The Power of One, the Ripple to Many

By Supriya Savkoor

During World War II, when the Allied powers wanted information about their enemies, they had to get creative about their research. After all, the Axis powers were savvy enough not to blare national headlines about the toll the war was taking on its resources or its troops. So the Allieds had to follow other clues. Instead of reading Germany’s big metro papers, for example, American intelligence workers read small-town, lower-circulation community papers. Buried below those big stories about war “triumphs” and patriotism, were the local obits and statistics such as how many factories were having to close down. Any tiny but instrumental indicators of what was really happening in the country. Neat way to spot a trend, right?

I’ve been thinking about that research strategy a lot lately, whenever I read or hear the news, in fact. If you follow the mainstream news, the world is a real mess, and getting worse by the second. As a former journalist, though, I know the worse the calamity, the bigger (and consequently the better) the story. And that’s why the news puts so many of us off. Our gut instinct might be to tune it out or turn it off. But when we do that, doesn’t what’s around us seem not quite so bad? At least, it does to me.

In fact, much seems to be moving in a positive direction these days. Wars ending, affluence growing, opportunities rising, innovation increasing. Most of all, individuals who are inspiring the rest of us by making a difference. I know it's not all good, but it's not all that bad, is it? Am I looking through rose-colored glasses, or perhaps basing it on where I live, perhaps anecdotal stuff from people around me?

In fact, everywhere I look these days, there's a lot of good stuff happening. There’s the couple who lives near me that organize community events around the country that gets entire neighborhoods to come together to package thousands of meals for the hungry—and in a matter of just hours. (We’ll be sharing their incredible story here on our blog later this month.) Another husband-and-wife team, both dentists, spend holidays in their native Vietnam, providing free dental care to those who need it most, including performing surgery on children born with birth defects such as cleft lips and palates. The woman in my community living with muscular dystrophy and who, despite having to wear leg braces to be able to get around, volunteers full time at our county’s only free clinic for the poor, mobilizing resources and other volunteers to keep the clinic going; she does all this with much humor and good cheer. Our friend and contributor, Lanice Jones, a physician who serves the refugee population in her own Canadian community then spends her vacations in rural outposts such as Laos, Sudan, and Pakistan, providing medical care to the underserved and teaching physicians at local hospitals.

These are some of the many heroes I’m so lucky to know.

I also keep stumbling across little news stories that keep me optimistic about the future. The high school kid who researched cancer in her spare time and may have come across a potential cure. The 14-year-old who came up with one of the most innovative new techniques to clean water. The young Stanford graduate who designed a cool series of toys and books to get girls interested in engineering. The teenager from Sierra Leone who created batteries to power his community using material he found from, no kidding, the garbage can. What about Uruguay’s president, the world’s “poorest” leader, designated as such because he gives most of his income to the poor and to small entrepreneurs?

Everywhere I look, things are looking up. Of course, I might have missed some of these “little” stories if it weren’t for folks cross-posting them on Facebook and social media outlets such as Upworthy or the Good News Network, sites that highlight positive, progressive news. So cool how the hard work and brilliant ideas of one individual today can ripple out to inspire the rest of us, isn’t it?

Keep the ripple going. Who inspires you in your community? Do share!

Dreams And Goals And Inspirations, Oh My!

The start of a new year has always excited me. It’s a chance to reflect, make lists (I’m a Virgo, it’s what we do!), and plan for the future. I gave up making resolutions years ago. Instead, I prefer to set goals—ones that push me beyond limits I hadn’t even imagined. I’ve never had a problem with dreaming big, and I’ve been lucky enough to have fulfilled some of those dreams already. But with every dream or goal accomplished, I usually have another three tucked away, ready to work towards. 2011 is no different.

Right now, Vestige is ready to go out on submission to publishing professionals. I’m looking forward to sharing this book and have fingers, toes, and eyes crossed it will appeal to many people. I’ve already started on my next book, a mystery set around the time the Tango was first invented. But rather than bore you with a laundry list of personal goals, I thought I’d share an insight as to how a germ of an idea can inspire me to write an entire book.

I’ve spent years collecting facts and myths about everything related to Latin America. Sometimes when I’m stuck, I pull out my list and voila, the inspiration hits me and off I go. When I worked in tourism, I had a list of “must see and do” things for my clients, and we used it as a jumping off point for planning their dream vacations.

So here’s Alli’s list of ideas that I may use in the future to inspire me when I’m looking for to write a story (and no, I don’t have a problem sharing because even if two or more writers wrote about the same thing, the stories will always be different):

Bolivia: It’s been rumoured that the ancient city of Atlantis is buried at the bottom of the inland sea of Lake Poopo, high in the Bolivian Antiplano. A cartographer discovered a rectangular-shaped plain lying beneath this lake and he believes (and has convinced others) that Atlantis was built on a small, volcanic island. According to Plato, the whole region of Atlantis was raised above the ocean and many now feel the plain in Bolivia fits these characteristics perfectly.

Much of Latin America: The chupacabra, a “goat sucker” is an animal that systematically prowls on farm animals and kills them by drinking their blood. One of the favourite animals it preys on is—you’ve guessed it—goats. Descriptions vary as to what the creature looks like, but people have reported it as the size a small bear, with a row of spines reaching from the neck to the base of the tail. It’s skin is a scaly greenish-gray and stands and hops in a similar manner to a kangaroo. Some people have said when the chupacabra screeches, their eyes glow red and witnesses report feeling nauseous.

Mesoamerica: The Nagual (or Nahual) is a human being who has the power to turn into an animal—most commonly donkeys, turkeys, and dogs. But it can also take the form of more powerful animals such as a jaguar or puma. A Nagual can use their powers for good or evil, depending on their wishes. The Nagual is linked to pre-Columbian shamanistic practises and the date a person is born can have an impact as to whether a person becomes a Nagual. The modern-day equivalent is a shape shifter. 

To say I’m excited about this year is an understatement. I have a new book that’s ready to send out, another one I’m working on, a conference to organise (RWA Australia) and a lot of new things to learn about my craft. Bring it on, 2011!

What’s in store for you this year? What are your goals? Aspirations? Inspirations?

Am I in Your Book?

The title of this post is a question I get a lot from Iranian friends and relatives when I tell them I’m writing a novel set in Persian culture. It’s a reasonable question when you consider that writers frequently write what they know, and what I know about Persian culture I’ve learned mainly from these same Iranian friends and relatives.

I’m never sure how to answer this question because the only honest response is yes and no. In a way, every person I have ever known, every situation experienced, and every idea pondered has ended up in my stories. But by the time these elements have passed through the filters of my mind, story premise, and plot, they are utterly unrecognizable.

My stories themselves usually end up as something quite different from the idea I started out with. And that’s how I like it. For me, the whole point of writing a novel is to explore the world and discover something I had never realized before.

Take my Persian P.I. series. The idea came about in response to my annoyance at the negative way in which Iranians were portrayed in American popular culture. Always the villain—the terrorist, the assassin, or the abusive, overbearing husband. I recognized nothing of the friendly,  generous, and fun-loving Iranians I knew. Nothing of their rich and complex culture, art, and history. I wanted to write a story that showed them as they really are.

Fortunately, the idea didn’t stop there. If I’d written a book as an emotional reaction to negative press, the story would have been insufferable to read, shouting righteous indignation from every page. It would have been propaganda, not fiction.

When I created my protagonist, an Iranian-American P.I. named Leila Shirazi, I soon realized that what interested me the most about her was not her Iranian identity—or her American one. But her dual cultures. She was a person who appeared to move back and forth between two nationalities with ease, thoroughly familiar with the modes of behavior acceptable in each culture.

But how does she really feel? Is anyone equally at home in two worlds? I had a linguistics professor once who claimed that true bilingualism was a misconception. Even bilingual people are most at ease with the language they use the most, the one of the dominant culture in which they live. And that comfort can shift to the other language in a different environment.

Maybe biculturalism follows the same pattern, I thought. So with Leila, I created a woman who was born in Tehran and raised in Northern California from the age of twelve, yet feels somewhere in between these two places. She embraces the personal independence valued by Americans, while her Iranian culture demands that everyone, especially women, put family first. But her olive complexion, Middle Eastern features, and foreign name set her apart from the mainstream. When people ask the question “where are you from?” they don’t expect the name of a city, but that of a country.

When she visits Tehran, the city of her birth, as she does in Bad Hejab, the opposite happens. Everyone treats her like she belongs, based on her appearance, familiar name, and local accent. And on the surface she fits in; Leila can speak the language and haggle prices like a native. But when it comes to sorting out the complexities of Tehran society, where nothing is ever precisely what it seems, she feels as though she’s visiting her native city for the first time.

Moving the story lines back and forth between two countries and cultures gives me the chance to explore how Leila learns to bring her two identities closer together and become a more integrated person. Will she achieve this goal in the end? Beats me. I’ll have to continue writing the books to find out.