Author Archives: Amani

Ask and See What Happens

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Woman holding a sign that says help.

Years ago (long before I met my husband), I had a bad dream that was like a scene from a movie. In the dream, it was my wedding day, and I realized I barely knew the groom and did not want to marry him. In the movies, the unhappy bride (The Wedding Singer, 3 Idiots) or groom (Four Weddings and a Funeral) will either realize their mistake and stop the wedding or a trusted friend will stop it for them. But in my nightmare, I was afraid to speak up. My fear of embarrassment in the short term was worse than my fear of the long-term consequences.

I woke up from the dream before the ceremony but have never forgotten that feeling of helpless dread weighing on my chest. However, I was not helpless. All I had to do was say something. Yes, in a nightmare or a nightmarish life, that might not be enough; some people are victims of abuse or circumstances that are out of their control. But really, most of us will take on a lot of pain and inconvenience before we will ask another person for what we need.

After a critique at Comicpalooza last month, I decided to rip a major part of the storyline out of my upcoming novel. All this month I kept thinking that I needed more time for the project to do even an adequate job, let alone the excellence I am hoping for. Even though I didn’t know I was going to make such an enormous change when I scheduled with my editor, I was ashamed to admit that I couldn’t finish on time. I finally did the grown-up thing this morning and sent an email, asking for more time, and I got it! I exchanged the small discomfort of speaking up for the nightmare of marrying a bad novel draft and being stuck with it forever and ever!

What Is It Like to Have Blue Hair?

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Amani with blue hair and sunglasses.
Blue hair, don’t care – while it lasts!

I was in high school and college during the new British Invasion of punk and new wave. I was fascinated by London’s King’s Road and longed to saunter along the street with brightly colored hair and a quirky but cool thrifted outfit.

After years, okay decades, of being too timid, I finally dyed my hair blue!

I’m happy with how it looks (or I was once I started paying for a pro to do it). But there are some things to know before you take that plunge.

  • High maintenance. Some stylists recommend only using “cool water” when shampooing your hair – translation: cold showers.
  • I forget that I have it when talking to people and wonder why they are looking at me strangely.
  • Your employer may not like it. I waited until I was preparing to leave anyway.
  • If you have never bleached your hair before, cough up the money and pay someone to do it. I didn’t lighten enough my first time and my hair ended up so dark it looked almost black with blue highlights. I’ve just barely gotten the darkest parts cut off finally.
  • My natural color is dark brown with gray mixed in. I think white hair showing at my temples looks good with the blue, but only a few weeks after coloring my gray roots show up in my part like a skunk stripe in photos.
  • One of the biggest hassles is the color leeching or bleeding onto my white sink, my fingernails, and shirt collars. If so much as one tiny hair gets left on the side of the sink for too long, I may have to scrub with Clorox to get the tiny blue outline off.
  • Cost of touchups is over $200 plus tips. Maybe it would cost less if I did it every 6 weeks, but then I’m paying more often.
  • How you feel about yourself before you change your hair is mostly how you’ll feel about yourself afterwards. After the novelty wears off, you’re still you.

3 Things You (Probably) Don’t Know About Nepal

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I plan to do a future post on what the average American knows about Nepal. Meanwhile, here are a few facts that will put you miles ahead at your next cocktail party – especially if you actually meet a Nepali at one!

Balen Shah, 34 year-old rapper, engineer, and mayor of Kathmandu. Photo by aarogya1234.

1) Kathmandu Elected a Rapper as Mayor Balen Shah, the current mayor of Nepal’s capital city, was a well-known rapper before his election. I realize this brings up more questions like “There is rap in Nepal?” Yes. “Do they have rap battles?” Yes. (But I’ll still just count all of this as one item.) Here’s a video that mixes rap with the local culture: Balidan video from Balen Shah

2) Buddha Was Born in Nepal

More than eighty percent of Nepalis are Hindu, but they are proud of the fact that Lord Buddha (not just “Buddha”) was born in Lumbini, Nepal. It is a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists.

3) Nepal is Located Between India and China

When my husband, Ranjan, tells people he is from Nepal they often look surprised or pleased…and then puzzled. “Where is that?” is the most common question. (I’m glad they admit they don’t know — at least that way they find out!) To give you a more precise idea, if you take a globe and put one index finger on Houston, Texas, and put the other index finger on Nepal, they will be more or less on opposite sides.

Comicpalooza 2024 in the Rearview Mirror

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How was it? Exhausting! And it was fun.

Whether you are greeting people or selling something, you have to be constantly “on,” and that can wear you out. One thing that builds you back up is being with positive, supportive people. We had five authors at the booth this year – thanks to our fearless leader, Pat Daily, who made all the arrangements. Pat, Abby, and I had the YA side covered with sci-fi, urban fantasy, and epic fantasy. On the more adult side of the booth, Britta Jensen and E.A. Williams had sci-fi / fantasy and vampire thrillers.

If you haven’t worked together with other authors at a book festival or similar event, I highly recommend it. I learn something valuable from the other authors every time. And they’re just fun to be with.

Authors Abigail Morrison and E.A. Williams use a slow time at the show to braid my hair.

Penelope Was Good, but Didn’t Work For Me. Why?

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Penelope is a 2008 Fantasy / Romance movie starring Christina Ricci. The fact that I just saw it this month is not unusual for me. I am often multitasking and prefer movies that I have already seen so I can listen more than watch — but that’s a whole other blog post in itself. Even though it’s over ten years old, I’ll warn you that there are BIG spoilers in this post!

The movie is basically a fairy tale – a cursed princess who needs to be rescued by a prince. A witch cast a curse that caused Penelope to be born with a pig’s nose. The curse could only be reversed by marrying a man from upper-class society. Her mother keeps her hidden from the press and routinely sets up meetings with young suitors who, one after another, run away after they see Penelope.

Penelope tires of this and after meeting an especially intriguing man who also disappoints her, she runs away from home and finally experiences the outside world. However, this man has had an influence on her, and she goes to visit places he had told her about. I was sure that he would be the one to marry her and break the curse; I just didn’t know how it would happen. Even after the world at last sees a photo of her face, she becomes a celebrity, rather than a freak. So that’s the happy ending, right? No.

When her mother tries to force her into a marriage to break the curse (with a young man who is also being pushed into it for business reasons), Penelope declares, “I like myself the way I am.” This breaks the curse.

“Oh,” I thought, “that is very modern and proper: why shouldn’t she rescue herself?” But it was also unsatisfying.

Was it because it stood out as something modern and foreign to the typical fairytale / fantasy / romance storyline? Or was it missing something more basic? What is typical in screenplays is that at the crisis point, the main character chooses a new way of being that is the opposite of whatever internal flaw they have. This choice results from the struggle they have faced during the previous 80 – 100 minutes of the movie. Even if a man is “rescuing” them, a female main character still has to be the one to make a choice that changes her life. Everything after that is just the icing on the cake – reassurance that they will be happy from then on. (Obviously, I’m not including tragedies in this discussion.)

At the end, she meets up again with the one guy who really cared about her, and they get together for a happy ending. I’ll forgive a LOT for a happy ending, but I kept wondering why her saving herself bothered me.

Maybe it was simply too “on the nose” with the character stating the point of the movie with no metaphor. We wouldn’t normally be happy if a character announced, “Oh, I’m mean to people, and I should be nice.” I think Scrooge comes pretty close to that in A Christmas Carol, but even he dresses it up in flowery language. Or perhaps because Penelope’s solution was disconnected from the love interest, it caused her (and me, as the viewer) to miss out on the human connection – which is a very basic human need.