Hello and Happy Deepavali/Diwali to all who celebrate!
Although I am a Muslim, I am also half-Sri Lankan Tamil which means I get terrible cravings for certain treats this time of year. Achu Murukku has always been a #1 craving mostly because of my Dad who always wanted it this time of year. But also, murukku in general. This year I was very pro-active and so have no murukku disappointment. I also enjoyed visiting a couple of Deepavali bazaars this month which satisfied various other cravings. The other favourite of mine is the gorgeous trifecta of string hoppers, sothi (coconut turmeric broth with vegetables and/or protein) and mutton varuval or peratal. This year I waited too late to get the mutton varuval from the shops and there were traffic jams everywhere. Instead, I made a gorgeous lamb varuval which I am still so proud about along with a daikon sothi (flavoured with some of the lamb stock I made while pre-cooking the lamb with spices). There’s also hyderabadi chicken biriyani, butter chicken (so excited that I finally scored kasuri methi/fenugreek leaves, you have no idea), and pear payasam. Pretty clear that I’m all set in terms of my Indian food cravings for this season and for this mid-semester break. Apart from the burfi, alas. I do have burfi disappointment this year and I completely forgot to get the ingredients at the store so I could attempt to make my first burfi but oh well. Perhaps in a couple of days?
In lieu of that, here’s a story that the love of burfi made me write.
The main reason I’m posting today however is to share my main conditions aka personal benchmarks before I return to my author social media (which I shared with my writer’s group yesterday):
I need to meet AT LEAST 3 of the following criteria before I’m allowed back on my main social media.
- Finish Rosemirror and set it queued for pre-order.
- Finish the postcolonial Gothic novel and be ready to lob it at agents.
- Pass two musical grade exams (piano, classical guitar).
- Get an academic book contract (aka FINALLY finish my monograph)
- Get pro-rated fiction publications again (I got a pro-rated poetry sale a couple of months back but not yet for fiction. Not since 2020).
- Get a literary agent.
- Alternately, get an unagented book contract for novellas etc (then of course I’d need to return to promote)
I’m not completely isolated. As I mentioned, I have my main writing community (I’ll also be joining SFWA in the near future given I’ve been SFWA-eligible for nearly a decade now; it’s time for that professional membership), and the ceaseless avalanche in my work inbox. I left my author social media at arguably my “height” in terms of engagement and followings which is way better than leaving during its converse. I really enjoyed my conversations with various lovely people. But I was also really over-extended in terms of work, life and juggling all the things plus I really couldn’t handle all of the relentless anger/lack of nuance on social media sometimes. Also, all of the reasons I mentioned in previous posts.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t have withdrawals or I didn’t miss speaking to some of the more usual suspects. But I had to do what was best for me and right now this is it. Mostly, I’m too busy for this to be too much of an issue but when it is, I lurk on youtube (I find cozy videos very soothing) and a burner account on insta mostly for food and cozy videos. You get the idea. There’s also Stardew Valley which continues to calm me down, embroidery, language lessons and chess. These things tend to happen on the downtimes.
In conclusion, those are my personal benchmarks so I can fulfil my promises to myself AND my readers. I feel really bad I have not got Rosemirror out for people waiting for the sequel and I want to give my best.
I’ll only re-activate stuff after I meet said conditions and this post (and the one for my writer’s group) exists for the sake of accountability and so there will be no u-turns later. Late 2027? Early 2028?
Insya-Allah. In the meanwhile, I’ll keep posting here regularly.
Till the next blog post,
xx
Anita