The Story Ribboned Forward, Inventing Itself • Karan Mahajan

INTERVIEW BY DEMETRI RAFTOPOULOS

In eight sentences, Karan Mahajan had me silent. I had never read his words before, but there I was, re-reading a single paragraph over and over. It was a part of the series in Poets & Writers, where writers "recommend" a specific something. Later, I wondered how I even got there, but in the moment, I was captured by his voice, which was direct, almost demanding, but with elements of politeness and manners. A hard yet endearing shove into a specific direction: "Write first drafts by hand." He goes on:   

This cancels self-criticism immediately; unless you have truly ugly, banged-up handwriting, everything you write will be visually and stylistically unified by ink. Better still, in an age of Internet-rehab apps like Freedom and SelfControl, nothing approaches the uncluttered nondigital quiet of a page. Take confidence in the fact that much of our canon was composed on paper. But mostly, when you achieve a flow, you're much less likely to break it on the page than on a screen—you'll be less tempted to double backwards into revision, checking e-mail, opening a tab. I found this to be true when I wrote the first complete draft of my second novel, The Association of Small Bombs. For years I'd been struggling to make progress, only to lapse back into revision. The minute I committed to paper, the story ribboned forward, inventing itself. I had never felt anything like it.”

This is something I have been contemplating deeply on my own. I was always a writer, but I recently began approaching projects by hand, often struggling to connect more with a blank screen than I was able to with a blank page. This past summer was the first time I ever wrote drafts by hand, let alone ever wrote in a journal. I uncovered something inside that journal that I haven't been able to express, but I see the feeling in Karan's words above. And so I set out to talk with Karan about the above, his process, the road bumps we often hit as writers, and how the handwritten words has shaped his craft.

* You can see his full bio at the bottom of this page, but Mahajan's second novel, The Association of Smalls Bombs (Vikings 2016), is forthcoming in March. 

DEMETRI RAFTOPOULOS: You mention in Poets & Writers that you wrote one of your novels by hand. Do you always write first drafts by hand, or only certain kinds of things? 

KARAN MAHAJAN: Increasingly, I write my first drafts of every kind of project by hand—fiction, non-fiction, reviews. Drafts are not a writing problem; they are an emotional problem. Usually, you haven’t broken through the material in the way you should have. When you type out first drafts, you get needlessly attached to the language you’ve used, and this keeps you from moving on.

Writing by hand also slows me down. I tend to write first drafts in a panic of excitement, and I’m calmed by the analogue action of handwriting.

DR: You said one reason you write first drafts by hand is specifically because it cancels self-criticism. Can you talk a little bit more about the idea of self-criticism, and how handwriting cancels that? 

KM: Well, I’m experiencing this right now, as I type out the answer; my urge is to go back and correct a few words in the previous sentence. But, rather than fall into a loop of revision, I’d rather invest that energy forward.

DR: Do you think self-criticism, along with doubt and distraction, are forms of writer’s block? 

KM: Yes—the main form of writer’s block. I was blocked in this way for about four years, but, because I was producing a ton of material and constantly revising—I have about 1,400 files in my “Association of Small Bombs” folder, most of them varying minutely from each other—I felt I was doing something. I wasn’t. Mailer says that writer’s block is a failure of the ego; I concur. And perfectionism can become a denial of your own humanity, of the languors, say, in a life or story.

DR: Has handwriting always been a large part of your life, or life as a writer? 

KM: It hasn’t. I emigrated to the US in the Age of the Laptop. Coming to handwriting felt like a discovery—a holdover from journaling and note-taking.

DR: I'm curious about your process. At what point do you leave your drafts and begin typing? And how has your process of writing by hand -- drafts -- evolved over the years? 

KM: It varies. If I feel confident that the story I’m writing is close to the final, I type it out as I go along—handwriting in the morning, typing in the afternoon. This keeps the work fresh in my memory when I attack it the next day. If I’m not yet confident the story’s going to unfurl to a conclusion, I’ll keep handwriting. If I reach some kind of end, I might type the whole thing out. But if the story dies midstream or I lose interest it’ll remain immured on paper.

DR: You mentioned that the minute you committed pen to paper in your second novel, The Association of Small Bombs, "the story ribboned forward and invented itself." What specifically came to you -- characters, plot, purpose?  

KM: The plot of The Association of Small Bombs is entirely organic. I knew the downward direction the lives of the characters would take, and that Mansoor, one of the main characters, would come back from the US, but I didn’t know how any of the characters would connect, how their stories would play out in concert. It was the central challenge of writing a novel about terrorism. What do terrorists and victims really have to do with each other? The writing, which was instinctive, made these connections for me. When Ayub, my favorite character, appeared in the book, I was surprised. He allowed me to say, directly, many of the things I felt about terrorism without resorting to needless dramatization. 

DR: You also said something else in Poets & Writers that stuck with me, “when you achieve a flow, you’re much less likely to break it on page than on a screen, you’ll be less tempted to double backwards into revision.” What was your revision process like then for The Association of Small Bombs. Did you find it to be easier? Less work?

KM: The key difficulty for me was to keep myself from destroying what I’d (hand)written. I tried once to rewrite the entire thing by hand, but simply didn’t have the drive or the interest; I’d said what I wanted to say. Then I tried rewriting almost every sentence on my computer. This was wasteful and idiotic, because each edit was only an elegant variation on what came before; it wasn’t improving the story or the scenes. The best editing advice I got—for the kind of writing I do—was to read it out loud. This sloughs off embarrassing and overwritten bits but doesn’t lead to a complete reworking of what you’ve offered the reader from your sub-conscious: which, in a way, is what the reader is after anyway.

DR: How did the experience of writing your second novel by hand compare to the experience of writing your first novel, Family Planning? Did you hand-write any of that novel?

KM: The storytelling in this novel is much better. Not much has been shifted around. Words and sentences remain where they first appeared in the flow of the story; the story is one giant thought. I’m proud of this. My main complaint about novels is that they lack unity; you get to the end and feel the writer forgot why he or she started. And almost no novel ends well; the project of getting to the end has defeated the novelist. Handwriting, zooming forward, allowed me to overcome this. And no, I didn’t handwrite any of Family Planning.

DR: The narrative, or at least parts, of both your novels is set in India, specifically New Delhi, where you grew up. How did your surroundings, or upbringing, impact the way in which you write? Obviously, it informed content, but what about form?

KM: It taught me to find my center, to achieve concentration, in the midst of a crowd.

DR: Do you have any handwriting rituals?

KM: I’ll sometimes warm myself up with journaling.

DR: When you look toward the future of handwriting, what do you see? 

KM: A bleak future. And I’m fine with that. I’d rather keep this discovery to myself and let other writers be bewildered and broken by their fine machines.

---

Karan Mahajan was born in New Delhi. His second novel, The Association of Small Bombs, tells the story of two families in a world plagued by terrorism. Karan not only explores how terrorism shakes its victims, but how those responsible are affected as well. His debut novel, Family Planning, was published in nine different countries and won the Joseph Henry Jackson Award. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker Online, Granta.com, and more. He resides in Austin, Texas, where he is currently diving into his third novel.

Once A Writer, Now A Handwriter • Demetri Raftopoulos

BY DEMETRI RAFTOPOULOS

I forgot my notebook.   

It’s 5:30 in the morning and most of Thassos is still sleeping. The sun is hidden behind a couple moon colored clouds, just like the rest of the writing cohort behind their closed bedroom doors at Archodissa. I walk back past the kitchen and up the stairs towards the courtyard where the basil and oregano that is sprinkled into our dishes grows. A group of off-white stray cats lay spread out next to the garden. Their eyes are closed too.  

I walk up to the balcony and reach my room. Clothes hanging to dry snap softly on a line extending the length of the balcony. I barge in and retrieve the small beige felt journal resting on my nightstand. My feet crunch against the sand I drag in from the beach every day, and close the door behind me, now ready to open my notebook on a boat that will sail through the Aegean. 

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Spending a month in Greece, that same notebook was next to me as much as bread was with tzatziki. With me at all times like uncertainty throughout the Greek government. Simple chance brought us together. A good friend gave it to me before leaving and if it wasn’t for him, I would have never clicked down on a pen. I would have never built another relationship alongside all the others formed around me with the clanking of glasses that month. 

The notebook became my traveling companion. In a new environment, with new people, I felt safe with it. But I was also in constant need to protect it. So much so that instead of spending my last morning in Thassos on the beach, I sat at the restaurant and transcribed everything I had filled it with onto my laptop, in case something unfortunate occurred. I needed to know where it was always, the few times it wasn’t tucked into my back pocket or open in my hands. It was a friend that always gave, no matter how much I took and took and took. 

I wasn’t a hand-writer. But in Greece, I became one.

The water looks dark, like the tip of a sharpened pencil. I grip the blue siding of the boat the way I grip my notebook. We move slowly, a pattern of tiny ripples follow us to the fishing trap Stamatis set last night, but the boat still rocks with the unsteadiness of the water. Stamatis is a fisherman, captain of the Evanthoula, and owner of Archodissa. He stands behind me clutching onto a small metallic wheel that sticks out from above the compartment like his worn-out overalls do over his blue polo. Greek music plays from a speaker next to the wheel and we pick up speed. 

“S’Agapo pou eisai oreia,” Stamatis shouts, adjusting a strap falling off his shoulder. “I love you because you’re beautiful,” I repeat to myself, taking a seat on the ledge in front of him. 

I wonder if he is singing to the sea, I write in my notebook. The swaying of the boat darts my pen upward and downward. Or if he is singing to his wife, Eva. The word ‘singing’ comes out the sloppiest but I can still read it. I use my thigh as a desk and rest the notebook right above my knee AKIMBO. It’s chilly this morning and the Aegean breeze whispers across my exposed head. I pull my hood up and continue writing. 

This is his life: setting traps at night to pick them up in the morning. Sleep irrelevant. And whatever the sea offers him this morning, he will still be singing. Whatever the headlines say about his home’s economy, he will still be fishing. 

I flip back to earlier pages in my notebook and admire how much I have already written only into the second week of this month-long writing residency. The pages are filled with sloppily written words as if I wrote them descending King Da Ka at Six Flags but my words are there, nonetheless, engraved into each sheet. 

Light begins to creep out from behind the mountain to our left, as if rising like beer poured slowly into a mug. 

Stamatis is still singing. His words hit me like the morning wind but stay and land on my page instead. 

The captain continues to serenade his home, his sea. He knows these waters better than the fish that swim in them. The boat moves with ease and the music blasts louder. Stamatis is Thassos’ alarm clock. The snake charmer for the sun. The dry entertainment above for those living below. He could be trying to mask the harsh sound of the Evanthoula’s engine. Provide the sea with comfort instead of impending potential capture. Or he could just love the music his favorite singers produce. It could be his constant cheery nature. That he wishes to celebrate his life instead of worry about it. 

I click the end of the pen and place it in my notebook’s crease so I can stand for the sunrise. I leave the notebook closed on the ledge and face the mountain, watching it give birth to the sun. The curved arc appears first and the morning already begins to warm. I remove my hood and look back toward the notebook, tempted, but keep my eyes focused on the slowly rising sun. 

This will sound a bit silly but my notebook isn’t demanding or needy. Yes, I may write in it constantly but the notebook has also allowed me to live my life separately, away from it’s pages and soft jacket cover. To admire what’s around me alone, and then share the moment with it afterward. To truly capture a moment before putting my head down. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy sharing. But I enjoy being able to experience something on my own first and then sharing it with others. With my notebook.

The sun is halfway through its entrance and I return to my ledge. I watch the day brighten a little more before opening the notebook again. 

“Ti graphis?” Stamatis asks loudly, touching the brim of his blue hat, and then resumes his song. "What are you writing?"

I turn to face him. “Kati yia sena,” I tell him. He smiles and his graying goatie does too. "Something about you." 

An orange buoy appears, softly twirling in the water like the final spins of a quarter. The engine and speaker both soften and the boat inches towards its marker. 

Stamatis’ beard resembles my father’s, as does his work ethic. I’ve been to Greece before but it’s been seven years since I’ve experienced that sunrise from the blue of the Aegean. With someone like Stamatis, a patriotic man, doing all he can to keep his business and world afloat. The water doesn’t have a rank smell attached to it, like the beaches on Long Island. If anything, it smells like promise. Greece is constantly on display, shackled in the courtyard of Europe for everyone to poke at. It isn’t hidden like that which swims beneath us. Hopefully Stamati will reveal some of his hard work when he pulls up the trap. 

In the past, I don’t know how I would have recorded all this. With my phone? Hope to remember as much of it with my fleeting memory? Fleeting, like my presence in Greece. It’s impossible to remember every detail but with this notebook at my side, I’ve been attempting to. Whatever I don’t remember or don’t see, I’ll write into my notebook the next time I’m here. And whatever I forget will be kept alive. 

The orange buoy is now at arms reach and the boat slows even more. A couple of seagulls are awake now too, circling the boat for whatever we throw back, if anything. The sun is now completely over the mountain and shines on the rest of the waking Thassos. This is when Stamati will begin to reel in his trap and wait to see what he has caught.

“Re Demetri,” Stamatis says, turning the wheel slightly, “pigene na to piasis para kalo pedaki mou.” 

The captain asks me to go pick up the buoy. An honor. He is asking me for assistance, someone who is simply learning in the presence of a master. Stamatis could do all this with one hand covering his eyes and the other flicking worry beads over his fingers. My assistance isn’t paramount to his trip because surely he does this alone. However, he has entrusted me in carrying out a duty that affects the well-being of his family.

I’m still tempted to stay seated and write. To witness something invaluable I could never see elsewhere and fill more pages. Write this scene of him picking up the traps. Write with detail the way each fish looks, how they move, and sound. Describe the definition of Stamatis' aging yet tone muscles flexing with each pull of the trap. How his blue shirt matches the water he’s pulling fish out of. How the mechanized pulley reeling in the trap sounds alongside the rest of the emptiness we are surrounded by. 

Instead, I leave the next page blank. I close my notebook, stand, walk to the front of the boat, and reach for the buoy.