There's a Party Going On!

An exercise in sound, rhythm and rhyme, set in Jaisalmer's Golden Fort, India.

Dear Writers, Readers, Creative Friends,

Hello, hello, happy Feb! Read through (don’t skip!) to the end of this post for your February treat. It’s not behind a pay wall though the gods know I need the bucks to cover the costs of all the wild and wonderful treatments I am sampling to quel the ongoing symptoms of the mozzie virus I picked up in India. (More updates in another newsletter). But if you do feel like becoming a paid member, the offer of my procastination workbook Avoidance Busters, is still current. Just message me via comments or email and I will send it to you.

I hope the year is going well for you so far. Maybe it’s even going great!

Do you ever feel so good you want to burst into rhyming couplets but you hold yourself back ‘cos you think rhyming is passé, old fashioned, or just plain naff?

But think of all the memorable lines of songs or classical poems that stick in your mind simply because you can anticipate the next rhyme.

Like the chant we used to sing in the school yard when forced to march in formation for hours and hours…

I got a good job

for twenty two bob

and I kicked the manager up the gob

and I left, I left, I left, right, left

I teach it to my young grand kids ( I have five) when we are out in the park and everyone is getting a bit tetchy. We line up and off we go, thudding the left, right, left into the ground as we march around the grass green oval. Anarchistic and conformist all at once! I’ve even taught the chant below to writers and had them marching around the garden while on retreat. Affirmations and marching are a good combo. A great way to transform negative thought patterns into exuberance. Try it now, around the house, start with the manager chant above to get you in the mood (get an exaggerated march happening, you can even do it on the spot) then add the writer chant below. March to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, march around the living room, out into the garden, add your own apsirations and goals and march off into the sunset!

I am a writer

I write every day

I publish to great success!

Repeat ad infinitum.

I love rhyming. Having begun my writing career as a song writer it’s a natural instinct for me. The rhythm of course is just as important, if not more so than the rhyme, but it’s the rhyme that brings the rhythm to life. They all came together last November on our Story Hunters tour to India, when we were fortunate to visit the iconic city of of Jaisalmer. Situated in Rajasthan on the edge of the Thar Desert, the town sprawls out beneath a magnificent medieval fort, where people still live and work.

Photo by Josephine Campbell, Unsplash

We visted the fort a number of times and on our first foray spent the morning exploring the laneways, meeting locals and artisans before having a writing workshop and lunch in a traditional family owned haveli.

The Maharajah room in Suraj Haveli. perfect for a writer’s workshop. Photo by Jo Lane

Our prompt was the sense of sound and in a meditative exercise I asked the particpants to open their auditory sense and listen. To imagine the whole of their skin as a sensor listening on an inner and outer level.

It’s a useful thing to remember when you are blocked in your writing or creative work. All you have to do is switch into a listening/receptive state, to dull the voices putting all the pressure on, and

just listen

Take a walk around the block or out in nature. Movement and listening always go well together but you can sit by an open window, sit in your car with the windows up or down and

listen

Haveli view from the top of the fort.

In different kinds of weather — in a rainstorm, on a frosty morning, in the heat of the day

just listen

Then if you are not already sitting, find a place to sit and start making a mental list of all the different sounds you can hear. Choose a sound that reminds you of something from your own life, a character’s trajectory, a scene from your story. Allow the sound to morph into an image and place it on an imaginary screen as one by one you bring all the other senses in —the visuals, smells, tastes and textures, while you keep the soundtrack going. Run the scene through to it’s natural end point, take one last look, then dissolve the visualisation and bring yourself back to your chair and the soundscape around you.

Pick up your pen and notebook and write without stopping for ten minutes or so. Let me know how you go in the comments below. Post what you wrote if you feel up to it!

Suraj Haveli is a traditional house in the fort, built in 1526.

We did this exercise in the Maharajah room of Suraj Haveli. It’s the room where the Maharajahs would come to have meetings with their tutors and legal advisors (from the Suraj family). With the window shutters wide open there were lots of sounds coming up from the street below. To me it sounded like there was a party going on,

and this is what I wrote…

There’s a Party Going On  

There’s a party going on in the streets of the fort

Everyone is out there sharing their thoughts

Old men coughing up the news of the day

Chipmunk children chirping their play

Leaping off mountains in the rock laneway

There’s a party going on

There’s a party going on, it’s a free for all

Everyone is welcome behind these walls

You don’t need an invite

Don’t need an address

There’s nobody here you need to impress

There’s a party going on

Dogs lie listless, dreaming of meat

Cows saunter by, their home is the street

Tuk tuks clattering, splattering their way:

Through the first gate

Round the smooth seat bend

Past the gypsy sellers in their orange, green and red

Jewellery dangling from every nose and toe

There’s a party going on

There’s a party going on in a jewellery store

A modern day Guru is holding the floor

Telling the stories of precious stones

Ammonite and tetracite and old fish bones

His smile so bright it lights up the room

There’s a party going on

There’s a party going on in the Maharajah Suite

Story Hunters loll about, feeling replete

Feasting on snacks made from desert bean

By the first woman Masterchef,  Rajasthan has ever seen

There’s a party going on

There’s a party going on here every night

In rooftop cafes designed to delight

In lingering sunsets when the weather is right

But don’t forget to watch your step

Or you’ll tumble and fall

And that my dear will be the end of it all

But not for the party going on

There’s a party going on in the Golden Fort

It’s been going on a while and it’s not about to stop

A new generation is taking the reins.

The next gen will follow in the same vein

And so on and so forth

As the wheel it doth turn

And so on and so forth

As the planet she burns

And shines her golden light

On the plight of us all…

There’s a party going on

There’s a party going on

There’s a party

 going

 on

© Jan Cornall, Nov 6, 2023.

So here’s your treat, a vid of the last part of the poem, fresh off the page at one of our Story Hunter reading sessions in Jaisalmer in November. With in the moment improvisation by moi and our very talented resident poet/musician Anubrato, filmed by our resident film maker Rohit. And special thanks to our wonderful Story Hunter audience!

Things mentioned in the poem…

Check out Guru’s Jewellery (yes Guru is his name!) on Instagram here

Suraj Haveli, in the fort, where we did our workshop here. The chef recreated her Master Chef entry of falafel and hummus made from their local desert bean.

Rooftop cafés on the Golden Fort here.

Dogs really do lie listless because they are only fed vegetarian food.

Photos except where indicated by Jan Cornall.

I could spend hours more telling you about our time in Jaisalmer and Varanasi but our Story Hunter writers have done it brilliantly over on our medium blog. There’s some new additions so check them all out here. High Season, Low Season

THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND!

Listen to songs from the 80s by Jan Cornall and Elizabeth Drake on Soundcloud here.

Read my travel memoir set in Vietnam and Cambodia, Looking for Duras: a Mekong Journey, here on Substack.

Sign up for our online course Draft Busters here.

Decide that this is the year of your book and engage me as your mentor. Various packages available!

Apparently the Year of the Dragon 2024 brings the opportunity to focus on heart health, both physically and emotionally. Participate in activities that bring joy and cultivate deep connections with loved ones. Finding a balance between work and leisure will keep your heart happy.