyes for the first time, > taking my first breath, my first big gulp of air, > hungry for my first slurp of milk, > content only when I am sated, > never once doubting that my demands will be met, > looking at everything and everyone > with wonder and curiosity, > eager to see and touch and hear and smell and feel, > exploring this new life with no consideration for how easy or difficult it might be, > ignorant of fear and knowledge and judgement, > my spirit still unsullied by the ways of this world. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Dawid Zawiła](https://unsplash.com/@davealmine?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/sparklers?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### creative and business goals for 2022 URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/creative-and-business-goals-for-2022/ Last updated: 2022-01-06T15:10:52.000Z Here we are, three days away from the new year. I don't recall having set new year goals pertaining to writing and publishing, but I'm learning that it helps to set an intention and goals for this duration, as that provides a direction in which to proceed. So here are my creative and business goals for 2022. - **Creative Goals** (1) Write 1,000 words per day on a daily basis. I have not been able to manage a daily writing streak so far. And I find myself falling into self-doubt quickly when I end up spending time on the other aspects of indie-publishing at the expense of writing time. We are writers after all, and unless I write more, I will be limited in what I have to offer to the market. 1,000 words per day is a reasonable goal at this stage. It requires two 30-minute writing sprints, and if I can get those in before the day begins, I'd be happy. (2) Editing, cover design, and publishing for 1 hour/day. As and when I finish a draft, I'd like to spend this hour working on editing it, designing a cover, and putting it up on the various retailer platforms for sale. I am sitting on a few written but unedited drafts right now, and this is beginning to weigh me down. Unless I put those works out for public consumption, I'm pretty much operating in the void, which in turn dampens my enthusiasm for writing. So it's rather a vicious cycle, one that can be avoided by putting the works out there almost at the pace at which I can produce them rather than letting them pile up into a backlog that would become difficult to tackle later on. (3) Work on [#talesfordreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) and [#Instapoetry](https://www.instagram.com/thedreampedlar/). I'm going to work on these ad hoc but maintain my production rate equal to the publication rate, i.e., I'm aiming to write 1 [#talesfordreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) and 7 [#Instapoems](https://www.instagram.com/thedreampedlar/) every week. My estimate is this would take 2-3 hours, or perhaps even less, spread over the week. (4) Take Becca Syme's course on [Strengths for Writers](https://betterfasteracademy.com/sfw101/) Becca Syme has been great in debunking several myths of the writing and publishing process. She's been the one to consistenly say that the same trick does not work for everyone, and that we need to determine our strengths and work according to those, rather than trying to do something others are pursuing in the hope of achieving similar success even if it is totally not aligned with who we are and how we function. I am definitely interested in learning what my strengths are and how to utilize them well. This year (2021), I took [Dean Wesley Smith](http://deanwesleysmith.com)'s Critical Voice Workshop that has been incredibly useful in getting me to the writing computer more often than before. I am way less critical of my work now, even though on occasion I slip up and castigate myself both for words written and those not written. But I'm able to catch myself doing that more often than I could before, and that helps me get out of my own way when it comes to writing. So this year, it's going to be Becca Syme's course. I am still learning a lot of craft as I go but I find that writing and practising more is the best way to learn my craft, and without that practice, any amount of intellectual knowledge will remain just that – unutilized knowledge. I will write more on this later, but definitely in 2022 I don't plan to pay for a craft course or a book on the craft of writing. - **Business Goals** (1) Publish wide Right now, my books are primarily on Amazon. One of them is on Kobo. One of them is only in eBook format. As I write and publish more, I'm aiming to put my works on more platforms. Apple, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, and so on. I'm still debating between going direct on these major platforms versus utilizing D2D for some of these as well as for other smaller platforms. So this is definitely a big focus area for me this year. (2) Start sending out a monthly newsletter. This is something I've been working on behind the scenes and I hope to have the first newsletter out in March. (3) Submit to [Writers of the Future](https://www.writersofthefuture.com) contest every quarter. I'm sure to be writing short stories, so it would be a good thing to send them as an entry to this contest and see how they fare. Submitting one story a quarter is not effort- or time-intensive, so I can do this. (4) Submit 1 new short story every two months to leading speculative fiction magazines. As speculative fiction magazines are good paying markets and having a story published by them would help more readers find my work, I'll aim to submit a new short story every two months to the top leading magazines in speculative fiction. (5) Explore StoryOrigin in July 2022. [StoryOrigin](https://storyoriginapp.com) seems to be a good way to attract a new audience, so assuming I've built a bit of inventory in the first half of the year, I will focus on exploring StoryOrigin during the second half of the year. So there, these are my goals for 2022\. Noting them down like these makes them feel more manageable and achievable rather than some abstract vision with no clear way to achieve them. Do you have any writing and/or publishing goals? Please feel free to share them and maybe we can keep each other accountable! Good luck to me and you for the year ahead! *Image Attribution: Photo by [Moritz Knöringer](https://unsplash.com/@mokngr?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/happy-new-year-2022?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### a social media experiment: one week in URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-social-media-experiment-one-week-in/ Last updated: 2021-12-27T14:30:09.000Z I'm already several datys into week two – considering that I wrote my [outset post](https://thedreampedlar.com/a-social-media-experiment-at-the-outset/) only at the end of week one – and now I feel an urgency to capture all that transpired in the first week, because those were the hardest bits so far in this journey, and also so that I can get on track to posting the learnings from each week at the end of the week itself. Looking back now, I remember how in the days leading up to 15 December, I wondered if I really ought to embark on this project. I worried that the pale pink background I had chosen for my words was not the right colour. I had come up with a pattern of interspersing posts with background images with those on the pale pink background such that over a period of time, the ones with the images would form diagonal lines and look pretty. I came up with every reason I possibly could to abandon the project before I could start it (including that I ought to be spending more time writing and publishing my books and stories instead of this free content, except I also love writing these verses and sharing them with readers, old ones and new alike, so I'll not rehash that argument in my head.) Considering all that, when I did first publish my first post on 15 December, I heard back from friends and regular readers of my works in response. It was such a delight. There were a few likes, a few comments, some even shared my piece, so it all felt like a very fortuitious start to the project. So Day 1 was a success. It was Week 1 that ended up being a total disaster. - **Eyeballs for sale** On my second post, I received a bunch of comments from random accounts asking me to promote my poetry on yet another account. My first reaction to this was that of disappointment. I was putting myself out there on social media to find people who'd be genuinely interested in my writings, not people who'd want to sell their services to me. I remember reacting very strongly to this, and I also know why. You see, a couple of months ago, on one of the fantasy writers' groups that I'm part of, someone – let's call him JT – had posted saying he was looking for new fantasy books to read and whether we could share any of our published works that might interest him. Me, along with a bunch of other writers, responded to him sharing links of our works. The guy's profile said he was based in Toronto, so I went one step further and mentioned that [Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/b/DyingWishes) is based in Burlington, Ontario, and it might interest him because of the familiarity of the locale. I felt pretty smart and happy about my efforts at customized marketing! Barely a week later, I received an FB message from someone – let's call this person MT – who said they came across a mention of my book on a writers' group, and that they too were based in Toronto, and hey, how awesome that my story was based in Burlington, small world, hehe, and would I like to avail of his services to promote my book? It took me only a little sleuthing to figure out that JT and MT were working together. They were partners providing promotion services for authors. Besides, I've used the same initial T for their last names because their last names too were identical. When I put two and two together, I felt very deflated at the way JT had first reached out, simply asking for book recommendations, instead of revealing that he was actually on the lookout for writers to promote his services to. I appreciate that they too were looking for new income streams but the underhanded way in which they went about soliciting new clients didn't sit well with me. I remember being upset that afternoon, snapping at KrA, moping about, feeling fooled, deceived, wondering whether or not to respond to MT, what I should say, and how mad I was feeling about his approach. I probably gave this as much thought as a president of a nation would give to a speech they are due to deliver on something life-changing, a crisis of sorts, like a pandemic. I was certainly not a pleasant person to be around that day. Eventually, with the passage of time, that incident bothered me less and less, and I didn't bother to respond to MT's message. Over the past few years of having interacted with people in the self-publishing world, I have found that not responding is more common than I had ever imagined. People I have worked with in the past, people who promised me stuff, they have easily let my repeated mails and messages to them slide without a response. It doesn't help that most platforms let you know that your message has been read. I just never once imagined I'd be on the other side, deciding to not respond to someone. I, the preserver of people's feelings, the one who wants to do the right thing even if it is at the altar of her own mental sanity, I decided to not meddle with things and people that didn't feel right to me. Not every action merits a reaction. Not every message needs a response. So now that you know how that little mole hill became such a big mountain, you can understand why the sight of five promotional comments on my second #InstaPoetry triggered in me such a strong reaction. I started to feel this is what I was going to attract – people promising eyeballs to those hungry for eyeballs on their works. (OK, now that sounds like an idea for a #talesfordreamers story or the beginning of a horror story. Eyeballs for sale! Buy one, get one free! Grab as many as you can, so they will set their sights only on you and what you have to offer. Grab them all, before they let their sights wander to other, more desirable people and things!) I spent precious time pondering over whether or not to react to these messages, how to react if I chose to. I figured out that I could 'restrict' or 'ignore' someone on Instagram instead of 'block'ing them outright. That way, I can limit who gets to see their comments on my posts, without blocking or offending them outright. (See that people-pleaser, emotion-preserver instinct in me rearing its head again?) Over the next few days, I barely got a like or two, and again it was a friend or a family member. Not that I lament their encouragement, but here I am on a quest for more gems, completely dissatisfied with the treasures I already have in my little chest. I shed quite a few tears on those days in the first week. Sometimes I snapped at KrA. At other times, I was able to rein in the frustration and instead go up to him and admit, both to himself and myself, how afraid I was that no one would ever read my works, that I'd never write anything worthy of selling, that all this attempt at making a living from writing is just me going on a fool's errand, and what if I never made a penny from my works, would we live for the rest of our lives on his single income, isn't that a terrifyingly risky thing to do, especially in today's world? And then the next morning I'd wake up, find that someone legitimate (or as legitimate as one can assume them to be, given this is social media after all) has liked four of my poems and has now chosen to 'follow' me! And my spirits would soar from the depths it had plunged to the previous evening, and I'd find myself thrilled and delighted at this unexpected turn of events, and post the next poem with great gusto, and keep checking Instagram every few minutes to see if it has garnered any new likes or follows, rewarded on occasions for my persistent checking with new likes, and disappointed on other occasions seeing no new updates. - **How much time are you really spending on social media even when you're off it?** Instagram shows you how much time you've spent on the app, and you can also set a reminder for youself when you've crossed a certain time limit on the app. But the choice to close the app and put your phone down is entirely yours. (On my laptop, I use [SelfControl](https://selfcontrolapp.com) to keep out unnecessary distractions while I'm at work.) So Instagram showed me I've been spending only 5 minutes or so on the app per day. Which, technically speaking, doesn't sound like a lot. It's usually less than 20-30 seconds of checking each time to see whether I've received a new like or follow or comment, and usually there'd be one or none, at least no comment worth responding to as they were of the type "DM @soandso for feature" etc. But that 20-30 seconds of checking was usually followed by 20-30 minutes of moping (most often) or feeling delighted (less often), but at least the latter would encourage me to sit down and write a few more verses. So when Instagram says I've spent 5 minutes on the app, it means I've easily spent 5 hours caught up in the all the emotions those 5 minutes of screen-time left in their wake. Which is why my fiction writing has stalled in the past few days. The books that I want my readers, old and new alike, to enjoy, are not being written, and that makes me question all over again the sanity of investing time and effort in putting up daily poetry on Instagram. Having said all this, the choice to use this opportunity wisely rests entirely with me. I can surely make a choice to post in the morning and not touch the app until the next day. This was the intention I started the project with, and it quickly got lost along the way. Now as I write this, I think I can do a little reset. Look at all these learnings I've acquired, this chance to observe my own behaviours and responses. > It is one thing to anticipate a certain pattern of behaviour and prepare for it, and yet another to experience and exhibit those behaviours as the situation actually unfolds, and realize that it is not the preparation made to avoid hitting a wall but the experience of actually hitting the wall, sliding down to the floor, and sitting there with my head on my knees, wondering why it is all turning out to be a lot harder than I had ever imagined, that makes me want to get up and try again. > Only, this time, I will truly know what will assail me, what will bewitch me, how it will grip me in its clutch, and it will be fresh in my mind that nothing good came of succumbing to those very human, very mortal desires of wanting to be liked, loved, adored for my words, and I can accept them as part of my human self and move on. - **Can you be detached enough?** A few other things also happened this week that almost derailed me from the project. An acquaintance I was interacting with this month on another matter, told me that she had deactivated her Instagram account a few days ago. I was shocked to hear that. She had a great following on Instagram (though the actual number eludes me now) and she used to post inspirational quotes. So it was all feel-good and inspiring content, a good use of the app, in my opinion, yet she too felt that she found it hard to stay detached from social media at the end of the day. To learn that she had stepped away from the platform at a time when I was only just getting into it with full fervour made me wobble. Made me question whether I should do this, knowing there is a very good chance that somewhere down the line, I'd want to tear all my hair out and thrown my mobile phone into Lake Ontario before getting up to publish yet another Instapoem. And then I reminded myself that even if that was the eventuality I'd face, I'd still have a body of work, a bunch of poems I could share in the form of a book with the wider world. - **Do you really need social media?** Let's get to yet another incident that demoralized me. One of the writers' groups on FB that I'm part of, someone wrote a post to explain how social media is not at all a necessary tool for a writer to gain more readers. This is not something new, and in fact it has been stated often by various writers in various ways. It is a variation of "You do you." The point is that if you don't like social media, then forcing yourself to be on social media to promote your books or to gain a readership will not help because your efforts will, at best, be inauthentic and half-hearted, and hence, unlikely, to attract a fan base in the first place. Instead, you do what you enjoy doing. If podcasting is your jam, go for it. If writing non-fiction is your thing, that's what you do. If it's social media, then hey, go for it. The person who posted the latest exhortation on this meant well. She was responding to a new writer who had bought into the belief that unless you were making videos to put up on TikTok (which has a big BookTok community, I believe), there's no point in writing and publishing books because no one's ever going to know your works exist. The writer of the post was not saying you shouldn't use social media. All she meant was that you don't need to use social media if you don't like it. Which brings me to my dilemma? Do I like social media? The trouble is, I don't really know. I think it is a tool that can be used for good and bad. One of my favourite sites, [Tiny Buddha](https://tinybuddha.com), is on both FB and Instagram, and likely on a few other social media platforms too. I do subscribe to their weekly newsletter, but it is most often through their FB posts that I go to their site to read a new article. I also follow them on Instagram, where they post inspiring snippets, and I love them. I don't follow people's personal updates. That way lies a lot of digression and self-doubt, loss of self-worth, and a constant nagging thought that I ought to be doing more with my life, even though if you were to ask me, there's nothing else I want to do other than write and publish my writings and spend time with KrA and D. Yet, reading that post made me wobble some more. It took quite a bit of talking to myself to recentre my focus on my project and not on other people's opinions on social media or poetry or writing or anything for that matter. Their opinions are what works for them. My opinions are what work for me. - ***Data analysis: Do you take it personally?*** I had been using Instagram's professional account and it provides me with insights such as how many interactions with my post I've received, how did readers find my post (through my profile or through hashtags), and so on. During that period of frenzied checking after putting up a post, I often looked up the Insights tool, and wondered whether I ought to change my hashtags, do something such as scratch another poet's back so that they would scratch mine (but I quickly dismissed this because what I want are not one-night stands but a longer commitment to my writing). And it didn't take long for me to realize that not even a week has passed since I put up my first post, and that it was way too soon to start thinking of tweaking variables in an attempt to increase discoverability. I've often seen writers do this when it comes to running FaceBook ads or Amazon ads to get their books in front of more readers. They are burning money every day on those ads, so the urge to take something that is not working and tweak it in the hopes of making it work can be really high. Although I am not spending money at this stage, I am spending a valuable resource - time - time that could have been spent writing fiction and publishing more books. I have a bunch of drafts sitting here, waiting to be edited and published. In fact, the covers for some of them are already ready. > All said and done, the one variable that is paramount in this game is time. And there is nothing that can be done to tweak it. > Building an audience or readership is truly a long-term game. > If one can spend months or years on their work, regularly, consistently, putting themselves out there regardless of whether they have found the right audience yet or not, over a period of time, the needle surely begins to move. > I have seen this over and over again. The trouble is it rarely moves fast enough for us to want to stay in the game for that long. > And I think that persistence alone makes all the difference between someone who is 'successful' or not, whatever your definition of success may be. Nevertheless, despite this insight, I was so sick of looking up insights on Instagram, that I switched from a professional account to a personal account. Big mistake! Big facepalm moment! Because, I am on this venture to increase my audience and if I'm not able to track over the long-term how best to gain more readers, what the heck am I even doing this for in the first place? The other thing that happened, and I didn't realize it at the time, was that my Instagram account then got decoupled from my Dream Pedlar Facebook page! And I could no longer automatically post on Instagram and have the image appear on FB too! I could only post it to my personal FB account, and that is not what I wanted. I realized this only when I pulled up Instagram the following morning to publish my poem for the day. It took me a good part of an hour trying to switch back to the professional account and getting the FB page linked up all over again. Phew! The lesson for me here is to truly not take any of it personally. To be part of this game, yet not immersed in it, that is the lesson I am learning here. Because none of it is in my control other than my ability and willingness to write and publish each day consistently until the end of June 2022. - ***Is your work good enough?*** It was only during this week that I learnt about the Harry Potter reunion that's set to be telecast on New Year's Day, I think, and when I saw the trailer, it took me down memory lane. But it also sent me down that terrible road of comparison and made me question if it was worth making art that only a handful of people may like, if at all. It was also unsettling to know that the JK Rowling herself was not part of the making of the reunion. Harry Potter would not have existed without her in the first place, and to find her displaced from her own creations owing to her personal transphobic opinions is something I couldn't wrap my head around. But I digress. When we look at such great works that we love and admire, works that shaped the lives and childhoods of so many people so much, my piffling attempts at writing feel exactly that – mediocre, substandard. It's hard not to fall into that trap, but that is what it is. A trap. Yet another way for my frail ego to tell me my work is not good enough. It may be so, but that is no reason to not keep working at it. And who decides what is good enough and what isn't? I've often noticed that a piece of work I think is brilliant receives very little reponse, whereas another work that I feel is shoddy elicits heartfelt messages from readers. So I have to keep reminding myself this: I am the worst judge of my own work. I only need to keep at it, do the best I can at each stage, keep learning, keep trying new things, and send it all out into the Universe, and let go. Let it all go. Because what happens or doesn't happen after that is not mine to question or ponder over. All in all, this looks to be an exercise in personal discovery as much as one in discoverability. I'm curious to see how this unfolds. > For now, I set the intention of simply posting and not going back to Instagram or FB for the rest of the day. It will be harder said than done, but that way lies sanity and a greater chance that I'd be able to stick to this for long enough to determine whether it is worth pursuing or not. > Until then, I'll do the deed and try hard to not lay any claim to the fruits of my actions, as that beautiful, peacock-feathered, blue-skinned, love-inspiring Hindu God, Lord Krishna, said. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Bruno Bergher](https://unsplash.com/@bbergher?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/horizon?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### Merry Christmas! URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/merry-christmas/ Last updated: 2021-12-25T13:01:07.000Z For my [#InstaPoetry](https://thedreampedlar.com/) today, [this](https://www.instagram.com/p/CX5v21IuLxg/) is the poem I wrote. > The birth of a child. > Sweet. Innocent. > Like any other new life, > sprung into being. > The beginning of a destiny, > unravelling in oblivion, > taking its own sweet time to unfurl, > to establish its significance. > Perhaps today is the beginning > of something new for you too, > a birthing, the first step in your journey > back to your own, true self. > You just don't know it yet. Today’s poem is inspired by a song [a dear friend](https://www.instagram.com/jarjarbinxed/) sent me years ago. [Pentatonix’s version of ‘Mary, did you know?’](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ifCWN5pJGIE) The first time I heard it, I cried my heart out. It was the last time I heard it … until yesterday, when I summoned up the courage to listen to it again, knowing it will rip my heart into pieces again. And it did. As a mother, every day I try to get a little more used to the fact that I will never know what lies in store for my little one, how his precious life will unfold. Curiosity, rather than anxiety, about the future, coupled with a determination to stay in the present moment have been helpful approaches. But it is never a permanent antidote. And so as a mother, I’m curious to know too what Mary would have felt had she known how her baby boy’s life was to unfold. Both his miracles and the way he'd meet his end by crucifixion in front of her very eyes. The very thought makes me feel as if someone's holding my heart in a tight vise-like grip and squeezing, squeezing hard, which should cause it to burst, but instead it feels as if someone is pouring all the pain of the world into it. Nevertheless, I braved that song a few times this morning because of how beautiful it is. The lyrics below are the ones that speak to me the most as a mother, because every child, whatever lies in their destiny, unknowingly plays a great role in stirring the souls of their parents. D has done this for me, simply by his arriving into and being in my life. And it is up to us to either resist or surrender, fight it or allow it to transform us and take us into new ways of being and living and loving. > Did you know that your baby boy > Has come to make you new? > This child that you delivered, will soon deliver you? > ... > Did you know that your baby boy > Has walked where angels trod? > When you kiss your little baby > You kiss the face of God. > \~ Lyrics of Mary, Did You Know? And yes, when I look into D's eyes, when I hug him, when his face lights up at the sight of me, when he walks into a room and the world suddenly feels brighter and more alive in his presence, I do feel as if I'm looking into the face of God. And as I've been telling him this past week, being with him is the only Christmas present I want. Joyeux Noël, mes amis! *Image Attribution: Photo by [Annie Spratt](https://unsplash.com/@anniespratt?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/christmas?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: the elves and the story-maker URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-elves-and-the-story-maker/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T13:59:25.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/22.-the-elves-and-the-story-maker.jpg) tales for dreamers: the elves and the story-maker Many a night have I sat hunched over my desk, filling reams of paper with inky words written in an elaborately cursive hand. And many a morning after have I spent discarding much of the prose and verses that had sprung to life the previous night. So when the two elves knock at my window this fine night, I let them in and offer them tea and cookies. They sit by the fireplace, and at their insistence I half-heartedly read out some of my work to them in my best story-telling voice. When I finish reading, they exchange thoughtful glances with each other and momentarily speak in a language I do not understand. The older of the two elves then turns to me and, with much more gravity than the situation warrants, says, “These are not half bad but we could help you improve.” I want to jump up and down in delight and readily accept their offer, but something reminds me that magic, both good and bad, always comes with a price, and so I ask the elves to name theirs. The older elf is not pleased with my question but he discloses, “Once we work through your stories, the words are cast in stone.” “Yes, you make them up, we make them real,” the younger elf chimes in. I thank them for their offer and politely say I need more time to think about it. After all, my stories are inspired by real life and my characters are based on real people, so this is not a decision I could take without giving it due thought. I offer the elves more tea but they decline, saying they better be going, they have many more story-makers’ homes to visit, but they promise to come back tomorrow night and say they hope I would have made up my mind by then about using their services. As soon as they leave, I begin to make a list of all the characters I could plot to kill in my forthcoming stories. *(Tale originally published on Friday, September 19, 2014)* ### a social media experiment: at the outset URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/a-social-media-experiment-at-the-outset/ Last updated: 2022-03-26T19:57:19.000Z Sometime in November, I found out that I'd turn 15,000 days old on 15 December 2021\. I don't exactly remember how I found that out. I was likely looking up how many days I've spent on earth and there was a website that showed when I had crossed or would cross certain milestones, such as 1,000 days, 2,000 days, 10,000 days, 15,000 days, and so on. 15,000 is an interesting number. Multiple of 5 and 10\. It has a wholeness to it that, say, 16,000 doesn't appear to have even though it too is a multiple of 5 and 10\. Evidently, I had turned 10,000 days old more than a decade ago. And if I were to skip count by 5,000, the next milestone of 20,000 days is more than a decade away. So anyway, I felt a certain thrill and wonder looking at the upcoming number 15,000, and conjured up a lot of reasons in my head as to why it is meaningful and special, and how I could possibly do something with it, though there is definitely not a single other person in this world who has paid as much attention as I have to my turning 15,000 days old. In the few weeks between my 41st birthday and this milestone day, I was seized with the idea of embarking on a content marketing strategy. I must backtrack a bit here to explain how I arrived at this point. For most of October and November, KrA and I were working on setting up a newsletter/mailing list for me. I'm an independent author, and owning a mailing list helps me stay connected with people who like to read my books without being at the mercy of social media platforms and their vagaries when it comes to sharing my works with old and new readers alike. As with everything else in this business, I feel like I am already years late to this game, but this is where I am right now. Moaning about how I could have done all of this years ago is nothing but a waste of time and effort. Regret serves no function if it paralyzes me and does not motivate me to move forward in the direction I wish I had travelled ages ago. So anyway, once we had narrowed down our choice of newsletter provider – [MailerLite](https://www.mailerlite.com), I started to read up on the basics of what constitutes a good newsletter and how I should look to set mine up. One of our key criteria in choosing a newsletter service was its compatibility with [Ghost](https://ghost.org), the awesome platform on which this website is built and hosted. Now, Ghost offers its own newsletter service, which I have only begun to use to send out [#talesfordreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) to subscribers. I still haven't announced the availability of this newsletter service to the world at large, as I'm still testing, debating whether to commit to sending weekly emails as each [Tale for Dreamer](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) gets published on the site, or whether I should stick to a monthly email with updates on the writing and books front, and links to all other new content, including the Friday tales, posted on the site in the interim. Ghost has [great resources](https://ghost.org/resources/) on how to build an audience. There were several excellent articles that laid out a strategy to build an audience from zero. '[Content strategy for creators: How to grow an audience](https://ghost.org/resources/content-strategy-creator-funnel/)' is the one that spoke to me, especially given where I stand now, at the precipice of creating something entirely new, from scratch. This was something I felt I could implement. In fact, this is something I have been doing in a haphazard way for years now with [#talesfordreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/), only I've been giving up too soon each time, allowing self-doubt to creep in and deflate my morale and abandon the project altogether, only to come back to it several months later. (This makes me think if I'm what you'd call a chronic starter – someone who loves to start new things, but has trouble finishing them or sticking with them for long enough to see any tangible results – and this is something I want to address this time because I don't think there is any finish line as far as content marketing is concerned. Right now, my goal is to acquire 100 true fans of my work. Once I cross that milestone, I'm sure I'll up my goal to 1000 true fans and so on.) Coming back from that digression, I penned a [short poem](https://www.instagram.com/p/CXgDm5quXqO/) for myself to mark my (then) upcoming 15,000th day of existence on earth. Poetry is my first love, and I keep coming back to it no matter how many times I let myself believe that no one reads poems anymore, especially the type that I write. It's funny how I've been telling this to myself for the past two decades. In my twenties, I wrote angsty words fuelled by heartbreak and the desire to find my way in life. In my thirties, I wrote about magic, nostalgia, that heartfelt longing and searching for something bigger than myself and my little life, something meaningful, something that would help me feel good about me taking up breath and space and light in this world. Now, in my very early forties, I have written poems on motherhood, and my current works revolve around the mystical elements of life – spirituality, the God within, divinity, self-love, surrender, trust in the Universe, conscious parenting, conscious living, compassion towards myself and my family, narrowing down my focus to what really matters to me. If you want to call all of this 'New Age woo-woo', that's fine with me too. Hey, maybe that's the hashtag I ought to be using to find my readers. While I've seen plenty of motivational messages on social media, short, pithy ones that never fail to lift the spirits, I felt there was room for me too to share my poems on mysticism and deep contemplation, with beautiful imagery and similes and metaphors, drawing links between the human spirit and nature, our souls and the indescribable essence life is made of. And so was born my plan of posting a short poem to [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/thedreampedlar/) every day, starting on 15 December 2021\. At the outset itself, I knew I'd be tempted to abandon the project at some point. I had assumed I'd run into this predicament after about five or six weeks of posting. What I wasn't prepared for was for me to start questioning the merit of this project on the third day of posting itself! I'm getting ahead of myself here, but suffice to say that from my earlier efforts at starting something new with much gusto only to give up within a few weeks or months owing to a lack of audience (which means a lack of recognition and validation), this time around I wisely decided I'd stick to this for at least six months. Until 30 June 2022. I noted down the pros of the project. 1. I love writing poetry, especially on mysticism. 2. #Instapoets is a real thing, so who knows maybe one of my little poems could be the one to go viral one day and attract a huge audience for my other works - fantasy novels and short stories. And even if my posts don't go viral, at the end of those six months, I'd have nearly 200 poems that I could compile into a book and put up for sale. 3. Writing those poems doesn't take me long. Usually an idea comes to me when I'm in the midst of some life-sustaining activity like doing the dishes or staring out the window or running an errand. Which means I'm usually not in a position to write it down right away. This gives the idea the opportunity to percolate in my head, and when I eventually get to the laptop or my phone, the verses and imagery are almost fully formed and I love what emerges. 4. Once I have written down these verses and transformed them into an Instagram-ready image, and kept my hashtags ready in a note, it would take me less than a minute a day to actually post it on Instagram. 5. This strategy is in keeping with the tactic for '[Stage 1: Discoverability](https://ghost.org/resources/content-strategy-creator-funnel/)' mentioned in the article: make short, free content and share that work on platforms where people already spend time. So short, free #Instapoetry sounded like an apt way to share my work with an audience who might then go on to be interested in longer works such as [#talesfordreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) and eventually my [books](https://thedreampedlar.com/books/). Also, while posting on Instagram, I'm able to share these posts directly to my [FaceBook page](http://facebook.com/DreamPedlar) too. That's two platforms in a single click. 6. In the days leading up to 15 December 2021, I even wrote several pieces and now I have a decent inventory to which I keep adding, which means I'm not under daily pressure to churn out something worthwhile for the day. At the outset, it appeared as if there were literally no downsides to embarking on this venture. The only con I could think of was my historical tendency to give in to self-doubt and abandon the project without giving it a chance. So I told myself before the beginning that I'd stick to this for at least six months, and so I set for myself a deadline of 30 June 2022\. This deadline is not for stopping the project, but to evalaute at that point if my daily posts were indeed attracting the right audience for my works. But reality is a different beast altogether. > What I did not account for was the fact that in these times, while there are countless opportunities for discoverability, given sufficient time and consistent work, there is also infinite room to be dissuaded, myriads of factors that could easily plant a whole jungle of doubt and worthlessness in my head and push me away from this pursuit in the blink of an eye if I allow them to. > That phrase "if I allow them to" sounds very empowering, as if I have a choice each time whether to give up or stay the course. Sure, the choice rests with me and only me. > But what I've seen in this past one week is that when I have to make the same choice of staying the course every single day, especially considering that I have chosen otherwise in the past, it takes immense effort and courage. It takes a heck of a lot of self-talk and self-encouragement. > Until such choice becomes so second nature that I don't even have to make it consciously – for instance, I don't wake up every morning and wonder whether I'd like to brush or not – this battle with self-doubt and self-criticism actually takes up a lot of headspace, heartspace, and physical, mental and emotional energy, and this is something I'm only just beginning to realize I need to account for on this journey. When I read success stories shared by people who have navigated this journey well, there is only a passing mention of the day-to-day struggles involved. It is so easy to romanticize the struggle when it is viewed with hindsight and with some amount of success or growth achieved along the way. The focus is more on the results achieved over time, and the eye tends to fixate on the hundreds or thousands of followers attained at the end of a certain period and not at all linger on the number of days the creator likely spent in relative obscurity. Even if that duration were several months or years, to read about something that took place over that long period of time is very different than to actually spend that amount of time in that experience and all that it entails. Besides, it is like reading a fiction story. You know the person has achieved success and emerged at the other end with a tale of victory to share, and that makes the struggles mentioned all the more poignant and meaningful. > What I find is that on a daily basis, none of this struggle and internal debate feels noble. Every day I wake up wondering if I am attempting something insane or whether I should just give it up altogether. (Remember I haven't even kept at it for an entire week at this stage.) My success is not guaranteed. At the end of six months, there's every likelihood I'd find myself with only a minimal increase in followers, and not a single one of them interested in my mailing list or my books. All the old doubts come to attack me like angry hornets whose nest I have accidentally disturbed, and now I'm drowned in a relentless deluge of them. So I want to write about it all as it happens. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. So that when I talk about it again, six months down the line, I'll not be painting an overtly rosy picture of what transpired nor would I be inclined to write it off as something doomed. I tend to process situations and my own feelings by putting it all down in writing. So I plan to post here once a week to capture my progress and also the challenges I face, whether external or internal. > Besides, I find such delight in composing those poems that I'm determined to take a more objective view of how they are received by the wider world outside, and not let the gap between my expectations and reality on that front take away from me what truly matters at the end of the day: the simple joy of creation. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Trust "Tru" Katsande](https://unsplash.com/@iamtru?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/poetry?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: reindeer on strike URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-reindeer-on-strike/ Last updated: 2023-11-25T19:09:43.000Z All the reindeer had gone on strike. And so Santa had resorted to travelling in a time-and-space capsule. "Modern times! Need to keep up with technology, eh," he retorted when we asked him about the missing reindeer. The reindeer, he said, were protesting long working hours and demanding higher wages. And since nothing could be done about their complaints, they had decided to freeze in time, Santa said. The "stubborn creatures" (his words, not ours) had become useless when it came to drawing sleighs. "Lazy creatures with their brains caught in their antlers," he snorted as he heaved himself down our chimney. A sack of presents came tumbling down after him. He brushed the soot off his garments, his chirpily red coat and trousers laced with sparkling white cuffs, not a speck of dust or soot from the chimney on them nor on his snowy white hair and beard. "The capsule is not all that bad," he continued, as he proceeded to stack our presents under the Christmas tree. "It's incredibly fast. I can go anywhere in the blink of an eye," he said, stressing he needs the speed in order to cater to six billion gift-seekers in a single night. (Or was it seven billion now? Or eight billion? He had long lost count, he admitted. Very naughty, we admonished him.) "What about tradition?" we asked. "The stories don't talk about time capsules, the carols we sing are about reindeer and sleighs," we insisted. "That was then, this is now," he brushed us off. He then emerged from under the tree, warned us to be good children and not go peeking into the gifts before morning, and wished us all a merry Christmas, before scampering up the chimney and out of sight. The next morning we opened our presents to find nine little reindeer figurines, one with a bright red nose. There was also a note from Santa, asking us to look after the nine reindeer. "Keep them by the fireside, and they will unfreeze with time," he instructed us. It's been a year now. Last month, we moved the reindeer closer to the fireside. Last week, they started to stir. One went missing this morning. We think the rest should be back in action before time. *(Tale originally published on Thursday, November 28, 2013)* ### tales for dreamers: the right hand for a lost glove URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-right-hand-for-a-lost-glove/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:55:51.000Z A fancy red thing, it is perched atop a fence at the intersection of Longmoor Dr and Stephanie St. Its fingers curl, the way you’d curl yours if you wanted to ask a question or wave teasingly. Or maybe it was waggling its fingers at someone who took offence and froze it in place. “I need a hand,” it beseeches me as I shuffle past. I halt. “Sure. With what?” “No no, not metaphorically,” it says. “I need a real human hand that will fit me. A right hand, mind you.” It then points its fingers down as if it were bending to take a closer look at my hand, and cheeps, “Yours! Your right hand will do the trick, I bet! Go ahead. Try me.” I don’t like the way it is ogling at my hand. I want to hide my hand behind my back, but all I manage to do is hold on even tighter to my walking stick. “As you can see, I already have a glove, thank you.” It draws back its fingers, offended. “Surely you could do with a spare,” it says. “It’s only March. You know how Canadian winters are. The cold is here to stay for another couple of months at least.” The idea of a spare is extremely enticing. “But what will I do with a half-pair spare?” I ask. “Where’s your other half?” “Ohhh!” The glove squeals, waggling its fingers. “There is so much I can do by myself. I can tickle, I can scratch. I can paint, I can draw. I can clean, I can cut. I can bake, I can cook. I can stitch, I can spank. And don’t tell anyone, but I can even steal. Wear me and see for yourself!” In all these years of living, I haven’t met a soul, let alone a glove, who can do all of those things without help. Perhaps, technology has found a way to do the things magic simply cannot. “And are you machine-washable?” I ask. “You can take me into the shower with you, no problem at all,” it says, waggling its fingers again. I have spent enough time in this world to spot when someone evades a direct answer to my question. “Why can’t I simply toss you into the washing machine?” I ask. The glove sighs. “Sure you can. Find a machine large enough for you to climb in, and voila.” I narrow my eyes and stare at the red object of magic. “Because once I wear you, you will not come off?” “Together till death do us apart,” the glove says as the fingers bend together in a bow. I hobble away as fast as I can without bidding farewell. Even I know to stay away from magic that insists on sticking like glitter glue. Something, I suspect, the next person to walk down Longmoor Dr will not know. ### who is your 2 a.m. friend? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/who-is-your-2-a-m-friend/ Last updated: 2022-04-17T23:49:14.000Z Friday night. I was fast asleep when I heard the door open. I assumed it was KrA. And it was, for a moment later, I heard him call out to me. "I'm asleep," I said, annoyed that he was waking me up. "Can you come down and help me?" he asked. Grumbling and sleepy-eyed, I slipped out of bed and made my way to the landing, my mind already spinning stories about disturbed sleep and how that was going to wreck the next day's routine. And that's when I saw him. Hobbling on crutches and with a big cast on his left leg. "I fractured my ankle," he said. I still couldn't make sense of what was going on. Friday night was typically skating night for him, and he usually returned at half past eight, never before injured like that. "It's past midnight," he said. And I looked up at the clock and sure enough it was close to one in the morning. So turned out, towards the end of the session, he had fallen while making a turn and landed on his ankle, splintering it. A coach had sat with him while they waited for an ambulance, and then he was taken to the hospital, Advil dripping into his veins and his foot in a makeshift cast. Three broken bones, was the doctor's verdict from the X-ray diagnosis. With a temporary cast plastered on him, KrA bundled himself into an Uber and made his way back home. With my phone on silent, all 21 of his calls to me during this time went completely ignored. KrA managed to get himself up the stairs and into bed, and then he booked an Uber for me so I could get to the skating rink and bring back our car, which he had had to leave at the parking lot there. 1:30 in the night. Or in the morning. I imagined all sorts of things that could go wrong. But it also bothered us that if our car were to be stolen, we'd be handicapped in more ways than one over the coming days. With KrA on the other end of the phone, I got into the Uber that turned up. I wasn't even holding a conversation with KrA. He just stayed on line, ready to hit the Emergency button if needed. We need not have worried. The driver was very kind to me. He didn't want to pry, but the situation must have piqued his curiosity. He first asked me if I needed a ride back, and I said No. As we neared the place, I told him I need to spot my car, and when we found it, he asked me if it had broken down. I then explained what had happened, with KrA having had to leave it at the rink following his injury. The Uber driver then offered to stay until I got into the car and started it and could drive off. And he did. I drove back on empty roads, lit by streetlamps and traffic lights, and it was like being in a different world. It was a surreal feeling, like a memory from another lifetime, for I haven't been out by myself at 2 a.m. in far too many years to count. Back at home, KrA was fast asleep, no doubt exhausted by all that had happened and the toll his broken bones were taking on his body. D was blissfully asleep, unaware of how his little world had changed overnight. D woke up the next morning and asked KrA to help him choose a book to read as he does every morning, and KrA had to break the news of his immobility to the little child, who then came to my room in a state of incomprehension. He was listless for a long time, wanting to do no more than read or lie down with a blanket on top of him and try to go back to sleep. It wasn't until KrA woke up three hours later and D could go up and see that other than a cast, nothing had collapsed in his world (Dada just got a boo-boo), that the child went back to his usual self, playing and shouting and running from here to there and lighting up the house with life and laughter bursting out of every pore of his skin. That night, after bringing the car back home, I couldn't sleep a wink. My eyes were tired and I kept them closed, but my mind buzzed constantly, refusing to let up. There was fear, of course, as I dwelt on how I'd look after D and KrA all by myself. But mostly, I was feeling awfully bad for KrA to be undergoing this ordeal. Between the two of us, KrA is the sure-footed one. I'm the one who suffered three ligament tears on the same ankle in a span of six years, ending up in a cast each time. The third time it happened, I was merely walking and my feet were clad in flat sandals. KrA is the one who climbs up and down mountain rocks like a goat and inspires D to follow suit. D is quite an intrepid trail walker himself. As for me, I only need to stand three feet above ground for my legs to start shaking like jelly. It's definitely more psychological than physical, this fear, but I've always counted on KrA to not let that hinder him and D as they explore farther than I tend to. Sleepless at 2 a.m., I gave in to worrying about how all this would change in the long-term, as that kept me from thinking about how I'd get through the next day, all the chores and being with D who had no school, it being a Saturday. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to handle it all by myself. Without family or any close friends living nearby, I was beginning to feel overwhelmed, and I really, really wished there was someone I could reach out to, even to just talk and let them know how awful it was that KrA was hurt. But there was another voice that piped up, a voice that has been making its presence known more often offlate, and reminded me of this little line from a poster that sits atop D's toy rack: "The present moment is all we have." Funnily enough, from the moment D came to me after waking up the next morning until later that evening, when I finished doing the dishes and switched off the lights, then plonked on my bed and closed my eyes, I didn't have a moment to think. There was so much to be done there was no room for needless thought in my head. And for the first time in a long time, I lost myself in a long and deep sleep that night. It's Sunday evening as I type this. Two days have passed, and we've survived. There was a lot of adjustment, a lot of problem-solving involved. D is truly the child to have in a crisis, the way he faced up to the situation and helped me, demanded that I give him jobs to do, and played more independently and brainstormed with us to figure out how to tackle a situation. We had planned an outing for Saturday, and he was quite disappointed at first that it wouldn't happen that day, but children have that innate ability to move on and not hold on to disappointments and past hurts and grudges. All the trouble in our life ensues when we lose ourselves to the past or the future and steep ourselves in resentment or fear. > There is only thing being asked of me here. To show up for each moment to the best extent possible. All I need to do is just that one thing that is the need of the moment, without making mental lists of all that needs to be done before the end of the day, without having imaginary conversations with people who are not physically present in my life in this very moment, without rehashing past incidents, both the fun times and the difficult ones, in my head. > If I can do what needs to be done at that given point in time, that is enough. > The little voice that reminded me that "the present moment is all we have" is truly my 2 a.m. friend. For the longest time, KrA was my 2 a.m. friend. The one I could count on to always be there. I resigned from jobs so that I could be with him and not continents or even cities apart. For all my education and the degrees I have amassed, none of them have ever felt more important to me than he is. It was the same when D came along. Everything else in life simply paled to insignificance. And I gave myself a lot of grief for feeling that way, for not being more ambitious, for not being mentally strong enough to do what career-minded, ambitious women do, for placing a relationship with another person above pursuits like career, wealth, fame, and even purpose. Today, my 2 a.m. friend is that little voice which reminds me how awesome it is that I care so much for KrA and D, how amazing it is that I have two such people in my life to love, to care for, to attend to, to serve. Two people for whom I want to show up as my best self. It is all a [homecoming](https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-one-year-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/). Who am I becoming in this moment of pain and uncertainty? Even as it takes me two days and a blog post to accept this situation in my head, KrA came to terms with it the day it happened. And he also gamely agreed to pose for a photograph each day, counting on his fingers the number of days passing us by. I have no idea what he'll do when we get to the double digits. But KrA, being who he is, will cross that bridge when we come to it. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2021/11/KrA-Day-1.jpeg) ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2021/11/KrA-Day-2.jpeg) KrA in a cast! *Feature Image Attribution: Photo by [Alejandro Luengo](https://unsplash.com/@aluengo91?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/city-lights?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: in search of winter URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-in-search-of-winter/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:58:13.000Z When summer overstayed his welcome and winter showed no sign of making an appearance (and oh! autumn had all but disappeared from the face of this part of the earth), the locals blamed it on global warming and other newfangled terms that the Old Folk insisted were never in existence in the good old days. Granny was one of the Old Folk and although I don't believe everything they say, I do believe everything she says. So when she said yes, climate and weather were rarely capricious back in those times, I believed her. And when she also said that we could still use some age-old wisdom to tame the elements to do our bidding, if only temporarily, I believed that too. She sent me back in time to search for the good winters. I was to look for the good old days and the good old nights cloaked in thick blankets of snow, cut them from the fabric of time, and weave them into the realm of the present day. A swift snip here, a neat nick there, then stitch together the snippets of time to form a patchwork of cold, wintry days. I must have done a good job for Granny was pleased when I came back home, winter at my heels. Winter, when she came, was like a dream come true. The nip in the air cleared our heads and invigorated our souls. Under the heavy cover of snow, the world was once again pristine and new, as if gifted with a new beginning. But that was back then. It's been twelve years now and not much has changed. The snow refuses to melt and the sun only emits a flimsy, ghostly glow. Spring is a forgotten antiquity. As is autumn. The locals yearn for the warmth of sunshine but no one quite remembers what summer used to be like. Granny says she can send me back in time to return the winters and look for good summers. But I resist. I will have to let winter linger a wee bit longer. For I can't quite remember where in time each of the snowy patches ought to be sent back to. *Image Attribution:* [*Expecting Winter*](https://www.erikjo.com/work/expecting-winter) *by* [*Erik Johansson*](https://www.erikjo.com/) *(Tale originaly published on Saturday, October 5, 2013)* ### lessons learnt from one year of being an author-entrepreneur URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/lessons-learnt-from-one-year-of-being-an-author-entrepreneur/ Last updated: 2024-12-07T09:28:49.000Z I've been deliberating on this post for more than a month, making mental lists of all the things I've learnt this past year and of all that I've accomplished and of all my plans for the next year. There seems to be so much to say, yet none of the things that have been swirling in my head these past several weeks seem to be able to convey that one essential thing this journey has so far been: a raw encounter with myself. Even as someone who has been writing periodically for more than a decade now, I dove into writing and publishing as a full-time career only about a year ago thinking that I only needed to do two things to stay on track: keep writing, and keep publishing my writings. At the outset, these seem like very simple and straightforward things to do. And they are. The writing itself, once I get to it, is pure joy. And so is the publishing process. But the key phrase in the previous paragraph is '*once I get to it*'. It is where many of us stumble. It is where I stumble often even now. There are many things that derail me. For instance, D was diagnosed with an infection last week, and it left KrA and me feeling very, very vulnerable even though D himself was taking things in his stride and putting up a brave front. So for D's sake, we had to really put in the effort to be the parents he needed us to be, the wise, calm ones, not the ones freaking out and piling on him the burden of soothing our anxieties by getting well soon. It was not a day for writing fiction. It was a day for journalling and sitting with my fears and moving slowly and letting it pass through until I knew I could get back to functioning without lashing out. It was a day for coming here and taking the thoughts from my head and writing them down in this post (which I abandoned midway to run errands and got back to only today, a week later). There are writers who know to take these things in their stride and can churn out their daily word counts while sitting beside their little ones in a hospital, for instance. It's not me, I've come to realise. Not yet, at least. No matter how much I want to flip a switch to shut off the fear and just focus on my work, the anxieties eventually catch up to me and spill out in ways that are not kind to any of us. And this is the thing I've realised. KrA and D and both more important to me than my writing. At least, when it comes to short-term scenarios. I can't go more than two days at a stretch without writing. But if it's a matter of one day, I can. That's the time and effort it takes me to remain calm and present in a crisis, to create a place of safety for D in a difficult situation. And what I've found is that when I put in that effort, the next day I am a different person altogether. The situation is the same, but I'd have made my peace with it, I can go back to writing with the satisfaction that the situation, while undesirable in that moment, became an opportunity for me to practice lovingkindness, being kind to myself and the two people I love so much. It wasn't always like this. In the pursuit of a daily writing practice, I set out to adopt a model of austere discipline that leading professionals in many fields swear by. Write every day, no matter what. Even if the world around you is about to fall apart. > The only trouble with this was that on days when I couldn't write, I'd feel like an utter failure. > I'd almost always castigate myself for not showing enough dedication to my work, fill my head with doubt as to whether or not I have it in me to pursue this as a profession, decide that something was wrong with me because I had managed to convert the simple, joyful task of making up stories and writing them down into something that had become like an addictive drug: it gave me immense exhilaration when I was high on it, and terrifying crashes on days I couldn't write. > It's not hard to tell that such a see-saw swing is neither sustainable nor desirable. When I was much younger, only a school-going kid, I used to draw up a daily schedule for tackling my schoolwork. I could precisely divide the hours of my day into efficient time slots allotted to each subject I needed to tackle. And I was really good at drawing up that schedule and sticking to it. Even now I'm amazed at my past ability to have been able to estimate the time requirements of each study task so well; it's a skill I've long lost. Life, now, is so so messy. Of course it was messy back then too but the support system my parents so efficiently delivered, rendering it quite invisible, ensured that I was shielded from the messiness of it all and could single-mindedly focus on my goal. I didn't have to account for things like suffering from a poor night's sleep or having to worry about illness, mine or that of someone else in the family, or figure out what to have for dinner, or even wonder where all that studying was going to lead me (because of course at that time I knew without doubt it was taking me to a great future). Now, KrA and I are called to be support systems for ourselves and for our little one too, and more often than not I feel we're just winging it, bumbling along, well-laid plans have gotten awry so often we've more or less given up on plans altogether. In the past year, I've seen plan after plan pertaining to writing fall apart and simply not go the way I envisioned them. More often than not, I turn up at the writing computer, just wanting to stop thinking, wanting to stop aiming for high word count goals, and sometimes wanting to stop dreaming of carrying on along this path because that is the one question I hadn't been able to answer for the longest time: where is this going to lead me? And so far I've found only one answer to this question. > Everything that I do – writing, being a mother, being a partner and friend – everything is only leading me back to my own self. > It is all a homecoming. --- Because we live in a world that loves lists and actionable items, I've attempted to put some of my learnings together in that format. - **It takes time.** Gosh! It takes a hell of a lot of time. Creating a body of work takes time. Editing it takes time. Formatting and publishing it takes time. And it always feels like there aren't enough hours in the day or that I'm not working fast enough. I am certainly writing faster and more consistently now than I could three years ago. It took less than three seconds to type 'three years' in the previous sentence. In reality, those 'three years' felt like an eternity packed with more days of wanting to throw in the towel than with days of doing the work. Author Kristan Hoffman calls it being in [The Gap](https://writerunboxed.com/2021/11/19/a-permission-slip-for-those-of-us-in-the-gap/), 'the distance between where you are and where you want to be'. As I was reading her article, it occurred to me that because of the nature of our consistently moving goalposts, we likely spend almost our entire lifetime in The Gap. There's no escaping it. When we reach a milestone, The Gap moves with us and we once again find ourselves in that nowhere land. But we can always look back and see how far we've come. It takes time. The longer we spend before we turn around for a backward glance, the farther we would have come, and we'd be able to better appreciate the distance travelled. I find it especially hard to remember this on days when I don't get any words down. For such days, I refer to a wonderful insight by Leo Babauta of [Zen Habits](http://zenhabits.com/) in a post titled [Practicing with Zero](http://zenhabits.com/zeroth/), a practice that he says, and I agree, is even more powerful than the consistency of a streak. > Consistency and things going to plan are amazing. Practicing with what happens when things fall apart — that’s probably the most powerful thing we can learn. > \~ [Practicing with Zero](http://zenhabits.com/zeroth/) by Leo Babauta, Zen Habits - **The blank page is a mirror. It holds both your greatest desires and your greatest fears in it. Which one will you look to for guidance?** Steven Pressfield calls it [Resistance](https://stevenpressfield.com/). He labels it an enemy we have to war against every single day. Dean Wesley Smith calls it [Critical Voice](https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/). His advice for dealing with it is to not attach importance to the product (the book or the story) itself but to simply have fun in the process of writing and not make it any more important or difficult than it needs to be. (I took DWS's workshop on Killing The Critical Voice – it's a 6-week program and I found it immensely useful in addressing various aspects where I was self-sabotaging my writing.) Our cherished Bhagavad Gita also instructs us to focus on our deeds and that we are not entitled to the fruits of our labour. After trying different techniques and approaches, I have personally come to adopt [Julia Cameron](https://juliacameronlive.com/)'s wisdom of acceptance and compassion. Her book, The Artist's Way, written way back in 1992, has been a constant source of insight and safety for me, especially this past year. Cameron likens creativity to a spiritual process, and I find myself drawn to this analogy because it is when I write that I find myself facing up to my most cherished longings (wanting to write words that move the reader) and also my greatest fears (that no one will ever read or like my works), and it is my choice at this point whether to persevere or to abandon this pursuit. > "Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control." > "In order to work freely on a project, an artist must be at least functionally free of resentment (anger) and resistance (fear)." > "Creativity flourishes when we have a sense of safety and self-acceptance." > \~ Quotes from [The Artist's Way](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/615570.The%5FArtist%5Fs%5FWay) by Julia Cameron I like her approach of accepting that for most of us, it is quite a frightening process to step into a creative life. The reasons are many. Perhaps we were advised to hold on to stable jobs and dabble in the arts on the side. Perhaps we bought into the false belief that only 'great' art is worth doing. Perhaps we want to create something that the whole world will love; only, it is impossible for the whole world to like something unanimously. There are probably as many reasons we hold back from pursuing the work that matters to us as there are stars in the sky. But identifying many of them, taking the time and breath to acknowledge and accept them as longstanding parts of my psyche, and then moving through or around them has been immensely beneficial to me. The process doesn't yield immediate results in the sense that sometimes it takes me an entire day to put aside issues, such as D's illness, and come back to the work on hand. But I've found that over these past 3–4 years, I've been straying away less than before from what matters to me, and even when I do go astray, I bounce back faster than I could earlier. These results would have been less evident a year or two ago. I started and gave up on Morning Pages several times in the past four years, and it's only in the past few months that I've stuck to it, which brings me to my next point. - **It is never about your art. It is about the person you are becoming in the process. What kind of person is that?** When I wrote and published my first book, [In Search of Leo](https://books2read.com/In-search-of-leo), it was a project intended to fuel my ego. I didn't realise it at the time, but looking back I see now that I was driven to publish a book partly out of love for writing but also partly because I thought the world would treat me differently once I became a published author. By writing and publishing a book, I'd somehow become superior to countless others who never dared pursue their dreams; this is what I thought back then, I'm ashamed to admit. The years since have proven to me over and over again how naive and haughty my initial impressions of this trade were. Thousands of books are published on Amazon every second. Take any topic, any story, and you'll find it has been written in countless different ways. Where I once thought writing a book was such a feat in itself, I've now had the opportunity to see countless authors who have worked in this industry for more than a decade and have written and published more than 100 books. My point is this: Publishing a book changes nothing. It is like creating a small ripple in a lake that settles down quickly enough as if the ripple didn't even occur, so fleeting and insignificant its influence is. It is like a wave in the ocean. Nothing to distinguish it from all the other waves that came before. Nothing to set it apart from all the other waves that will come after. Sure, this little wave may bring tremendous joy to the child waiting close to the shore, waiting for the big wave to come and break on his legs. But he will wait with just as much excitement for the next wave, and the wave after, and the one after that. So what's the point of doing all this anyway if there's no meaning or significance to it, I hear you ask. I've asked myself this question many, many times. It was a question I asked myself especially when I felt low and lost and confused, completely unsure about why I was writing, what difference my books would make to the world, who the heck do I think I am to tell these stories and to voice my thoughts and opinions. And the answer came to me a few days ago and more clearly now in the writing of this post. > When I write, I learn about myself. About how I think. About what I consider just and fair, or less desirable and evil. About whether I can empathise with the characters, and whether I can see their flaws and their virtues too without judgement, and transfer this ability to my relationships in the real world. About how I feel on days when D falls ill and is at home for a week, and my best-laid plans for smashing through writing goals dissipate into smoke. Can I learn to live with the disappointment and do what needs to be done – because haven't I been telling myself that my child is more important to me than my writing? Can I enjoy the additional moments I get with him, trusting, knowing that I will eventually get to my writing and the words will not desert me then? > When I publish my works, I learn even more about myself in relation to this world. About how I react when someone tells me the book did not resonate with them. Do I take that as a reflection of my self-worth or merely accept it as a case of misaligned interests and move on? About how I react when I see another author making sacrifices I wouldn't make and going on to achieve heights of successes I want for myself. Can I accept my limitations and work with what I have instead of exhausting time and effort in fighting my reality? About how I face up to the page every day, never knowing whether that day's act of writing would yield any rewards in the future. > We all face the consequences of our actions, but we also have no control over how those consequences will come to transpire. So in a way we have the power to shape our destiny while also not having any control over it whatsoever. It's a paradox. Like a koan. But so is life. Which is why fiction is so desirable. Everything makes sense in fiction in a way it simply doesn't in real life. The real world is how life is. Fiction is how we want life to be. Where justice is served. Good triumphs over evil. The mystery is solved. There are no loose ends. Character motivations are neatly explained in a way that renders them palatable, acceptable within our moral and ethical frameworks. > In working with the methodical orderliness that is expected of fiction, I find that I'm expected to accept and put up with the messiness of life, confront the limitations of reality, and yet strive to take them in my stride or at the very least not let them stop me in my tracks for too long. And I think therein lies the true value of my work. In the ripples it creates in me. In the ocean wave it causes me to become. Rising and falling, rising and falling, delighting a little child – my inner child – without looking around to see what other waves are doing, whether they are cresting higher, whether their crashing puts a bigger smile on the face of the child waiting for me to drench him. The way it makes me want to be a better human being, a better friend to myself, a better mother to D, a better partner to KrA. The way it makes me want to respond consciously both to my needs and the needs of those I love and of the world around me. By that measure, I'm already reaping the fruits of my labour every single day, every single moment, whether I'm writing or not. --- In parting, I'll leave you with the words and a poem that Julia Cameron ends The Artist's Way with. > When Mark Bryan began cornering me into writing this book, he had just seen a Chinese film about Tibet called The Horse Thief. It was an indelible film for him, a classic of the Beijing school, a film we have since searched for in Chinese video stores and film archives, to no avail. > Mark told me about the film's central image: another mountain, a prayerful journey up that mountain, on bended knee: step, lie prostate, stand and straighten, another step, lie prostrate ... > In the film, this journey was the reparation that a thief and his wife had to make for damaging their society by dishonouring themselves through thievery. I have wondered, since then, if the mountain that I see when thinking of the Artist's Way isn't another mountain best climbed in the spirit of reparation—not to others, but to ourselves. > WORDS FOR IT > I wish I could take language > And fold it like cool, moist rags. > I would lay words on your forehead. > I would wrap words on your wrists. > "There, there," my words would say— > Or something better. > I would ask them to murmur, > "Hush" and "Shh, shhh, it's all right." > I would ask them to hold you all night. > I wish I could take language > And daub and soothe and cool > Where fever blisters and burns, > Where fever turns yourself against you. > I wish I could take language > And heal the words that were the wounds > You have no names for. > \~ Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way *Image Attribution: Photo by* [*Debby Hudson*](https://unsplash.com/@hudsoncrafted?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) *on* [*Unsplash*](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/writing?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ### tales for dreamers: a precondition for playing in the dollhouse URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-precondition-for-playing-in-the-dollhouse/ Last updated: 2023-11-17T21:56:22.000Z The old lady huddled behind the tree was so wizened I didn't see her at all. Not until she leapt out from where she crouched with surprising agility and caught me unawares. *It used to be a dollhouse,* she said. Her voice was hoarse and cracked, and she too appeared as if pieces of her would drift to the ground like autumn leaves. I didn't know that. Even though I walk down this path every morning, always hurrying to get to my destination, the lake at the end of the road, I'm so lost in my thoughts that I only noticed this structure yesterday. *But you've passed by here before?* the woman said, as if she could read my thoughts. It was more a question than a statement. *Everyday*, I admitted. Her face broke into a toothless grin. *Then you must stay and play*, she insisted. I shook my head – too many chores to do, too many errands to run – but she had already grabbed me by the hand and led me to the side of the house. *There was once a young girl who played in this dollhouse*, she said, *and when the girl grew up her children came to play here while she watched over them from the sunroom of her mansion over there*. The old woman pointed to a large house a few yards away. *What happened to them?* I asked. *Children, you know,* she said with a sigh, *they always grow up and go their own ways*. She then instructed me to look through the windows on the side. *What do you see?* she demanded to know. And there they were, all my little selves playing with dolls and rocking horses, playing hopscotch and jumprope, drawing crosses and noughts and fairytales, dusting themselves in chalk and mud, with no grown-ups to reprimand or instruct otherwise. I turned back to find the old woman grinning at me expectantly. *So, will you stay and play?* she asked. *Yes,* I said, *but only if I'll never have to leave*. ### when life gets in the way ... but of what? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/when-life-gets-in-the-way-but-of-what/ Last updated: 2021-10-29T00:00:40.000Z I was tired when I went to bed last night, and I was still feeling a little lousy when I woke up this morning. When the alarm went off, I tapped it off and slid back into the covers, wanting to sleep some more. While it seemed like a good idea at the time, experience has taught me that it is a recipe for disaster. So I pulled myself out of bed and created a very lean schedule for the day. I was only aiming to write in the early hours after finishing my Morning Pages and before D woke up, and I planned to keep the rest of the day free to attend to a lot of stuff that has been pending for a while but can't be put off for much longer. I was pretty happy with myself for the choices I had made so far. Funnily, this morning, I had not even finished my Morning Pages when D woke up and we decided to go down to play. Normally I manage to get both my Morning Pages and some fiction done before he wakes up, but today was different. We had almost three hours of time at our disposal before he needed to get dressed and go to school. Not too long ago, I'd have been fuming at the inevitable loss of work time, but today I was determined not to go down that path. After playtime and breakfast, we still had another hour to go, so we opened up some scented play-doh that was left over from all the stuff we had bought earlier this week to make Halloween treat bags for his friends at school. Goodness! I think the last time we played with play-doh was several months ago. We had such a jolly good time. When it was time to leave for school, D asked me if I'd come to drop him off today. Usually it's KrA who drops him off and I go to pick him up, but D has been asking me to come along for drop-off of late. And since my schedule for this morning was out of whack anyway, I thought, Why not? and all three of us made our way to school. Big hugs at drop-off, and then KrA and I started on our way back home when I asked him if he'd like to go to the beach. A little dithering and both of us made our way to the beach! The waves crashed. The wind tousled our hair. I collected shells from the shore. We weren't there for long, but long enough to soak ourselves in the magic of it all without wishing we had more or less of what we received in those magical moments. Back home. Got some writing done. Not as much as these past few days (nowhere close to yesterday's output), but enough for me to feel happy about being able to keep up with the daily streak. Then I attended to all the other stuff. I didn't linger on FaceBook. KrA helped with the cover design for my upcoming novel. And before long, it was time to go pick up little D, and both KrA and I went together. (I love that KrA gets to work from home. It's one of the best things that has come about as a result of the pandemic!) > So yes, I could say that today life got in the way of writing, but even as that sentence popped into my head, I couldn't help but ask myself this: why do we say that life got in the way? Got in the way of what? Of itself? Because isn't this what life is? > All these things that we wish did not distract us from our 'work', they are the things that make up life, isn't it? > A child waking up earlier than he usually does. > A child seeking out his parent – for play, for conversation, for belonging, for company, for love. > An unexpected walk on the beach with a loved one. > Moments of rest and recovery when our bodies feel tired and want to slow down. > Not lamenting all the chores that need to be taken care of – the countless little things we can afford to do only because we are able to, physically, mentally, financially, emotionally. > When I slow down and adopt this perspective, even doing laundry becomes a joyful task. Understanding that this activity does not get in the way of life but in fact facilitates our life changes the quality of our doing it. Yesterday, after picking up D from school, I needed to go grocery shopping, so the two of us made our way to a store that was on the way from school to home. While I was focussed on not getting hassled about this additional item on our to-do list, D made it such a fun event. Even grocery shopping becomes such a fun thing with that child. It makes me wonder why, for so many years, I had looked at the necessary activities of life as meaningless and futile. All the life hacks that are sold to us too perpetrate the same message. Automate everything else so you can claim your life back. A landscape design company that provides weekly gardening services to our neighbour every summer has a tagline that says something like "Take your weekends back!" What is that supposed to mean? Outsource gardening to someone else so that all you need to do is sit in your beautiful yard and sip a cool drink in the afternoon sun? That sounds fun, yes, but after a while even that becomes monotonous and we start looking for something else to fill our time, to fill the void we feel in our life. > Don’t equate your self-worth with how well you do in life. You aren’t what you do. If you are what you do, then when you don’t, you aren’t. > \~Wayne Dyer I found the above quote attributed to Wayne Dyer in a beautiful post on Tiny Buddha: ["Measuring the Quality of Your Day with a To-Be List (Not Just a To-Do List)"](https://tinybuddha.com/blog/measuring-the-quality-of-your-day-with-a-to-be-list-not-just-a-to-do-list/) by [Nancy Daley](https://dale-lynwritin.blogspot.com/). In her post, Daley says: > What if you and I ignored the urge to check out the check marks on our *to-do* lists before getting into our PJ’s and brushing our teeth? What if we sat quietly somewhere before bed and reflected on how we were that day; how we felt and how others seemed to feel around us rather than on what we accomplished and who we did more than? Would the quality of our day change? In outlining steps to take towards making this change, she says: > ... write a *to-be* list instead of a *to- do* list, for tomorrow. It may look something like this: > Tomorrow I will be: > mindful > aware > peaceful > a person who seeks reasons to smile and laugh > loving > appreciative > forgiving > thoughtful > supportive > still > quiet > faithful > honest > a person who simply wants to be > The quality of your life is determined by who you are, not by what you accomplish. We are, after all, human beings, not human doings. > Let’s base the value of our day on that small bit of wisdom and live accordingly. Just be. So I'll leave by saying today was a day that entailed less *doing* and more *being*, more *living*. And because of that the day so much richer, full of life and its very essence. ### when we feel we don't have the time to meditate URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/when-we-feel-we-dont-have-the-time-to-meditate/ Last updated: 2021-10-27T23:35:22.000Z Yesterday, I resumed both Morning Pages and evening meditation. Just opening up the journal first thing in the morning made me feel as if I was coming to a place where I could unburden myself completely. I could feel my shoulders and jaw relax. I could feel a smile spreading on my face as I held my pen, hovered over a fresh page of the workbook for a moment, and dove right in. Sitting still in the evening helped me centre myself, and for the first time in days I enjoyed deep, uninterrupted sleep last night and I didn't even need the alarm to wake me up at the appointed hour this morning. My body was ready to get out of bed when it was time. Another big factor that must have contributed to this change is that KrA and I had been on opposite sides of a decision for most of the past month. Somehow today we stepped out of that persistent state of indecision and decided on a way ahead. There is a lot of uncertainty, as there always is, but it is an indescribable relief to not be in that state of indecision anymore, constantly weighing pros and cons only to make ourselves feel as if we are *doing* something useful and productive whereas the only thing we were truly doing was refusing to commit. Now we've committed to a choice, and it feels like a huge weight off my chest. It wasn't my first choice, but I'll also admit that was mainly because I was terribly afraid of the changes it would entail. I was resisting all that change, and it occurred to me that even this life is not going to last forever, let alone this thing, this state of affairs I'm clinging to, seeking safety in the familiar, shunning the unfamiliar out of fear. When I saw that, I became way more amenable to KrA's choice. I still am afraid, a little bit, but now that we've made a decision, I'm actually looking forward to heading down that path. I am curious to see what experiences life has in store for us and how I will rise to the occasion and respond each time. And what about my writing today when so much has been happening on the life and self-care fronts? I've written more today than I've managed to on a daily basis for the past several weeks. And I also happened to design a cover for an upcoming novel, already written, waiting to be edited and published. How's that for productivity? > The secret is this. When my mind is not filled with garbage, it does incredible things. But when it gets sucked into a quagmire of thoughts and beliefs that don't serve me, then it is unable to function. It is entirely up to me to look after my mind. > Morning Pages and meditation are two tools that have immensely helped me, especially over this past year. > Find what works for you. And hold on to it as if your very life depends on it. Because it does. I'll leave you with a quote from [Dr. Shefali](https://www.drshefali.com/), a clinical psychologist and conscious parenting pioneer whose teachings constantly help me shed old beliefs and transcend into newer, wiser, kinder, and more conscious ways of living. > The one thing that is sure to mess us up is this: our old belief systems. When we blindly follow our beliefs without examining their roots, we set ourselves up for a major self-sabotage. We believe our beliefs so much that we close ourselves off to multiple realities. Instead of going deeper within to examine the root of our beliefs to possibly get rid of them, we hold on even tighter. When we are attached to our beliefs with a fundamentalism, we lose. And we suffer. We do this to ourselves and don’t even realise that we are. > Do you know who your greatest enemy is? > **It is you.** > Do you know what your greatest threat is? > **Your unhealed past.** > Do you know why you are suffering right now? > **Because you are believing a false belief.** > *\~ [Dr. Shefali on FaceBook](https://www.facebook.com/DrShefaliTsabary/posts/448871426595455)* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Zoltan Tasi](https://unsplash.com/@zoltantasi?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/meditation-lotus?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### horoscope fun URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/horoscope-fun/ Last updated: 2021-10-26T23:37:04.000Z I come from a family of astrologers. My late maternal grandfather was well-established in his city as an adept reader of horoscopes. People came from far and wide, seeking his services, which he offered for free. He had a day job as a government official, and even after he retired he continued to meet people and read their horoscopes for them. My mother learnt a lot from him. Growing up I thought this was a rare talent. Eventually I came to realise that almost every Tam Brahm of my parents' generation and older dabbled in astrology, and many had more than a cursory knowledge of the subject matter, of how the various planets and their juxtaposition on the natal chart influenced people's destinies. I was recently reading *[Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny](https://isha.sadhguru.org/karma/)* by the Indian mystic, [Sadhguru](https://isha.sadhguru.org/us/en). It is an incredibly interesting read. Below is an excerpt from the book and also entails Sadhguru's take on horoscopes that I found particularly enlightening, especially as someone who has grown up surrounded by an extensive use of horoscopes to guide important life decisions but is still completely clueless when it comes to the actual reading of a natal chart. Under the subheading 'The Destiny Debate and the Astrology Argument', Sadhguru writes the following: > What you call fate is just a life situation you have created for yourself unconsciously. Your destiny is what you have crafted in unawareness. If you become a hundred percent conscious, your destiny becomes a conscious creation. If you remain unconscious, you fall back on words like *fate* and *providence* to describe your predicament. > For every action that we perform there is a consequence. Whether the consequence bears fruit today or tomorrow or ten years later is irrelevant. The point is that it always bears fruit one way or another. So, some deeds you performed unconsciously many years ago may have their consequences today. You may choose to call it fate. But you could just as well call it your karma, your responsibility. > The fact is people make their own lives and societies write their own self-destructive narratives, but we then try to pass the buck to God or destiny. That may be convenient, but it is a foolish and immature way to exist. > Since fate is your unconscious creation, it is extremely important that every aspect of your life happen consciously. Otherwise you could go about poisoning your life without a clue about the damage you are inflicting on yourself. > This brings us to a related question: If we determine the course of our own lives, what about astrology? What about all those people who have had amazingly accurate predictions made about their future? What is the significance of the natal charts, or "horror-scopes", as I call them, that so many live their lives by? If the business of fortune-telling has endured for so many centuries, surely there must be some truth to it? > Now, astrology is simply a way of plotting certain possibilities in a person's life. Astrology is simply a possible road map for your life that takes into account your tendencies and inherited traits. > ... with the life process, if you are self-propelled, we say you are on a spiritual path. If you are being pushed around by your accumulated tendencies, your habits and your prejudices, then you are at the mercy of your horror-scope! > Traditionally, families in India turned to horoscopes because these would indicate a person's tendencies, karmic substance, the possible directions their life might take. Based on this astrological reading, a person would turn to a spiritual practice that enabled them to transcend these tendencies. But somewhere along the way, we dropped the technologies of transcendence and got stuck with just the horror-scope! This is an unfortunate state of affairs. > The horoscope was in any case meant only to be a way to navigate around possible obstacles. It was never meant to be a life script to be blindly followed. In fact, if you are on a spiritual path, authentic astrologers will never make predictions for you. Being spiritual means you are committed to charting your own destiny. When you are on such a path, what you are essentially saying to the world is "I am not wind-blown. I am self-propelled." > \~ Sadhguru in Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny I found these lines incredibly profound and encouraging. Still, because my mind is still tethered and always seeking an easy way out, instead of spending time on Facebook this afternoon, I spent time looking up my horoscope instead. Actually, I pulled up my natal chart by entering the details of my birth on an [astrology site](https://astro.cafeastrology.com/natal.php) and this is what it told me. > Opposition between the Moon and Mercury > There is a conflict here between the head and the heart. Your emotions tell you one thing and your mind tells you something else. The result is a see-saw effect: you can be emotional to the point of irrationality at one moment, and logical the next. How to blend the head and the heart is a constant struggle for you, usually because you have a tendency to resist blending them! You love to chat, enjoy story-telling and writing/poetry, sometimes enjoy bending the truth, and you possess a sparkling wit! You are animated when you speak, and have a sense of humor that others appreciate simply because it's very imaginative. > You are always interesting, and usually funny. You have a tendency to misrepresent yourself with what you say from time to time, but you're a charming, if a little kooky, friend. > If she is happiest in her own little imaginary world, they can be happy nowhere because she can never find her ideal world on the outside, and this problem can create a lot of change, instability, and disquiet. Must aim to enjoy the moment, the real world more often. She should watch for fibbing, gossip, but sensitivity to criticism, thin-skinned leaves her feeling vulnerable. If the other aspects allow, she can be a very good novelist. Great imagination and observation. \~ [From Cafe Astrology natal chart report](https://astro.cafeastrology.com/natal.php) Finally, some validation at last for my writing skills, even if it is from someone who has most certainly not read a single word I've ever written. This truly made my day! Also, I liked being called kooky! *Image Attribution: Photo by [Josh Rangel](https://unsplash.com/@jsr1?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/astrology?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### the discomfort in doing stuff that matters URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-discomfort-in-doing-stuff-that-matters/ Last updated: 2021-10-25T23:49:08.000Z I use an app called [SelfControl](https://selfcontrolapp.com/) to block access to social media sites and certain other sites I like to hang around on, mostly other writers' blogs. You can schedule block times for up to the next 24 hours. I start it in the evening before shutting down the laptop for the night so that when I get to the laptop in the morning I can get straight to writing without any distraction. Today, somewhere around late morning I was itching to get on to FaceBook and see what everyone was discussing in the various writers' groups. Nothing particularly relevant to me in this stage of my business, yet I wanted to simply scroll down the posts even without reading them, see my newsfeed populate with new posts. I also remember the moment my fingers pulled up the Chrome browser and tried to get into my FB account but unable to do so because SelfControl was still operational then. (It is an awesome app. Truly!) It was when I started to feel that the story I was writing was crap, that it was no good, not making any sense at all, and that I might as well give up on it instead of carrying on with this madness that surely no one is going to read, let alone read and enjoy. Dean Wesley Smith calls this 'Critical Voice'. > And boy! The strongest element in my being, one that has permeated every part of me, is definitely this Critical Voice. > The one that keeps telling me I'm no good, my stories are no good, I'll never be able to write an engrossing tale without making it emotional, sappy, sentimental, maudlin, effusive. > Because I am all of those things, and sometimes I write to escape who it is I am, only to discover that all those things I am running away from – that essence of me – has seeped into the story I'm writing. > So there's no escape from me at all. I am with me, myself, everywhere I go. Whether I write or not. > I've been making a conscious effort to write humour recently, but even in that bitterness and resentment managed to seep in somehow. Is this who I have become? The other related thing I realised, or rather came to terms with, this morning was my own anxiety pertaining to matters other than writing. KrA and I were on opposite sides of a discussion this morning, and after lunch I simply couldn't work. Thoughts kept spinning in my head endlessly. My heart was racing. And the immense effort it took me to not head over to KrA's room and shout and vent exhausted me, so I took a nap. Then I ran a nice, warm bath, got ready and went to pick up D from school. KrA came along (he usually does the drop-off while I do the pick-up) and I burst into tears talking to him on the drive to school, all that rage having finally given way to reveal the fears they were concealing. Over and over again, external life events have caused me to stumble and falter. It takes so much time and effort just to keep my head above the water, and Critical Voice roars with all its might at times like these. So even when I sit and try to plough my way through this period, eventually I give up and seek solace elsewhere. Most often, I take a nap. Off late, it has been mindlessly browsing writers' groups on FaceBook. I also find that browsing through the various groups and reading the blog posts of other writers gives me a temporary sense of community or companionship, but at the end of the day there is always something lacking in these engagements. It gives me the impression of having engaged with people but in reality, a very false impression, that couldn't be farther from the truth. It is quite similar to how reading books on writing or taking courses or reading about writing gives on a feeling of doing something akin to writing. But it's quite like watching a sport on the television instead of actually tying on your laces and going out for a run. It may feel good in the moment but at the end of the day we always look back and wonder where all the time went and why we aren't feeling good about how we've spent all those hours. At this point, I think – I hope – that resuming a daily meditation practice would help calm my nerves, cajole that anxious voice in my head, and not let it submerge me completely. Aha! As I write this, I remembered something else. Last month, I had been diligently working on my [Morning Pages](https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/), and even though I had promised myself that no matter how much things begin to look up, I wouldn't stop writing them, that is precisely what I did. I started doing my Morning Pages at the same time I started to wake up early to write. So I'd do my Morning Pages first and then get to my fiction. This was around the time school began for Beanie (D). And then, D started waking up earlier than his usual early time. So I'd have just finished my Morning Pages and made a start on fiction when he'd be up and eager for me to go down and play with him. Which is why, despite my earlier resolve, I skipped Morning Pages and dove straight into writing fiction. I don't necessarily think that the time I think I save by not doing my Morning Pages has translated into more time spent writing fiction happily and productively. If anything, I've been anxious, unable to calm the thoughts swirling in my head all day long. Things came to a head this week on that front. The non-stop swirl of thoughts. My goodness! I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. Even deep breaths became ineffective. So, voilà! I'm going to resume Morning Pages tomorrow before flicking open my current WIP. I feel so unburdened having written all of this down that after a long time I'm actually looking forward to waking up tomorrow morning and putting all these plans into action. I best get going now. À demain! *Image Attribution: Photo by [Kaupo Kalda](https://unsplash.com/@kaups?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/peaceful?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### focussing on what matters URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/focussing-on-what-matters/ Last updated: 2021-10-25T01:15:56.000Z Google tells me there are 68 days left in 2021\. Slightly less than ten weeks. What if I used this time to focus on the things that truly matter right now in my writing business? I've been spending some time on FaceBook lately caught up in the buzz and excitement of the upcoming annual 20BooksTo50K conference in Las Vegas in November. It will take place in exactly a fortnight from now. I'm not attending in person but virtually – at least that's what the plan was until this afternoon. These past few days, I've been spending a lot of time on the many writers' groups I'm part of on FaceBook. The conversations are very interesting and informative. Anything I need to know about publishing and marketing I can easily find in these group discussions. But, I'm not yet at that stage where I can incorporate these strategies in my own journey. For instance, learning about the ins-and-outs of running a Kickstarter campaign is not going to help me at this point in time as I have very little to offer to backers. It's great to know that Kickstarter is an avenue I could consider in future, once I have an array of products to offer. Similarly, advertising or tricks to increase sales is not relevant to me at this point in time when I have only three books out there – a novella, a novel, and a book of poems. So yeah, not even a trilogy that I could have still worked out an ad or marketing campaign for. So I want to hunker down to write and publish. I think I had [said something similar](https://thedreampedlar.com/cruel-summer/) back in September, when D was returning to school, and I wanted to use all of that time I'd get to focus on my work. It probably took me 2 days to get back to the grind of looking up what other authors were up to, what strategies they were applying, tactics that are completely irrelevant to me now, my backlist being what it is. In one of the groups, a new author asked how to get over the catch-22 of being a new author who has few books to sell and few buyers who'd read her work. What do you do? Where do you go to find your readers when you have so little to offer them at the start? And another group member by the name of James Day wrote the below in response. > So the best metaphor I’ve seen of this comes from Dean Wesley Smith. > When you become a self published author you are essentially building a store in the high street. And when you release a book you are putting an item on the shelf. > Now let me ask you this, would you walk in a store that only has one item on their shelf? I feel most wouldn’t, it feels weird. > So no matter how much advertising you do you won’t get around the fact that your business is not known yet. People don’t associate you with quality or trust yet. Having more things on your shelf basically puts that across. > So the best thing to do is just publish like mad and forget about everything else. > \~ James Day in a comment in a FaceBook group for authors Being a follower of DWS myself, I've known this and I understand this logically. But for countless reasons, I find myself happily distracted by the plethora of information out there instead of focussing on simply writing more, honing my craft, and then looking around to evaluate my options for marketing my works. My earlier self would have decided I'd do this diligently for a year. In fact, she did precisely that [a month ago](https://thedreampedlar.com/cruel-summer/). A year and a half of focussing solely on writing was her plan. Well, that plan didn't even sustain for a month and a half. So, let's make new plans, this new self says. Let's try to focus solely on writing and publishing until the end of the year. A little more than two months. A little less than ten weeks. 68 days. Of which today is already done and dusted. Can I? I know I want to. I trust I will. And I suspect I'll be coming here often to report, if only to myself, because I'm also thinking of staying away from FB for a while. Nothing is going to change so drastically in the indie publishing world that I'd be affected by it — because I need to have more books written to worry about what's going on in the industry. Write. And publish. Like mad! *Image Attribution: Photo by [Paul Skorupskas](https://unsplash.com/@pawelskor?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/focus?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### who do you become in your creative pursuit? URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/who-do-you-become-in-your-creative-pursuit/ Last updated: 2021-10-22T23:56:00.000Z Next month will mark [an entire year](https://thedreampedlar.com/starting-over-as-an-author-entrepreneur-at-40/) of my journey as an author-entrepreneur. These past few days, I've been gathering ideas and insights in my head for a post on lessons learnt in my first year of this journey. I have a lot to say on that one, and all those will be featured in another post that I hope to post on the anniversary of my author career, so to speak, but the most important lesson of all was something I realised this morning. KrA and I were out on a late-morning walk, and we came across a middle-aged lady minding four toddlers on their trikes. They were on the sidewalk. Two of the little ones had ridden their trikes further up and the lady yelled at them, "Get back here now!" The two went back to where the lady was minding the other two kids. At this point, KrA and I were about fifty metres away and we could hear her, and I remarked to KrA, "Look at that woman! She's yelling so loudly and those kids are also obeying her. When we raise our voices, D is quick to call us out on our behaviour." As we drew closer (we were on the opposite side of the road), we heard her yelling at the two little ones who had returned to get off their trikes and sit in a corner. They did so and promptly burst into tears. The lady noticed us at this point, and she turned around, kept watching us, flashed us a grin when I met her gaze, and waited until we were a little distance away before continuing to yell at the little ones. And this time, I was the one to burst into tears. It was a whole lot of things. The sound of the little ones crying, that's for certain. And all the memories and guilt it triggered. The memory of the sound of little D crying when he was of that age and couldn't settle in his daycare. The sound of my own anxiety ringing in my ears, that little voice constantly telling me that I ought to have done more, I ought to be doing more, that I wasn't doing enough, that I was getting it all wrong, this whole shebang of parenting and writing and living. The din of all the loud accusations I used to hurl at KrA for not doing more even though he too was stretched to the limit. All the times I cursed *family* for the promises they made to help look after our child but failed to keep. Even as of yesterday, I had thoughts of this nature – wishing I was child-free, wishing I were living alone, wishing I had nothing else to do but write – juxtaposed with thoughts of how much I miss D when he's away at school, how happy I am that KrA gets to work from home and we can go on long walks together, just the two of us, and how long endless hours without interruption do not necessarily translate into high productivity because I am the one interrupting this time by craving for some sort of perfectionism, some sort of control. But after going through that swirl of thoughts and emotions, I always come back to remembering that KrA and D and writing are the only things that matter in my life, the only things that really make a difference. Not the books yet to be written and published, not the riches yet to be made, not the friendships yet to be cultivated, not the places yet to be visited. We often mistakenly believe that a good life is a composite of these countless things external to our daily routines. That sudden showering of fame or achievement that makes the grind worth it. That trip to an exotic destination and Instagram-worthy pics that supposedly compensate for the hours spent doing work we don't believe in for people and organisations whose values aren't aligned with ours. That weekend spent with good friends that makes the comparatively monotonous drill of the rest of the week worth it. And in doing so, we burden these activities with the responsibility of *giving* us the joy, the validation we so desperately seek. And when they don't, we run out of things and people and places to find our joy in. I cried all the way back home, wishing there was something I could do to take all this anger and pain in the world and not let it hurt our children so much. More tears came as many more hurts and fears revealed themselves. [D turned five years old](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-poetry-of-growing-older/) this summer, and his need for us has diminished in a very healthy way. He is so secure, content playing by himself, enjoying spending time with us too, sharing with us tidbits from his day at school, the things he liked, the things he didn't. And just easily as these opportunities to savour his company present themselves, they are also very fragile. A few minutes of distraction, of inattentiveness, and the experience is altered altogether. What could have been effortless and pleasant suddenly becomes burdensome and overwhelming. And the emotional hangover lasts even long after. I haven't been able to write all week. I had something going on earlier this week that merited attention, but after that was done and dusted, I struggled these past two days to sit and write for more than ten minutes at a stretch. My fingers constantly sought the phone, refreshing the email, checking messages, blog posts, new discussions on writers' groups on FB, logging into D's school portal every half an hour to see if his homeroom teacher has uploaded any new pics, anything that could spare me the trouble of sitting down and writing, which in itself was a task I was determined to execute to spare myself the trouble of sitting down and feeling all that I had been feeling. Unmoored. Unravelled. I was feeling scattered. All over the place. My breath has been shallow. Sleep has been elusive. My coffee intake has gone back up to two cups a day. An article I go back to and read often in times like these is an [excerpt](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/07/on-earth-4000-weeks-so-why-lose-time-online-distraction-oliver-burkeman) from Oliver Burkeman's [Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54785515-four-thousand-weeks), a book that I read last weekend. The title of the book is an estimate of an average human being's lifetime. (Please do not be misled by the subtitle. It is not yet another book on time management or productivity hacks; in fact, Burkeman's mission is to get us to rid ourselves of the notion that we can somehow control time or badger our lives into flowing the way we want them to.) In the excerpt below, he talks about why we so easily give in to the bells and whistles of social media and other distraction instead of doing the work that matters (for e.g., reading books on writing or taking yet another course on writing or planning a schedule to write instead of actually sitting down and writing a book). > Why, exactly, are we rendered so uncomfortable by concentrating on things that matter – the things we thought we wanted to do with our lives – that we’d rather flee into distractions, which, by definition, are what we don’t want to be doing with our lives? So that suddenly, the thing you’d resolved to do feels so staggeringly tedious that you can’t bear to focus on it for one moment more. > The solution to this mystery, dramatic though it might sound, is that whenever we succumb to distraction, we’re attempting to flee a painful encounter with our finitude – with the human predicament of having limited time and, more especially in the case of distraction, limited control over that time. When you try to focus on something you deem important, you’re forced to face your limits, an experience that feels especially uncomfortable precisely because the task at hand is one you value so much. > This is also why boredom can feel so surprisingly, aggressively unpleasant: we tend to think of it as not being interested in whatever it is we’re doing, but, in fact, it’s an intense reaction to the deeply uncomfortable experience of confronting your limited control. Boredom can strike in widely differing contexts: when you’re working on a major project; when you can’t think of anything to do on a Sunday afternoon; when it’s your job to care for a two-year-old for five hours straight. But they all have one characteristic in common: they demand that you face your finitude. You’re obliged to deal with how your experience is unfolding in this moment, to resign yourself to the reality that this is it. > .... > What we think of as distractions aren’t the cause of our being distracted. They’re just the places we go to seek relief. > \~ Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks When I first read this excerpt, and then the book, it helped me understand why I struggle to write on days my critical voice is constantly whispering in my ears that my work is no good, that it doesn't matter, who do I think I am to be offering these stories, who do I think will be interested in what I have to say. Today, it also helped me understand and confront my limitations when it comes to looking after D. Watching at the lady on the sidewalk yelling at two toddlers, bearing down on them and reducing them to the point of tears, also helped me see how little control I had, still have and always will have, over the events that unfurl in D's life and shape his worldview. To desire otherwise is foolishness at best, insanity at worst. This is something I've known logically ever since D was born. In fact, even before he was born, when I was 19 weeks pregnant and diagnosed with a condition that put me on very high risk of premature delivery. But I hadn't been able to accept it. I was determined to be a peaceful parent. I read many books on it and followed many parenting groups advocating peaceful parenting techniques, which were great and immensely helpful, but the fantasies these filled my head with were a far cry from the difficulty I often faced in sitting down with my child, in the present moment, trying hard to not think of all the work that remained to be done. I hadn't been able to accept my limitations – both in terms of time and finances – in precisely the same way that I haven't been able to accept that I did the best I could. To think I could have done better by D these past five years serves no purpose other than self-flagellation. Besides, I'm pretty sure in this current state of despair, I'm painting a bleaker picture than reality was, selectively remembering only the times I lot my temper and completely overlooking the wonderful moments I had with D. And the very fact that D pipes up and calls us out to this day when we are less-than-peaceful is proof that my efforts at peaceful parenting having been stellar indeed. And in the same breath, I'm also casting judgement on the woman who yelled at two kids without pausing to wonder what her story might have been. As I walked past, I kept wondering if I ought to go back and confront her, say something. I didn't. And after I came back home, I admonished myself for having been such a coward. I even looked up Google Maps to see if there were any home daycares in the vicinity and scoured their websites for photos, hoping I'd find the villain of this story, and fantasising about leaving a scathing review about her maltreatment of those little children. I didn't find any pics of her. Now that a few hours have transpired, I am glad I didn't indulge in such self-righteous behaviour. And I also have a possible answer for what I could do the next time I come across something like this. Wouldn't it be a whole lot more open-minded and compassionate of me to walk up to her and ask, "Are you having a hard time looking after all four of them at once? Can I help in any way?" What's the worst that could happen? The person might give me the finger. And the best that could happen? Maybe a kind remark would help them in more ways than a harsh judgement possibly could. And that brings me to the question which is the title of this post. Who do you become in your creative pursuit? Do you become an ambitious person who will stop at nothing to turn his/her dreams into reality? What sacrifices are you willing to make? Time with family? Friends? Long-term sustainability for a spectacular rise in the short term? There are no right answers. We each make the choices based on what matters to us. Actually, we try to make choices based on what we believe matters to us at a given point in time. That may, and will, change over time. I recently watched [Kota Factory](https://www.netflix.com/title/81249783) on Netflix. One of the Physics coaches the students trust tells them (and I'm paraphrasing here) that the objective of preparing for and appearing for one of the toughest entrance exams in India is not to clear it, but to challenge ourselves to attempt something that is difficult. When we try things that are hard, it expands our capabilities. It broadens our notion of who we are, what we are capable of, and helps us face life and its challenges with more courage than otherwise. > Who do I want to become in my creative pursuit? > Someone who is kind to herself and her child. Someone who is able to accept what life throws her way yet not become embittered by it. This past year, I had become so result-oriented on the work front that I had completely forgotten the pure joy of writing and of designing covers and of publishing. The adventure of writing the next story and seeing what it turns out to be. The thrill of taking the next step in the business and seeing where it will lead. I had also forgotten the joy of playing with my child. Time spent playing with D often felt like time that KrA ought to have spent looking after him so I could make more progress on the writing and publishing fronts. Needless to say, this only stoked in me a lot of resentment towards the two people I cherish the most in my life. It's funny because one of the two reasons I chose to go down this route (other than loving writing) was that I wanted to have a flexible schedule that would allow me to spend time with D during his childhood years. Time that I had now come to resent, believing it took me away from the other thing I loved. The irony was undeniable. It took a lot of unpacking and a few hard-hitting pieces like Burkeman's, quoted above, to realise that what I was really resisting the absolute truth of the utter lack of control we all exert over our lives. To give you an example of this: D is an early riser, and I decided to wake up even earlier than he does (which is basically sometime in the middle of the night) to get some writing done. On a number of occasions, D woke up earlier than usual, which meant we both ended up downstairs in the living room, playing Lego at witch o'clock. Resisting this, or feeling annoyed about this turn of events never helped. Instead, all that rage would only flow to my head and give me a pounding headache that would keep me away from the laptop for the rest of the day. After days of wishing it were otherwise, when I decided to greet D with arms wide open as he rushed into my room in the morning, the quality of the morning changed entirely. On days when I'd set an intention to engage completely in play with him for those few hours, without worrying about a paucity of writing time, I'd typically end up building a great connection with him and having plenty of time as well as the peace of mind to write later in the day, even if it were fewer words than I'd have desired. It is such a simple thing. But so difficult to implement. But the truth is, the only one making it difficult is me. By constantly wishing things were other than what they are, I'm also losing all that I have now. These precious hours, when I can play with little D before he grows too old for Lego and apple-picking and biking with Mumma. The abundance of writing time I do have, whether it is in the form of several hours at a stretch or half-hour blocks of time carved out of different parts of the day. > And this is the kind of person I like being. > The one who is aware. > The one who is present. > The one who can hold herself in grace and kindness. > The one who cries at a display of churlishness towards little children who don't yet know or understand cruelty. > The one who can ask herself if she is OK. The one who can accept herself when she doesn't feel OK, when she is unable to hold everything that life hurls her way. > Remembering this will end too. > That feeling. > And eventually, this life. It's hard to remember all this when the wave of fear and despair hits. But remembering this is what helps me ride the wave. And keeps me aware that the next wave is already on its way. And now I tell myself I'll be ready for it when it comes, even if it may not feel like that when it does arrive. *Image Attribution: Photo by [engin akyurt](https://unsplash.com/@enginakyurt?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/love?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### Hello, Dreamer! - Poems & Dreams URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/hello-dreamer-poems-dreams-released/ Last updated: 2025-02-25T17:52:43.000Z My [new book](https://books2read.com/HelloDreamer) is out! And it is also my first collection of poetry! Long-time followers of The Dream Pedlar may remember a #100dayproject I had embarked on several years ago. I had opted to write a poem a day, and the entire project took 155 days. At the time, I had wanted nothing more than to simply write the words, face up to the challenge of writing new words every day. Only a few months ago did it occur to me that I could compile it all into a book and make it available. The ebook and paperback versions are now available on Amazon. And I couldn't be more pleased with how it has all turned out. Below are all the retailer links you can get the book from! [Amazon US](https://www.amazon.com/Hello-Dreamer-Dreams-Anitha-Krishnan-ebook/dp/B09HL3R2W4/) [Amazon Canada](https://www.amazon.ca/Hello-Dreamer-Dreams-Anitha-Krishnan-ebook/dp/B09HL3R2W4) [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hello-Dreamer-Dreams-Anitha-Krishnan-ebook/dp/B09HL3R2W4) [Amazon India](https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09HL3R2W4) [All others](https://books2read.com/HelloDreamer) ### avoiding pain URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/avoiding-pain/ Last updated: 2021-09-05T01:59:43.000Z I have been trying to not do this. By *'this'*, I mean coming here at the end of the day for a 15-minute free-writing session. For the past hour or more, I've been sitting at my computer, wondering if I should resume this practice or not, and surfing the Internet, looking up old friends on FaceBook and wondering what they are up to in their lives, and shaking my head at myself even as I see the sand-grains of time, of my precious life, slipping away in the pursuit of non-pain. Not so much in the pursuit of pleasure. But in the avoidance of pain. Of the pain of putting words to screen and feeling they are not 'good enough'. Of the pain of sitting down to play with D and finding he's not in a particularly gregarious mood that morning and keeping myself calm while helping him navigate the situation. Of the pain of sitting down to have a chat with KrA and finding out that we think very differently on certain issues and also finding out that I don't know how to agree to disagree. Eventually though, I have come here. And that's a start. I find it funny how I find ways to avoid doing the things I love so much. Writing. Spending time with D and KrA. These are the only things that matter to me. But somehow I find a plethora of excuses to not do these things, or to make the practice of these things more difficult and onerous than they could possibly be on their own. Like condemning myself to not be at ease. With who I am. Who I love. What I love. Who I spend time with. The answers are so obvious when I type it all out here at the end of the day. But then the sun rises, and it feels as if there are more important things to do, more important activities to pursue, even though for the life of me I couldn't tell you what exactly those are. It just feels as if what I'm doing, right here, right now, is insignificant. Immaterial. Makes no difference to anyone. Not even to me. But then, a dear friend from halfway across the world wrote in to say how much my writings struck a chord with her. How do such ideas enter our heads? Every night D goes to bed, eagerly waiting for the next morning to arrive so he can get back to playing with his Lego! He doesn't question why he is playing with Lego. Or whether there are more important things he should be attending to. Or whether playing with Lego will earn him a livelihood. The 'business' of being a grown-up is a difficult one indeed! The other thing I wanted to write today was about the myth of finding a balance between making time to write and being present for D. (Poor KrA, he's been on the receiving end of my insanity for so long I'm surprised he's still sane!) Whenever D comes barging into my room (closed doors are sometimes insufficient to keep this child out), my heart sings at the sight of him. But after a few minutes creeps in the resentment because I'd have been in flow and mercilessly yanked out of the WIP I was working on. And then I have to ask D to leave me to work. Often I wish he wouldn't barge in in the first place but that's a silly expectation. Isn't it good that I can attend to him for 5–10 minutes and then get back to what I was doing? Calmly? Gently? Everyone's happy. Everybody's needs are met. Perhaps this is a great opportunity for me to learn how to set effective boundaries. I tell myself that and then in the same breath I also remind myself that he'll be off to school next week and I'm already in pieces thinking about it. Gosh! An empty house without D feels unbearable, even though I know from past experience that I'd also cherish the much-needed time it will give me to attend to myself and my needs. It's a never-ending dilemma for me. As with everything else, I'll figure this out too or I'll find a way to live with it. In the present moment. Giving all my loves – myself, D, KrA, and writing – the time and attention they need. Each moment will present what it needs of me, what I need from myself in that moment, and I'll rise up to meet it. No plans required. No premeditations needed. *À demain? Peut-être.* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Josh Rangel](https://unsplash.com/@jsr1?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/balloons?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### cruel summer URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/cruel-summer/ Last updated: 2021-10-24T21:56:34.000Z It feels like a fall evening now. Warm sunshine spilling on our heads. Leaves, still green, jiggling in a gentle breeze. Sunlight and leaf-shadow playing tag on the wall in front of me. Summer, soon to be left behind as a memory. Winter, promising a respite from the brief spells of extreme heat we faced this summer in this part of the world. There were also monsoon-like showers, often for several days in a row, which was quite unusual for this part of the world. On those days, it didn't feel like we had much of a summer. But then there were also beach mornings and plenty of ice cream afternoons on hot days. Days of sweltering heat that we could only escape from by blasting the ACs in different rooms all night long. Days when the world felt as if it was on fire, when I felt as if I was burning inside and nothing could extinguish those flames. Music came to the rescue often this summer. Several times this season, D asked me to play a song he could only identify as 'Croo Ça Va'. I had no idea what he was referring to. Evidently, it was a song I had played before, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. I wondered if it was a French song because of his use of the term 'Ça va' but he was sure it wasn't. And the conversation typically ended there because there were no more leads to follow, no more clues to explore and unravel. Until one evening, I decided to play some of my old-time favourites, pop songs from the 90s. When [Ace of Base's Cruel Summer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYZwfssm7lc) started to play, D promptly said, "This is Croo Ça Va." I love it when things like this happen. As if the Universe had been listening in and took time to work its magic to give us what we sought. Which reminds me of Rumi's words. > When I run after what I think I want, > my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety; > If I sit in my own place of patience, > what I need flows to me, and without any pain. > From this I understand what I want also wants me, > is looking for me and attracting me. > There is a great secret in this > for anyone who can grasp it. > \~ Rumi Cruel Summer has a special place in my heart. It is from Ace of Base's 1998 album titled 'Flowers'. (The song was originally sung by Bananarama in the 80s and has been performed by several artists since, but it's the Ace of Base versions – both their original and the Big Bonus Mix – that are indelibly engraved on my soul.) Flowers was one of the very few original music cassette albums I owned back in the time. It must have cost 80–100 INR, which was a pretty penny at the time. I did own a number of mixtapes back then. I remember compiling lists of favourite songs and heading to the one music shop I knew where the owner would record my requests onto an empty cassette. Something like Spotify playlists. Only, pirated! Remember this was back in the 90s. My only source of songs was a cable TV channel that played the latest hits. Intermittently, the channel would display the list of upcoming songs and the times at which they were scheduled for broadcast. I learnt so many songs that way, down to the backing vocals. These days, despite having music streaming into my ears and my subconscious on loop, I barely register the words and cannot recall them for self-entertainment later. Evidently, there's something to be said about listening to music with attention versus letting it play on as background noise, something to quell the painful task of being by myself, with my thoughts and feelings, with the manuscript in progress, and no external distractions. Coming back from that digression, Cruel Summer is a song that reminds me of 18-year-old me, studying assiduously for an entrance exam to get into college, far away from home. It reminds me of my own earnestness, and my naively optimistic belief in the future. I had no doubt I'd conquer the world. In many ways, I find myself back in quite a similar situation now. As D is poised to begin another school year next week – he's heading into SK – I'm preparing myself to put in more hours and effort on the writing front. There's an earnestness this time around, a belief that was sorely missing for most of this past year. Earlier, I had been setting very high goals for myself and wanted to reach and surpass them in a jiffy. Not surprisingly, I was only setting myself up to be crushed under a mountain of disappointment. Now I'm looking at a more achievable and sustainable practice, holding on to the joy of writing, trusting that each day's words will add up eventually. My financial goals are also very, very modest, and in fact I've decided to not fret over my current income for the next year and a half. Way easier said than done! But having gotten the impossibilities out of the way, I feel like I did back then, listening to Cruel Summer, looking out at the cerulean skies and the wispy white Cirrus clouds drifting past, completely optimistic, no room for doubt or fear. Often, I find the greatest nuggets of wisdom in printables for children from [Big Life Journal](https://biglifejournal.com/). > Small steps lead to big results. > Everyone's journey is different. > Life can be messy sometimes. > \~ [Big Life Journal](https://biglifejournal.com/) And my favourite comes from their 2021 Back to School Interview and Manifesto. > It's okay if I'm not the best at something. I will focus on being my best self. > \~ [Big Life Journal](https://biglifejournal.com/) There's a dream, yes. But there's no rush. Because this waiting, this period of working and writing and learning many new things is a delight in itself. Moments to be cherished. Moments of joy unencumbered by the expectations and judgements of the rest of the world. I may not have conquered the outside world, but I sure as hell have been hard at work on getting to know my inner one and befriending myself. And I think my 18-year-old self would have been very proud to know this is where she'd land after more than two decades of running away from herself. Back to where she belongs. In the here and now. With her own amazing self. Setting out on new adventures, with a thrill in her heart, a skip in her step, and Cruel Summer on her lips. ### tales for dreamers: a fence of trees URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-a-fence-of-trees/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:00:31.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/15.-a-fence-of-trees.jpg) tales for dreamers: a fence of trees You think at first it is only their leaves sussurating in the breeze. But then you stop and listen keenly, and you hear them deliver an incessant warning. *Keepoutkeepoutkeepoutkeepoutkeepout …* Why, you wonder. *Unknown dangers lurk in these parts,* they say, putting a pause in their susurration to let coherent words float down the breeze to you. *One foot on the shore and one foot in the water, and the flavour of your skin will diffuse through the waters right to its very depths, and the fragrance of your being will hover over the surface of the lake like vapours.* So? *And all sorts of creatures will sluice out from the belly of the earth and devour you and everything in your world, so hungry they would be. Please, pretty please, don’t go to the wrong side of the fence.* But what about all the beachgoers who dove into the waters this past summer? Did their fragrance and flavour not lure these beasts you warn of? *Keepoutkeepoutkeepoutkeepoutkeepout …* Hello? You hold your breath so you can hear better. But now even the warning has faded away and only that incessant susurration persists. Miffed at this unceremonious end to the conversation, you walk away, plugging music into your ears, swearing to yourself you will never come back here. There are so many other places to explore in this vast world, you console yourself. Only when you reach home does it occur to you, perhaps their words of warning were not meant for your ears to begin with. Perhaps it was you on the wrong side of the fence. ### free-writing: under a cloud URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-under-a-cloud/ Last updated: 2021-07-08T22:27:44.000Z The day passed under a cloud of general dread and anxiety, reflecting the monsoon-like rainfall we've had all day today. I don't feel like writing much, so I'll leave it at that for now. *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Satyan Chawla](https://unsplash.com/@satyanchawla?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/monsoon?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: another distraction revealed URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-another-distraction-revealed/ Last updated: 2021-07-07T23:15:01.000Z I have not yet been able to replicate Monday's magic so far this week. Tuesday was a very low-output day. Today was better, but nothing compared to Monday. I want to hit those high numbers repeatedly and consistently. I don't want it to be one day of magic followed by several days of faltering and stumbling. Sure, where I am today is way better than where I was a year ago, even a month ago! But I want to writer better, faster and I am hungry to keep moving in that direction until I find myself competent enough to produce those words at will. I think I may have found another culprit. Yesterday, I had a rest day – which was ok in itself – but at bedtime, I started reading a new book, a new work of fiction. It's a great work, it's quite gripping and I love the story and its twists. I think that's where the trouble is coming from. > Because even though I can now resist from picking up the book to read during precious writing hours, when I'm in the midst of reading a good book, my manuscript starts to look really bleak and boring in comparison! > And I don't feel any motivation to carry on with the story and find out where it leads. I feel stuck, unsure what to write next. So this is another lesson learnt. When I'm working on a WIP, I'm not going to pick up any works of fiction to read. If I need to read at bedtime to fall asleep, I'll stick to non-fiction. Something inspirational. Something motivating. And when I've finished my WIP, I'll reward myself with a reading binge. So that's going to be my plan of action from now on until I finish the current WIP. There are days when I love this story, and other days when I am full of self-doubt and I wonder if the reader will see through the utter drivel I am pouring out on the paper/screen. > A reader's perception of my work is one thing that is entirely out of my control. I myself have experienced this as a reader many times. In fact the book I'm currently reading was one I had discarded after having read about 10% of it in a previous attempt months ago. There are so many aspects that influence a reader's perception and reception of a book. The state of mind they are in, their background, their experience at and up until that point in time, what they feel like reading – something heavy or something light. There are so many factors it is impossible to predict, and even more futile to try and capture. All that we can do, all that we ought to do, is simply focus on writing and telling the best story we can. So that's a lesson learnt today. With that in mind, I'll sign off for today. *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič](https://unsplash.com/@itfeelslikefilm?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/books?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: an epic success URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-an-epic-success/ Last updated: 2021-07-07T00:37:40.000Z I almost forgot to show up here today, that's how far away from my computer I've been all day. After yesterday's epic success of a day in terms of word count, this morning I was all pepped up to keep the momentum going. And then, sweet, sweet D had a hard time getting ready to go to camp. He was teary-eyed and didn't want to go. He said he misses home. So all my energy this morning went in keeping myself calm so I could attend to his needs. After bidding him goodbye, I felt heavy in my heart. When our kids are young, we are so desperate to send them away from us. And when they grow older and away, we desperately want to cling to them and wonder why they don't want to be with us as much. I personally don't appreciate the concept of summer camps. Summer is a time for fun, for doing nothing. Summer holidays don't come back unless you grow up to become a school teacher, I suppose. I don't even understand how children are OK to go to camps in new, unfamiliar places with a bunch of entirely unfamiliar children and adults/teens they've never seen before. And how they spend an entire day like that. I'm trying to think back to my own experiences – of course, we didn't have any such thing as camps in our time – but I was usually up for any new activity. But in my case, I was more eager to get out of home than stay there, so any excuse to be away from home was perfect, no matter what it entailed. So maybe I should feel happy that D loves being at home, being with us, so much he misses it when he's away. I cherish this feeling, and I'm in no rush to push him, because from what I've seen of him, he's quite a content child who also looks forward to new experiences, but long days tend to drain him. Maybe a 2-hour or half-day camp is fun, but from the looks of it D ends up doing some activities, having lunch/snack breaks, playing outside if the weather favours it, and even watching TV! I gather he is bored and would much rather be at home than at school. Oh, well! We wanted to try them out this year, this being D's first year at camp, and considering that he had missed out on being with other kids throughout the school year when everything went virtual. Now that we know, next year we'd certainly be looking at other options – maybe an hour of art class every week or some such thing, depending on where his interests lie, or an invitation to cousins overseas to come and visit us. So anyway, by the time I got to my writing computer, I was not in a great mental frame. The old fears resurfaced – Am I doing right by my child? Is it too much to send him to full-day camp? OK, it's only for this week, and another week later this month. But I was already caught up in that anxiety, and even though I wasn't listening to my thoughts, it was too much to sit and type. I did try at first, got a few hundred words out, then gave up before I could spend irrecoverable time surfing on the internet. I went for a walk at about ten in the morning. It was a hot, hot day. Hot and humid, but the sun was not burning. It was behind clouds for the most part, which made the walk bearable. So that was something new I did today – venturing out in the hot, hot sun and not feeling miserable or whining about it. Then I came back, made a veggie for lunch as KrA had prepared most of the meal in the morning while packing D's lunchbox, had a bath, did the laundry, had lunch, then slept off. I had a long, long nap because when I woke up, I had barely enough time to move the clothes from the washing machine to the dryer before I needed to head out to pick up D from school. Back home with D, KrA made dosa for dinner, D and I then played the piano for a bit, then bath-time, reading time, and an unexpected conversation time with my little one in bed before he finally fell asleep. D shared a lot with me about his day. He doesn't like using the designated toilet down the hallway as he finds the flush too loud, so his teacher suggested he could go into another school room where the other batch of kids were. His friend suggested he could try to run out of the toilet before the flush begins. D also shared with me how another child attending camp refused to share eggs for an experiment with him today and the teacher had to intervene. When he fell asleep, I looked back and realised my child had opened up to me so much about camp at school today, and that was possible only because I had attended to myself today, shown myself care and patience, given myself much needed rest without berating myself for all the writing not done, so that I could show up for D when it mattered the most. > So yes, let me reframe this – today was an epic success when it came to parenting. Today was an awesome day! I wonder what amazing surprises tomorrow will bring! À demain! *Image Attribution: Photo by [Tyler Lastovich](https://unsplash.com/@lastly?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/simple?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: a new kind of day URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-a-new-kind-of-day/ Last updated: 2021-07-06T00:14:57.000Z D went to summer camp today at his school. Three of his classmates turned up there, and along with teachers he already knew from when he attended school during the school year, he was at ease going in. I was determined to make use of this day to write. And boy, did I write! And boy, has it taken me years of trying and failing to be able to sit down and write today! I kept going in sprints. I kept getting up often, but for the first time ever, I kept coming back to pick up from where I had left off. I took a break when I saw myself slowing down, and was able to come back and do more than before. I am so tempted to say that I wish this is what I had done right from day one. Day one being a day in time, almost fifteen years ago, when I decided I wanted to be a full-time author. But no ... I had to go through years of doubting and stalling and walking away from writing and coming back to it, with a lot of emotional drama and upheaval and doubt, thinking that I wanted to travel more than write ... someday I'll do a proper post on what I mean. Today, I'm just rushing to put this post up here because I want to have a bath and fall into bed, so happily exhausted I am. D being away at summer camp from 9 to 4 gave me valuable hours in the day to put towards my writing. And when he returned, I didn't need to think about my writing at all, knowing I had given it the best I could today, knowing I will come back to it after he has gone to bed. My inspiration is [Steven Higgs](https://stevehiggsbooks.com/). I have mentioned him on the blog before, but among all the people out there who give advice, including those who have been writing professionally for decades and have hundreds of works published, his is the [most honest and encouraging](https://selfpublishingformula.com/episode-242/). He doesn't try to sell you anything. He just gets up, writes, looks after his family, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. And every time he posts on the [20Booksto50K](https://www.facebook.com/groups/20Booksto50k/) group on FB that I'm part of, he only has much encouragement to serve. I'm currently hooked on to his Patricia Fisher mystery books, and I love them so so much. I'm reading more observantly than I normally would, trying to identify elements that grip me, and I am learning a lot. > I promise myself this – I'm not going to spend a dime on another book on writing or a course in writing. > I have already decided that for the rest of 2021, I am only going to focus on writing everyday, and getting my words out there. I am going to trust myself and trust that all the books I've read, all the blogs I have followed, all the course I've taken so far will help me. > For now, that is enough. > For now, I am enough. Thank you, Universe, for making my dream come true. I sit here, a full-time author, a mother, a wife, and in all these roles I play, I find genuine pleasure. For years, I had wandered the world, demanding more, wanting more, thinking happiness was out there. Now I know it is not. D already knows where his happiness lies. He is at his happiest best when he's playing with his building toys and he has either or both of us for company. When I went to pick him up from camp today, he said he had a lovely time. He's signed up for this week, then he has a break for a week, and then a second camp the week after. I asked him if he'd like to sign up for one more camp, and he gave me a groaning "Noooo!" At bedtime, he told me he wished he hadn't signed up for camp because the day goes on for far too long. We signed him up for only two weeks out of the nine weeks of summer, but somehow it makes my heart sing that this child likes being at home, doing what he loves. He loves us, he loves people, loves having friends over (even though we don't have many of them), and is ok by himself too. And now, I'm in this sweet spot where I know in my heart what I love. On days when D is away, I'll try to make the most of that gift of time. On days when he's at home, I'll relish that too, knowing that the time to write will always present itself. I will always find it. Instead of fretting over its absence, I will create it. Time. Love. Happiness. I have all that I need and much more. I am truly blessed! *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Gabrielle Henderson](https://unsplash.com/@gabriellefaithhenderson?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/grateful?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: a day to forget URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-a-day-to-forget/ Last updated: 2021-07-05T00:21:10.000Z Today was the kind of day to be forgotten, to be erased from memory. Today was the kind of day I fear will linger on by way of the emotional scars it left behind. Today was the kind of day that rip-roared through our lives like a wildfire, the kind that zipped only two days ago through a village far west from here and razed it all down in the blink of an eye. Today was the kind of day when nightmares started to pile up in broad daylight, one atop the other, and each word, each memory was a trigger for something worse, something even more hurtful. Today was the kind of day when old wounds were torn into and bled anew, leaving new scars, the type that will last longer and won't fade, no matter how often and how strong a salve you could apply to them. Today was the kind of day when it felt that these heavy feelings would never pass, and even the warmth of the sunshine and its dance on the leaves of the trees outside my window couldn't lift my spirits. Today was the kind of day that began with me telling myself to hold myself in tender-heartedness, in loving-kindness. But today was also the kind of day that quickly morphed into a volcano, lava bursting forth with the angst of having been suppressed for too long, dredging up memories and hurts and wounds that should have long been acknowledged and forgotten, that should have been buried deep under and never allowed to resurface, for they only know how to burn, how to destroy everything in their way. Today was the kind of day that brought with it all sorts of questions – questions I thought KrA and I had answered only two days ago to my utmost satisfaction, questions about my life, my worth, my writing, my earning potential, my purpose. Today was the kind of day that made me feel like I was failing at everything – being a parent, writing, life. Today was the kind of day that brought me to my knees, and the tears fell so hard and so fast my vision was often blurred and I wondered when I had last ever seen things clearly. Today was the kind of day that showed me that I was so caught up in my own judgements of how I should be, how my life should unfurl, that I had come to see the world outside as prejudiced and biased, a stark reflection of my own inner reality. Today was the kind of day in the midst of which I felt I needed something to change drastically, radically, without which I'd surely go insane. Today was the kind of day that made me realise that the only thing that needed to change was me. My thoughts. My beliefs. My priorities. Today was the kind of day I couldn't wait for to end, for the hurt it brought was too crushing and too much to bear, and now that the sun is sinking and the child is sleeping, today has also become the kind of day in which I wish I could go back to being a child, to feeling safe in my own body, in my own mind, in my own heart, in my own soul. Today is the kind of day I want to remember for the way the little one came to hug and kiss me often without saying a word, and when the storm passed, merely reminded me, "You are always precious on the inside." *Image Attribution: Photo by [Andraz Lazic](https://unsplash.com/@andrazlazic?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/feather?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: on fear and falling behind URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-on-fear-and-falling-behind/ Last updated: 2021-07-03T23:53:51.000Z I woke up this morning at 2:30 A.M. and couldn't go to sleep after that. I tried to read as that usually gets me back into sleep mode but no such luck today. So I threw off the covers at close to 4 A.M. and came to the writing computer and managed to get quite a few words in. This is the first time I've converted a sleepless night into a writing session. So I must give myself a pat on the back. I don't remember if it was like this before I became a parent but I know for a fact that in these last couple of years, especially after moving to Burlington, I've woken up in the middle of the night and lain awake, heart palpitating, unable to go back to sleep, my mind in overdrive, riddled with all sorts of worries and anxieties about the future, both near and far. Looking back, I can put this down to my complete lack of network in this area. That's certainly a big reason, because often I'd wake up feeling scared that I'm unable to handle all this responsibility of parenting alone. Of course, KrA is more than an equal parent; he does so much more than I do in every aspect, but fear is a funny thing, especially when you are alone and allow it to keep messing with your mind. During the pandemic, isolation had become extremely commonplace, and the lockdowns helped me make sense of how isolated I had felt in the preceding years, moving from a city condo to a suburban neighbourhood. The sudden absence of people was something I couldn't cope with. Even now, I yearn for this house to be filled with people, with loved ones, with people I love, with those who love me and KrA and D. When I was young, I remember telling my parents that I'd grow up and earn enough money to build a house large enough to accommodate my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Growing up in Thane (near Mumbai, India) while most of the rest of our family was in Chennai, a 24-hour journey by train, I had never been comfortable with isolation. With being by myself. As a child, I was completely oblivious to the family dramas that often played out between the grown-ups. Being with aunts and uncles and grandparents in those early years of childhood felt like simply being in the care of people who loved me unconditionally, whose love I had no need to doubt – that wasn't necessarily the case and for reasons I now understand – but as a child, it was as simple as that. That was love. The delight on Thatha's face when he spotted us as our train pulled into the station. How my brother and I used to scan the platform for him and shout out to him as soon as we had spotted him! The hole in our hearts as we'd make the journey back home from Chennai to Dadar or VT in the monsoon rain, the skies crying along with us as we bid farewell to our loved ones. To this day, I don't quite see the point of living so far away from the people who brought us into this world, gave us our lives, and looked after us until we could grow wings and fly away, only to find ourselves unmoored in a foreign land, pining for the people, the family, we left behind. For what? For a better life? I don't know how this longing qualifies as better or worse than the thirst for freedom we had back then, the urge to get away from our family of birth so we could find our own selves. Both are a form of the desire to be somewhere else other than the here and now. OK! Wasn't I going to write about fear? How did I end up on this walk down memory lane? I'll have to scroll back up and demystify this. Ah! Sleepless nights. Yes. So that's a little victory for me. That I could convert this sleepless night into a writing session. But I was so zoned out after that I didn't get back to the computer for the rest of the day until now. And I'll be headed to bed right after this. I deliberately chose to take this day a little easy. Knowing that I was sleep-deprived, I was prone to be grumpy and snappy – and I was a fair bit initially – but I didn't want that to continue throughout the day. So I decided to not push myself too much. I went for a morning walk. I got about four ripe mulberries today. The plant has given up most of its fruit, barring the ones on branches too high for me to reach. I even managed to play with D for an hour, caught up on sleep while he watched TV, and hung around with D and KrA later in the afternoon, came up to do some painting while they enjoyed water-play outside with the hose, and read to the little one at bedtime. [Tracey West](http://www.traceywest.com/) is *l'auteur du jour*, her Dragon Masters and Pixie Tricks series keeping both D and me enthralled. The one thing that helped me today was a timely post by [Dean Wesley Smith](https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/) who has challenged himself to write four novels in this month of July alone! On the second day of his challenge, he got fewer words than he had hoped, fewer than what he scored on the first day of his challenge, and this is what he had to say about it. > If this challenge was in your first dozen or so novels, or my first dozen or so novels, I would instantly feel panicked by having a tired day and getting behind. > After two hundred novels, I now just shrug. Being behind (as many of you have noticed over the years when I do these out in public like this) is standard for me. > And sometimes I fail, sometimes it works out just fine. > For me it is a shrug. > But being behind a few thousand words is sure no big deal at all. If I’m a little less exhausted tomorrow I could find myself over 15,000 words just as easily. No idea where the novel is going, but feels so far like it might be fun and a fast read. Or it might take me ten days to do this first one and four days to do the next one. Even for someone like me, writing is not an exact science. > So honestly I expected to have a low-hour writing day a few times along the way. So tomorrow I hope to be less tired. We shall see. > \~ Dean Wesley Smith, [Day Two](https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/day-two/) I am so glad that I'm realising while working on my third novel that it's ok to have non-writing days, to have written far less than desired, that I'm still moving forward, slower than I'd like but it's movement nonetheless, and that counts for something. An attempt. An endeavour. Movement. Circling back to sleepless nights and anxieties, [Kristine Kathryn Rusch](https://kriswrites.com/) had a great post on her blog two days about fear-based decision making in writing. And every word of what she said resonated with me. > ... we writers are a fearful bunch. > Maybe it’s because we live in our heads all the time. We make things up for a living, so that habit bleeds into our lives. Most of us keep that part of ourselves under control. We manage to walk out the door every day, without encountering an axe murderer or an alien in search of our leader. We might have an overactive imagination, but we have an outlet for it, one we use on a daily basis. > \~ Kristine Kathryn Rusch, [Business Musings: Fear And All Writers (Fear-Based Decision-Making Part 7)](https://kriswrites.com/2021/06/30/business-musings-fear-and-all-writers-fear-based-decision-making-part-7/) So if it's the same imagination that helps me write stories and that keeps me awake at night, concocting all possible ways in which life could go horribly wrong for me or KrA or D, all I have to do is give it an outlet. Rusch goes on to say the following: > All those things that make you presentable and safe within society should vanish when you walk into your writing office. > The critical voice has no place there. Go into your office and have fun. > Be a toddler, which means focus on the now, which is the writing. > Let all those business concerns, all that marketing, all those publishing rules, go away. They belong to the future. > When you write, you write. > Have the kind of fearless fun that the littlest of children have. > That’s who you are as a writer, underneath the do-nots and should-nots and the what-ifs. > Keep that little person safe in your writing room. Let that little person have fun. > Your writing will improve. Your willingness to write will grow. > Your fears won’t entirely go away, but they will ease. > Fear kills fun. > And writing should be the place where you go to have fun. > \~ Kristine Kathryn Rusch, [Business Musings: Fear And All Writers (Fear-Based Decision-Making Part 7)](https://kriswrites.com/2021/06/30/business-musings-fear-and-all-writers-fear-based-decision-making-part-7/) So the next time I'm jolted out of sleep for whatever reason, I will make it to my writing desk. My fun place. The rest of the day will find a way to accommodate sleepy-eyed me somehow, I'm sure. *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Faye Cornish](https://unsplash.com/@fcornish?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/keep-calm?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: sleepless at 7 URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-sleepless-at-7/ Last updated: 2021-07-03T00:06:06.000Z D has decided today to stay up until the clock turns 00:00\. KrA is lying next to D, and at this rate the grown-up will fall asleep way before the little one does. Every day is a new adventure in this part of the world. And because yesterday was a great day, today was a disaster – writing-wise. Perhaps, I shouldn't be establishing such causal relationships between desirable and undesirable days/events or I'd be self-fulfilling that prophecy. In fact I sometimes think that's what I do. After one good day, a productive day when it comes to writing, I start to feel the tiny nerve-ends of anxiety tickle me, casting an evil eye on the good day gone by, prophesying a downfall for the day that follows. But if I set aside all that tale of doom and gloom aside, I can tell you exactly where I went 'wrong'. I was up a little late last night, I had already noted I was ready to fall asleep when I was working on my free-writing session. And instead of letting my session contain a single word or line or paragraph, I ended up writing on and on. Had an ego to flatter, you see. When I tumbled into bed, bleary-eyed, I wanted to finish reading the book I was hooked on to – Gregg Olsen's [The Hive](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52734671-the-hive). I loved it and I had only about 10% to finish, so why not, even though it was already past nine, I suppose. And then the fireworks started at around 10 p.m. for Canada Day and didn't let up until 11 p.m., so all attempts to fall asleep were in vain. > I was still gritty-eyed after finishing the book and was tempted to begin another, but some wise little part of me that had miraculously survived a lifetime of neglect and abuse and lack of faith and nurture at my hands told me I should just close my eyes and try to sleep. And that's how I fell asleep. Until D woke me up at 5:30 A.M., his usual time these days. And thus began my grumpy morning. Nerves frayed, lack of sleep, even two cups of coffee couldn't fix it. And my thoughts spiralled out of control, and I didn't even begin a writing sprint. I struggled to get some words out but didn't get far. Eventually I gave up, ran errands, did some chores, generally moaned, and wished I were a different person, a better one, one who either didn't have the responsibilities she had or at least didn't have the anxiety that came along with them. It was late afternoon when I realised it was Friday and that I hadn't put up a [Tales for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/), and I promptly sat down to write it, and I think it was one of my best in the past few months. One that I really like. [Take a look](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-story-walk/) at it, if you haven't already. > Which brings us to another fallacy – the postulated role of agony, emotional torture, in the causation of a creative's work of art. > Because truth be told, I'd have written the story without all the drama that preceded it. I don't want to get caught in the drama. I don't mind being angry that it feels like another day has slipped by and I don't have the words to show for it, but it's how I express that anger that worries me. A day of moping, a day of feeling sorry for myself, a day of feeling I should give up writing and start sending my resumes, moping even more about how unemployable I've become, and how all this sadness is preventing me from spending quality time with D, and is this how he'll grow up to be too, a depressed grown-up incapable of handling the vagaries of life. I sometimes think all that stress will kill me before lack of sleep does. At the core of it is a fear that if I don't write books and eke a living out of it, then this whole attempt, all this time spent in making stories, writing books would be one giant waste. An absolute squandering of my time and effort and money, of KrA's consistent support and faith in me, of all the times D has put aside his disappointment when extra playtime with him had to give way to my work. Everything would have been for nothing! What a terrifying thought that is! It's as if I want a guarantee that something good – no, something great – will come out of this endeavour. And if that cannot be guaranteed, then I might as well divert my time and attention and energy to something else that will yield more immediate, more tangible rewards. Like a day job that I could begin tomorrow and get paid for in a fortnight, or a month at most, from then. I wouldn't have to wait years for a reward, if one were to even come. I wouldn't have to slog it out for years, without any guarantee that something would come of it, or only to face the reality that all this time has lapsed and I'm still unemployed, unemployable, in a love-hate relationship with my writing. And if you tell me that the process is the reward – heck, I'm guilty of touting that in my posts numerous times myself – then I'm not ready to hear it now. All I know is that only the present moment exists, and I want my rewards now! NOW! Not a comment (though that would be nice)! Not an FB like (though I wouldn't mind that either)! But moolah! Money in the bank! Actually, Amazon poured some cash into my coffers for the second month in a row for the sales of [Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes) in March–May. No sales in June, the last I checked, so no revenue at the end of July. But hey! Whatever I've received so far was a decent bit – enough to sustain my coffee addiction for this month, I reckon. Definitely, way more than I earned from my [first book](https://books2read.com/In-search-of-leo/). So that was exciting! (for as long as that excitement lasted!) Gah! This long-term game really sucks. Especially on days when I don't get any writing done. On the days when I've written, I feel good, even though I'm only (infinity – 1) days away from my goal, whatever or wherever that may be. Still. A day of writing is far better than a day of not writing. Yet, how difficult it can become to get to the desk and pour the words out. Some days it is easy-peasy, as my ex-boss liked to say. Some days, even a thousand horses are insufficient to drag me out of my stupor or stubbornness. Oh, well! Here's hoping I improve at this with practice. This = the art of patience, the art of trusting myself, trusting existence, the skill of writing, the ability to keep the negative voices in my head from sabotaging my willingness to show up and write. In case you're wondering, D has fallen asleep. \*Did I ever tell you, one of the red-tailed hawks (K2) that we'd been watching at [The Cornell Labs](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/red-tailed-hawks/) had to be euthanised? The people monitoring the cameras had noticed an infection on its beak a couple of weeks ago, and after the oldest hawk (K1) had fledged, they went up to bring K2 down to be looked at by the vets, who eventually deemed that K2 had suffered an infection and structural damage too serious for him to be able to survive in the wild. So they had to [euthanise](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/an-update-on-red-tailed-hawk-chick-k2s-condition/) him. I broke this news to D a few days ago and it took him an entire day to grieve and get over the sadness. Even now, he keeps asking "Do you think K1 and K3 think about K2 sometimes?" K1 and K3 continue to fly near their nest and they keep returning for food. The webcam operators take pics and post them on Twitter. It's heartening to see BR (Big Red, the mumma hawk) look after her fledglings. All the stuff that seem to come so naturally to animals and birds have become so complicated in humans. What does it mean to be a good mother? > The 'idea' of good parenting is so vastly different than the reality of trying to keep calm through all the mess that childhood is, all the anxieties it triggers in us. I was telling KrA today that now I want to hire a nanny. D is five years old but I'm so exhausted by how draining these past five years have been that I want a grown-up companion in the house – someone who will cook, who will play with D, who will be my friend too. Someone who is extremely lucky would most likely get this kind of assistance from immediate family – parents or parents-in-law – but that option is not available to us, so let's not even dwell on that. > As I was telling my cousin today, the 'idea' of having family around is vastly different than the reality of the daily bickering and the ego clashes that go on. And my dear wise cousin reminded me, as he does over and over again, that family is not necessarily the people we are born to and grow up with. Instead, it is someone who can just make daily life better for the three of us. Anyway, circling back to what stops me from writing on some days, most often it has to do with lack of sleep and waking up with the assumption that a sleepless night foretells an unproductive day. (1) I can reframe that thought. Instead of writing the day off, I can decide to take an approach of flow and see where the day leads me to, instead of lambasting it and myself before it has even begun. (2) I can turn up at the writing desk and attempt to write. If there is much resistance to it, I can acknowledge it as resistance, try to overcome it or switch off the computer and go off to do something else – play with D, cross-stitch, colouring, cleaning up – without viewing these tasks as chores of obligations or inconveniences or waste of time, and instead looking at them as self-care. Playing to loosen the tension in me. Cross-stitch or colouring to relax. Cleaning up to make my home more organised and beautiful. > The words will be there when I get back to them, more calm and more relaxed, and not demanding that life and all the people in it ought to bend the way I want them to, when I want them to. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to come back here and re-read this post when the next spell of 'bad mood' overpowers me, but I hope that in the act of typing these words down, some of this message has seeped into my subconscious and will resurface at the appropriate time when I need to remember it and act upon it. So, that's it from me today, folks! I'll be off now to look for a pic to post here. *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Mike Enerio](https://unsplash.com/@mikeenerio?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/fireworks?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* (\*I was also telling KrA today that I could take up a job as someone who watches those birdcams all day long and posts updates on Twitter. That would be an entire day spent in Zen! Cornell Labs, Universe, anyone, are you listening? What about writing then? Gah! There we go again!) ### tales for dreamers: story-walk URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-story-walk/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:01:32.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/14.-story-walk.jpeg) tales for dreamers: story-walk They will tell you to begin with the first board. But sometimes the boards change their minds after they’ve been planted and choose to rearrange themselves the way they think the story should unfold. Finding the first board then becomes the first hurdle. (Sometimes the boards shuffle themselves in the midst of your search, so try to keep them all in sight if you can. Don't ask me how. That's for you to decipher.) Or you could choose to follow the story the way it wants to present itself to you. Starting from the middle, zigzagging through chapters that should have been at the beginning or towards the end, until it’s all a fine jumble in your head and you can’t wait to see what will come next. (Now that is the hallmark of a really good tale.) Whichever way you choose to proceed, the story-walk will land you smack dab in the heart of the storm. There is no escaping that. If that scares you, don’t be fooled into thinking you could simply turn back the way you came or find another route, a safer one, to your destination. Sure, you wouldn’t have to put yourself through the labour of finding your story then. But there will always be other storms lying in wait. ### free-writing: many thoughts, few words URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-many-thoughts-few-words/ Last updated: 2021-07-02T01:06:16.000Z A very short post today because I'm pretty sure I'd otherwise fall asleep right here, right now. I also don't mind keeping this short because I managed to do a few fiction writing sprints earlier in the day, along with playtime with D, running errands, doing chores around the home – I feel like superwoman! Having said that, I have the timer running for this sprint. 15 minutes of which only a minute and a half have passed, and there are so many things I want to talk about that I might as well continue typing. Today is Canada Day! On my morning walk, I saw that a lot of homeowners had decorated their lawns and rooftops with the Canadian flag. It all looked very pretty and I think I'm very lucky to be living in this nation in this current time. I especially feel lucky to be living in Burlington, this beachside city which is growing more and more diverse every day with the pandemic having pushed home-buyers out of Toronto and Oakville into Burlington, Hamilton, Brantford and such other areas. It's amazing how much the city has changed in the past year and a half even though we were mostly inside our homes. The thriving real estate sector has changed the face of this city drastically, and I love that several families with young children have moved here, looking for larger homes for their children. Writing-wise, I worked in timed sprints today and got a fair bit done. I also realised one thing: working over two 15-minute sprints does not yield the same output as working over a single 30-minute sprint. Perhaps it's because the small duration makes me focus more intensely, and it's probably a matter of practice before I can increase the duration of intense, focussed effort. But ... let me not get ahead of myself. If 15-minute sprints are working for me currently, I'm happy to keep doing those, and keep taking 5-minute breaks to stretch or fetch myself more coffee. Why rock the boat?! Another 4 minutes to go on the timer, but my mind is already half-asleep. I'm not even faithfully free-writing, having written and deleted stuff, thinking I wanted to make a more cohesive post of all the points I had in mind. Also, I'll admit, I'm totally hooked to the work of fiction I started reading yesterday. As I mentioned, I'm steering clear of non-fiction stuff, all the how-tos with respect to book writing, marketing, promoting, and all that. My focus for the rest of the year is only on writing, not thinking or reading or talking about writing. And so I count reading fiction as an aide. The more good fiction I read, the more I can study the work and improve my own practice. Although I'll admit I don't know how the hell to do that. Because I read for pleasure, and I write for pleasure. And the rest of the time I pray fervently that my work will find its audience in this wide, wide world, the readers who will love my books and tell their friends and their lovers about it and, in fact, buy them copies! Surely that isn't asking for too much! Even if it is, that's what I want. *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Nong Vang](https://unsplash.com/@californong?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/maple-leaf?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* (I should have gone back and changed the title, considering that I wrote for the entire 15 minutes, but I'm not going to bother.) ### free-writing: knackered, and half a year gone by URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-knackered-and-half-a-year-gone-by/ Last updated: 2021-06-30T21:30:23.000Z It's almost 5 P.M. and I've only just switched on the computer for the day. Been completely knackered since morning, a result of [yesterday's shot](https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-just-another-brick-in-the-wall/). Entirely expected. What I didn't expect was how much I'd sleep as a result. I was awake only at mealtimes, and fast asleep at others. Like a newborn. But I couldn't let this day go by without marking it in some way. The last day of June. The end of the first half of 2021. Wow! Time has been flying on one of D's supersonic jets with a gazillion engines. I don't know if it's the marking of days in terms of months and weeks and holidays and weekends and hours and minutes that seems to make them sprint towards some unknown destination. But here we are. Six months down. Six months to go. I have a lot of writing plans for the rest of the year. But more importantly, I've come to a decision on the reading front. Up until last year, I was reading a lot. I was reading to find answers in the experiences and words of others. Sometime this year, it occurred to me that the 'advice' doled out by other people is what may have worked for them at one point in their life and not necessarily what is best for me. So how do I go about figuring what is best for me? By observing myself first – my habits, patterns, rituals, especially my attitude towards writing, parenting – and then coming up with ways to address behaviours that don't help me in my journey. For the rest of the year, I've decided to not read any more new non-fiction. The main reason being I want to use much of my time writing, and writing more words in a day than I've been able to before. I don't even want to read [books on writing](https://medium.com/writer-with-a-capital-w/how-to-fight-analysis-paralysis-in-novel-writing-31dc7e509733). Many writers try to break down the art and craft of writing into some sort of a formula – a particular combination of the types of scenes and twists required – to make the story interesting. But, I think, it's not as easy or as formulaic as that. When I sit down to write, the story comes of its own accord. The twist in the tale. The sudden new revelation I may not have planned for before. Moreover, even when I read books on writing, I'm at a loss when it actually comes to applying them to my work. Which then negates the entire purpose of reading books on writing. The only thing I want to do is write more. And stop doing other things, pretending they'll me write better, when in fact they are only excuses to keep me from hunkering down and writing. It's as simple as that. Even though, everyday I come up with excuses for doing other stuff, anything other than writing – I'm too tired, I played too much with D and now my head hurts, I don't have an idea, I'm bored of this story taking so long, I need to cook. And do you know what's the biggest time-waster for me? All these imaginary conversations I have in my head with people – actually two close family members (close only in terms of the relationship labels) – who have hurt me in the past, and I feel so vulnerable simply thinking about them. And now that the world is opening up, I've already started to feel anxious that come next summer, they'd be demanding to come over for a visit, which would be great for D but a nightmare for me. This is a never-ending problem for me. For years, I've had these imaginary conversations, trying to come up with rebuttals and retorts to make sure that I always have the upper hand in a conversation with them, whenever it happens next in real time, and not be subdued into silence, tears shed into the pillow at night, or angry outbursts, because I couldn't stand up and say "No, thank you. This hurts," at that point in time. It's very sad to be consumed by something like this – an imaginary conundrum – completely distorted by biased memories and fear of the future. And of course, that darned low, low, low self-worth. Which makes me beg for validation, approval from the people who'll never give it to me, who aren't qualified to give it to me in the first place because they are not me. Well, now that I know this is one behaviour I have to pay attention to, I'm all eyes and ears. Giving myself all the love and compassion I need. It's OK. It's OK. In fact, this was one of the reasons I had wanted to write and publish books in the recent past. I wanted to 'prove' to these two family members that I hadn't made a mistake by choosing to be a stay-at-home mom. I wanted to 'prove' to myself that these years of staying home with D were not a waste. That something meaningful came out of it. No wonder writing had become such a source of dread for me. I had tied up so much of my insecurities and fear and ego into it, no wonder my muse was terrified and looking to run away to find other creatives who'd honour her and nurture their art, not to prove something to the world or even to themselves, but simply for their own enjoyment, for the pleasure of creating something that never existed before. Something uniquely theirs. So here's me, committing to write the next six months, while trying not to allow self-doubt and fear and anxiety to push me away from my path for too long, vowing to always come back to what matters – honouring myself, KrA, and our child for who we are, where we are in life, without wishing we were somewhere else, doing something else, being someone else. I thought I'd just write a word about feeling tired and call it a day, but the words poured out. And if I can do this with my daily blog, I'm sure I can do this with my fiction too. *À demain!* ### free-writing: just another brick in the wall URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-just-another-brick-in-the-wall/ Last updated: 2021-06-30T21:19:00.000Z I got my second shot. And no, it wasn't AstraZeneca this time. I opted for an mRNA vaccine. Given that everything is a crapshoot anyway, I decided to go with the expert recommendation currently prevalent in the country and chose a different shot to be injected into me. I don't know what I feel about it. Sitting at the pharmacy, watching people coming in as I was waiting for my 15 minute of waiting time to get over, jab after jab after jab being given, this great human experiment of our times unfolding before my own eyes, me too a part of it all, I suppose I have finally come to terms with my true place in this world. [Just another brick in the wall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U). Last week, KrA had gone in for his second shot and he told me the site was set up as rows of cubicles with people waiting for and getting their shots. So that's what we all are. Or at least that's what *I* think *I* am. A statistic. A number. A tiny proportion of whatever percentage of Ontario or Canada has been fully vaccinated. I up my individual contribution level to the vaccination efforts given that I've opted for a mix-and-match scheme that has been deemed safe in early studies but whose long-term repercussions remain unknown. Will we grow a third eye? Or a tail? Who knows?! On one hand, it's amazing how quickly vaccines have been produced in response to the pandemic. On the other hand, it's terrifying how little is known and how we have to take decisions based on information that keeps changing all the time. But, I reckon, that's what life is. It's changing all the time. Even as we get lost in the day-to-day, that rug can always be pulled from under our feet. There is no such thing as security. There is no such thing as guarantee. All that we can truly attest to is what's here right now. > It is a strangely liberating realisation. To realise that as sacred as this life is, we need not attach illusions of importance to anything we do or achieve. I'm not condoning reckless behaviour that puts ourselves or someone else in harm's way, deliberately or not. > But the very realisation that every word we utter need not be poetry, every deed we undertake need not be infused with passion or meaning, every song we utter need not even be in tune is utterly freeing. So as I sit here, contemplating the utter irrelevance of the individual to this world at large, I am strangely reminded of a poem by Rebecca Elson titled '[Antidotes to Fear of Death](https://www.brainpickings.org/2020/04/10/antidotes-to-fear-of-death-rebecca-elson/)'. A dear friend had forwarded this piece to me ages ago and I loved it so much I wrote it down on a piece of paper and put it up on the wall in front of my writing desk. > [Antidotes to Fear of Death](https://www.brainpickings.org/2020/04/10/antidotes-to-fear-of-death-rebecca-elson/) > **by Rebecca Elson* > Sometimes as an antidote > To fear of death, > I eat the stars. > Those nights, lying on my back, > I suck them from the quenching dark > Til they are all, all inside me, > Pepper hot and sharp. > Sometimes, instead, I stir myself > Into a universe still young, > Still warm as blood: > No outer space, just space, > The light of all the not yet stars > Drifting like a bright mist, > And all of us, and everything > Already there > But unconstrained by form. > And sometime it’s enough > To lie down here on earth > Beside our long ancestral bones: > To walk across the cobble fields > Of our discarded skulls, > Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis, > Thinking: whatever left these husks > Flew off on bright wings. *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [note thanun](https://unsplash.com/@notethanun?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/bangkok?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: jaded URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-jaded/ Last updated: 2021-06-29T02:17:53.000Z It's past 9 P.M. and not a single soul is asleep at home. Thanks to an afternoon nap, D is wide awake, and we went down for a 'late-night' snack just now as his little tummy was growling. He was so excited about it. "This is so awesome," he said, grinning widely, as he and I walked down the stairs, hand in hand, for a glass of milk and a plate of biscuits. I yearn for that child's wholehearted enjoyment of the moment, whatever it brings. Because when I first came to write this post at about 4 P.M. (a few minutes before D woke up from his nap and I aborted the earlier beginning of my free-writing session of the day), I had only one word in mind to share here. And that was 'jaded'. Jaded was how I felt about everything for most of the day today – writing, parenting, going for a walk, picking mulberries, staying at home, going out. This morning, I went to the beach for a change of scenery, but I remember standing there, looking at the sun in the sky, the waves crashing on the shore, and thinking, "Even coming to the beach does not assuage me anymore." Go for a walk in nature is such an oft-repeated piece of advice doled out to people who are feeling low or down in the dumps. But nature is also something 'external' to us. If the 'big house with the big backyard' or the 'job title' or the 'flawless skin' are external things to turn to for validation, for comfort, so too are the trees and the squirrels and the blue sky and the white clouds. I was so jaded I was thinking of making this my last free-writing session. What do I write about here? It feels like everyday I boast or rant about the same things – having written a lot or not having written enough, having been present or having slipped away from presence altogether into a past and future all of my own making, having enjoyed time spent with D or having been too listless and despondent to even find joy in playing with him, having managed to remain calm or having lost it completely. (By now you can tell I haven't managed to write a single word in my manuscript today, which is almost always where my world starts to feel like it's headed towards unavoidable doom.) But ... – and I think this is why we build conspiracy theories involving the Universe – my earlier attempt at writing this post was thwarted, and in the interim, I had the opportunity to reconnect with D, to eat chocolate (that must have been the salve), to read a story to him, to have a new experience with him by way of a late-night snack, to have a chat with him in bed about all sorts of random things ... and life feels bearable once more. It feels like something I can manage alright. It feels like something I've not screwed up completely ... not yet, at least. I can go to bed tonight, not dreading having to wake up tomorrow, not exactly expecting to jumping out of bed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but knowing that I can will myself to get up, to play, to write, to cook, to eat, and find some joy in the doing of all that, and some joy in the doing of nothing at all. I had been so jaded for a while that I have not managed to read books. These past few days, I've started and abandoned more than 10 books or so at the 20% mark or thereabouts on my Kindle. A range of fiction and non-fiction works. All the words had started to blur into meaninglessness. I don't watch TV. Occasionally (by which I mean once in 3–4 months), I'd look up the latest on Netflix and more often than not find nothing of interest. This time I found [Elite](https://www.netflix.com/title/80200942) and watched Season 1, then abandoned Season 2 about 20 minutes into the first episode. I no longer watch shows or movies in English. Sometimes I find it impossible to keep thinking in that language, even though that's become my primary language now after decades of using it both at home and in the workplace. I don't think in Tamil anymore, if ever I did in the first place. And I think that over-familiarity with the language sometimes makes it difficult for me to write in it, robs the magic from it, even though I'm sure I don't even know half the words that make up the English dictionary. (Now that's something I haven't considered before. The over-familiarity.) For as long as I lived in India, Tamil and Hindi were the languages I had become so used to hearing that reading or writing, especially fiction, in English seemed to have its own novelty. A newness, not eroded by constant use in each and every context. Each word presented its own melody. Each sentence had a lilt to it. But now, on several occasions I had preferred silence, perhaps not realising that it was not so much silence that I yearned for but for some distance from the English language. Several years ago, when I lived in Singapore, I was learning French. I remember switching to thinking in French to gain familiarity with the language. Perhaps, I could resume learning French to rekindle my interest in both French and English! Well, well, well! Just as I was thinking of abandoning my free-writing efforts, I come up with an epiphany that most likely revealed itself to me in the course of my writing these thoughts down, writing these words down, for myself. So let's see if I come back here tomorrow. Better still, I hope I can make some headway at least on that manuscript. I keep thinking I should abandon this constant yearning for a daily practice. But I think, instead of taking an all-or-nothing approach, I'd like to be OK with having non-writing days and not worry that a day or two of not writing will snowball into weeks of not writing and that I'll end up never having written another book ever again! For some reason, I've adopted the attitude that because I'm looking to make a full-time living from my writing (and also because I'm not working elsewhere or earning anything else right now), I must devote every waking hour to this and ramp it up very, very fast. The more books out there, the better the sales. It's as if I wanted to reach that milestone as of yesterday, instead of the years it's going to take. I find it difficult to even take a two-year view of the whole thing! [Kendra Adachi](https://www.thelazygeniuscollective.com/) touches on this very fallacy of the 'Go big or Go home' approach in her book, [The Lazy Genius Way](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48931078-the-lazy-genius-way), and argues that it's actually the small steps that help us in the long run. > We can't do it all, so we don't do anything. Stuck. > You probably think small steps are a waste of time, and for a while, I was right there with you. I believed small steps don't show big results quickly enough. I saw them as pointless and frustrating and thought, 'Shouldn't I be disciplined enough to do more than this one tiny thing?' > Movement, not necessarily a finish line, is the new goal. > One image that helped me view it differently comes from social reformer Jacob Riss: "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it – but all that had gone before." > We don't give enough credit to all that goes before, but that's precisely why small steps matter: they're doing invisible work, and we can trust that process. > You've probably had someone from an older generation tell you "There's no substitute for hard work" or "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well." True enough. But we assume, then, if we're not sweating because of it, we're not benefiting from it. That goes for exercise, doing laundry, and combating loneliness. If we're not working excessively hard to make something happen, we might as well give up until we can put forth the effort required. > That might be how a genius approaches goals and growth, but a Lazy Genius starts small. > Small steps are easy. > Easy steps are sustainable. > Sustainable steps keep moving. > Movement, not necessarily a finish line, is the new goal. > \~ An excerpt from [The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48931078-the-lazy-genius-way) by [Kendra Adachi](https://www.thelazygeniuscollective.com/) It's way past 10, and I'd like to get into bed with a book. I actually found one a while ago and the first few pages were very engrossing, so looks like this present reading slump might be tapering off for now. That's it from me today. *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [wilsan u](https://unsplash.com/@wilsanphotography?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/gautama-buddha?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: insanity in the heat URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-insanity-in-the-heat/ Last updated: 2021-06-27T23:23:59.000Z It was awfully hot today. Give me the cold anytime, but the heat has become unbearable. Surprisingly, I did manage to get in my words today after a walk after a fun morning session of drawing funny pictures with D. We were inspired by a book called [The Pencil](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3533696-the-pencil) written by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Bruce Ingman. It's about a pencil who draws things and names them and the things it draws take on lives of their own and ask the pencil to draw more things into existence for them. Until, along comes an eraser and mayhem ensues. So we had our own drawing session, lending hands to a toaster, wings to a coffee cup and so on. Running errands, moaning about the heat, cleaning up, D and KrA enjoying water play outdoors, and such other stuff made up the rest of the day. I suppose it has been a little more than ten days since I started these free-writing sessions, and boy! Has it busted my long-held belief that I can't sit down to write in the evenings after D has gone to bed? Look at me now, spouting word after word after word in a timed exercise. > Which brings me to the question – how do we know when we are simply making excuses, when fear is holding us back, versus when we've actually reached our limit? I don't know the answer but maybe it could help to look for cues in different places. Excuses usually spring from the mind, sometimes from my belly and throat because that's where I typically feel a tightness when I'm anxious, afraid, unwilling to do something like getting up and writing because I'm petrified of how awful it might turn out to be. The cues for exhaustion, I'd reckon, would typically spring from the body. When we're unable to keep our eyes open, when our body feels sore and in need of a stretch or a walk or a run, that's probably when it is time to pause our work and call it a day. For the longest time, I've read about authors who hold day jobs, come back home for a family dinner and to tuck their little ones into bed, and start writing at eight in the evening or so until well past midnight, and do the same day after day after day after day. I've looked at those authors and wondered why I wasn't able to replicate their habits, their daily routines, myself. Actually, I told myself I couldn't replicate their habits because of the various 'constraints' I have in my life – looking after a child with zilch help from family tops this list. For years, I've been saying that to myself. For years, I've seen other creatives plough on despite having similar or even more constraints .(No wonder every time I see someone with two or more kids, I start to feel inferior. Because all the excuses i had made revolved around parenting even though I only have the one precious D!) Time and again, I've only come back to one answer – because whatever I was doing, I wasn't completely present. When I'd play with D, I'd keep thinking about all the writing that I wanted to do. When I sat down to write, I felt guilty about all the time I was missing out on playing with D. When I had fifteen minutes to write, I kept thinking of how I needed an uninterrupted two or three hours at least to write. When I had an uninterrupted two or three hours to write, courtesy of KrA taking D out for playtime, I'd think of why the words were not coming fast enough. Truth is, I am the only one who keeps getting in my way over and over again. I think I said this yesterday too but honestly, when I'm present no matter what I do, life truly expands to accommodate everything I want to do. Fifteen minutes are now more than enough to churn out several hundred words when I'm completely in the flow and not thinking of anything else in that time frame. Timed writing sprints are a great technique to boost writing speed and focus. I read somewhere yesterday that writer's block is typically an issue of having too much time on our hands, an issue of work expanding to fill the time available. Because after sitting on an essay until the last day, don't we somehow magically turn in a paper right before deadline? There is a contemporary author I look up to. [Steve Higgs.](https://stevehiggsbooks.com/) He writes in a variety of genres – urban fantasy, paranormal fiction, mystery – and I love his books. In an [interview](https://selfpublishingformula.com/episode-242/), he once said he doesn't watch TV, doesn't read books, he hasn't taken any course in writing. He just sat down, started to write a novel. His first novel took him five years. The second one took him five months. And now he churns out practically a novel a month or even more frequently. All he does is write, and look after his family. Initially I made a lot of excuses as to why I couldn't be like that. I had D to look after, food to cook, it's too noisy in the home with D, it's too hot outside, I need outdoor time, D needs outdoor time, I barely get to talk to KrA ... Wow! The list is practically endless! > And every single thing in that list is an excuse that sits in my mind. It's only a half-truth. True, I have D to look after but I only play with him for an hour or two during the day. The rest of the time he's with KrA or we're generally doing stuff around the house together. Food to cook – I only cook lunch. KrA handles breakfast and dinner. I can take each excuse written up there and tear it apart. Even as I write this, I'm realising that I could very well head over to my manuscript right after finishing this post. Even a short 15-minute writing sprint could help me add more words to my daily total. It's only 7:20 P.M. So off I go! *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Sixteen Miles Out](https://unsplash.com/@sixteenmilesout?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/hot-day?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: happiness in the future URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-happiness-in-the-future/ Last updated: 2021-06-27T00:30:24.000Z Today was grand. The first thing I did after waking up (being woken up by D) in the morning at six was heading down to play with him. We spent a good two hours playing, following which KrA headed down and whipped up some yummy breakfast. Normally, I'd have written off the day as a non-writing day by this point. After all, I had played with my child for two hours non-stop, I hadn't even gone for a morning walk because it was raining by then – not a good start to the day, the routine has already gone off-kilter – so surely I could cut myself some slack if my brain refused to cooperate. Funnily though, I turned up at the writing computer and managed to write way more than I had written these past three days in just two writing sprints. If I had to go back and analyse where the magic had sprung from, I suppose I could only say that the entire time I was with D, I was present. Not thinking about all the writing I needed to get a head-start on. Nor about the fact that I'd miss going on a morning walk because it was pouring buckets out there. Not thinking that I ought to go for a walk even if it was pouring – didn't I have a daily streak to maintain? Not thinking that I'd miss picking fresh mulberries today. Not getting annoyed that KrA was oversleeping and we're beginning to starve here. By 'not thinking' I mean that the thoughts did arise but I was able to swat them away with more than my usual alacrity. It always, always comes back to this. > When we are present no matter what we do, life expands to make space for everything that matters to us. After D had fallen asleep, I came across a book titled [The Lazy Genius Way](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48931078-the-lazy-genius-way) by [Kendra Adachi](https://www.thelazygeniuscollective.com/) and was reading the first few pages of it. When I was growing up, the narrative was all about having a linear life – study hard, work hard, have a family, pass on the same values to our children. Non-fiction books presented an ideal way of life or work, the definition of 'ideal' resting with the author popular at the time, and ways to achieve that ideal way of living that would guarantee prosperity and a good life. Now the narrative has shifted to the 'You do you' mentality. The ideal way of life is the one that works for you. I'm beginning to see this in everything from parenting to cooking to running a business – even among author-entrepreneurs, the leading narrative is to quit trying to copy a 'formula' that may have worked for many others, quite trying stuff that does not work for us, and quit thinking that something must be wrong with us because we can't seem to get that darned formula to work for us the way others have managed to for themselves. The narrative has now become 'Throw all prescriptive formulae out of the window.' 'Find what works for you and do that.' So looks like we've come a full circle. > Know yourself. Do what works for you. The rest of the world be damned. On that note, there was a conversation today that made us realise that now that the world is opening up, so have piano lessons and tennis lessons and skateboarding lessons and vacations and language classes and swimming lessons and the whole gamut of activities that the world tells us we 'should' be signing up our children for. I'm glad to announce that KrA and I are on the same page as far as this madness is concerned. We've decided that we only need to stay sane, choose what matters to us, what brings us joy, what makes our heart sing, what makes us want to sing and dance and laugh and love and live, and focus on those alone. It doesn't take a lot to build a wonderful life. It doesn't take anything at all. It takes a deep commitment to being true to ourselves, to keep coming back home no matter how often or how far we stray from what we truly desire, what we really enjoy. Even as I wax eloquent about the beauty of a simple life, D has been making this manic shift from outgrowing his toys in a day or two and desiring for new ones. He received a lot of gifts for his birthday – one from us, a few sent by cousins, and a bunch of other stuff a family friend got for him the other day. Not unexpectedly, he has grown bored of all the packages he has opened in the past ten days and is already looking forward to the next time he can buy something new. His suggestion? 'How about we get something in September to celebrate the start of SK?' And at bedtime he was asking me about when he was scheduled to go to school for camp (it's two Mondays out) and he concluded that he'd receive a new toy the Sunday before! Why? To celebrate his return to school for camp! (Absolute Facepalm moment!) My first reaction to this was one of concern. D has been a fairly content child so far, and I wonder if it has to do with all the Zoom classes in which he'd take something to show his teachers/friends on video. All that talk about things – what the kids have, what the kids do – that very trendy way of talking about the things we have or we do, the things that we can show off to others, surely must have impacted him in some way, made him more worldly, more materialistic! My second reaction was to turn this inward. Have I been role-modelling a yearning for future happiness in some way? Surely I've grappled with sadness in his presence many, many times but I don't think I've ever thought or said that I'd be happy only if I had this thing or that. Eventually, I decided that no matter where this behaviour has sprung from, right now I have the choice to address it more creatively – toy rotation, coming up with new ideas for what we'd like to do with the stuff that we have. Maybe writing down the different options could help. Having a visual might help. I'm done blaming myself for the behavioural changes I observe in my child. Sure, as a parent I can role-model a lot of things, but I also have to acknowledge that the world out there values very different things than KrA and I do, and D is naturally bound to be influenced by all the shiny, sparkly things he sees outside. All I can do is help him navigate these – without losing my calm and without giving in to self-flagellation – and trust that as he grows older, he'll find his way out of the messes of his own making. The beginning chapter of [Adachi's book](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48931078-the-lazy-genius-way) was so timely in addressing this dilemma that I wanted to share it here. She talks about a time at the beach with her family when her husband dug a large hole in the sand and got their three kids to fill buckets of water to pour into the hole and fill it as quickly as they could. They played the game for a while, running from the ocean to the hole, hauling and pouring, hauling and pouring, in vain, and eventually moved on to play something else. > As they ran off to chase the birds, I saw the discarded buckets surrounding the empty hole and realized I was looking at a metaphor of my life. Maybe it's one for yours too. > Here's what we do as women. We pick our spot in the sand to dig a hole, checking to see if the women around us are choosing similar (or, gulp, better) spots, trying not to be distracted by their motherly patience and bikini bodies. We start digging, hoping the hole is deep enough and headed in the right direction. Where is it going? No idea, but who cares. Everyone else is digging, so we dig too. > Eventually, it's time to start hauling buckets to fill the hole. We carry load after load of "water" – color-coded calendars, room-mom responsibilities, meal plans, and work-life balance. We haul. We try. We sweat. And we watch that hole stay empty. > Now we're confused. > Does everyone else have this figured out? Is my hole too deep? And where is all the water going? > We pause to catch our breath, wondering if everyone else feels like an epic failure too. One person can't possibly keep up with a clean house, a fulfilling job, a well-adjusted family, an active social life, and a running regimen of fifteen miles a week, right? > With silence our only answer, we decide: No, it's just me. I need to get it together. > What follows is a flurry of habit trackers, calendar overhauls, and internet rabbit holes to figure out how to be better, until we pass out from emotional exhaustion or actual adrenal fatigue or we give up completely and head back to the beach house for a shame-filled margarita. > Cheers? > \~ An excerpt from [The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48931078-the-lazy-genius-way) by [Kendra Adachi](https://www.thelazygeniuscollective.com/) That's it from me for today! *À demain, tout le monde!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Brad Switzer](https://unsplash.com/@mintchap?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/joy?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: kite-flying URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-kite-flying/ Last updated: 2021-06-26T14:39:42.000Z Instead of looking at non-writing days as non-productive days, I'm going to rename them as 'family days' or 'rest days'. Because those are pretty much the two reasons I struggle to get to the writing computer. I suppose I should also have Internet-days then because I did turn up at my writing desk in the morning, groggy and ready to fall asleep, with D having woken up at 4 A.M., and despite all decisions made to the contrary, I checked my email and found an update from [The Creative Penn](https://www.thecreativepenn.com/). Joanna Penn had [interviewed](https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2021/06/25/writing-fiction-with-ai-sudowrite-with-amit-gupta/) a writer and entrepreneur, Amit Gupta, and they talked about [Sudowrite](https://www.sudowrite.com/) (created by Gupta), which is a software that generates characters, plot twists, etc. for you. Gupta states these are to be used as elements to add to your story/work in progress. I was quite excited to see that. I was wary of artificial intelligence at first, but Penn has a very optimistic take on it. She doesn't see AI as replacing writers but sees it as a tool that authors can use to work differently. I'm slowly beginning to see things from her point of view, and I became quite excited about trying out Sudowrite. When I went to sign up for it, I was asked to enter a few details including a website or some other place where my writing samples are displayed. Uh oh! My site was still a mess, and I had been sitting on bringing back the old posts that had disappeared but which KrA had managed to retrieve. So I put off signing up for sudowrite for the moment and headed over to [Amit Gupta's website](http://amitgupta.com/), which is minimalist. It only has a few links – one to a story of his that's up on [Escape Pod](https://escapepod.org/2020/03/12/escape-pod-723-how-did-it-feel-to-be-eaten/), and another points to a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AP1hoNJkMk). I first read his story and it was amazing! Then I went over to the YouTube video – he was making a presentation – and turns out he had been diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 32, and he talked about his experience with chemotherapy and stem cell transplant. Gupta's health struggles were never mentioned in the Penn interview, and I think I love Joanna Penn a little more for that. So anyway, after spending about 20 minutes loitering about on the Internet thus, I just went back downstairs to the kitchen where D was playing. We all then went out grocery shopping, came back, and KrA took D out to play. I turned up at the park a half-hour later, having given up on being able to sit down and crunch out words – I just wanted to be with them. It's usually KrA and me taking turns to be with D, so except for mealtimes or when we go out, we three rarely get together. So I turned up to surprise D, but I was the one who ended up being surprised. They were flying a kite! I suddenly wonder why I'm writing all this. Are these free-writing sessions to be mere reflections on the day gone by? Perhaps. Because that is what I seem to be writing here. But there's one thing I've come to notice. I love posting here every evening. It's practically the last thing I do before dropping into bed. Like a mental purging of everything that has transpired during the day. I expect nothing out of this exercise. Perhaps that is what makes it so enjoyable. Time and again, long-term authors and creatives keep pointing to the merit of approaching our work not as work but as play, the way a child would. In a long-ago post, [DWS quoted Jeff Tweedy](https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/making-writing-important/) (after a reader shared the quote in a comment) as saying that little children don't pause to wonder how their drawing has turned out. They make one, leave it behind, and move on to the next without pausing for any critical self-analysis of their work. > "Kids are creation machines, man. They just barrel forward. And that’s really the ideal state for anybody making something. Figure out what it is later. Just make it; keep pedalling forward. Kids don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on which drawings are on the refrigerator. They’re busy colouring the next one. I really think they pretty much have it all figured out.” \~ Jeff Tweedy Such creatives keep urging others to do all they can to drop that critical voice and take this playful attitude towards our art. Honestly, some days I can, and those are the days when I'm able to get the words down. On other days, the critical voice takes over, getting to the manuscript becomes a chore, all the resolutions to not loiter on the Internet until 4 P.M. go out the window, and I'm back to the state of mind I've been trying hard to get out of. Resistance. Lack of faith in my own art. So here's me looking forward to a day of writing and family time tomorrow. A day of devoting time and attention and effort to the two things that matter to me. *À demain!* ### tales for dreamers: playtime URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-playtime/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:01:44.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/13.-playtime.jpeg) tales for dreamers: playtime You only need a few items for playtime. Mostly stuff you’d find lying discarded around your home. In all the unexpected places, though. Look inside the last sack of rice in your pantry, look under the bookshelf where you’re sure nobody ever goes but they do, look not under the bed but just under the pillow, look inside the laundry basket, preferably before you dump your weeks-old load into the machine, and, of course, look inside the freezer section of your refrigerator where the giant tub of ice-cream should have sat undisturbed throughout winter but was replaced long ago with something far too innocuous to annoy you. And maybe, just maybe, if you’re lucky enough, you’ll find an oversized dog, an undersized dinosaur, a medium-sized bulldozer, and an abundant length of glitzy green string. The dinosaur breathes out fire (Wait, shouldn’t it be a dragon then? No, thank you.) and the dog spurts water to douse the flames. The bulldozer runs on fire, every dino-breath energising it to rev up its engine, a very noisy affair that makes the dino want to cover its ears and fly away. Sometimes the dino dumps the ball of string on the dog or the bulldozer to entangle them, but they always manage to escape on the strength of their own might or the other’s aid. Enraged, the dino stomps across the town, snorting and blowing fire everywhere. But oh, the white sheet is a land of snow and on days when it is cold enough, the dino’s fire-breath is snuffed out even before it can leave its mouth. I don’t think the dino is having much fun. There’s simply no way for it to win. (But it still wants to play.) ### free-writing: flowers and muffins URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-flowers-and-muffins/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:29:39.000Z This is one of those days when I get to say, "Wow! Where did the day go?" KrA was still unwell. I ditched my morning walk so that D and I could ride our bikes a long, long way away to the nearest Fortinos. And boy! I can't recall the last time I was the sole grown-up in our family to go grocery shopping! D knows better than I do how to find stuff in the aisles. The child wanted to buy flowers to cheer up dad and chose a small pot of a red kalanchoe succulent. I threw in a box of banana chocolate chip muffins for good measure. The rest of the day passed in playing and cooking and eating. All ingredients for a good life. I didn't get to my computer until now, about ten minutes to seven, already having dozed off for more than a half-hour with the little one at bedtime. No writing got done today. Tomorrow is another day, another opportunity to add words to the manuscript. The world around us is set to open up even more next week. Ontario moves into its next phase of opening, and as the world expands, I keep thinking of this pandemic and what a hell of a ride it has been. Still is, in many parts, including our own. We're not out of the woods yet. No place is. None of us are emerging unscathed from this experience, but if there is one thing I wish to take away from this experience, it is the art of self-love. I still remember the time I read Dani Watson's book '[Self Love and Spiritual Alchemy: Transform your mindset, strengthen your self-worth, and manifest the life you desire](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52007347-self-love-and-spiritual-alchemy)'. Something clicked when I read this book, and it sent me on an entirely new path of discovery of self-love, self worth, inner worth. I have some of her words written on a paper and taped to the wall in front of me. > True Self Love is not so much about what you do, but how you think and feel about yourself and the world around you. \~ Dani Watson > True Self Love is about recognising where you are holding onto thoughts and beliefs that do not serve you and doing the inner work to change them. \~ Dani Watson I hope I always remember this even as the world outside continues to morph and shape-shift around me. And before I forget, a dear friend of mine, M, said to me today that has been reading [Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes) and has been enjoying it thoroughly and that she's been proudly telling everyone who'll listen that the author is her friend. Thank you, M. You really made my day! That's it for today. I'm ready to fall asleep again, thanks to the several hours spent in the sun today. *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Jordan Stewart](https://unsplash.com/@jordan%5Fstewart?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/sun?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: a slow day, a day to savour the present URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-a-slow-day-a-day-to-savour-the-present/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:29:45.000Z We woke up later than usual and thereafter, everything this morning took twice the usual amount of time. I spent almost all morning looking forward to an afternoon nap, from which I woke up to find KrA down and under following his second shot yesterday. So D and I went out for outdoor play. We had covered not even half our usual distance when he wanted to break for a snack, and so we did. And perhaps for the first time, I was quite alright with what was going on. Sitting there, I didn't worry that we had cycled less than our daily distance. Instead I was ok with us lazing about in the warm afternoon sun. It was such a glorious day. Two ladies were walking with prams, a toddler and two infants in all. One of them was trying to fly a kite with the toddler. For the first time, I did not wish I could go back to when D was a toddler nor did I feel the lack of a mommy-friend nor did I think I ought to have been doing something 'more fun' with D, such as kite-flying instead of riding a bike. Someone ran up and down the sledding hill several times, and for the first time I was ok to just sit there with D and not feel as if I ought to be pushing myself to run instead of going for a walk in the mornings. For the first time in a long time, I was ok with not having written much (less than 300 words today, I reckon), I was ok with the child I have, with the experiences we're having. > There was no yearning for something more or something else. Whatever was, was perfectly fine. When we came back home, KrA had come down with a fever. I went into a mild panic at first, as a matter of habit, at the thought that I'd have to take care of dinner and D's bath-time. And gosh! I was already tired. How on earth was I going to muster up strength to get through the rest of the evening! But this is where, after a momentary lapse into old patterns, I was able to choose a different path. After KrA took a Tylenol, I had a shower and went down to fix dinner. I opted for a simple cheese-and-cucumber sandwich and served D a plate of mountains and valleys and a river with a green (cucumber) monster swimming in it. This is not something I usually think of but D had been getting worried about KrA being ill, so I thought he'd appreciate a little creativity at mealtime. And he did. He ate every last crumb on his plate and demanded some more. Bath-time was a breeze. We then checked on the [red-tailed hawks](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/red-tailed-hawks/) and guess what! [K3 has fledged!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoNgRlHsZxU) That darling youngest of the hawk-chicks has flown the nest! K1 and K3 are on trees near their nest and The Cornell Lab is equipped with plenty of cameras to capture their flying efforts in various locations on campus. Right now, they are perched on a tree, hopping from one branch to another. K3 had a rather clumsy take-off but he's safe and his flight skills will surely improve. After bed-time, I was ravenous, so I cooked Maggi for KrA and myself, and here I am, typing today's free-writing session before I turn in for the night. I didn't write much today but tomorrow is another day, another opportunity. > The key thing for me to remember is that one hard day need not be extrapolated to a hard life. One day or one week or one month or even one year of not writing need not be extrapolated to a lifetime of writing. We do what needs to be done in the here and now. That is really all we can do. That is really all we need to do. And if we can do that with a kind wholehearted presence, if we can attend to a single moment with a tender heart, the big thing called life tends to take care of itself. *À demain!* ### free-writing: bird cams, and lessons in parenting URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-bird-cams-and-lessons-in-parenting/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:29:49.000Z We've been watching some of the birds and their eggs hatch and their chicks grow and fledge this season thanks to [The Cornell Lab](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/all-cams/) resource. We first watched the [barred owls](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/barred-owls/) with great interest. Their two chicks, which we named Coochee and Cheecoo, (although their official names were Pignut and Hickory) were a great source of daily entertainment, as they grew from white fluff-balls into young birds and eventually fledged away from their nest. After they left, we watched the [American kestrels](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/american-kestrels/) for a while to fill the void left by the departure of the barred owls. All five chicks fledged within hours of each other and flew away, and we turned to the [red-tailed hawks](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/red-tailed-hawks/) for our daily moments of Zen. The oldest one has fledged, the youngest is poised to do so, and the middle child was [retrieved](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkStRwcKuXo) by staff this morning after it was observed to have developed an infection a week ago and had been growing increasingly lethargic. Watching these birds has been such a pleasurable experience, but the one thing these birds of nature have reinforced in me is the significance of parenting. Looking back on my early years with D, I find it is just so sad that child-rearing has become a contentious issue, with much of the debate almost always revolving around gender imbalances when it comes to shouldering parenting responsibilities. The whole 'women could be doing so much more on the professional front if only the bulk of the parenting responsibility didn't fall on their shoulders' was almost always the talk of the day. While I understand and support this argument, I must admit it has affected me in unexpected ways. For most of these past five years, although I chose to be a stay-at-home mom with D, I felt as if I wasn't living up to my potential or making the most of my time in this lifetime. As I saw women struggle to hold on to their careers by a tattered thread, almost always on the verge of breaking, I felt utterly guilty at choosing to do one thing, to look after this child. It also did not help that I felt my decision to stay at home would have been more justified had I had more than one child. I mean, if I was sacrificing something as important as my career, I might as well have had more children to justify what I was giving up. Thoughts like these swirled endlessly in my head for most of this time. I realise now that a lot of these thoughts had risen from the messages blasted constantly by society and culture. A college classmate once said to me she had decided to never have children because it was expected of her, as a woman, to do so. I asked her if she wasn't giving into stereotyping as a consequence. She didn't explain her stance to me saying it was pretty complicated, but to me it was clear that if we choose to do or not do something simply to oppose cultural norms or stereotyping, we are being influenced more by those norms than by what we truly want. All this while, I had wanted to spend time with my child, but back then I felt a lot of shame and guilt for wanting this. I felt I was letting myself down by choosing to do so. I felt I was not being a good role model to my child who'd surely come to believe that moms are meant to stay at home and look after their children while only dads go out to work. At a time when I just wanted to fall into someone's arms and weep about how hard I was finding it to cope with the demands and anxieties of parenting, some family members pointedly told me I was wasting my time and that I ought to be doing more on the work front, given my education and professional background. It's only in the last few months that I've grown so much surer of what truly matters to me in life – being with D and KrA, and writing. There is no order to it. On a day like today, I managed to write more than my recent average, but I also had to spend a lot of time with D. I was so exhausted in the evening I couldn't think straight. In fact, I have been 'writing' this post for the past hour, my mind drifting away, my eyes seeking out the video of the unwell hawk fledgling's retrieval. Normally I'd have picked up a fight with KrA, arguing about how tomorrow it was going to be his turn to keep D for the bulk of the day while I sat at my desk and wrote. But I am so determined this time around to not repeat old patterns that I actually sat down for a bit and recounted the day, and realised that I actually had more writing time and time to myself today than yesterday. I had been so tired and exhausted I was looking for something to blame it on – KrA almost always being on the receiving end of my ire – without pausing to acknowledge that it is tiring, that no matter how much we do, there will always be more to do, and in our incessant strife to make our lives ideally convenient and pain-free – because in this rhetoric, children have surely become a dire source of inconvenience – it has become entirely easy to be swayed by what the world is ranting about and not pay attention to how our lives are truly unfolding in the midst of all that din. What I'm trying to say is that it is truly hard to peel off the layers and understand what we truly want when we're constantly bombarded with contradictory messages from culture and society. > To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. \~ [E. E. Cummings](https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/09/25/e-e-cummings-advice/) Where the human world couldn't help me with when it came to parenting, the beautiful birds at The Cornell Lab came to my rescue. Even now as I write this, I'm watching the mother hawk, Big Red, in their nest with the last of her chicks, K3, who remains hesitant to fledge. These parent birds have been a personification of patience, of going with the flow, of doing all that they can to look after their young. I draw my inspiration and courage from them. I can't help but feel a little sad as the season draws to a close, but I'll be here again next year, watching new eggs being laid, new chicks being hatched, and new lives emerging in this beautiful world of ours. In parting, I'll leave you with these words from [Tara Brach](https://www.lionsroar.com/the-golden-buddha-inside-you/?fbclid=IwAR0Mf89R6goUVJEdF%5Fyhunba2derGJA5V92mVwPNmnSjg2Wg5dXaSCnONrE). It is an excerpt from her latest book, [Trusting the Gold: Uncovering Your Natural Goodness](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54336595-trusting-the-gold). > I have discovered that enoughness has absolutely zero to do with accomplishing, nothing to do with achieving, and is not at all about trying to be good enough. Rather, the realization of enough is right here in the fullness of presence, in the tenderness of an open heart, in the silence that is listening to this life. These are the moments when the glow of gold shines through. > Pause and let yourself sink into this moment, into presence, into your heart. > Gently say to yourself, “There’s nothing to do. This is enough…I am enough.” > Feel the fullness and peace of coming home. > \~ Tara Brach *Image Attribution: Photo by [Ray Hennessy](https://unsplash.com/@rayhennessy?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/baby-birds?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: the wonder in ordinariness URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-the-wonder-in-ordinariness/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:29:53.000Z Today was a wonderfully ordinary day. Play-time with D in the morning, my morning walk, breakfast and work, more play-time with D, cooking while KrA took D on a bike ride to Paletta, lunch, some TV time for D while I snoozed beside him, sorting of library books, me heading out to the library to return the books and pick new ones while D decided to stay back home, dinner when I got back, bath-time, reading time, bed-time. No plans. No goals to be reached. Nothing to be achieved. Yet I wrote way more than I had managed to in a while. I wrote in two sprints. I could have done more but KrA had some work issues to attend to in the morning, so I ended up looking after D then. Nothing to complain about. Like today, tomorrow is another day. Another opportunity. And I'll look to make the most of it. I remembered today how, about a decade ago, I used to talk to KrA about the constant restlessness that had become my steadfast companion. I was quite dissatisfied in my jobs at that time, wanting to do more, achieve more, try out new things, explore, do a whole lot more than the systems could take. I remember telling him how I was envious of people who could come in to work, simply do the needful, and go back home. I always felt like I wanted to do more at work. Even when we used to go on vacation, I couldn't just lie down on a beach and watch the sky. There was always a nagging sensation, a longing for something to do, a desire to be productive, to make the most of the time on hand, to show something for the days gone past. D has been an antidote to that aimless restlessness. > When I'm not restless to get going, when I can stay present in this moment, time bends and stretches to my whims. When I make no demands of this world, of the people around me, even of myself, the universe expands and unfurls to make space for all that I need, for all that my heart yearns for. It is quite like a dance. A very delicate balance between two partners. One in which the most enchanting performance ensues when each trusts the other, when each is willing to follow the other's lead, when neither demands their whim be followed. And for the first time in a long, long time I find I can sit here and simply watch the sunlight dancing on the leaves of the trees outside my window, without wondering what the meaning of life is, what the purpose of it all is, what I'm meant to do with this one precious life. The answer is very simple. > I am meant to be here, now. What I'm meant to be doing tomorrow or the day after will present itself in due course of time. Life truly is effortless. We are the ones who plan and conspire because we have forgotten what it means to be simple, to be true to ourselves, to be authentic, and to show up without any hidden agenda, without any masquerade, with only faith and trust that the way will present itself to us as long as we keep walking, keep showing up. It feels scary to live in this world, which is so full of judgement and criticism, without a plan at least to keep ourselves safe from the vagaries of society, of culture, even of our own families. But when we do, when we find it in ourselves to simply be true to ourselves, without attempting to impress anyone else, life certainly becomes a lot easier, a lot simpler. All that remains is what truly matters, who truly matters. I watched a [TED Talk by Eleanor Longden](https://www.ted.com/talks/eleanor%5Flongden%5Fthe%5Fvoices%5Fin%5Fmy%5Fhead/transcript) (by 'watched' I mean I read the transcript of the talk), who was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was in university. She talks about her experience, and stresses how healing began when she started to realise that the voices in her head "were a meaningful response to traumatic life events, particularly childhood events, and as such were not my enemies but a source of insight into solvable emotional problems". The reason her talk resonated with me so much was because two very close family members of mine have undergone schizophrenia. I know very little detail, despite them being 'close' family members, which only goes to show the stigma associated with these diagnoses. In fact, at around the time I came to know of the second family member's condition, they had already overcome it with the aid of medication after years of struggle. I was reading Eckhart Tolle's [The Power of Now](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6708.The%5FPower%5Fof%5FNow), and if I remember correctly, he had said something to the effect of how when we struggle with pain, with the inability to cope with emotional pain, and we turn to medication for aid, we lose a valuable opportunity in understanding our own selves, in seeing what our struggle is trying to tell us about ourselves and our world views. Tolle's words had a profound impact on me, because at that time I was really struggling being a mother to a toddler, I was completely lost when it came to my career (or lack thereof), and I had no clue where I was going to land up in life. Looking back now, I feel especially tender towards my past self, the one who was so riddled with anxiety and worry over her child, the one who couldn't bear to wake up in the mornings, the one who spent all day waiting for the day to come to an end because each day just felt so uninspiring, so jaded, so endlessly repetitive, the one who felt she wouldn't be able to face yet another day like the one that just went by. > Turns out, I didn't have to worry about the next day or the day after or the day after that. I didn't even have to think about the next hour for that matter. > All I really needed to do was remain in that moment, be present in that moment. > No plans for glory. No lofty ambitions. > Just pure, unadulterated joy, doing what makes our hearts sing. > How simple it can be! Yet how hard we end up making it! That's it from me today. *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Anatoliy Gromov](https://unsplash.com/@agromov?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/lake?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: here, now URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-here-now/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:29:57.000Z D turned five today. I am always hesitant to write about my child, about motherhood, about parenting, because whenever I try to capture that experience in words, I find it is quite impossible to explain it in a way without romanticising the struggle, or downplaying it somehow. When we do talk about how hard it is to be a parent, we find ourselves adding in the same breath what a privilege it is to be a parent. As if to talk about how hard it is is a little like betraying our child, or like gossiping about a best friend behind our back, or like bitching about God (if you believe in one). But come to think of it, perhaps the truer reason is this: we do not talk or write about a difficult experience when we're in the thick of it. We express it in hindsight, by which time we've mostly calmed down and have had the opportunity to understand the situation more holistically, encompassing others' points of view too. And that narrative is not the entire truth. It's not false, but it's not the objective truth too. Often in the reading of posts written by other parents about their own difficulties and struggles, I come away feeling guilty, rather than finding understanding and acceptance. Rather than feeling relieved that I'm not the only one to experience these highs and lows of parenting, I come away feeling I'm not doing enough, that I need to do more, do better. It's hard. D has been in our lives for five years now, not counting the months he spent in my womb, growing from a tiny dot into a little baby. When I look back at these years, often I remember the difficult times, and by difficult times I mean the times I failed to show up as an understanding parent, the times in which I reacted unkindly, showed anger, snapped, demanded the impossible from myself and my child and my husband. I suppose it matters to me a lot that I parent my child well. I've made the concept of becoming a 'good parent' important somehow. Something to strive for. Something to put effort into. And in doing so, in endeavouring to 'making' it joyful for my child, I've ceased to find any delight in it. [Yesterday](https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-the-day-time-lost-all-meaning/), I wrote about Kristan Hoffman's post ['On Not Letting Ambition Take Over'](https://writerunboxed.com/2021/06/18/on-not-letting-ambition-take-over/), in which she talks about how writing went from being something as easy as breathing the air around her to the strife of reaching for the blue sky. A joyful pursuit in childhood morphed into adult responsibility. Today, it occurred to me that the same is true of parenting too. When did it go from being an experience of presence, of delight, of living to one of milestones, achievements, benchmarks, and a constant evaluation of ourselves to see if we're doing enough? So today, as I think back, I've decided to no longer reflect on the difficult times. I'm also not making any plans for the future, no resolutions to try and be a better parent, no pushing myself to get closer to an imaginary, unachievable ideal. Instead, I'm just hoping to be present. Doing only a few things. Knowing these moments are fleeting. And it's ok. It's not about the range of experiences I am able to offer D. It's about the presence I can give him. It's also the greatest gift I can give myself. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Boris Smokrovic](https://unsplash.com/@borisworkshop?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/flower?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### the poetry of growing older URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-poetry-of-growing-older/ Last updated: 2021-06-20T06:00:00.000Z Last week, I had the rare privilege of sitting with D for one of his online classes. KrA is the one who usually sits with D, but on this occasion, the children were to make Fathers' Day crafts for their dads, so D asked me to sit with him so that his creations would remain a surprise for KrA until the day of celebration, which is incidentally also the day D turns five this year. One of the children, A, in his JK (Junior Kindergarten) class kept up an almost non-stop but very endearing conversation with the teacher, Ms. M, throughout the twenty-five minutes of class. She peppered the teacher with all sorts of questions like – "Ms. M, why are we working on a Fathers' Day gift?" "Ms. M, why do we give presents on birthdays?" "Ms. M, I can see our swimming pool from where I'm sitting. It has a square shape." "Ms. M, do you have a kiddie pool at home?" And Ms. M, to give credit where it is due, responded to each question to the best of her ability with just as much thought and consideration she'd give a grown-up. Later, I recounted this episode to KrA with much delight and he observed that A was among the younger children in the class. He noted that for the most part, many of the older children have become more 'grown-up' in their interactions in class. (Here, in Ontario, although a new school year begins in September, children join a particular grade based on the calendar year in which they attain the required age. So all children born anytime in 2016 began JK in 2020, i.e., the calendar year in which they turned four years old. D, our June baby, falls right in the middle of the age range. A is an October or November child, if I remember correctly.) And it was KrA's observation that reminded me that D has indeed outgrown many of those child-like characteristics that A, still a good half-year younger than him, still exhibited. And you know me – my immediate reaction to this realisation was melancholic. Not in any dramatic way, but a little sinking of my heart at the realisation that the little one is growing up. We had already noticed how much taller he has been getting. He's been growing more and more interested in following instructions in the manual when playing with his magnetic tiles or building toys alongside freestyle play. He's turning more 'worldly', I suppose. I suppose I should be happy about it in the sense that he's learning to navigate the wider world in his own way, but I can't help worrying that at some point, this shift, this assimilation may (will?) come at the expense of his own authenticity. But again, perhaps that is me projecting my journey, my desires on him. It reminds me of the poem '[To A Child](https://thedreampedlar.com/to-a-child/)' by Christopher Morley I had posted on the old blog (The Dream Pedlar's) two and a half years ago, when D was half his current age. ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2021/06/To-A-Child-1.jpg) > The greatest poem ever known > Is one all poets have outgrown: > The poetry, innate, untold, > Of being only four years old. > Still young enough to be a part > Of Nature's great impulsive heart, > Born comrade of bird, beast, and tree > And unselfconscious as the bee- > And yet with lovely reason skilled > Each day new paradise to build; > Elate explorer of each sense, > Without dismay, without pretense! > In your unstained transparent eyes > There is no conscience, no surprise: > Life's queer conundrums you accept, > Your strange divinity still kept. > Being, that now absorbs you, all > Harmonious, unit, integral, > Will shred into perplexing bits,- > Oh, contradictions of the wits! > And Life, that sets all things in rhyme, > may make you poet, too, in time- > But there were days, O tender elf, > When you were Poetry itself! > \~ Christopher Morley So on this day, as little D turns five years old, I want to capture here the funny things he used to say up until a few months ago. All the poetry that used to tumble out of his being, fully formed, straight from the subconscious of a two-year-old to an almost-five-year-old. --- *D: I'm going to lie here and watch.* *Me: I'm also going to lie here and watch. But what are we watching?* *D: The fan.* --- *D: What if the laptop grows legs and walks away?* --- *D: I feel like the clouds are going to fall.* *Me: What will happen then?* *D: We will carry them on our heads.* --- *D: You know, there is someone who never makes mistakes.* *Me: Who?* *D: God!* *Me: It's not that God doesn't make mistakes. God does everything. He just doesn't call them mistakes.* --- *D (at bed-time): Stop this racket. Go away. Go find a chocolate and eat it. Then come back here.* --- *D (in the bath): I love water. I love eating yummy food. I love eating toothpaste.* --- *D (noticing a hole in the knee of his pyjama one morning): Why is there a hole in my pyjama?* *Me: It is worn out, sweetie.* *D: Do T-shirts get worn out?* *Me: Yes.* *D: Do people get worn out?* --- *D: Dada, take the bus and go to India.* --- *D: I sound like a jack-o-lantern.* --- *D: It's ok, Mumma. It's ok to cry.* --- *D lies down with a pillow and a blanket on the landing outside his room and calls Dada to come help him with his blanket. Dada comes and asks him why he's lying here on the landing. "Oh, I forgot I have to sleep in my bedroom," D exclaims, and promptly drags his pillow and blanket back into the bedroom.* --- *D (at the park on a very windy spring morning): Stop this windy thing, Mumma.* --- *D: There are two kinds of B. One is an alphabet. The other is an insect.* --- *D: Mumumumumumumumumum* *KrA: Mumumumumumumumumum* *D (quoting from Fox in Socks): Please don't say such silly stuff, Sir!* --- *D (drags a basketful of washed and dried clothes into the bedroom, places a dried-up play dough butterfly inside the basket, and declares): When I wake up, I will have a surprise!* --- *D: I am gulping down my throat. Some gulp fell on my head. I need a hair shower tonight.* --- *D was on a climbing spree. He climbed his teepee tent and toppled it, then was looking to topple down a floor lamp.* *Me: Sweetie, that may fall and break.* *D: Happy Christmas, Mumma!* --- *D had made a craft for Easter and I hung it up on the door and I wanted him to come and take a look. He was busy playing with his train tracks.* *Me: When you can, come take a look at this!* *D: Mumma, you take a look for me.* --- *D: I love watching ants, Mumma.* --- *D: Will ants ride my scooter?* *Me: I don't think so, sweetie. They are so tiny.* *D: Maybe they can ride tiny scooters?* --- *D, looks at himself in the mirror and yells, "Mumma, I found myself!"* --- *Me (referring to our long-ago weekly visit for Toddler Days at Ireland House Museum): Tomorrow is Thursday! Where do we go on Thursdays?* *D: On Thursdays, we go to Friday.* --- *D unravels a ball of string and runs around the house, saying, "I am tying the house, Mumma."* --- *D: I don't want to be a person. I want to be a dog.* --- *D: I don't need to wear shoes. I am wearing my toes.* --- *D: What is behind the sky?* --- *D: I forgot to wear my hair. I left it in IKEA and it all went into an ant's tummy because the ant ate it all up. I don't have enough hair now.* --- *D: Dad's bedroom is an office bedroom. Sometimes he sleeps there and it becomes a sleeping bedroom.* --- *D curls up on his green chair and says, "I am waiting till my birthday, Mumma."* --- *D: A snake got swollen and fell into a snowflake. It got swollen and fell into my heart, Mumma. Can you take out the snake that fell into my heart?* --- *D: Mumma, when are you going to grow up?* *Me: Am I still a child?* *D: Yes!* --- *A rainbow came briefly and disappeared.* *D: Where has the rainbow gone? Has it gone to other places? Has it gone to sleep?* --- *D: Mumma, can you please take my head out of my body and put it on your body?* --- *Me: Who made you so cute?* *D: Nobody. I just grew up like that.* --- *D: In Haida Gwaii, they hide a gwai. A gwai has a round face and purple eyes and square hands and a piece of paper on its nose. It's legs look like some gooey. The toes look like garbage bins and the heels look like a door handle.* --- *Me: I have too many things.* *D: No, Mumma. You don't have too many things. You have things that you use and things that you don't use.* --- *D (at bedtime): Mumma, keep hugging me till tomorrow morning.* --- *D: Thank you for making super great things. When we think something is not possible, we should try till we get the hang of it. And if we keep trying new things, our brain will be happier than it was yesterday.* --- Happy, happy birthday, my child! And because it's also Father's Day, here are D-isms that seem apt for this day. What greater ode to a dad than a child who says he wants to be like his dad when he grows up! --- *D: When I grow up, I'll be a Dada. Just like you, Dada.* --- *D: When I grow up, I'll be a Dada. Which school should I go to where they'll teach me to be a Dada?* --- *D: When I grow up, I'll be a Dada. I'll have three babies. One like you, one like me, one like Dada.* --- ### free-writing: the day time lost all meaning URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-the-day-time-lost-all-meaning/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:30:01.000Z The plan for today, one day before D's birthday, was to pick up a kite curbside, buy D's birthday cake, clean our home, and put up the swirls and the Happy Birthday banner and a few other items of decoration. What instead happened was this. We did the curbside pick-up of the kite, bought the cake, and somewhere in between the happening of those things, we decided that there was no need to wait until tomorrow to enjoy the fun things of life. So when we came back home, we gave D his [birthday present](https://plus-plus.com/), then after playing with it we cut the cake, sang Happy birthday, and pretty much had cake for lunch, had lunch at about 2ish in the afternoon, spent more time playing with his new toy, had dinner, and finally put up the decorations before heading for bathtime and bedtime. It felt like today was D's birthday! It was funny. Something similar happened last year, when we baked a cake at home the day before his birthday, and D wondered why we couldn't eat it right then, which is what we did. If you've been following my posts for a while, you'll know I'm a big fan of [Dr. Shefali](https://www.drshefali.com/) and her work on conscious parenting. In one of her talks, Dr. Shefali once said that she doesn't care much for birthdays because every moment we are being born anew. Old cells are dying and new ones are coming into existence every moment. And I see that little D feels the same. As far as he's concerned, now's a great time as any to open presents. Now's a great time as any to have cake. In our attempt to make that one day super-special, we parents tend to skew our children's expectations when it comes to occasions such as birthdays and holidays, and therein begins the descent into disappointment. Because reality rarely meets expectations. This is especially true for a little child who's been told to wait, wait patiently for that one day to open his presents, to have his cake, to forsake a moment of happiness in the present in pursuit of an ideal of some future happiness. > We are the ones who introduce the illusion of time in an existence that is, in reality, far removed from the concept of time. Thank you for the lesson, little child. Another surprising thing happened today. After days of feeling stuck, I got myself to my manuscript and got several words down. It only took me two 15-minute sprints, and I typed about 700 words or so. Hardly anything, I am tempted to say, but no – I will pat myself on the back for this. Because (i) I managed to kill critical voice in one way. On both occasions, I only had 15 minutes of time, and instead of telling myself that there's no point in even attempting to write for such a short duration, I managed to make the most of it. I actually got the idea for this from a comment left on a post by DWS, in which the commenter mentioned that they had taken his Killing Critical Voice workshop and that it had helped them shed unhelpful habits/ways of thinking when it came to writing. One such bad practice is the refusal to get to the manuscript when we have only a few minutes on hand. And (ii) I managed to get the words down by sprinting. I switched on the timer, and off I went, writing into the dark, and gosh! I'm amazed at how the current WIP has twisted into a completely unknown path altogether. I also read a beautiful post shared by Harvey in his [journal](https://hestanbrough.com/the-journal-the-novel-wrapped-but/) today. He points to Kristan Hoffman's post '[On Not Letting Ambition Take Over](https://writerunboxed.com/2021/06/18/on-not-letting-ambition-take-over/)', which, in essence, says the same thing that Harvey and DWS and many, many successful creatives say – follow your passion, write the stories you want to write about, and have a blast in doing so. The entire post is quote-worthy, and I think I'm about to paste almost half of it over here now. > When I was young, writing didn’t feel mysterious or difficult. I wasn’t curious about other writers’ processes, or searching for the “best” way to develop a story. Writing was just putting pen to paper and seeing what came out. It was a way to pass the time contentedly. It was a way to explore my own mind — what I was curious about, what I remembered, what I longed for. > As I grew older, writing started to feel more Important, both for better and for worse. Writing became a source of pride, because pretty much everyone said I was good at it. But it also became a goal, transforming into a sort of ideal, something farther away and less concrete. Like the difference between the air I had always breathed, and the blue sky way above me, out of reach. Supposedly they were both made of the same stuff, but they felt so distant and different from each other. Suddenly I had to look up and strive. > Put another way: the writing I was doing at the moment didn’t seem to matter as much as the writing I would do in the future, and what that writing could mean. Not mean *to* me, so much as mean *for* me. Or mean to other people. Would they like it? Would they think I was talented? Would they pay me for it? Could I build a career? Could I even — dare I say it, dare I dream it — become rich and/or famous? > Ambition can be a powerful motivation, but it can also be a vise, squeezing out passion and creativity. The key, as usual, is to find the right balance for yourself. > So my journey over the past several years has been one of going back in order to better go forward. More and more, I’m trying to return to the girl I once was, sitting in a quiet corner of my parents’ office, scribbling stories for myself. Using the page and my imagination to explore the world around me, as well as the world within. > Because there are the feelings we put *in* our writing, and then there are the feelings we have *when* we’re writing. When I was young, I took the latter for granted. I didn’t realize how valuable that inner state was to me, or to the creative process, until it had turned so feeble, so vulnerable. So tortured by all the ambitions I hadn’t managed to fulfill that I could barely appreciate the ones I had. > \~ Kristan Hoffman, [On Not Letting Ambition Take Over](https://writerunboxed.com/2021/06/18/on-not-letting-ambition-take-over/), at Writer Unboxed I have come across this 'principle' so often that I now realise anytime I stray from it, it is entirely my doing. All the excuses I come up with are entirely fear-based and ego-driven, rooted in expectations of the world outside – will readers like what I've written, will people buy my books, will they leave me good reviews, will I become rich and famous, am I a good author, will the world recognise what an outstanding author I am. Reality is far simpler. Creativity is inherently simple. It is simply a matter of putting one word after another. Everything else that we bring into the picture renders it difficult. The saying "Get out of your own way" has never made more sense. *À demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Yannick Pulver](https://unsplash.com/@yanu?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/writing?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: an ordinary day URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-an-ordinary-day/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:30:05.000Z Lots of things happened today. I woke up from a rather disturbed sleep and was cranky. Went out for a walk, worrying today would be yet another [epic fail](https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-a-brief-one/). But on the way, an idea for a [Tales for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tag/tales-for-dreamers/) story popped into my head and I came back home to write it down and [post it](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-slow-down/). Until then, I had forgotten it was Friday. Then I decided to declutter our home. Which was also in line with D's plans to have a clean home for his birthday. It's very unlikely we'll have the whole place cleaned up by then, but we've made good headway in the bedrooms and study room. We even cleared out some old paperwork. D and I got to hack them with scissors; it was such a fun activity we lost track of time and didn't go down for lunch until well past one in the afternoon. D had TV time this afternoon, I spent some time cross-stitching, then we went out for a bike ride for the most part of which my heart was constantly in my mouth, seeing the kind of antics D has taken to doing on his bike. I'm still learning how to respond in these situations with calm acceptance and not a desperate desire to keep him free from all pain. Back home. KrA made burgers for dinner. Bath-time. Reading time. Bed time. End of day. I almost fell asleep along with D but wanted to come over and post this, especially considering I hadn't put up a free-writing post this morning. Writing today's [Tale for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-slow-down/) was fun. It made me happy. It reminded me once more how much I love writing stories. Dreamy, whimsical stuff. The stuff of fantasies and feelings. Of emotions and exclamations. One of the writing-related newsletters I subscribe to had a note today on how Apple's announcement last week of [Mail Privacy Protection](https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/8/22525195/apple-mail-protection-privacy-pixel-tracking-newsletters-substack) stands to threaten the newsletter strategy that authors were increasingly being, and still are, persuaded to adopt so that they can reach their readers directly without relying on platforms such as social media where the rules can change without warning and leave the authors without direct contact with their fanbase. I don't have a newsletter yet. I was thinking of starting one after the recent [debacle](https://thedreampedlar.com/the-past-erased-a-newness-ushered-in/) with the website, but I wasn't seriously thinking about it for the near term. I'd like to have more books under my belt before I jump on to these marketing strategies. If there is one thing I've noticed about the publishing industry this past year or two, it's that it changes faster than I can make up my mind about what tactic to pursue, faster than I can even learn about the range and variety of opportunities that exist. Changes are happening rapidly. Those who are able to adapt swiftly will surely gain. Speed is not my forte, at least not right now. So I will point myself to [Kris's insight](https://kriswrites.com/2021/06/16/business-musings-fomo-and-the-indie-writer-fear-based-decision-making-part-6/) for now. She says, > "... indie writers often forget that they’re strong and courageous and filled with a belief that if you publish it, the readers will show up. > ... write the books you love. Then put them up for sale, and write another book. And another. > And get back to being courageous. Get back to loving what you do. > You know how to be that writer. > Time to recapture that feeling, and move into the future, instead of being stuck in someone else’s past." \~ Kristine Kathryn Rusch *À demain!* Tomorrow for the last time in our lives will I be able to call D my four-year-old. ### tales for dreamers: slow down URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-slow-down/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:01:55.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/12.-slow-down.jpeg) tales for dreamers: slow down Slow down. Children do play here. Even though you may not always see them as you pass by. Occasionally, you might get lucky and they may invite you to join them. If and when they do, please do not walk away making excuses about lack of time or errands to run or other grown-up things to attend to. Stay. Make time to play. Especially with the little ones. They know a thing or two about all the good stuff you’ve forgotten. Magic. Happiness. Joy. Carefreeness. All they ask is for your presence. Your undivided attention. You may worry it'll take up too much of your time. But, I promise, if you really put your heart into playing with them, time will slow down for you too. ### free-writing: a brief one URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-a-brief-one/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:30:09.000Z On the dot today! It's 7 P.M. now. First day of summer holiday – epic fail! It started off well, me setting great intentions and all that, but when it actually came to execution, I easily slipped back into my old ways. Feeling worried and anxious, wanting to get [the cleaning](https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-inner-critic/) done and not get caught up in D's tendency to make everything play. So much for his desire to clean up for his birthday. Every time we pulled out a toy that hadn't been used in months or years, he'd set off on a new game with it. > How do I honour the child's spontaneity without endangering it? > I have no idea. When I sit there, forcing myself to stay in the moment, all that goes on in the back of my mind are these thoughts – look at all this stuff, cluttering up all the space, things that we don't use, that we don't even know exist, taking up so much space. I think I ought to start clearing out my belongings first, before heading towards D's. It's just that D's items – mostly toys – are so visible it's tempting to reach out to those first in the name of cleaning up. Oh, well! I'll tend to my clutter first. Role modelling is perhaps the only way out. I just want to loosen up, not a little, but completely. I'm so tired of living like this – angsty, regretful about the past, worried about the future, wishing this present moment were different, wishing my past had been different for that would have spared me from this present moment, worried that if this pattern continues the future will not be any different than the present. So here's to change. Here's to no longer feeling stuck in the stuck-ness. Here's to recognising the stuck-ness when it comes and perceiving it as an opportunity to try something new instead of an obstacle demanding I keep doing what I've been doing all along. Here's to trying new things. Here's to being OK with what is. Here's to recognising the old patterns and beliefs as they arise, and when they re-appear, do the inner work to change them by shifting perspective, by understanding this is yet another reminder for me to step back into alignment, to come back home, to come back to myself, to come back to my worth, to come back to my being, my precious, precious being, this beautiful gift of life. About a half-minute to go; I'd set a 15-minute timer, and I'm glad I came here. But today, after the madness it has been, I feel like stepping out for a walk. The sun is out, the evening is warm. So here I go. *Alors, à demain!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Silvestri Matteo](https://unsplash.com/@silvestrimatteo?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/nature?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: inner critic URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-inner-critic/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:30:13.000Z D's summer holidays have officially begun! This morning, I woke up in my room alone as KrA co-slept with D. There were a few moments of serenity, followed by a crash-landing of the grief and sorrow I had experienced almost all of yesterday. I mourned the *['only'](https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-trance-of-unworthiness/)* one child I have in my life right now and all the others that I don't have, probably never will. I worried about how the day was going to transpire without the regiment of school to schedule our day around. Five minutes later, I heard D's voice in the other room. He knocked on the wall to check if I was awake. I hesitated for a few moments, and then decided to knock back. And thus began our beautiful morning together. > In that moment, I decided sure – all these feelings of inadequacy will keep assaulting me, but it is up to me to take the steps to cope with them, face them, and assimilate them as part of my life experience. > Yesterday I felt as if I had no choice, as if life had dealt me a poor hand and that my life and, as a consequence, D's were doomed. This morning, I could once again believe that I do have a choice. I can always choose. I can choose to lament what I don't have or to cherish what I do have. I can worry about how we're going to fill our days of summer or I can choose to explore, come up with ideas, make some plans, and either follow them or go where the wind takes us. I can feel anxious about all the times I've slipped up in the past and bury myself in fear of the future, or I can forgive myself for all the mistakes I've made and realise I'm only human and that it's ok to make mistakes and move on rather than hold myself to some impossible levels of perfection, which I'll never achieve, and keep berating myself for not being able to attain those standards. I can feel angry that right now, I'm unable to write fiction and am typing out this free-writing exercise instead, because D is playing downstairs with KrA and gosh! the racket those two are making is so loud I can't even hear my own thoughts. Or, I can notice how much I'm actually enjoying this free-writing exercise, which I'm writing without any pressure or thought – it's practice for writing into the dark, it's practice for letting go of the critical voice that has been plaguing my writing, and it's so much fun to write here because these words are simply flowing out of me, my mind is not racing ahead, in fact I'm reading these as I type them out, it's not the other way round in which my mind thinks up something and I hurry to type it all down, instead my subconscious is offering all these words and I'm typing them all over here as fast as I can, writing cleanly, writing with so much fun, writing without thinking from the critical voice – and continue to enjoy this one hour of time I've given myself this morning, while also delighting in the playful sound of my little one, and wondering why on earth do I feel like I need more children when the sound of one alone sometimes drives me nuts even though I love this one to bits? After putting in the words here, when I spend time with D, I can either choose to lament how I ought to be writing instead, because unless I write fast enough and a whole lot, I can't publish fast enough to make more money. Or, I can play with my child, explore things around the house with him – he wants to clean up the basement and his play area in time for his birthday – cook and clean and do chores with him, he's sure to make them all fun and pleasurable by his very presence, enjoy these days of summer for what they are: timeless, unconstrained by the dictates of time, free, the preciousness of childhood. Because I will eventually get to my writing. I know I will. Right now, life has other demands of me. And I have too much muck in my head. That is not the state I want to be in at any point – either when I'm writing, or when I'm with D or KrA, or when I'm relaxing. I want to get into the habit of cleansing myself, shedding all those thoughts and beliefs that do not serve me at all, and telling my inner child, my subconscious over and over again that I trust it, that I'm sorry I doubted it for so long, but now I'm back, I'm learning how to adopt a playful nature towards everything ... and who better than D to teach me this? D who makes even sorting of library books a fun, silly act. I'm the one who's in a rush to get things done, and am unable to play along. > So let me make the most of this summer to enjoy this vast expanse of time that stretches ahead of us to go about things at a slow pace, without pressuring ourselves to do something other than what we're engaged in or be somewhere other than where we find ourselves. I don't want to wish this moment away. It is going to go away of its own accord, whether I will it or not. So let me simply enjoy it, rejoice in it, take it as the gift it is. As the gift this life is. This beautiful, beautiful life. With the wisest of them all, KrA, and with the most wonderful manifestation of life I've ever seen – D. I still have about six minutes to go on the timer (I set a 30-minute timer for this session), so I'm going to try and fill up this space with something more. This free-writing exercise is quite similar to Julia Cameron's [Morning Pages](https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/). I tried doing that by hand, but for the most part I found it difficult to stick with it. I think I've gotten used to expressing myself better by typing on a screen rather than by writing on paper. I do not find it a chore to get to the laptop, log on to my site, and start typing. I still haven't gotten around to saving these new posts that I've been putting up. Lesson not at all learnt from the previous debacle of the site going down, now that KrA has retrieved the data and I have to get around to re-posting everything back here. But this free-writing exercise is far too much fun and I'd rather spend time here than worry about old posts. But sometimes I say something I'd have already said before, or build on something I'd have mentioned before, and that's when I wish I had access to the old post to link it here. Ah, well! I will get around to it eventually. > It's summer. The season of endless time. The season of timelessness. Of blue skies and white clouds. Of basking in the sunshine. Of knowing it's ok. If I'm ok with myself, no matter what we do, D will feel free to have a great summer. This is what KrA and I decided yesterday. What D needs is simply the space to be his own self. We don't have to 'teach' him anything. All he needs is for us to be 'present'. When he's making a mess, I can enjoy it with him, instead of worrying about the cleaning-up we'd have to do in the future and preventing him from exploring in the present. Instead, I can participate or stand aside, and then help him clean up. > Isn't it better to live a life in which we can make a mess, trusting that we can always clean up later, instead of a life in which we dare not even make a mess for fear that we may not be able to face the consequences of it? With that thought, I'll end this morning's free-writing session. The timer's gone off. Of course, I'll be back in the evening for another session. I'm enjoying this far too much to stop right now. Oh, there's that niggling worry that I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life and never get back to writing fiction. So right now, I'm going to point myself back to the previous paragraphs and trust that as I'm having fun with this now, I'll once again learn to have fun with fiction too. This, right here, right now, is the only moment that exists. See you in the evening then. *À plus tard!* ### free-writing: trance of unworthiness URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-trance-of-unworthiness/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:30:17.000Z Why wait until 7 P.M. when the heart is already bursting with so much sorrow, when the mind has already told me countless times this afternoon how I'm failing, failing, failing at this thing called life? --- I wrote the above at about 3:30 PM, when I was alone at home, reeling from the 'trance of unworthiness' I had fallen into since morning, a feeling that had only exacerbated as the day had worn on. And then D came back home sporting a skinned knee, following a bike ride with KrA, and he was pretty teary-eyed and wanted me around, so I managed to get back here only now, at about ten minutes to seven. Not much has changed in the interim, except for me shedding more tears, feeling pretty cut up about life, and feeling so lost, so adrift, and wishing I could just stop feeling like a 'loser' once and for all. Without putting too many details here, we met someone we've known for a while and who is expecting her third child in September. I hadn't known about her pregnancy and the news was quite unexpected, but not surprising given how the local norm appears to be that of a large family with at least three children and a couple of cats and a dog or two thrown in. I thought I had gotten over wanting that for myself, but clearly I haven't gotten over berating myself for not being able to do what *seems* to come so easily to so many people here. When I really think about it, it's not even that I want to have any more than the one precious child I do have. What I lament is my inability to understand what it is I really want, and to make my peace in heading in that self-appointed direction. Every time I see people growing – by means of expanding their family, or progressing in their career, having a new experience – somehow I manage to turn that narrative to reflect on the complete lack of direction I face in my own life. Even though I've declared that I'm an author-entrepreneur, not a day goes by when I'm not riddled with self-doubt or find myself in complete apathy or burn with an intense desire to delete all my WIPs and go looking for a job in which I won't have to write a single word, not even an email or a text message. I've been lost and adrift for so long I worry this state of mind has become a very familiar one to be in. Perhaps this is a pattern I'm striving to break out of, and because I don't know what it means to stick to my path irrespective of doubt or failure, I keep falling back into the same old trap over and over again. I always feel I'm doing this wrong, even though I could argue in the same breath that there is no right or wrong way to 'do' life. Life just is. Right and wrong are meanings we assign to circumstances, and these judgements spring from our own biases and prejudices, what we've been told is a good life, a worthy life, so much so that anything apart from it feels like a betrayal to one's own self. For instance, one of my long-standing worries has been that D will be lonely without a sibling. Even though both KrA and I have siblings by birth but with no real bonds of attachment or 'family', it is firmly ingrained in my mind that a 'happy' family is one in which two or more children grow up together. Let's put the blame squarely on Bollywood! > You'll also notice that single-child parents tend to say "I have *only* one child." "Only", as if it is an inadequacy, a shortcoming. Something incomplete. As if there should have been more, but unfortunately there isn't. Too bad. > And usually, alongside comes an explanation as to why there is *only* one kid in the picture. An explanation. An excuse. A need to explain ourself so that the other person would commiserate with us and not deem us unworthy of living up to the societal or cultural standards of a family structure. But even though I can argue and put forth all these points in hindsight, in that moment, when I slip into the 'trance of unworthiness' as [Tara Brach](http://tarabrach.com/) puts it, it ends up being a deep, deep slide into a bottomless abyss for as long as the downward spiral lasts. Eventually, it lets up. Often, I take the aid of ice cream or chocolate to pull myself out of this funk. KrA tells me, and rightly so, that the reason I feel like this is because I am too hard on myself. And he's spot on. > If there is one thing that I truly want in this lifetime, perhaps it is this: I want to be my own true friend, my own best friend, one who can be patient with myself when I am lost and adrift, one who can tell me it's ok, one who will tell me she'll always be there for me, one who'll root for me when I'm down in the funk and remind me that I am only one more false belief away from freedom, from unbridled happiness, from all the joy that springs forth when I can manage to put aside my judgements and criticisms and self-flagellations, when I can emerge from the trance of unworthiness. > One who will remind me that I am worthy, I am worth itself, I am life itself, and that nothing outside of me is a measure of my intrinsic worth, my life, my self. *Image Attribution: Photo by [O'car Johann Campos](https://unsplash.com/@ocampos?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/traveller?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### free-writing: on endings and new beginnings URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/free-writing-on-endings-and-new-beginnings/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:28:44.000Z That feeling is back. A hollowness being slowly carved out in my gut. The heart holding a void, an emptiness. Today is the last day of JK for my little one. And he's been a little upset about it this morning. Until yesterday, he had been counting down the days to the beginning of summer holidays, and to his birthday. Four more days to go until this four-year-old turns five. I asked him where he feels this sadness and he pointed to the region between his belly and his chest. I worry when I see my traits beginning to show up in my little one. It has been so difficult being me, living my life, that I don't want to wish it upon anyone else, let alone my own little child. I don't do well with change. For someone who is prone to 'grieving' even on the most joyous of occasions, this should hardly come as a surprise. I try to manage this the best I can. And that is one arena in which I have certainly improved. The feelings come and assault me, but now I recognise them enough to be able to sit down, feel all that heaviness drag the corners of my mouth down into a frown, until it no longer wants to. Earlier, I'd just try to plough through, hoping that if I buried myself in work or in planning for the next thing, I'd have something else to look forward to, but that strategy only backfired. Eventually, I'd end up snapping at KrA or D, or picking up a baseless fight with KrA. Anything to redirect my focus from the anxiety I was feeling. Anything to stop the pain of that feeling, that fear, that sadness, the strange mingling of all those uncomfortable emotions. This morning, I tried to plough on and worked for 20 minutes on the manuscript (got about 350 words in), until I felt as if I was bulldozing my way through and had come up against a wall I simply couldn't shatter. So here I am, at this free-writing exercise. I was actually looking forward to getting here this morning, and then I felt 'guilty' that I wanted to blog more than write on my WIP, which is why I opened my WIP first, only to be forced this way eventually. It's OK. I was reading Becca Syme's '[Dear Writer, You're Doing It Right](https://betterfasteracademy.com/books-by-becca-syme/doingitright/)', and she highlights anxiety management, or lack of it, as one of the reasons that stifles many authors in their work. It wasn't until she said it that I was able to acknowledge that yes, it's ok for me to feel this way and that I can try to work with it rather than fight against myself all the time, and that no, it's not me being lazy or privileged or not committed enough, which is how I'd lambast myself every time I failed to meet a word count goal. Considering that I've 'failed' way more often than 'succeeded', one can only imagine how much more I've criticised myself than given myself encouragement and kindness in all these years. On another note, I hope I wouldn't have to come here more often than twice a day, because that would leave little time for working on my manuscript. Especially considering that D's summer holidays begin tomorrow and barring two weeks of camp at his school in July, he'll be home. I feel a little worried about it, and I feel terribly guilty about feeling worried instead of utterly happy or excited that I'd have schedule-free time with my child. Nearly three entire months of not having to follow the dictates of the calendar or the clock. Nowhere to rush to. No having to stop play in the midst of it just because we have something else to attend to. Time will be fluid once more. Not chopped up into hours and minutes and seconds. It will be as long or as short as we make it to be. And I am so scared. I am so scared that without the regiment of a school-day schedule, we'd be bored and get into non-constructive activities – quarrelling, arguing, being snappy – and end up ruining summer holiday. I am scared that I'll be the one to do that. Because left to their own devices, KrA and D are quite content just lounging about, playing, or taking it easy. Relaxing. Chilling. I've never known how to do that. And on the occasions that I attempt to, I worry that I may have wasted my time. For instance, this morning on my walk, quite a few people stopped to chat with me. Just last evening I was lamenting how lonely I felt. And when the Universe sent company my way, I grew antsy that I was spending too much outside and that I should rush back home so that I can get back to writing. And we all know now how that writing session turned out to be. The other day, I wrote '[Trust existence. Without expectation.](https://thedreampedlar.com/being-ok-with-what-is/https://www.thedreampedlar.com/being-ok-with-what-is/)' And I'm finding it very hard to do the same today. I'm so worried about how tomorrow will unfurl, how the rest of the week will pass, what we will do on D's birthday, how the rest of June will go by, what will we do in July (thank Heavens for those two weeks of camp, but goodness, I hope it will be safe for D to attend camp), and gah! what about August? And on, and on, and on, and on. So now that I've spewed all my anxiety here, burdened the reader (meaning, you) with my fears, I'm going to set aside my laptop for the day. I'll be attending D's virtual party at school with him later this morning, then he and I have a few errands to run after lunch, including a drive-by procession to say goodbye to his teachers, a curb-side pick-up, a visit to the dollar store to pick up birthday decorations, and a trip to the library to pick up some books. It's OK. I'm not going to evaluate any 'progress' until at least 30 days of this experiment are up. And who knows, this might evolve into a streak then? But again, come back, Ani, come back. Come back to the present moment. Trust existence. Without expectation! *À plus tard!* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Sean Oulashin](https://unsplash.com/@oulashin?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/summer?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### an experiment in free-writing URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/an-experiment-in-free-writing/ Last updated: 2021-09-10T14:27:22.000Z As I randomly leapt from one website to another yesterday evening, I came across a book called '[Becoming a Writer](https://www.amazon.ca/Becoming-Writer-Dorothea-Brande-ebook/dp/B084MCFWRD/)' by Dorothea Brande. Actually, a prolific author and daily blogger, [Harvey Stanbrough](https://hestanbrough.com/the-journal-you-cant-sell-an-idea/), had mentioned a book titled '[Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer](https://www.amazon.ca/Becoming-Writer-Staying-Artistry-Storytelling-ebook/dp/B08JQLZ9NF/)' by J. Michael Straczynski, and in looking that up on Amazon, I came across Brande's book of almost the same name and was drawn to it. In her book, Brande addresses the psychological and emotional issues that hinder authors from showing up and writing their stories day after day after day for years on end. And it felt like exactly the kind of thing I needed to read right now. I've long suspected that my inability to write on most days is primarily owing to the emotional baggage that I had come to associate with writing for a long time. I'm listing below many of the beliefs I had held about writing as a practice and also writing as a career, as a way of making a living, all of which I'm only now beginning to realise are extremely false notions. - We need to slave for our writing. - Writing fast leads to shoddy work. - Only literary writing can be deemed to have any value. - Writing is at best an indulgence. - Anything worthwhile must entail hard work. - Writers do not make money. - And so on, and so on. I don't think I've even scratched the surface when it comes to all the erroneous notions and beliefs I've held, and still continue to hold, about writing. I've been trying to learn a lot, while improving my practice itself, and I'm always stumped by how much we creatives tend to self-sabotage ourselves in ways we don't even realise we do. So anyway, I came across Brande's book and one of the things she suggests is to try free-writing first thing in the morning for half an hour to one hour, and again at another time of the day for at least 15 minutes. And she asks us to commit to these times. She states that when we show up at the appointed hour, no matter what we may have been in the midst of, it trains our subconscious and critical mind such that we develop the ability to write whenever and wherever we may be. This promise is of special appeal to me because gosh, the number and type of excuses I can come up with to not write are simply astounding! Somedays it is the lack of peace and quiet in the house (because what else can you expect with a precious little child at home). Somedays it is the lack of good sleep at night. Somedays it is because I had a late start to the day and I came to the writing desk an hour or a half-hour later than usual. Yes – my excuses are astounding in their superficiality too. Brande says that if we are consistently unable to show up for those writing sessions, then our resistance to write is much greater than our desire to, and that we'd be better off pursuing a different occupation. That terrified me. And I want to prove to myself that my desire to write is much greater than my resistance. In fact, I already know this to be true. On days when I have written, I'm a happy soul and life is perfect. On days when I haven't written enough or at all, the misery resulting from that simply seeps into everything else. So Brande's statement was quite literally the impetus I needed to reframe how I view my life, my writing practice, the kind of commitment it takes, and how it can once again become a pleasurable task for me. For long, I've blamed – whether overtly or not – my family, my life events and situations, my mental and emotional and physical well-being or lack of it, financial dilemmas, basically everything under the sun for my inability to commit to writing the way dedicated author-entrepreneurs do. And I understand that even while BICHOK (butt in chair, hands on keyboard) is the precious mantra, I have been unearthing several emotional issues that have kept me from committing to my writing fully so far. But I desperately want to turn this around. So I have decided that I'll schedule a 15-minute session of writing at 7 P.M. every evening. D has usually fallen asleep by this time, and I spend this time loitering on the Internet, having convinced myself that I am too tired to write fiction or do any other writing-related thing such as design book covers for my next work or edit the pricing changes I've been planning for [Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes). What I usually do at this hour are these things. - I check FB a thousand times. - I check Whatsapp to see if there are any new messages of if the messages I've sent have been read or not. - I check email every five or ten minutes to see if there's anything new that merits attention. - And then I head into the shower, moaning that I haven't been able to write much during the day. - And I come out and see KrA still hard at work, typing away on his keyboard, and I pick up a fight with him, anxious about the zilch progress I'm making in my work and envious of the calm, persistent effort he seems to so effortlessly manage to put towards his work even after having woken up at five in the morning to play with D. - I also check other writers' blogs like [Harvey Stanbrough's](https://hestanbrough.com/) or [Dean Wesley Smith's](https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/) or [Kristine Kathryn Rusch's](https://kriswrites.com/), mostly for inspiration and very useful insight into writing and publishing, but I've found that it's not the outside voice that I need to hear in my darkest times. It's my own. Sure, it's great to be informed of what's going on in the industry and the advice from these longstanding authors is invaluable. I wouldn't have known about writing into the dark had it not been for these authors. DWS and Harvey post invaluable advice on their daily blogs about critical voice, writing speed, how we as writers form so many myths that keep us from producing our best work, consistently, over and over again. But right now, I'm at a stage where I need to dig deep within myself for that confidence, conviction, and commitment. It's so easy for me to read all these wonderful blogs and concoct dreams in my head and after an hour or two of feel-good Internet surfing, I pat myself on the back for having encouraged myself, and I go to bed, promising myself that tomorrow I will show up and put in the work required. That has never worked, so I'm not going to keep doing that over and over again. Instead, at 7 P.M., I'm going to head straight here and write a post. About myself. About writing. About how beautiful summer evenings are in my home as the evening light pours into our west-facing windows, as the leaves of the trees in our neighbours' backyards glitter and dance in the sunlight, and knowing that the lake is only a kilometre away makes it feel as if I'm on a beachside, my own private beach, with KrA and D beside me, and me doing the thing I love the most – writing – without fear, without hesitation, without being my own biggest obstacle. I had set a timer for 15 minutes, and I've already written for close to half an hour. I believe if I keep writing my thoughts here, I'd clear up enough space in my head to convert this time too into fiction-writing time eventually. I will continue to reserve mornings for fiction alone, and on days when I find myself in a slump, refusing to write fiction, I'll head straight here and pour my heart out on this blog. I don't plan to post links to these on my FaceBook page because I don't need another excuse to get lost in the nefarious maze that social media is. In fact, I plan to head to FB only once a week henceforth, on Fridays, when I post the week's Tales for Dreamers. Besides, I also want to do this for myself. Not for validation in the form of comments/likes/engagements on the Internet. You could argue that I might as well write in a journal then. But I type out my fiction, I type out my blog posts. This is the medium I work in, so I think it's best I do this exercise using the same medium I use for writing fiction. Come to think of it, it's mostly poetry that I write in longhand form anymore, if at all, considering that the last poem I wrote was months ago! Anyhoo, I'll be back here tomorrow evening. For now, I hope to keep at this for 30 days. Today is June 15\. Let's revisit this on July 15, and see how I've fared. *À demain!* ### being ok with what is URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/being-ok-with-what-is/ Last updated: 2022-07-24T22:35:48.000Z When I read about contemporary author-entreprenuers and their writing practice, I find that they almost always write several thousand words a day. Whether they write into the dark or employ a plot/outline, the one common thing among them is their ability to sit down and type out (or dictate) word after word after word. BICHOK is a common short-form thrown around in writer circles. It means 'Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard'. For the past year, I've been trying to nail this. Some days it's a breeze, but most days it's not. I even see a pattern (even though a Statistics professor once told us that the human brain is primed to discern patterns even in an entirely random arrangement/sequence). It goes like this. I typically have one or two good writing days, about 2000–3000 words/day, then on the third day, the word count tends to dwindle, maybe comes down to about 1,000 words/day, day four becomes a 500-word day if I'm lucky, and day five is then undeniably the day of the deepest, lowest funk, because I end up writing nothing, and day six is spent wallowing in and/or emerging from that misery, and on day seven or day eight, a new attempt begins. I get back to the manuscript, write a few thousand words, and wonder what all that fuss was really about! Until it happens all over again. It's not just with writing. Some days I'm all upbeat about waking up and playing with D, and over the next few days, the enthusiasm and energy slowly wane, until I reach a point where I have no option but to check out completely. Stop. Do nothing at all. Until, a day or two later, I'm ready to get up and face my world again. There are plenty of studies that talk about how working 9–5, five days a week is not the optimal use of our energy, which apparently does ebb and surge, maybe depending on our monthly body cycles/hormonal shifts or the phases of the moon or some other factor depending on which study you look up. For a long time, I wanted to find an explanation, something that would help make sense of this cycle of productivity and zoning out, with the ultimate goal of turning myself into a word-producing machine. It's amazing how many people, especially creatives, have set out on this very path of exploration and come up with all sorts of alternative explanations – [mind management](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54938047-mind-management-not-time-management), cultural influences, [moods](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53021563-the-book-of-moods) – anything that can explain why some people are super-productive (able to type as many as 9,000–10,000 words/day) and consistently so (at least five days a week), and provide a roadmap for others to follow to attain the current gold standard in self-publishing: write and publish as much and as fast as you can. In trying to follow this guideline, I have ignored what is perhaps the most important bit: 'as you can'. My little one, D, was seven months old when we moved from Australia back to Canada and over the next six months, I had to complete five courses to finish the postgraduate degree I was pursuing at the time. I was lucky to attend one of these courses with a classmate, K, who had become a close friend, in our first year of the program. I remember this particular course very well. It was spread over two weeks, for four hours each morning, from 8 A.M. to about noon or so. KrA had only just started to work at his new job, so he couldn't afford to take leave, but his manager had agreed that he could come in late to work for those two weeks as there was no one else to look after D. I'd rush back home after class, and KrA would promptly leave for work, arriving at office at about 2 P.M. or so. Attending that course was another lady, whose husband was also in the same program, and they too had a six-month-old baby to look after. They were locals, so they had family in town, and they also had a nanny (her own nanny's daughter) to look after their infant, so she and her husband stayed at school from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. She was able to attend all the group project discussions that went on after class hours, while I just ran back home to relieve KrA off child-care duties, feeling I wasn't doing enough at school. It was my classmate, K, who called me out on this towards the end of those two weeks and pointed out my very obvious logistical constraints that couldn't be bridged unless we brought in a third person to help with looking after D. With no family in town and no nanny/daycare we could budget for, this was a constraint we couldn't overcome at that point in time. Three years later, an ex-colleague of mine had posted on FB about his experience during his four-and-a-half-month paternity leave during which his wife went back to work and he stayed at home looking after their child. And at the end of it all, he wrote about his experiences in which he said that before he embarked on that leave, a few of his friends had asked him what he planned to do with all that 'spare time'. And his response from experience was that of course he had had less 'spare time' than before, he hadn't managed to read a book or catch up with news or with friends, that when his child was asleep, he was either tidying up and food prepping or playing games on his cellphone, letting his exhausted mind drift. It was his admission that he didn't do anything else, couldn't quite do anything else, that permitted me to look back at my own experience with a kindness I had not shown myself or KrA until then. I think back to that time now because the situation now is quite the same in many ways. Sure, my then infant is now an almost-five-year-old, but with this part of the world only just sort of emerging from the lockdown, the same dilemmas seem to crop up. > Yet again I find myself falling into the trap of wanting to do more than I'm able to, without really giving myself the time to slowly ramp up to the abilities or level of skill that I want to get to. > This time, I only want to accept all that is for what it is. > When the funk comes, I want to be with it totally, without wishing for it to go away, without judging myself for wanting to do 48 hours of work in a 24-hour day and not being able to. When a day of good writing comes along, I want to cherish it and enjoy it in those moments, hours of writing, without desperately trying to come up with a formula by which I'd be able to replicate the magic the day after and the day after that. I may have mentioned this before but since all my previous posts have vanished (although KrA has managed to retrieve them, and it's only a matter of putting them back up), I'll write this again here. In her book, [Radical Acceptance](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/173666.Radical%5FAcceptance), Tara Brach talks about a meeting with an old man called Jacob who had Alzheimer's and who knew what was happening. And this is what she writes in the book about him. > During our time together Jacob and I talked about how things were going both on retreat and at home. His attitude towards his disease was interested, sad, grateful, and even good-humoured. Intrigued by his resilience, I asked him what allowed him to be so accepting. He responded, "It doesn't feel like anything is wrong. I feel grief and some fear about it all going, but it feels like real life." > Then he told me about an experience he'd had in an earlier stage of the disease. Jacob had occasionally given talks about Buddhism to local groups and had accepted an invitation to address a gathering of over a hundred meditation students. He arrived at the event feeling alert and eager to share the teachings he loved. > Taking his seat in front of the hall, Jacob looked out at the expectant faces before him ... and suddenly he didn't know what he was supposed to say or do. He didn't know where he was or why he was there. All he knew was that his heart was pounding furiously and his mind was spinning in confusion. > Putting his palms together at his heart, Jacob started naming out loud what was happening: "Afraid, embarrassed, confused, feeling like I'm failing, powerless, shaking, sense of dying, sinking, lost." > For several more minutes he sat, head slightly bowed, continuing to name his experience. As his body began to relax and his mind grew calmer, he also noted that aloud. At last Jacob lifted his head, looked slowly around at those gathered, and apologised. > Many of the students were in tears. As one put it, "No one has ever taught us like this. Your presence has been the deepest teaching." > Rather than pushing away his experience and deepening his agitation, Jacob had the courage and training simply to name what he was aware of, and, most significantly, to bow to his experience. In some fundamental way, he didn't create an adversary out of feelings of fear and confusion. He didn't make anything wrong. \~ Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance *He didn't make anything wrong.* *It doesn't feel like anything is wrong ... but it feels like real life.* These two statements have been my go-to ever since I've come across them. And I find that slowly, very slowly, I'm getting comfortable with all this confusion and fear and anxiety that comes up within me whenever I see this vast gulf between where I want to be w.r.t. my writing versus where I actually am. I've actually been able to achieve this acceptance more consistently in two areas of my life. One is in parenting. The other is in the area of rest. For the longest time, I was terrified that D was, still is, an only child, that he has few friends/playdate mates, that we don't have family or friends living near us for him to be able to enjoy a sense of family, of security, of being loved by people other than just KrA and me. In my desperate attempts to and failures at 'fixing' these 'problems', I only made the situation worse by growing more anxious and snappy and irritated, and by not being fully present with him, I couldn't even see that this child was simply happy being who he is, where he is, with what he has, with he can or cannot do at any given point in time – all traits that I came to appreciate immensely only during the lockdown. It's only when I opened my eyes and saw nothing was 'wrong' – this is just what our situation is, we are thousands of miles away from home, and it's ok, we are doing what we can – that everything became 'alright'. Yes, the fear and the desire and the longing still arise, but when I'm aware, I don't feel the urge to act on them. All those thoughts that start to take root in my head at times like these, I simply remind myself of what they truly are – *thought*, *thought*, *thought* – and that helps me come out of that spiral and be ok with the feeling in my body, whether it's a lump in my throat, or a gnawing in the pit of my stomach, or, as is more often the case with me, a heavy heart. I've also become good at recognising when my body needs rest and giving it what it needs. Some nights I wake up at 2 or 3 A.M. and am unable to go back to sleep, and I enjoy the luxury of an afternoon nap without criticising myself for 'wasting' that time and not writing instead. Because, after a long period of trial and error, I've found out that when I'm well rested, I am a better human being. I am kinder. I am less anxious. I am more present and joyful. And these are the qualities I want to bring to myself and to my relationships with D and KrA. D and KrA – my family – are more important to me than my writing. That doesn't mean writing is not important. But this is who I am. If I've lost my temper and hurt them with harsh words, I can't simply close the door and settle down for an hour or two of writing. And that's ok. That's part of me, and I no longer want to deny it or change it or wish it away. I've also seen that the art which emerges from that sensitive, caring part of me is way more sublime and pleasing than that which comes from a place of angst and fury. I'm trying to achieve this approach of acceptance towards my writing too. I will show up every day for my craft, without demanding that the words come. I trust that as long as I keep showing up and doing the best I can at that point in time, my ability will grow. In fact, when I look back at my writing practice now (which is what I should have done before embarking on such a long, introspective post), I find that this is yet another case of me trying to 'fix' a 'problem' that does not exist. Because, exactly a year ago I was writing about 750 words once every three days. So if I were to take a broader view, I was averaging 1500 words/week a year ago, and now that number is in excess of 4,000 words/week. I remember reaching out in an FB group of writers last year and sharing with them that writing 750 words on one days exhausted me so much that I was unable to write for a few days after that, before getting back to it. And a kind member commented saying that I'd improve with practice. Sure, there are other aspects, such as critical voice preventing me from writing into the dark as well as I can, but I've been learning those too alongside. I want to add here that for a long time, I tried to feel ok with all my feelings, anticipating that if I didn't resist them, they'd cease. But that very expectation of their disappearance kept this from being a fruitful exercise in the first place. It was only when I could truly be ok with it all, in that moment, without expecting or looking forward to a future moment of respite, that more lasting change has been coming about. I'll leave you with an [excerpt](https://www.osho.com/osho-online-library/osho-talks/happening-joy-guilt-3871371a-7d8?p=0778c224bdaf40b1410ff7f3ca421d54) from one of Osho's talks to explain what I mean. > Just two days ago, a French sannyasin told me that she was confused, that she could not decide whether to go back to France or to stay a little longer. I looked into her ... something would be possible if she could stay a little longer, maybe four to six weeks. She would have taken a great step toward satori. > But if I had said to her, "Be here for four to six weeks because something is going to happen," then my very prediction would have prevented it because then she would have become greedy, then she would have started expecting. And not only that, she would have started demanding, "Why is it not happening?" > And that very idea: "Why is it not happening? When is it going to happen?" would have created a tension in her being and the happening would have become impossible. > \~ [Osho, Chapter 14, The Tug of War, Sufis: The People of The Path, Vol. 1](https://www.osho.com/osho-online-library/osho-talks/happening-joy-guilt-3871371a-7d8?p=0778c224bdaf40b1410ff7f3ca421d54) It is the same with writing. It is the same with any endeavour. When we create with the expectation of a reward at some point in future, even if we prepare ourselves to receive this 'reward' in a very distant future, that expectation alone can and does impede us in the present moment. The Bhagvad Gita says the same too when it urges us to focus on our actions and relinquish any attachment to the fruits of our actions. Truly, all there is is the here and now. Trust existence. Without any expectation. It is as simple as that. The only difficulty lies in keeping ourselves conscious of this every moment. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Inga Shcheglova](https://unsplash.com/@inga%5Fshcheglova?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/flower-peace?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: an unlikely god URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-an-unlikely-god/ Last updated: 2026-04-21T14:25:04.000Z At first, no one could accept that the red frog under the largest conifer in town was a god. But as the days rolled into weeks, and the weeks disappeared into months, and the frog did nothing that could be mistaken for movement in the slightest, the townsfolk began to reconsider their opinion of him. Eventually, they reasoned that if snakes and elephants and monkeys and cows could be gods, so could a red frog. The offerings were modest at first. Flowers, mostly. Coins, sometimes. The frog wished they’d get him snails and slugs instead. But he had nothing to offer them in return, so he knew better than to complain. Until he was buried up to his eyeballs in petals and glittery dimes, that is. Fearing for his life, he raised his right arm and pointed towards the sky. Every devotee of his looked up, searching for the truth he had certainly revealed to them. The last I heard, the townsfolk had built a ladder to the skies. Now that the people are gone, clambering up the ladder, the frog is mighty glad to be left alone in peace. Whether he is a god or not, I do not know. But clearly, he is just as tricksy as the ones I’ve met so far. ### the past erased, a newness ushered in URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-past-erased-a-newness-ushered-in/ Last updated: 2021-06-11T00:15:51.000Z Sometime in the middle of this week, when I wasn't looking, the site stopped working. KrA, the techie in the house, looked into it and informed me there was some trouble with the hosting service, which essentially meant I may have lost everything I had put up on the site thus far. I only have backups of the Tales for Dreamers that I had been posting every Friday for two months now, but that's because I write them on Pages first before putting them up on the site. All other posts – my introspections, all my meanderings through my own heart – are very likely gone for good. My first reaction to the news was that of disappointment. Which lasted all of five minutes. A few months ago, something like this would have sent me spiralling down into a deep, deep funk. I'd have lambasted KrA for having slipped up on the techie side of things, spent three days or more mourning the loss of something so dear to me, and alternately pitying myself – gah! I had been religiously putting up new Tales for Dreamers every Friday, and long, heartfelt posts more regularly than in the recent past, why did this have to happen to me now, why me, and woe is me! – and cursing myself – why didn't I think of backing up every word I'd ever written?! But poof! Somehow like the previous version of this website, all of that angst is gone. And in its place is a newfound acceptance that everything is transient. > Everything is ephemeral. > My words. > You reading this blog. > There are moments when the two collide and something magical happens. I write something, begging for somebody to understand, and you come along and light up my world by saying, "Yes, I feel you, I feel the same too." Or you read something I've written and something shifts in you, a new understanding, a release, and you say, "Yes, I feel you, I feel the same too." Perhaps this is why we express ourselves – to understand, and to be understood. And once that objective is achieved, there is simply no need for the same moment of magic to repeat itself. Sure, there will be other moments of its kind. But never the same one. When D was younger, maybe about two or three years old, he'd build something with blocks and promptly thereafter topple it down. I was the one attached to his creations, armed with a phone in hand to take a pic in order to preserve his handiwork in some form. Later, I read about Tibetan monks who spend hours or days creating a Mandala art, only to destroy it in the end. A reminder of the impermanence of everything. This incident with the site reminds me of something I had written in [Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes). In this contemporary fantasy novel, Infinity is a Harbinger of Death. She arrives at the time of someone dying, offering them the opportunity to let go of all their wishes and attain *moksha*. She works for the God of Death at the Order of Life and Death. If, for whatever reason, a Harbinger commits an unforgivable error, they are evicted from the Order and they lose every memory of their time at the Order. The below is what I had written to explain this loss, this erasure. > And what consequence does the Harbinger face for such a blunder? For this unpardonable act of altering an innocent soul's destiny? > They are simply evicted from the Order. Every memory they may have formed of their encounters with Gods during their time at the Order is erased. > They wake up the next morning in their homes, the entire day unfurling like a path never travelled before. At first, they may feel as if they're unable to take the first step. Eventually, they do. > They take the first step, and then the next, and then another, and eventually a routine is established, something predictable, something reliable to be pursued again the next day, and the day after, and every single day after that. > And they spend the rest of their lives, comfortable with the nagging feeling that they are missing something. Something purposeful, something meaningful that was just around the corner once upon a time but has now slipped away forever from their grasp. But they learn to make their peace with it. As long as they don't keep looking for what they think they've lost, they can pretend it never existed in the first place. As the story progresses, a series of incidents unfold, which prompts Infinity to contemplate leaving the Order. Her mentor in the Order, Frida, reminds her of all that's at stake. But Infinity gains a newfound perspective on the loss she once acutely feared. > A Harbinger evicted from the Order remembers nothing of their time spent in the service of the Gods. All this while, I had believed this to be an extremely appalling form of punishment. > But, I wonder now, is freedom from the past really as awful as it is made out to be? Wouldn't it be liberating instead? To simply wake up like a newborn, but with all the skills and abilities of a grown-up to make our way anew in this world, the real world of humans and mortal beings, with no sense of shame or guilt or remorse tethering us to past behavioural patterns. Perhaps this is why when we are newborns, we slowly lose all memory of our past lives by the time we are able to communicate with others in a comprehensible language. The burden of that knowledge of our past alone would keep us adhered to where we are, unable to move forward. > I am suddenly exhilarated at this newfound perspective. This possibility of achieving liberation by completely forgetting. By getting up and walking away and never coming back, neither physically nor emotionally nor mentally. > What a rare blessing it must be to erase the story we have so far written about ourselves and craft a new one instead, one in which we already have the qualities we spend our lifetimes seeking. The qualities of courage and kindness. Of compassion and understanding. And of radical self-acceptance, above all. What a rare blessing indeed! Frankly, I feel quite weightless. A wonderful lightness of being. Oh, of course I will nag KrA to reach out to customer support and see if any of my past content can be retrieved. But whether we get it or not is immaterial. So here's to new beginnings. And to much patience as I continue to post here anew – Tales for Dreamers will continue too – while resorting to some old posts to populate the website, as links refuse to work or take you to template pages that may make complete or no sense, as I endeavour to make this place a home again. *Image attribution: Photo by [Cristina Gottardi](https://unsplash.com/@cristina%5Fgottardi?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: how to solve a jigsaw puzzle URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-how-to-solve-a-jigsaw-puzzle/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:02:18.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/10.-how-to-solve-a-jigsaw-puzzle.jpeg) tales for dreamers: how to solve a jigsaw puzzle First and foremost, count the pieces. Make sure you have as many as you need, even if you do not have every single one. Start somewhere, anywhere. It doesn’t have to be an edge or a corner. Start with anything that makes sense to you, anything that looks like it might lead to something bigger. Do not be afraid to move on to another section if you’ve been stuck on one for far too long. Sometimes, you get a clearer view when you move away, a different perspective from another angle. And only you get to decide how long ‘far too long’ is. And never forget this. A jigsaw is not only about the pieces that fit; it is just as much about the voids that need to be filled. So allow yourself some artistic licence. The instructions never said you must only use the pieces you’ve been given. ### the art of 'hiraeth' URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/the-art-of-hiraeth/ Last updated: 2022-07-24T22:35:25.000Z **(Artwork by dear friend, [Padmaja Balaji](https://www.facebook.com/spadmajabalaji))** A fortnight ago, I came across and started to read an enchanting book titled '[The Art of Inheriting Secrets](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38097931-the-art-of-inheriting-secrets)' by Barbara O'Neal. It's about a California-based food editor, Olivia Shaw, who inherits an English estate and a title when her mother dies, both bequests her mother had never mentioned in her lifetime. This is the type of book I usually find myself gravitating towards. Family secrets. Old homes. The past a mystery. The present a dilemma. Both unravelling in their own way. But the thing that came as an unexpected and wonderful surprise was the inclusion of a British-Indian character, Samir, who plays a very prominent role in the story. Romance blooms between Olivia and Samir, whose sister runs an Indian restaurant in the village. So there are ample descriptions of Indian food, Tagore is quoted a few times, the concept of social class in Britain is explored from Samir's perspective. The very prominent Indian element in the story amped up the enchantment factor for me by several orders of magnitude. Shortly after I had finished reading this book, another one fell into my lap. [The Henna Artist](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50607466-the-henna-artist) by Alka Joshi. I can't even begin to describe how much I loved this book. In 1950s Jaipur, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi runs away from an abusive marriage and makes her way to Jaipur (after a brief stint in Agra), where she earns a living by making henna designs for the city's affluent class. She's also a confidante, privy to the secrets of the wealthy, plays matchmaker, and is well-versed in the art of herbal medicine, which she uses to help cure women of their many ailments, ranging from depression to infertility to unwanted pregnancies. But one day, her ex-husband catches up with her along with her sister, a sibling Lakshmi never even knew she had. Her sister gets into all sorts of trouble, and the life that Lakshmi has built so carefully for more than a decade threatens to crumble. Lakshmi is such a strong character in the story, doing what it takes to survive the patriarchy, hobnobbing with the wealthy while constantly being mindful of her own plebeian status in the social strata. Joshi's descriptions of the city of Jaipur, of the ways of the Oxford-educated Indian men and their numerous dalliances, of the gossip-y ways of their wives, and the whole 'boys will be boys, and it's always the girl's fault' ethos that underpinned the Indian society back then (and even now in many parts) were so apt and beautifully done I just didn't want the story to end. Looks like there's going to be a [sequel](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55004546-the-secret-keeper-of-jaipur) to the story, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. I read these books at a time when I was beset with a lot of doubt about all the Indian, especially Tamilian, elements, that had seeped into [Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes). In the novel, Infinity's mother, a character referred to as Amma in the book, moved from India to Canada as a single mother with her four-year-old. But her life within the four walls of their home is largely an attempt at recreating the world she had left behind. Her nostalgia seeps into the foods she cooks, the Gods she worships, and the temple she visits. The only friends she has are Indian, and she detests Halloween with as much passion as she loves Diwali/Deepavali, choosing to celebrate the latter according to the time in India. Amma's nostalgia in the novel stems in large part from my own. But it's funny – this pining for the place of my childhood – because for as long as I lived in India, I'd only yearned to run away from there. But until fairly recently, for as long as I've lived abroad, I've pined for my homeland, not the present one, but the one of my early childhood, when I was still full of ambition and naive hope and unbridled optimism for the future, my future. Every visit to India used to be a stark reminder of how the land I held in my dreams, in my heart, no longer existed, but had morphed into something very unfamiliar, more foreign than the distant lands I had come to call home by then. Later, I realised it wasn't a motherland that I missed, it was family. Each visit reminded me of how much older my parents had grown, and my aunts and uncles too, and the little cousin brother and cousin sister, babies of the family, were suddenly grown-ups. And in these new avatars, there was little of their former selves that I had adored and remembered. While I was pining for a land of my memories and reminiscences, I hadn't understood that it existed only in my head and nowhere else. And this was true of the people too. The fantasies I had built in my head of my interactions with them, both in the past and in the future, were solely mine. A fantasy future built on an embellished past, and bearing little resemblance to reality when it arrived. Then what was I truly pining for? After decades of walking around with this gaping hole in my heart, always feeling like something is amiss, I can only think of one thing – a sense of belonging. And of course I looked for belonging everywhere outside – the places I grew up in, the people I grew up with, the places I worked at. And the only place I eventually found it was within me. I reckon when we're born, we never question our right to exist in this world, in the place we arrive at, in the people entrusted with our care. As we grow up, these convictions come into question so often, we feel the need to get away from the old and the familiar to explore the new and the strange, in the hopes that it may reveal something amazing about us, about who we are and what we want. But eventually, every place begins to resemble the other. Every interaction leaves us feeling jaded. When I was in college, I fell in and out of 'love' with so many people in such rapid succession, I remember telling a friend in my final year or so, "This too will pass. I'll feel this way for a few days, and this crush too will become history." This nugget of self-understanding had struck me as extremely poignant and moving back then. That same infatuation lingered with places and jobs and hobbies until everything eventually just felt like some random filler I was using to plug that hole in my heart. Until D arrived, that is. I've often written how motherhood has quite literally been the most significant spiritual journey of my life. It has made me question everything I thought I knew or believed about life and God, spirituality and relating, all my notions of good and bad or right and wrong. It made me throw out the old ways of thinking and has helped me uncover an authenticity I had long forgotten I owned and, more importantly, the courage to be true to myself. I've spoken up when I'd have normally kept quiet in order to maintain peace. I've defied culture when I've found it demeaning or segregating human beings as 'greater than' or 'lesser than', 'superiors' or 'inferiors'. But nearly four decades of hardwiring is not reversed overnight. While every moment is an opportunity to choose anew, it also holds the peril of slipping back into old patterns and beliefs. And this is one of the things that jolt me out of deep sleep at 2 A.M. and keep me awake for the next three hours. > I'm afraid I'd default to my old self, because to hold my ground firmly, respectfully, would require a calm conviction, and the two states – calmness and conviction – have been antithetical to each other for so long that I worry I'd either compromise on my authenticity or lose my composure entirely. I can apply that insight to every aspect of my life – relationships, setting boundaries, financials, writing – and it is astounding how accurate it is. Take '[Tales for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/)' for instance. I've had such a start-stop affair with it, and even now, not a week goes by when I haven't thought at least a handful of times whether I should continue with it or not. I've abandoned it so many times that even now that I've resumed it, I'm constantly wondering if I should keep going. But when I leave those questions aside, I find that each tale, when I write it, comes from a place of unbridled joy. This is one project that could be called a 'labour of love', though frankly there is no 'labour' involved. I can trust the image will present itself of its own accord, that I'll find something catchy, quirky, in my meanderings, and that the story too will flow from the ether, deep into me, and out on the screen. I realise now that fear and self-doubt – both pertaining to my art and to myself – may well continue to nag me for as long as I live. And maybe, just maybe, I'm beginning to get used to them being my allies without wishing them away or letting them interfere with my work. At the time I sent 'Dying Wishes' out into the world, I came across [Osho's opinions on objective art](https://www.osho.com/osho-online-library/osho-talks/objective-picasso-art-21d30da8-634?p=8b3a50620294ae2034499434eed8e0c2). Below is an excerpt from A Genius in Exploitation, Chapter 26 of The Last Testament (Vol. 30).This is what he says in his trademark outrageous fashion with much humour and mirth. > *Art can be divided into two parts. Ninety-nine percent of art is subjective art. Only one percent is objective art. The ninety-nine percent subjective art has no relationship with meditation. Only one percent objective art is based on meditation.* > *The subjective art means you are pouring down your subjectivity on the canvas, your dreams, your imaginations, your fantasies. It is a projection of your psychology in the same way it will be in poetry, in music, in all dimensions of creativity. You are not concerned with the person who is going to see your painting. You are not concerned what will happen to him when he sees your painting; that is not your concern at all.* > *Your art is simply a kind of vomiting. It will help you, just the way vomiting helps. It takes the nausea off, makes you cleaner, makes you feel healthier. But you have not considered what is going to happen to the person who is going to see your vomit. He will become nauseous. He may start feeling sick.* > *Look at the paintings of Picasso. He is a great painter, but just a subjective artist. Looking at his paintings, you will start feeling sick, dizzy, something going berserk in your mind. You cannot go on looking at Picasso's paintings long enough. You would like to get away, because the painting has not come from a silent being. It has come from a chaos. It is a by-product of a nightmare. But ninety-nine percent of art belongs to that category.* > *Objective art is just the opposite. The man has nothing to throw, he is utterly empty, absolutely clean. Out of this silence, out of this emptiness, arises love, compassion, and out of this silence a possibility for creativity. This silence, this love, this compassion, these are the qualities of meditation. \~ Osho* He then goes on to explain what he means by objective art. > *Meditation brings you to your very centre, and your centre is not only your centre, it is the centre of the whole existence. Only on the periphery we are different. As we start moving towards the centre, we are one. We are part of eternity, a tremendously luminous experience of ecstasy, which is beyond words, something that you can be but very difficult to express it. But a great desire arises in you to share it, because all other people around you are groping for exactly such experiences. And you have it. You know the path.* > *And these people are searching everywhere except within themselves – where it is. You would like to shout in their ears. You would like to shake them and tell them that "Open your eyes! Where are you going? Wherever you go, you go away from yourself. Come back home, and come as deep into yourself as possible."* > *This desire to share becomes creativity. Somebody can dance. There have been mystics – for example, Jalaluddin Rumi – whose teaching was not in words, whose teaching was in dance. He will dance. His disciples will be sitting by his side, and he will tell them that "Anybody who feels like joining me can join. It is a question of feeling. If you don't feel like, it is up to you. You can simply sit and see."* > *But when you see a man like Jalaluddin Rumi dancing, something dormant in you becomes active. In spite of yourself, you can find you have joined the dance. You are already dancing before you become aware you have joined it.* > *Even this experience is of tremendous value, that you have been pulled like a magnetic force. It has not been your mind decision, you have not weighed for pro or for against, to join or not to join, no. Just the beauty of Rumi's dance, his spreading energy, has taken possession of you. You are being touched. This dance is objective art. \~ Osho* I didn't quite understand his words at first. And then I remembered something, which drove home the point for me. A while ago, my friend [Padmaja Balaji](https://www.facebook.com/spadmajabalaji) put up her artwork on Facebook. Just the sight of the dancing Sufi was such a salve for my restless heart. In the days that followed, I kept admiring how a few simple lines easily conveyed the beatific expression of the dancer. When I read Osho's words, this was the image that popped up in my mind. To me, this is truly an example of objective art, that makes me want to lose myself in it. Rejoice and celebrate with the dancer. I don't even need any music. There is no need for analysis. You could look at the curve of his body, the swirl of his robe, and find that everything makes this picture an immaculate personification of dance itself. You could copy these exact strokes and still the replica will be missing the essence of silence and meditation that make Padmaja's art what it is. This brings us back to that debate on calmness vs conviction in the pursuit of art. A month or so ago, my struggle between conviction and calmness came to a head, the reasons of which merit another post in itself. In brief, I wanted to 'conquer' a writing practice, one that would enable me to reach my word count goals on a daily/weekly basis. But it was like war. At the very least, I believe that our pursuit of art ought not to be making life miserable for ourselves or for others. If it is, we're better off doing something else. So I had no choice but to sit with everything that was cropping up, not writing, not doing much else really other than the things that need to be done on a day-to-day basis for the sake of mere survival. I was often lying in bed and staring out at the blue skies and white clouds. Tara Brach's [Radical Acceptance](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/173666.Radical%5FAcceptance) kept me company and helped me simply be. And it dawned on me that the more we dip into the well of silence and trust and compassion, the more and more our work becomes a salve, a refuge, a mirror for ourselves and also for the beholder. It becomes quite uplifting. Inspiring. Not something that induces envy or competition or fear. > Art then becomes such a soothing expression of the self it can hold the artist and the world in a sacred place of simply being. A place without judgement. A place without self-flagellation. A place where one comes back to encounter oneself, to embrace one's own self in radical acceptance. Children are such a natural expression of the kind of acceptance we seek for a lifetime. It took me five years of living with D to understand and accept myself. To understand myself, as I was back when I was just as small. To understand myself now, all that I am now. The other day, our neighbour's parents had come to visit her. D was playing in the front yard. They parked their car on one side of the yard and had to walk to the other side to get to their daughter's place. D said Hello to them and they had a little chat, and they came a little close to D en route to their daughter's place, and he promptly said, "Please don't come too close to me because of the coronavirus." Just a statement of fact. No judgement involved on his part. I was indoors and had just stepped into the yard when I caught these words of his. I would never admonish him for saying what was on his mind, but my first instinct was to make some gesture of apology behind his back, but luckily, luckily, luckily, something in me stopped me from betraying my child thus. And I was so proud of him in that moment for saying what was on his mind, with simplicity and sincerity, and without fear of retribution, fear of offending, or fear of being misunderstood. I've bit my tongue so many times in an attempt to keep peace without realising that (i) the other person's reaction is not at all in our control, and (ii) every time I thought I was 'keeping peace', I was in fact betraying myself, waging war with myself. And now, when I'm putting myself first, that part of me that had gotten used to being treated like she was worthless first raises a hand in doubt and says, "Are you sure? Are you sure you will not let me down again?" And that makes me more resolved to honour myself, first and foremost. From that place of self-acceptance and stillness, art will flow without any coercion. These are life-lessons I learnt from being with D. Every night at bedtime, I tell him how lucky I am that he came into my life. I remember when I started '[Tales for Dreamers](https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers/)' in its earliest avatar more than a decade ago, inspired by Erin Morgenstern's [flax-golden tales](https://erinmorgenstern.com/writing/flax-golden/), I thought I'd find that kind of magic in the suburban neighbourhoods of North America. I didn't, obviously. It broke my heart when I found out that I had travelled halfway across the world only to feel as if I had left behind whatever little magic I had once held. Now, as I walk new paths, I find that magic in the very place every mystic says it lies, waiting to be found. Inside of me. Though for the longest time, I had felt I was too wretched for that to be true. But that's where it has been. And it shows up in the world outside of its own accord without any manipulation or engineering on my part. When stuff like that happens, life feels easy. Effortless. Worthwhile. The universe conspiring forces. Everything I need making its way towards me. All that magic. With so much tenderness. > *'Hiraeth' then feels like just another long, long journey I undertook to find my way back to my one true home, my own self. Here. Now.* I'll leave you with an excerpt from Tara Brach's [Radical Acceptance](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/173666.Radical%5FAcceptance), in which she quotes a contemporary Indian master, Bapuji. I don't know who he is but his words below, as they appear in Tara's book, give me much solace. > *My beloved child,* > *Break your heart no longer.* > *Each time you judge yourself you break your own heart.* > *You stop feeding on the love which is the wellspring of your vitality.* > *The time has come, your time* > *To live, to celebrate and to see the goodness that you are ...* > *Let no one, no thing, no idea or ideal obstruct you* > *If one comes, even in the name of "Truth", forgive it for its unknowing* > *Do not fight.* > *Let go.* > *And breathe — into the goodness that you are.* > *\~ Bapuji, contemporary Indian master, as quoted in Tara Brach's Radical Acceptance* ### tales for dreamers: requisite paraphernalia for your journey URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-requisite-paraphernalia-for-your-journey/ Last updated: 2024-05-06T18:37:18.000Z Calling all travellers, wanderers, wayfarers, pilgrims! Please help yourself to these FREE offerings of items you’d find extremely useful on your journey, wherever you are headed. Included are two leather suitcases — one large and the other medium-sized — with lots of zips and compartments and pockets, inside and outside. Both are BRAND NEW, never used before. The oversized orange shoes you see are a rare find. They’ll shrink or grow to fit your feet. And occasionally, if they’re in the mood, they can even make you fly. The small table is great for hosting roadside conversations at teatime. It is so pliable you can easily fold it into a square as small and as weightless as a handkerchief. We’ve also added a few books you may find to your liking. And some light bulbs too, in case you spend the night in the middle of nowhere and need reading light. Simply tell them to shine light on you, and they will. You can’t always count on the stars; they’re more fickle than you’d believe. Did we mention all these are for FREE? They’re yours for the taking. No questions asked. None answered. There’s only one condition though. You must take with you everything on offer here, including whatever sneaked into those suitcases when we weren’t looking. ### tales for dreamers: unintended consequences of dietary preferences URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-unintended-consequences-of-dietary-preferences/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:02:28.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/8.-unintended-consequences-of-dietary-preferences.jpeg) tales for dreamers: unintended consequences of dietary preferences *Psst!* — Oh, hello there!? *Where are you off to?* — To the lake at the end of this path. *Come with me instead.* — Where? *Up (points a paw towards the sky).* — No way can I climb that. *Won’t you even try? I’ll teach you.* — I don’t have fancy ankles like you do, the kind that twist all the way and help you scamper up and down trees and walls and fences. *(Pouts a little, then sighs.)* — (feels sorry for the squirrel) We could play right here. *No. For the game I had in mind, we need to be way up there, on those high branches.* — (knits brows and frowns with worry) What game did you have in mind? *The one in which we throw last year’s nuts on all the people who walk down this path.* — What?! That’s crazy. *(Shrugs) It’s just a game. And no one will get hurt. And we’ll have all the laughs.* — (walking away, hurriedly) You’re nuts. *(Shouts to the retreating figure) Of course. What’s that thing you humans say?* — (stops and turns around) What? *We are what we eat.* ### tales for dreamers: the song of the red bird URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-the-song-of-the-red-bird/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:02:38.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/7.-the-song-of-the-red-bird.jpeg) tales for dreamers: the song of the red bird *Red bird, red bird, sing me a song*, you beg. *Sing me a song that will float on the breeze,* *a song that will tickle my heart and stir my soul*, you say. And the red bird sings, a song only it can sing. A song of remembrance, a song of longing, a song of all the places it had been, of all the trees it had lived in, of all the nests it had woven, of the sole mate it had loved for several lifetimes of the little red birds they had spawned, of the squiggly worms and the juicy berries they had fed their little ones of the way it used to spread its wings to teach them how to fly, how to fly away from their home, away from itself, so they too may sing their songs to the ones who need to hear them the most. And the song stirs your soul and the tears spring forth, and the red bird asks if you have a song too, a song you’d like to sing, and you nod your head and say, *Yes, I do*. And you sing about your life too, and your story is just as old as the story of the birds, and just as old as the story of the oceans, and just as old as the story of the stars. A grand story of so many beginnings and so many endings, tumbling into each other, until you can no longer tell one apart from the other, like the spokes of a wheel disappearing into a giant disk, the faster it spins, until the wounds are no different than the joys, and the scars and the smiles look alike. And when you sing the last note, the red bird cocks his head to one side, and says, *Why! Your song is just like mine*. But how could that be, you wonder, for the red bird is so beautiful, but you, when had you last believed you were too? So the red bird flies to you and brushes his wing across your heart, and your spirits lift and your melody floats on the breeze, and you both sing songs that tickle hearts and stir souls, for the red bird has taught you how you can only become the songs you choose to sing. ### unexpected self-discoveries in the pursuit of writing URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/unexpected-self-discoveries-in-the-pursuit-of-writing/ Last updated: 2021-06-25T19:26:32.000Z A few weeks ago, I was informed by email that one of my (non-fiction) pieces has been selected to appear in a soon-to-be-published local anthology. I was delighted at first, but doubt followed quickly thereafter. It was a rather raw and vulnerable piece, and I felt a little terrified at it being out there, but then I reminded myself that only a handful of people are likely to read it at the most, given the small scale of this project. But so delighted I was to have been selected that I crafted a reply, expressing my joy in all its glory, and also offered to undertake a free round of final proofreading. The project had given me an outlet for creative expression, and this was my way of giving back to it; this is what I told myself, when I made that offer. Besides, I had been in a writing funk for a while after [Dying Wishes](https://books2read.com/DyingWishes), and was itching to do something else, something new for a bit. An hour later, I found myself in a mild panic. And trust me, I don't use terms such as 'panic' and 'anxiety' lightly. I was worried that the project editors would take me up on my offer and I'd have to spend precious hours proofreading - hours that I should be spending writing, hours that I don't have in the first place. Anyway, there was a small exchange of feel-good emails, and nothing more concrete was mentioned about my offer to proofread, and turns out the project has run into delays, so my services may not be needed after all. A fortnight ago, I received another email from a second editor working on the same project stating that another piece I had submitted (it was a short poem) was selected for the collection. My first reaction to this announcement was that of dread. Utter dread. I went into a funk over two thoughts. (1) I was terrified by my assumption that this meant my first piece would no longer be part of the collection. It was my favourite and I personally felt it truly captured all that I had wanted to express. (2) And if (1) were true, readers (if only the one or two people who'd read this small work) would see me as a poet and not as a writer of prose. Before writing back to the second editor, I decided to go for a walk. I was taken aback by this assault of emotions, and I couldn't for the life of me fathom why I'd react to such seemingly good news with dread and anxiety instead of joy and delight. This was a little too much blue funk even for me. Actually, it was way too much, and I needed to unpack it. Walking along Lakeshore Rd, looking at the blue lake beyond, I found my answer. > *What I truly felt about my pursuit of writing was shame. A great deal of shame.* > *That day, I realised I have mostly been ashamed of calling myself a writer.* Ashamed of the poems I write. Ashamed of the kind of stories I write. Ashamed of the kind of prose I write. Ashamed of all the time I have been squandering on writing, indulging in what my critical mind insists can at most be a hobby and a 'career' for only a privileged few, when I should be working, earning money, contributing to the household, looking after D and playing with him, spending time with KrA instead of living my life in my head and transcribing those scenes onto paper or screen. Ashamed of all the time I was not dedicating to writing because I kept allowing myself to be distracted by the ceaseless demands of life or of my head. Ashamed that I'm wasting time and creative energy in writing this blog post instead of crafting a few more paragraphs in my current WIP. Ashamed that it took me two years to write Dying Wishes, and that three years had lapsed between the publication of my first work, [In Search of Leo](https://books2read.com/In-search-of-leo/), and that of Dying Wishes. > *There have been several moments in these years when I've found immense delight in my own words, a turn of phrase I may have employed, a twist in the story I may have stumbled upon after persevering. But for the most part, I seem to have found a way of entangling this entire act of expressing myself using the written word in a roiling mess of shame.* I'm not talking of [Imposter Syndrome](https://www.verywellmind.com/imposter-syndrome-and-social-anxiety-disorder-4156469), in which one is riddled with self-doubt and a nagging fear that they'd be exposed as a fraud or not as competent or skilled as the rest of the world has so far believed them to be. I experience that too on occasion, but it has not been as crippling as this overwhelming sense of shame. This realisation stopped me in my tracks that morning, literally. I held myself on the sidewalk, arms crossed over my chest, giving myself a big hug, as the tears rolled down. Once I understood *what* I felt, it took hardly any time and effort to get to the *why*. Although I won't go into the details here, suffice it to say that much of that sense of shame typically came from external sources, because that's where we go for validation and approval and acceptance, and over a period of time, it had all crystallised into a very harsh internal critic. > *I love writing so much, and to find this pursuit of mine is so mired in shame was more than I could handle. But I also realised this had to do with much more than writing. It had to do with me, how I felt about myself, and the word to describe that too is the same: shame.* > *Me, always wanting to be somewhere else, doing something else, being someone else. So I wouldn't have to undertake the most difficult and painfully shameful task of being me.* There were so many ways in which this shame has shown up. I will share two of the more recent ones here. I distinctly remember berating myself a couple of months ago for regularly drinking up to two cups of coffee during my morning writing sessions. My coffee addiction became something I had to fix, and I obsessively tried a lot of things - sticking to only one cup, 'rewarding' myself with a cuppa only after I had put down a set number of words on screen, taking afternoon naps so I wouldn't resort to the third cup of the day (and screwing up nighttime sleep in the process). And then I came upon a discussion in one of the writers' groups I'm part of on FB. Many writers are planning to attend a conference in Vegas later this year (I don't have plans to go), and someone found out that their hotel room would not be equipped with a coffeemaker; although the hotel supplied a unit upon request, all the available machines had already been reserved. So this gentleman had posted a question in the group soliciting suggestions for alternatives. Hundreds of comments followed with countless recommendations for carry-along French presses, collapsible kettles, and what not. I sat there, gobsmacked, reading the post, over and over again, examining how the original poster had begun his post, unapologetically, with "Coffee! Let's face it, I'm an addict. I'm willing to bet many of you are, too. Let's see a show of hands - how many authors here are addicted to that burnt bean from South America and need their daily fix first thing in the morning?" I was astonished. It would never have occurred to me to accept my 'addiction' and find a way to please myself, give in to my urge, and here was this chap, tapping into the hive mind, rallying an entire forum of people, to find a way to address his need, to look after himself, to find comrades in his all-t00-human pursuit of meeting his caffeine fix. Had I turned up at Vegas and found myself in a room unable to make a morning coffee, I'd have moaned about it at first and eventually gone about the day, sleepy and cranky, berating myself for being so fixated about having a cup of coffee to begin my day, shaming myself for being this person instead of an imaginary alternate self that could do just as well without coffee, instead of simply accepting that I love coffee and knowing that if I didn't have access to it in my room, I could find a way to fulfil my need, for instance, by heading to the nearest Starbucks and treating myself. It is so twisted. The way my internal critic talks to me is so cruel and twisted. I have been so careful about not shaming D for any reason whatsoever, yet I have completely let this fearful inner critic run amok within me for years now. The other instance in which shame reared up its head was the one I talked about right at the beginning: when I received the first email about my first piece having been accepted and I responded with a thank you and an offer to provide free proofreading services. > *To anyone on the outside, it may appear as if I was being generous, but only I know what prompted me to make that offer: a deep sense of shame, a lack of self-worth, because of which I couldn't quite believe that a stranger in the world outside would consider my writing worthy enough of being included in a collection, so much so that I felt I had to somehow 'compensate' for receiving this gift by offering something in return.* I couldn't simply take what was given to me and say to myself, "Good job!" or "You deserve this" or "You've come a long way." Instead, I subconsciously told myself this couldn't be true, this wasn't right, they had made a mistake, and that I had to do something to ensure this gift was here to stay, this decision would not change, and hey, maybe if I could pay a price for it, that would seal the deal. For a long time, I knew I had gone astray, away from myself. But it's only now that I've come to realise how far away I had gone. But I suppose I'm also closer to my true self than I have ever been because that day on the sidewalk, as all these thoughts and feelings collided within me, as the tears rolled down, I didn't want to be anywhere else, doing something else, being someone else. I was somehow able to feel sad and tender and compassionate towards myself, instead of slipping into my usual habit of criticising myself for having gotten myself tangled up in this mess. I could hold myself in that space without feeling the need to blame - either myself or my parents or my teachers or my friends or the society or the world at large or circumstances or what have you. Some other things began to make sense too. Other than writing essays for schoolwork, the very first pieces I wrote for myself were poems. Even long before I wanted to write a book, I had loved writing poems. I wrote them for the sake of writing them and sharing with a handful of close friends, only to discuss the words and the feelings, never demanding anything more come out of those works. It was only years later that the desire to write novels, stories, arose. A few years later, I discovered Neil Gaiman and devoured Neverwhere and Anansi Boys, wowed by all the magic, imagining all that wonder just lurking behind the door, around the street corner. I read anything and everything by Gaiman at the time, and that's when I stumbled upon [these words of his](https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/09/11/neil-gaiman-advice-to-writers/): "If you’re only going to write when you’re inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you will never be a novelist — because you’re going to have to make your word count today, and those words aren’t going to wait for you, whether you’re inspired or not. So you have to write when you’re not “inspired.”" Gaiman surely meant to inspire writers of the long form, but guess how my inner critic, keen to find any which way to belittle me, decided to interpret this? It promptly concluded that poetry holds little value. I'm pretty sure that was the day poetry stopped bringing me joy, unless my inner critic could deem it genius or brilliant in some way. If you've read this far and find yourself mildly alarmed, please know I will never talk to you or anyone else the way my inner critic talks to me. (Although, if I'm being completely honest, I must admit that KrA has been on the receiving end of my harsh rebukes so often it's a wonder he still chooses to be with me.) > *I suppose that is the purpose of art. To reveal our own selves to ourselves. To show us things about ourselves, about others, about the world that we'd otherwise have not known. And in so doing, to invite us to make what we will of this truth, this knowledge, of our selves, of our precious lives.* Well! Because I still believe in happy endings, I will leave you with what transpired after the walk. I came back home and replied to the second editor, thanking her and stating that I was confused because of what I'd heard from the first editor about my first piece. The second editor replied confirming that both my pieces had been selected for the collection, each one chosen independently by each of the two editors. Both editors are well-established local authors, and so I decided to end this saga by congratulating myself and moving on to other things, while coolly making no references whatsoever to my previous offer to proofread for free. And because I used a Neil Gaiman quote to show how words only take on the meaning we assign to them, I'll leave you with another [weaving of wise words](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/17764-fairy-tales-are-more-than-true-not-because-they-tell) from the same author. > "Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." \~Neil Gaiman, Coraline (I have nothing against dragons personally, but I get the point.) Brain Pickings threw this [poem](https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/04/21/love-after-love-derek-walcott/) at me today, and I find it apt. I feel as if I'm recovering from a heartbreak I caused to myself, and am learning to fall in love with myself all over again. > **LOVE AFTER LOVE** **by Derek Walcott* > The time will come > when, with elation, > you will greet yourself arriving > at your own door, in your own mirror, > and each will smile at the other’s welcome, > and say, sit here. Eat. > You will love again the stranger who was your self. > Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart > to itself, to the stranger who has loved you > all your life, whom you ignored > for another, who knows you by heart. > Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, > the photographs, the desperate notes, > peel your own image from the mirror. > Sit. Feast on your life. And because I'm feeling especially *'generous'* with my revelations today, here's a [comic](http://thegreatcomicbookheroes.blogspot.com/2013/12/lynda-barrys-two-questions.html) by Lynda Barry on creating through all the self-doubt and fear. > *“'*The Two Questions*' came from trying to write something good and not getting very far because I had forgotten that trying to write something good before I write anything at all is like refusing to give birth unless you know for sure it is going to be a very good baby." \~Lynda Barry* *Image Attribution: Photo by [Luis Alfonso Orellana](https://unsplash.com/@alphonzs?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/art?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: hopscotch URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-hopscotch/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:02:49.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/6.-hopscotch.jpeg) tales for dreamers: hopscotch Begin with the heart. Always. If it is light enough, leap on to the blue cloud. Be warned, it has a tendency to drift. If it pleases (I suppose tales of the land and the sea would keep the cloud pleased enough), it will take you to the peak of the tallest mountain in this world. And no, no human has ever heard of it, let alone set foot on it. When you are ready to come down, step on to the narrow treetop bridge, which will lead you all the way down to the last ocean on the edge of the world. Its waters spill over the horizon, where a rainbow rises and disappears into outer space. Only the blue whale can take you across the ocean. And no, no one knows when she will come, or if she will come at all. If, for some really important reason, you cannot wait until the blue whale comes, don’t lose heart, there is still the train journey to look forward to. I know how much you love trains. No doubt you will surely fall asleep during the journey, exhausted from your adventures. But fret not, the train will wait patiently until every last passenger has rested well and is ready to depart. There is only one station you can alight at, the No Exit station. There is nowhere to go from here. But you can begin again. Begin with the heart. Always. ### tales for dreamers: believable tales URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-believable-tales/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:02:58.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/5.-Believable-tales.jpeg) tales for dreamers: believable tales When my grandfather died, my mother told me he had to go away on an urgent mission. I knew all about death and that everyone dies, sooner or later than we’d like, and that no one really knows what happens after. But I also knew this was my mother’s way of making sense of the loss of her father, and so I didn’t interrupt her as she spun her yarn. It was his job now, she said, to let the sun know every morning when it was safe to come out. Grandpa surely knew a thing or two about safety. Judging by all the things he often said to me – *don’t go too close to the edge, the knife is too sharp, the fireplace is too hot* – I knew he was the perfect person for the job. I often looked for him at his usual spot, on the bench by the lakeside, but it was only this morning that I spotted him at the break of dawn, scanning the horizon and waiting for the sun to receive his message. We had the most delightful conversation and once again he gave me a crash-course on safety – *never leave your drink unattended, keep away from lovers who take more than they can give, and always carry your pepper spray on you*. Later, when I told my mother about the encounter, she gave me a strange look and chided me for fibbing. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t believe her own story, but she only said it was one thing to wish for something yet quite another to really believe in it. ### story of a vaccination, and of sadness - my everlasting companion and guide URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/story-of-a-vaccination-and-of-sadness-my-everlasting-companion-and-guide/ Last updated: 2021-06-25T19:17:30.000Z I've just returned home after getting my first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the only vaccine currently available to adults 40 years or older who do not fall in any of the priority or high-risk categories as detailed by the Ontario provincial government. I suppose I've been truly lucky to not have been categorised as a high-priority or high-risk individual. Which means, ever since the pandemic began, I've been able to stay at home for an entire year and longer, without constantly worrying about coming in prolonged, close contact with another COVID-infected person. In fact, the almost-half an hour that I spent at Shoppers Drug Mart for my vaccination appointment today was the longest I've ever been in an indoor public place ever since the pandemic began. I first took an appointment for vaccination last week, but then cancelled it after reading reports of the risk of the vaccine-induced blood clot. I went back and forth on the relative merits and demerits of getting a vaccine now or waiting for a few weeks to see if more of the general populace reported any adverse effects from using the AstraZeneca shot, or if any of the other vaccines would become available. My worry was not about getting a vaccine itself but about specifically getting the AstraZeneca vaccine given the news reports of the blood clot risk associated with it. > *If there's anything I've seen consistently in life, it's this: We mistakenly assume that we can live life like a precise mathematical equation.* > *A + B = C.* > *But we always forget the margin of error that appears in more complex problems. Because the simple, most overlooked truth is that there are no guarantees in life.* After speaking with family and friends, I decided to not even fall into the tempting trap of 'gaming the system' or 'timing the market' as it were. I took an appointment for this week. In the half-day that I spent between cancelling my first appointment and calling to rebook it, the pharmacy was fully booked with COVID vaccination appointments for five whole days. Now that the cocktail of chemicals that constitute the AstraZeneca vaccine circulates through my body, I feel sad. A kind of despondency. Last week, the media was full of reports of 40+ year olds feeling supremely excited about gaining access to a vaccine. Here are people who are aware of the risks of taking the AstraZeneca vaccine and choose to feel enthusiastic about securing some sort of a protection from the deadly virus, and here I was, terrified that I might be that one person in 50,000 or 100,000 to have an adverse reaction to it. I've come to accept that pessimism is often my instinctive reaction to a dilemma. For years, I got swept up in this emotion before I could identify this as part of my psyche. For years thereafter, as I grew more skilled at identifying this emotion and separating myself from it to take a more objective view, I struggled with self-castigation. Why do I react so negatively to news that so many others receive jubilantly? Why do I get fixated on the one case of blood clot versus looking at the remaining 49,999 or 99,999 individuals who do not experience this? In these past few weeks, I have changed. I have now come to accept that pessimism is my instinctive reaction and I also don't slip into the self-blame game. It is who I am - for reasons, so many of which were not in my control - and so long as I am conscious of it, willing to honour the feeling as it rises, and know it too will pass, I am comfortable for it to remain a part of me. It doesn't define me. Nothing does, for that matter. No one part of my being is so large and dominant that the rest of me will crumble under its debilitating weight. While waiting at the pharmacy for the mandated 15 minutes, I shopped and messaged my dear friend, M, who got her first shot yesterday. M and I had been messaging back and forth this past week, sharing our fears and rationales. Her decision to take the vaccine yesterday kept me brave and rooted to my own until my appointment today. It was only after reaching home that the despondency hit. A vast sadness. Sadness that it has all come to this for me - taking a decision to inject a cocktail of chemicals into my body in the hope of staving off a potentially deadly infection without knowing which of the two could prove more lethal. Sadness at all the reports of deaths coming in from India right now. Sadness that it has been eight years since I last visited my folks back there. Wondering what it'd be like whenever I get to go there next - in two or three years from now? - and who'd be left there to visit? Sadness at the fact that schools are unlikely to reopen in person this academic year. My little one is already tired of Zooming every day, although it has only been a week. Sadness that my daily word count, on the days I sit down to write, has stagnated at 500-1000 words, and that a good day of writing is often followed by several days of exhaustion and despair and zero output. Sadness that everyone is doing the best they can to fight this, and it still is not enough. Now that I have acknowledged the sadness, the acceptance comes. Acceptance that life was always steeped in uncertainty. When I tried to adopt the view that uncertainty means possibility, I closed my eyes to the view that uncertainty means nothing was ever promised, nothing, except death, was ever guaranteed. For a long time, I ranted and raved like a toddler about how 'unfair' it all was, until I realised that the concepts of 'fairness' and 'justice' too are manmade criteria imposed upon the world at large, but these ideas have no place in nature. Is it 'just' that the newborn rabbit is destined to become the fox's next meal? The fox would say 'yes' just as surely as the rabbit would say 'no'. Is it 'fair' that vast sections of people have to choose between starvation and working in crowded environments in the midst of a pandemic? Is it 'just' that there are people who've been following all the precautions and staying at home, hoping their isolation would contribute to the end of this mayhem, while so many others are unwilling or unable to exercise such restraint? > *Maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Maybe it's not a question of 'justice' or 'fairness' at all. It is a question of merely accepting that for all our frameworks and analysis and equations and explanations, life is unpredictable at best. And it will throw a curveball our way when we least expect it, if only to remind us of this fact.* That is not to say we throw away all plans for a future that we may indeed have the fortune to reach. But the truth is that any misfortune can happen to anyone, anywhere, and the ones best equipped to deal with it are those who don't feel entitled to a 'good' life just because they abided by all of society's rules - went to the right school or college, had a network of contacts in all the right places, played the right moves, or prayed to the right Gods. To presume that we can avoid pain and misfortune by following a specific script crafted by those who claim to know better is the folly. To understand that pain and misfortune cannot be avoided, are not to be run away from, is the teaching in this for me. When I make no demands of life, but live it with all that it has to offer, I understand its true essence. And this understanding, in itself, is quite liberating. *Image Attribution: Photo by [Dawid Zawiła](https://unsplash.com/@davealmine?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/sunset?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### tales for dreamers: mid-spring snow party URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-mid-spring-snow-party/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:03:08.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/4.-mid-spring-snow-party.jpeg) tales for dreamers: mid-spring snow party No plans are made. No invitations are extended. But at the first whiff of the possibility of snow in the air, long after winter has departed, the little ones creep out of their hiding places. It doesn’t take them long. This is one of those events they eagerly wait for every year – like New Year’s Eve or birthdays – an unanticipated fall of snow in the midst of spring. Everyone has a designated role; some bring out the cakes and the paper plates and the drinks and the glasses, some others bring out the harps and the fiddles, while yet others gather dry sticks and get a small fire crackling. But the privilege of tying up the hammock goes to the oldest ones who know it will be their last party. And because they are so old and have learnt everything there is to know about life, they invite everybody else to join them on the hammock for one last night of celebration. When the last song is sung and the last dance is danced, they wake up the birds and the squirrels and beseech them to hop on the snow-laden branches of the trees and shower the ground with fresh snow so that their tracks may be covered. Well, almost! ### tales for dreamers: standing still URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/tales-for-dreamers-standing-still/ Last updated: 2022-12-18T14:03:18.000Z ![](https://thedreampedlar.com/content/images/2022/10/3.-standing-still.jpeg) tales for dreamers: standing still *If I had to stay in one place for long enough, I might as well be a tree, I suppose.* *How difficult would that be?* *To grow roots, commit my life to this patch of ground I stand on, vowing to the soil that hugs me I wouldn’t part from it until my last breath.* *(Unless I were felled before I could die.)* But oh, young dreamer, don’t you see how I billow with envy come springtime, when the birds come from far-flung places, their bellies filled with tales of all their adventures, and all I have to share with them are the same old stories of how I stood still and tall, watching other trees have their own exploits as their leaves changed colour and deserted them, how the snowflakes, gentle at first, settled upon us and continued to pile even though our old branches creaked and groaned under their weight, and how the snow slid to the ground and disappeared into it, and how new leaves sprung up on the other trees and they all looked really cool, neon green and psychedelic for a brief while? So tall am I that I can see all the way to the edge of the planet, the end of our world, all the places I’ll never go. I’d pout if I could, but I don’t even have the means to complain to whoever made me, to rant and rave about how unfair it is. Surely you don’t want to be a tree like me when you could choose to be a flying bird or a scampering squirrel, a charging lion or an elegant giraffe, or a fiery star in the sky, if not a human being. *How you surprise me, you magnificent tree!* *All I know is that the sight of you, standing steadfast and unwavering, evergreen and unchanging, reminds me that I too can hold my ground in a world that constantly compels me to be someone else, in some place else, doing something else.* ### dying wishes URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/dying-wishes-released/ Last updated: 2025-02-25T16:48:05.000Z My latest novel, 'Dying Wishes', is out now! It's up on [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Wishes-Anitha-Krishnan-ebook/dp/B09169CLPP/) (both ebook and paperback versions), and also on [Kobo](https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/dying-wishes-4). I'm working to put it up on other retailer platforms while also trying to figure out how to make paperbacks available in India (as Amazon does not have this option, and I'm still navigating my way through IngramSpark). Well, all in due course of time! In the meantime, here is the synopsis. **When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life.** For thirteen years now, I have served as a Harbinger of Death, coaxing dying wishes out of mortals so that the God of Death may grant them **moksha*, liberation from the cycles of birth and death. The man about to die this evening claims he has nothing to offer me. He is dying a content man, a rarity in our world. But when the God of Death arrives to lead his soul away, the man changes his mind about dying and flees, planting on me something that is not quite a dying wish. I only know I cannot trust any God with this secret. And that I'll pay an unbearable price for this concealment. Yet again, I underestimate how savagely the Gods can wound me. Even though one of them is supposedly my father who still doesn't know I exist. **Set in Burlington, Ontario, this contemporary fantasy novel weaves Hindu mythology and South Indian folklore into a quest for belonging across different worlds – the World of Mortals and the World of Gods, India and Canada, the past and the present, the world outside and the one within.* **It is an offering to lovers of whimsical worlds and heartbreaking prose, and to anyone yearning to simply belong.* Grab your copy now from [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Wishes-Anitha-Krishnan-ebook/dp/B09169CLPP/) or [Kobo](https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/dying-wishes-4)! ### moments of respite URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/moments-of-respite/ Last updated: 2021-06-25T19:01:38.000Z There it was again. That feeling. Despondency. Desperation. That feeling of being 'stuck' in the same place for far too long. That need to run away. That temptation to burn up that sensation in smoke, or stuff it down with chocolate, or fall into some fantasyland on Netflix or in a book and forget about it, if only for a brief while. It sneaked up on me quite unexpectedly. But then, after two nights of fitful sleep and two very slow days, it wasn't all that unexpected in hindsight. But something was different this time. I was quite fidgety, yes, but instead of pressing on to spend time with D after school, I asked KrA to take over. I slipped into my room, and spent five minutes doing that thing I automatically do on the internet whenever I feel low - look up the social media (FaceBook and LinkedIn) profiles of people I wouldn't have thought of in decades - and stoked that envy in me, telling myself the following: "Look, Look at all these people doing important things with their lives," meaning "Look, Look at me wasting my life writing crap and calling it poetry and fiction." "Look how far they've come," meaning "Look how stuck I've been in the same place for years now." "Look how high up the corporate ladder they are," meaning "Look how far off the corporate wagon I've fallen, so far off that I can forget about ever going back." "Look at all the fun places they've been to on vacation," meaning "Look at all the places I've not been able to go to and at this rate, will likely never visit in this lifetime." "Look at their large families," meaning "Look at me struggling with only a single child, that too such a wonderful one, in my life." This loop of self-judgement and blame used to go on endlessly, quite often spilling into days, until some form of external validation would come along and perk me up, and I'd feel good for a few days, until the next descent into that downward spiral began. It was truly exhausting to live like that. And the terrifying thing was that it took only a single moment of unconscious thought to fall into that rabbit hole. I suppose that's also the most encouraging thing about it, though, because if it can take one thought to plummet down, it should also require only one thought to stop this descent, at the very least. This time, after five minutes of virtual self-flagellation, something made me step away and change the narrative. "Look, Look at me wasting my life writing crap and calling it poetry and fiction," became "My work is important. I love writing and at the very least, it touches a deep part of my soul. My work is sacred. And I am so lucky and grateful to be able to do it." "Look how stuck I've been in the same place for years now," became "It takes time to build a body of work. It takes time to make it a practice. I look back at where I was five years ago and I can clearly see how far I have come. I will keep my vision on a future five years from now, and I'm sure I'd have covered a lot of ground by then." "Look how high up the corporate ladder they are," became "What I really miss about the corporate world is not the designation or the work but the assurance (for as long as it lasts) of a steady pay check, month after month. I earn nothing from my poetry and fiction as of now. But as I put more works out there, I will boost my earnings, slowly and steadily." "Look at all the places I've not been able to go to and at this rate, will likely never visit in this lifetime," became "As I build a steady business, I will enjoy financial as well as temporal freedom to visit several places with KrA and D. And my travels will be based on a yearning to visit new places, not on a desperation to run from where I am, who I am." "Look at me struggling with only a single child, that too such a wonderful one, in my life," became "I am blessed with a wonderful, thoughtful, caring child. I struggled to raise him initially because I chose to raise him peacefully, respectfully, something I had to learn how to do. My struggle has been a tremendous portal for self-growth. I now enjoy an absolutely delightful and authentic relationship with my little one, and peaceful parenting has become second nature to me. I used to want a large family because I used to think a child must grow up with siblings. But the more I see of this world, the more I understand that the most important relationship we can have in this lifetime is with ourselves, and from that bloom all other external relationships. This capability of being at ease with himself comes to D naturally. This is something I'm learning too." And when we change the narrative, when we learn to honour our situation, ourselves, instead of wishing we were somewhere else, doing something else, being someone else, that brings us to acceptance ... which is always the first step to transformation. This is perhaps my first 'successful' attempt at shifting out of self-blame in the past several years. This success has been elusive not for lack of trying. It just took so long, so much conscious effort, so many failures, to effect a change in the way I'd been thinking about myself and my life for the past four decades. And this realisation is not a permanent fixture, I acknowledge. It helps me to have constant reminders of this way of thinking, of feeling, of coming into my heart space, and opening up wide enough to hold all my feelings without judging or shaming myself for having them in the first place. For the longest time, ever since I started asking the question "What is the purpose of my life?" in my early twenties, ever since I began to peruse book stalls on the sidewalks of MG Road in Bangalore (aeons before the Metro rail project was even conceived), eagerly waiting for the latest monthly edition of Osho Times, I have wanted only one thing. Tenderness. For the longest time, I looked for someone on the outside to give it to me. Someone who could be a tender presence, a gentle, calming presence, while I shed copious tears of unbearable grief though I never really knew what I was truly grieving. Someone who could love me simply for who I am, without demanding I change or become someone else worthy of their love. Briefly, I found it in the world outside. In the initial days of a new love, when the world shone a bit brighter, before the cracks started to reveal themselves. We are all only human, after all. And then along came D, and I found myself in the dubious position of being the giver of tenderness. It is so easy to love a child. It is so easy to love one own's child. Yet, it was so difficult to love my own self. Naturally, that act of giving without any replenishment was hardly sustainable. And for the first time I began to realise what Rumi and the great saints and mystics of our times have been telling us over and over again. "What we seek on the outside has always been right here, deep within ourselves." And it took several months after that to truly understand what it means to [love oneself](https://thedreampedlar.com/on-self-love/). Among the various definitions Dani Watson provides in her book, the one below stuck with me the most. > *"True self love is about recognising where you are holding onto thoughts and beliefs that do not serve you and doing the inner work to change them." \~ Dani Watson* If thoughts become reality, surely I can let go of thoughts of self-blame and criticism and adopt a kinder heart towards myself. Moving from the head-state (wherein I'm letting my thoughts run amok) towards the heart-state (where I feel all the anxiety and shame and fear and vulnerability without judging them) then helps me. It helps me accept myself and my world entirely in this moment. It helps me be with all these uncomfortable feelings. And when I can let them be, they move on too, knowing I've heard and acknowledged them, knowing I've given them, without resentment, the space they too needed to express themselves fully. I read a book titled '[The Wake Up](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35122155-the-wake-up)' by Catherine Ryan Hyde. It's about a cattle rancher, Aiden, whose empathy is suddenly reawakened and he begins to feel the pain and the fear of the animals around him, so much so he can no longer hunt deer or castrate cattle. The story also revolves around his girlfriend, Gwen, who has a wonderful daughter and a disturbed son, Milo, who's been abused by his father (Gwen's ex-husband) and acts out in hurtful ways. Milo hurts Aiden's animals in the book. Aiden tries to accept this situation and seeks to help Milo through it all. Towards the end of the book, Aiden and Milo have a joint counselling session with their therapist, Dr. Hannah Rutledge. Below is an excerpt from that part of the book. > *"I think what Milo is saying," Hannah interjected, "is that it was a relief to know that someone else could do a hurtful thing and not be thrown away. I think when his foal hurt him and you felt like that was fairly normal, and to be expected, and you weren't mad at her ... well, you tell me if I'm right, Milo, but I think it made Milo feel like there could be some forgiveness there for him, too. He's hurt living things. And maybe he liked the idea that he could learn to do better if someone would just take the time to teach him."* > *"Yeah," Milo said. "That."* > *Just in that moment, Aiden felt something from the boy that was not fear, or pain, or dread. It was not joy exactly, or even contentment. But it was another brief moment of respite from the negative feelings that dragged the boy down nearly every minute of every day. And if Milo could have a moment or two free from those things, maybe he could find a few more moments as time went on. It was a start.* If I were to apply this to myself, it is normal for me to make all the mistakes I did, and if I can forgive myself over and over again, I too could enjoy brief moments of respite from the constant self-criticism and shaming I had been inflicting upon myself for years, decades now. And these moments would add up in due course of time until I myself become the tenderness I've been looking for all my life. The one that can gently hold me and whatever's going on in me and around me. ### when I try to juggle and all the balls fall down URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/when-i-try-to-juggle-and-all-the-balls-fall-down/ Last updated: 2021-06-25T18:58:24.000Z I struggle with being a mother and a writer at the same time. When D is at home, I find it impossible to get any writing done. When he is at home, I want to spend time with him. But after a few hours of being with him, something starts to gnaw at my consciousness. That feeling that I haven't written anything yet. That feeling that I want to write, but haven't gotten around to doing it yet. That the day is slipping by, that all these days of not writing would add up until they far outnumber my writing days in a given month or year. My little one is a very early riser too. Trying to squeeze in some writing time before he wakes up would need me to be up at three or four in the morning. And if I were to begin working only after he has gone to bed, I'd be getting to my laptop only much later than seven in the evening. By this time, I can't even think anymore, let alone muster up the willpower to write (although some days I do and when I try to replicate that, I'm often not able to). It doesn't help that I need to be in bed by nine or ten p.m. too so that I can be up with him at five the next morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, without being sleep-deprived and snappy and irritated. Even when KrA looks after D, the house remains filled with the sounds of the child, and every word of their conversation permeates through the walls and sneaks up the stairs and slips through closed doors. And I sit here, staring at the screen, unable to write, annoyed with myself for being unable to write. The guilt of being non-productive blindsides me, and I feel as if I'm squandering these hard-won moments by not producing my greatest work yet. As if any time spent away from D should be applied productively in the pursuit of something worthy. Else, I spend this time wondering why on earth am I trying to work, coercing the words to come when they stubbornly refuse to, when instead I could be spending a few precious moments with KrA and D, all memory of the several hours I would have spent with them since morning completely erased as a result of an absolutely flawed program that seems to be running in my head. When I am with D, I think about writing, all those stories whirling in my mind and appearing so attractive, so alluring in that indefinable space, begging to be cast into words on paper/screen, even if they lose most of their lustre in the process. When I am at my desk, I think about D. Just in the other room. Growing up so fast. Each moment spent away from him is irretrievably lost. And I could get up this very instant and sit beside him, but my mind is already somewhere else, far away, not even here thinking of these words that I'm typing, but in some impossibly utopian alternate universe, in which I get to live each day twice. Once, as a mother. Once, as a writer. Two parallel lives that would never collide, because it appears there is so little to connect them. But even as I type this, I get the sense I couldn't be farther from the truth. Writing fulfils something in me. It makes me a better person and hence, a better mother. Being a mother has thrown my world wide open to so many different experiences and emotions and feelings, so many of which I had been completely oblivious to before D had come along. It makes me a better writer. These two roles of mine go hand in hand, and yet I feel as if I'm sailing in two boats at a time, one leg in each, and it's only a matter of time before I fall and drown. Or maybe that is what I tell myself, that is how I try to make peace with this situation. Or maybe I do not really wish to change this situation. What I truly wish to change is how I feel about it. I'm not asking for all these contradictory feelings to be taken away. I've come to understand that my sensitivity is a gift. I'm looking for a way to hold space for these emotions as they arise. I want to be comfortable feeling uncomfortable and not give in to the urge to rush for the quickest fix on hand: a Netflix binge or a bar of chocolate or a scroll through social media. So often the world outside promises us that all we need are the right tools or the right practice to 'fix' our messy lives. There are two things fundamentally wrong with these promises. 1\. There is nothing to 'fix'. 2\. Life, with the indescribable plethora of variables that govern how it unfolds for us, can never be un-messy. It is what it is. What is messy is our approach to it. Our reluctance to accept our situation as it is, because we are so often told that we can juggle it all, elegantly so, if only we applied ourselves harder or adopted the right tools or reached out for the right kind of support. Which means that to achieve anything less than perfection is synonymous with failure. We went to LaSalle Park yesterday evening. We've been there often and it's a favourite place for us to hang out in and watch the swans and geese and ducks at this time of the year. We had only been there for about a quarter of an hour and were planning to embark on a long walk, when D said he wanted to go back home. He was fussy and wanted to be carried (a task only KrA can carry out now ever since I ended up with a herniated disc last September) and was on the verge of tears. On the ride back home, I mentally lost my cool. These were the thoughts that spiralled in my head. 1\. Extrapolation: 'We never have a nice outing when we go out with D. I'd like to explore the trail more but I never get to do that.' 2\. Self-blame: 'I should have seen this coming. He didn't sleep well last night. I should have known he'd not be up for an afternoon walk.' Point 1 on extrapolation is absolutely not true. But in that moment of disappointment, it was easy to extrapolate this as an undisputed representation of the rest of my life. And as for point 2, I am not an omniscient deity nor do I wish to be one. Can't I simply acknowledge my child's difficulty in that moment of time and help him through his pain by going through mine as well as I can? Without the urge to bemoan the 'problem', find something to 'fix', find a 'solution' for it, berate myself for not having prevented such an 'undesirable' outcome in the first place, and come up with a plan to 'prevent' all future instances of such an issue? Tears well up in my eyes as I recall this incident and record it here. I feel so bad for all the rage that erupted in me, even though I had the sense to not express it out loud and, barring a snappy remark at KrA, was able to keep mum until it passed. I feel so bad for little D, whom I was judging so harshly in his moment of vulnerability. I feel so bad for how so many of us live, adopting a problem-solving approach to life, trying to dissect life and successful living and force-fit it into some sort of an equation, which, if followed, would guarantee success, except that margin of error we must incorporate in such an equation will always catch us off guard. I know all of this in theory. But when it comes to practise, I stumble way more often than I want to. These past few months, I've been especially anxious and unable to stay present, often stressing about the past and the future, and then guilt-tripping myself for not being able to stay present and for 'wasting' all this time I'm getting with D and KrA in wishful thinking about some alternate reality that does not exist. Maybe, in trying to 'rectify' this 'error', I am making it harder on myself. It is OK. It is OK. I am human. I make mistakes. Every moment offers a new choice. Right now, this very instant, I choose to let go. Let go of every expectation, every desire for life to be something different than what it is. All the peace and release I've been desperately praying for are right here in this instant. In the seeking of it, I reinforce its lack. In the tasting of it, I reinforce its abundant presence in my life. This moment has everything I need. In this moment, I am fine. In this moment, life is bountiful. In this moment, life is. ### on self-love URL: https://thedreampedlar.com/on-self-love/ Last updated: 2021-06-25T18:54:56.000Z This past month has been difficult. We've all been in some state of lockdown for so long now that I assumed I had gotten used to it, more or less, that I had figured out a way to cope with it and make the most of it. I remember telling friends that I find myself loving the slow pace some days, but on other days the same monotony feels excruciatingly unbearable. I also remember telling them that pre-pandemic life too was like this, and the pandemic has only served to magnify what came before. But almost four weeks ago, began my decline into ... I don't even know how to describe it. Depths of despair, I suppose I could say. The sudden onset of a dark, gloomy mood, that held me in its grip for a day or two. Almost every two or three days I found myself bursting into tears, experiencing the kind of physical and emotional lows I had been associating with pre-menstrual syndrome, exacerbated a hundred times post pregnancy and delivery nearly five years ago. On days like these, I barely wrote. And in my inability to make progress on my WIP, I was mentally berating myself and panicking over how much longer it was taking to finish my work and put it out into the world. It was a self-serving cycle. I'd feel low, not write, and feel low about it all over again, which made my recovery and return to writing take that much longer, and usually dependent on some external circumstance such as the receipt of good news or a morning of blue sky and sunshine. Essentially, factors that were completely out of my control. I looked up the Kindle Store for books on 'self worth' and came across [Dani Watson](http://daniwatson.com/)'s '[Self Love and Spiritual Alchemy: Transform your mindset, strengthen your self-worth and manifest the life you desire](https://www.amazon.ca/Self-Love-Spiritual-Alchemy-strengthen/dp/B085KKM46Z/).' (She posts quite frequently on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/dani%5Fwatson%5Fcoaching/?hl=en).) For years, I have read many books on self-love, manifestation, abundance, spirituality, the whole shebang, but none have stayed with me the way Watson's book did, which I read end to end and promptly went back to the beginning. Her words were simple, practical, not vague and abstract notions that leave readers with little clue as to how to actually practise these ideas and incorporate them in our daily lives. I also love that she self-published her book. She also designed her own cover, so even more kudos to her. But more importantly, and this is perhaps what resonated with me the most, the beginnings of her story are as privileged and as ordinary as yours or mine. She was working in London, she had a degree in law, and the rock bottom that brought about change in her life was finding out that her fiancée had been cheating on her and the fact that she had resorted to shopping to fill all the glaring holes in her unfulfilling life and had racked up a debt of about GBP 20,ooo. Give me a story written by someone who survived a war or an accident, or someone who underwent the significant grief of losing loved ones, or someone who had to escape a war-torn country and face several dangers to be reunited with their family (like [The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan](https://thedreampedlar.com/being-our-own-champion/)). Such a story would doubtless inspire me and motivate me to look at my relatively way-more-privileged life and do something useful with it. If people could overcome so much adversity and loss in their lives and go on to achieve unimaginable success, who am I to moan my lot? Essentially, I was telling myself to suck it up and carry on. A learning that often motivated me for only a day or two and thereafter sent me scuttling for the next self-help book or memoir that would talk of courage and grit and perseverance in the face of adversity. But the truth is, and I didn't realise it until I read Watson's book, that being told to suck it up and carry on is the worst advice we can be given when we are at rock bottom. And it doesn't matter what our rock bottom looks like. The point is not 'who has it worse' but what we can do to emerge from that place. I love her definitions of True Self Love, and I quote directly from her book here. > *"True Self Love is not so much about what you do, but how you think and feel about yourself and the world around you."* > *"True Self Love is about recognising where you are holding onto thoughts and beliefs that do not serve you and doing the inner work to change them."* > *"True Self Love is about releasing negative energy, forgiving the past, and raising your vibration, so that you feel amazing from the inside."* And for the first time in my life, I began to feel comfortable with the fact that my identity, the entire premise of who I am, is not really tied up with what I do. It is such a simple truth, but one that has taken me decades to arrive at. And even though I've read words such as these many, many times, I had never understood their gist the way I did after reading Watson's book. So, if my self worth and self love need not be entangled with what I do - as a mother or as a writer - am I still worthy on days when I don't write? Can I still love myself on days when I feel too tired to cook a meal and am happy for little D to have a pizza dinner instead? Being able to ask myself these questions and realising that I can answer them in the affirmative is so liberating. Whether I write a book or not, whether I make a gourmet, nutritious meal for my little one every time or not, whether I've remembered to get him to do his reading lessons or not, whether I have 'done' anything or not that would be deemed 'useful' or 'productive' by the world outside is immaterial. > *I am a manifestation of life itself.* > *Simply by virtue of being alive in this world, I am worthy and loveable. And I deserve all my love, first and foremost.* What an amazing realisation! *Image Attribute: Photo by [Steve Halama](https://unsplash.com/@steve3p%5F0?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/r%5FoV6smBBYk?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* _Includes the latest 500 public posts. Use `/sitemap.xml` for the complete archive of public content._