To business!

I'm so enjoying writing this book. The idea for the story was actually triggered by this post, where I talked about the Shona perception of the soul after death. I found a wonderful reference this morning - Karanga Indigenous Religion in Zimbabwe by Tabona Shoko. It's a fantastic read, and has some really useful information on traditional Shona beliefs. I took Shona lessons while I lived in Zimbabwe, and used to be fairly fluent, but I have lost almost all of it now. I also studied Hebrew for six years, and I've forgotten most of that, too. Where does all that information go? I wonder if it's still in my mind somewhere, and would resurface if I started learning those languages again? Anyway, it's great to have my remnants of Shona knowledge backed up by useful textbooks like this one.

I think I also have a fledgling title, which is unusual for me this early on. Usually my books are called something terribly original like 'Book3' or 'Other_Book' until they're almost finished. And then it takes me forever to settle on a title. I guess the limitations of Nanowrimo have really kicked my brain into gear.

I wrote another 2,000 words this morning, and now I had better work on the less exciting but far more urgent Masters essay. If I make good progress by later this afternoon, I'm going to go back to the book. It would be fantastic to hit 15,000 by tonight. I have a little chart in the kitchen where I tick off each 5,000-word increment as I reach it, and then get a reward. I'm well-trained that way.

As my reward for reaching 10,000 words last night, I made a trip to a thrift store this afternoon and garnered some loot. The ladies in the thrift store know me now, which is nice, because they point out new arrivals that they think I would like. They directed me to the two polka-dot items - I'm so predictable.

Here's a great quote from Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird (an indispensable book for writers, I think), which describes exactly how I feel about this novel at the moment: "And it feels so great to finally dive into the water; maybe you splash around and flail for a while, but at least you're in. Then you start doing whatever stroke you can remember how to do, and you get this scared feeling inside you - of how hard it is and how far there is to go - but still you're in, and you're afloat, and you're moving."

Slightly sombre

I'm keeping it simple today. We had a lot of errands to run, and tonight we're going to a talk by a former member of Zimbabwe's Black Shadow group who has since become a Christian and gives talks about his experiences. We're going with my best friend and her husband - she and I grew up in Zimbabwe together, and moved to New Zealand within a couple of years of each other.

I haven't heard of the Black Shadow group before, and haven't been able to find any information online, but I'm guessing it is a terrorist group - one formed either under Mugabe's regime or during the Bush War. Interestingly, in Zimbabwe's traditional Karanga belief system, a person has two shadows; a white and a black. The white shadow (mweya) is the soul and the black shadow (nyama, a word which also means 'meat') is the flesh. The mweya is what surives after you die - it leaves the dead body in the form of a worm, which is why the Shona leave a hole from the coffin to the outside world (made by a hollow reed) - for the worm to crawl out. They believe that this worm crawls into an animal, which becomes an ancestral spirit. I have no idea if this pertains to the naming of the Black Shadow group at all, but I'll be interested to find out tonight.

In novel-related news, a character appeared in my book on Friday who I hadn't planned for at all. She just turned up in the middle of a chapter and appears to be here to stay. Very strange. I like it when that happens, though.