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Nine Months Later - An Update on Birthing 'Call It Anything But Love'

12/09/2024

CALL IT ANYTHING BUT LOVE IS NEARLY HERE

Your free short story collection, Call It Anything But Love is close to completion - and I am so excited!

I’m through with most of my second draft edits and unless something very left field lands in the middle of my life, the third and final draft shouldn’t take long. 

Sign up for my Readers' Circle to be sure to get your copy when it’s ready for download.

If you’re interested in reading Call It Anything But Love at the second draft stage to offer suggestions for the final draft, or positive reviews I can share with prospective readers, please do let me know by messaging me on the Amanda Coreishy Facebook author page.

Getting curious?

The eight-story collection is the length of a novella, or half the length of a short-ish novel.

Five of the eight stories are Judith’s. Judith was the only protagonist of these short stories that I didn’t know fairly well when I began this project and writing her was an act of discovery.

In Reputation, she's a rarely referenced memory. But in Call It Anything But Love she became real. And once her story began to unfold, writing it felt like a compelling duty. She suffers immensely, moreso than I ever have – and I found myself empathising deeply with her as I wrote.

If I had to write a blurb for the collection, it might read like this:

One moment Judith is admiring her devoted husband on stage. The next, she learns he’s a bigamist. Set in mid-1990’s Trinidad, Call It Anything But Love explores polygny and much more in eight startling short stories. Love will be thwarted and if you want a happy ending, you might have to make your own. You have been warned.

Call It Anything But Love is an honest, raw and heartbreaking exploration of a subject rarely tackled in fiction.

Best read in order, these stories introduce the characters of Reputation, spoiler-free and with no hint of what is to come.

Join Amanda’s Readers’ Circle for exclusive access, if you haven’t already

'Call It Anything But Love' is Late

29/12/2023

How long does it take to write a short story? There's no single answer to that. But I've had the delight of discovering that for the collection I'm working on the time frame runs like this:

• two days of thinking - showering and packing the dishwasher are typically great events during which story details emerge - and then noting thoughts in messy mindmaps.
• two days of writing, in four-hour stints.
• one day of editing and ta-da! I have a first draft!
• listen to readers' feedback and edit again (and edit again ... repeat till satisfied).

That's a seven (or nine) day time frame. 

I expect there will be at least seven - and at most nine - short stories in Call It Anything But Love. So, how's it going? Very well indeed. Why the delay then?

Ah.

Commitments. Other commitments besides writing. As such, it's taking four times as long as it otherwise might. The good news is that for 2024 I'm resolving not to overcommit. One measure of successfully not overcommitting, will be always having enough time for writing.

Why did I say it's going very well if I expected to deliver Call It Anything But Love by the end of this year and I haven't? Well, because I'm absolutely enjoying the process and loving the emerging stories. I can't wait to share them with all of you in the Readers' Circle.

Oh, you're not in the Readers' Circle? That's easily fixed. I've got a sign-up box somewhere on this page. You can't miss it.

(This image was rather lazily abstracted from the Pexel website. There is no photo-credit and I don't know if it is an AI-generated image. It is NOT the cover image for the short story collection. Just thought I should make that clear).

Let's Talk About Trees - and Cashew Chow - and Great Books about Trees!

14/08/2023

Have you ever seen a cashew tree? I grew up at my grandmother's in Trinidad and in the wild slope of the backyard behind our home, there was a cashew tree. Of course, I took it for granted. It was chopped down when I was about 11, give or take a year or two. And I haven't seen a cashew tree since.

I remember picking the yellow, fleshy fruit with my cousins. Our grandmother would make a 'chow' with it. She'd cut the cashew into cubes and add salt, black pepper and chadon beni. (Chadon beni for those who don't know it, tastes something like fresh coriander - but it grows wild). The fruit of the cashew was sour and the thin yellow skin had a rubbery texture. I would relish it now, but back then we turned up our noses.

The cashew nuts were kept safe in black shells attached to the yellow fruit. My grandma, whom we called Ma, would roast them, not minding that they were barely a handful.

At my primary school in Trinidad there was an almond tree we relied on for relief from the daily 31-33 degree C heat. I remember, as a child, picking up the shiny green almond fruit and the fibrous brown ones. What we didn't do was gather them to either harvest or eat the almond nuts on the inside. I guess we took the almond tree for granted as well.

My interest in trees has been limited over the years. Vaguely, I felt deficient about not being able to name very many. But Botany struck me as the most boring subject in the world.

One book changed my relationship with trees. It might sound like hyperbole but it's entirely true. I now have reverence for these majestic, precious life-forms.

1) Overstory by Richard Powers was the book that gave me this reverence. It's a work of genius; a fictitious story thoroughly researched which brings the social science of trees to life in a way that just might inspire reverence for you too.

2) The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben will wake you up to the transport, communication and cooperation networks that have served trees long before man and womankind were even a thought.

Though Overstory is about people politicised into becoming eco-activists to save a Mother Redwood Tree and the surrounding ancient forest, it moved me spiritually. Meanwhile, The Hidden Life of Trees is entirely factual and presented in a conversational way, but I can see it changing people's politics - and inspiring reverence besides.

3) Finally, one for your children. My daughter chose this herself, on a day trip to Oxford: Arrow by Samantha M. Clark After she read it, she wanted to share it with me. So we read it as a chapter book together. It's told through the eyes of a boy, Arrow, who grew up in a magically hidden remnant of South American rainforest. When the magic begins to fail, he's confronted with a band of children from the Barbs and a team of capitalists from the Stilts, all of whom want the riches of the forest for themselves.

The tree in the photo, if you're wondering, is an almond tree. I took the photo about a year ago on Maracas Beach in Trinidad. The beach features in 'Reputation' but I thought I'd share something of it that isn't sea and sand.

Trouble at Taboo Junction Sets Sail!

01/08/2023

I've got a crew of one and two oars, so Trouble at Taboo Junction is set to sail slowly down the river. No ocean crossings for us just yet!

But come along for the ride! Your welcome article is right here.

New Website Launched!

14/07/2023

I’d like to give a loud shout-out to Tim and the two Joes at Jarrett and Lam. Thank you for the technical bits we can’t see and the aesthetics we can. I’m a techno-dinosaur, despite coming of age when www started to mean something to the world. And while Reputation’s Asiyah is an artist, when it comes to design, I’m everything but!

Trouble At Taboo Junction

12/07/2023

Trouble at Taboo Junction is my new literary publication.

Join me there to explore the clash of human sexuality with patriarchy and religion - and more besides. 

Find out more here.

Call It Anything But Love

11/07/2023

A short story collection written exclusively for Amanda Coreishy’s readers’ circle. Call It Anything But Love is a FREE READ, introducing the cast of Reputation, brilliantly spoiler-free! Join my reader's circle here: