The Nose of the Camel in the Tent

More Blogging

2007-05-25T21:32:00.000-05:00

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One Profile Camel in 50K or Less

2006-11-01T22:25:00.001-06:00

PONDERING NaNoWriMo: It was a dark and stormy night...

2006-11-01T09:23:00.002-06:00

The first of November is not just the end of Halloween. It's the beginning of National Novel Writing Month, that literary marathon where writers all over the world try to complete a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month.

Okay, I admit I've always wanted to write a novel, maybe a pithy bestselling potboiler with bedouins galloping across the desert in their landrovers, but what does it actually take to write 50,000 words? If you do the math, it works out to 1667 words a day. Some say you can write 500 words in an hour, which would mean writing 3 hours every day in order to finish in a month. Others say it's closer to 800 words in an hour, which means writing two hours a day. Here is an interesting thread with some discussion from people who have actually tried the challenge.

I think I'll approach this like a sport. There are indeed elite Olympic athletes whose lives revolve around their sport, just as there are some well-published novelists. But when you start a new sport, you don't plan to run a marathon the first time. You just get yourself some good shoes, run out the door, and go around the block a few times to see how it goes. Then you try to feel good about what you did, and look forward to enjoying it the next time.

One Camel at Wadi Rhum

2006-10-29T17:43:00.001-06:00

2006-10-29T11:35:00.001-06:00

WELCOME.

First things first. We start in the traditional bedouin way. Take off your shoes and leave them in the sand by the door. Then, sit down on the farsha, lean back against the pillows, and have some tea.

Today I have sage tea. All summer I drank mint tea from the Jordanian mint plant beside my front door, but now the cold weather has arrived and the mint isn't growing quite so vigorously. I have a package of sage leaves from the Middle East-- the package proclaims it is the product of الأردن Jordan. Jordanian الميرامية merimeeya. Yes!!!

First, a teabag of ordinary black tea goes into a small teapot, along with a small handful of loose sage leaves (maybe two tablespoons or the amount of leaves in two teabags). Then, the water must be boiling, and is poured over the leaves. The tea steeps for two or three minutes. Then you add sugar; for my teapot I use five of the small, small Arab spoons made especially for adding sugar at the table. Pour some tea out of the teapot into a glass and add it back into the top of the teapot to make sure the tea in the spout is the same as the tea in the pot, and you're ready to drink it.

The Arab welcoming ritual calls for small tea glasses, but beside the keyboard I just have an ordinary ceramic coffee mug. According to bedouin tradition, the guest is allowed to claim hospitality for three and one third days without answering any questions. But let's face it, bedouins are curious and start asking questions the minute they start refilling your tea glass.