(Reading D.K. Broster in the hotel hammock. Couching at the Door is an excellent collection of creepy stories!)

I'm home! Pretty much every trip I take seems like the best ever, and Colombia is no exception. I've got plenty of photos and stories to post, but for now I just want to show you how I spent my last three days in Cartagena, after Kate went back to D.C. and Sierra home to Bucaramanga.



I wrote. A LOT. Don't look too closely at the scribbling--it's still a rough draft--but you get the idea. I went down to the hotel café for coffee, headed out to a vegetarian restaurant for lunch each day, and one afternoon I took some time out to visit the Palace of the Inquisition, but for the most part I just wrote. Leaving my laptop at home was a very good idea. (You can pick up WiFi at most hotels and cafés in Colombia.)



After Cartagena I took the bus to Bucaramanga to hang out with Sierra for a week and a half or so. (I went with her to school and watched her teach! She cooked fabulous vegan meals and threw a dinner party in my honor!) I got a lot done in Buca too, but there's definitely something to be said for self-imposed social isolation when you're looking to--figuratively speaking-- kick your own took. Nova sometimes books a hotel room for a weekend so she can write non-stop, and I'd really been wanting to try it myself. I managed to find that essential combination: an inexpensive but comfortable hotel (i.e., where I can sit for hours and no one will bother me), no company, and no WiFi. That was all I needed.



Once I'd written enough to feel that glow of satisfaction in the afternoon, I treated myself to a shake. Mango + spearmint = BLISS!

I'll tell you more about what I'm working on once I've actually finished the draft. Until then--more about Colombia! (And Turkey too, I still haven't finished blogging about Turkey!)

Over the course of my whirlwind day at Mount Calvary, several questions popped up again and again, so that I'd have to pause (wait a second, didn't somebody already ask me this?) before I remembered that I was talking to a new group of students (duh, that was last period!) So I figured I'd answer some of those frequently asked questions again here on the blog.

QUESTION: How do you deal with writer's block?

I've observed that much of the agitation surrounding the unfortunate phenomenon of "writer's block" comes from comparing oneself to other writers. Maybe your friend is excitedly scribbling away in his notebook beside you; maybe you've heard of some other writer who begins a new story the day he puts the final polish on the previous one. Why can't I be that productive? Every idea I come up with is garbage, just one cliché after another. Will I ever feel that thrill of writing a nice piece of description or dialogue again? Hah. I DOUBT IT.

You're putting so much energy into fretting about having no ideas, it's no wonder you can't come up with any!

So A, stop looking over at what your neighbor is doing, and B, don't try so hard. I know that's easy to say. You might end up trying too hard not to try too hard. So stop trying. Read a good novel, or go to an art museum, or follow the thread on a fascinating line of research. (What did people do for entertainment in the 18th century?...puppet shows, Punch and Judy...magic lanterns...Fantasmagorie..."A Trip to the Moon"...etc., etc.) You'll have so much fun falling down a rabbit hole that you'll forget your frustration entirely.

I don't actually believe in writer's block. Yes, I've gone for a year or two between novel projects, struggling through a few false starts along the way, but I choose to see this stepping in the dark as part of the process, not a hindrance to it. Of course it can be very aggravating when the pieces are taking what feels like ages to assemble themselves, but during those periods I've never thought of myself as "blocked." I prefer to think of those "fallow" periods as "filling up," which is what you're doing when you're enjoying somebody else's book or painting or film, or working on a story that is preparing you for the real magnum opus. You're discovering, again, all that's important to you, and in the meantime all those marvelous little pieces in the back of your head are going to assemble themselves into the outlines of a story.

It will happen, I promise--but only when you're not worrying over it.

And if you don't quite believe me, consider this. I told you in this post that the story attached to that "brain dump" would probably never amount to anything. Guess what? I was wrong. It just needed a couple of years to sort itself out!

(This may be my last post for awhile. My sister and I are leaving for Colombia tomorrow!)

Yes, taking a hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia is expensive and SUPER TOURISTY. But as you can see, you'd be a fool to skip it.

You get up while it's still dark, take a shuttle bus to the office of the balloon operator, where tea and pastries are served before everyone gets split into big groups and whisked off to the launching site. The balloons go up as the sun is rising.

Our pilot, doing his thing.

I can't even remember exactly many people there were on board with us (maybe 30?) or how long the ride lasted (maybe an hour?) It was totally breathtaking the whole way through. We loved it.

At one point a Chinese tourist plaintively asked (kidding, I think--I hope!): "Is possible to go to bathroom?"

We went as high as 1,080 meters!

And if I had to choose my very favorite picture from our Turkey trip, this would be it.

An interlude with a bushy-mustached, roly-poly tea-and-nut seller near the Open Air Museum:

Man: How you like Turkey?

Kate: Çok güzel! ("choke-oo-zahl," very beautiful)

Man (to Kate): You are çok güzel. (Points to me) You are sisters?

Kate and me: Yes, we are kardeş.

Man (to Elliot): Brother?

Kate: No, we are... (makes a smooching noise)

Man (to me): You have boyfriend?

Me: (shaking head)

Man: Why you no have boyfriend?

Me: No good men left in America! (points to Elliot) Except for this one.

Elliot: (holds out his hand and makes the 'so-so' gesture)

Man (to me): You find boyfriend!

Me: I'll try! (to Kate): Okay, I'll buy some apple tea. I'll laugh every time I drink it.

"Pardon me: may I suck on your nip?"

We had a totally awesome time in Cappadocia--hiking among weird rock formations in the "Love Valley" (so named for its proliferation of phallic rocks) and elsewhere, breathtaking frescoes in rock-cut churches (you must go to the Dark Church at the Goreme Open Air Museum! now that was a spiritual experience), goofing around the castle at Uchisar...not to mention the hot air balloon ride!

The photos below are from our walks in the valleys, but I've got plenty more to post after this. 



A nice man rode up on a motorbike and offered to take our picture.



Growing grapes!



We walked (and crawled) through some rather spooky caves.