#FicFest

So some of you might be aware that earlier this month I entered a new writing contest called #FicFest. FicFest immediately drew my attention because it was a contest that gave an equal chance to all categories. Unlike other contests, that group picture books and adult books all into one, FicFest separates entrants by categories: Picture Book, Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult. Each category has 9 finalists, chosen by a mentor that will work with their mentee for two months to get ready for the agent round (where participating agents look at the finalists' queries and first 3 pages for their writerly matches).

Entering this contest was some serious last ditch effort-ing; I had already decided to shelve my story and move on to the next. On a whim, or perhaps by the grace of that ever-so-pushy hand of fate, I entered the contest. After numerous form rejections and the general agent consensus seeming to be "I love the story but there's no market for it right now," I told myself my chances were nil, but that it sure as hell didn't hurt to try.

And, lo and behold, I'm a finalist!!

And my mentor Hetal is every mentee's dream! I can't even begin to describe how refreshing it is to have someone so genuinely invested in your journey. To have chosen you for YOU, because they truly enjoyed your story and believe it deserves a place in readers' hands. Her creative insight is invaluable and she's an endless spring of support and encouragement and wisdom and entertaining gifs (for which we both have an intense passion)!

With some amazing notes and suggestions and critiques from my mentor-queen in hand, I've finished the first coat of polish on my MS so that, in the final round, an agent might say "How much is that novel in the window? The one with the lively tale?" (see what I did there? Lolz)

Fingers crossed that #FicFest will bear the fruit of my loins. Wait... sow the seeds of my labor? Er... Something something wisdom something something philosophical point about hard work.

For now, I'll wait for my mentor-goddess' next batch of notes on this MS and get back to dabbling in paralyzing self-doubt and that abyss of insecurity. Or as some of you might know it, "writing."

~Be mindful of the chances you're not taking--you have to open a door to see where it leads.~

WIP it. WIP it good.

WIP= Work In Progress, by the way. Get my writer-joke post title now?... 

...YEAH, WELL, YOU'RE LAME! 

Anyway, I'm working on a NEW project! THANK THE MUSES! I can't even begin to describe what a wonderful feeling it is.

I think the most exciting part of writing a new story is getting to know the characters. And then getting to see how they interact with the world you've created and the dynamic they have with their fictional peers. I LOVE writing individual bios for each one with a list of physical attributes, birthdays, personality traits (good and bad, characters should ALWAYS be flawed. One day I'll write a post on a technique I use to make sure they have a balance of traits), and some backstory.

My new story has quite the character lineup. And because it's a dual POV (point of view), both of my MCs (main characters) have a group of people they're close to. And it's sooooo much fun figuring out how they fit into each other's lives and developing their individual voices.

There are nine in the main cast (right now) and one of my favorite character descriptions so far is "has some serious resting bitch face." And that's for one of my guys.

Only twelve chapters in and I'm already so in love with this story and these characters.
And, while I think this WIP could possibly run into the same issues as my last one, I'm having such a fun time writing it that I don't mind that it could be doomed to the same "hard sell" fate.
It's a YA Post-Apocalyptic story in the vein of Mad Max meets the Maze Runner and the dual-POV is really keeping things interesting for me as a writer. I'm so excited to give this story some grit and suspense and diverse characters and all the love I could possibly give it.

If you're curious, here's a little teaser for The Runners (this is a rough draft of a synopsis, but should get the story across!):

It’s been four-hundred years since civilization fell to the Pandemic and humanity has been spread thin. Isolated within walled cities, their only hope of survival is to remain behind their walls, exiling anyone who contracts the infection to the Wandering, the dead lands where the infected roam aimlessly in search of healthy flesh. Gas and oil have long since been depleted and the only way across the perilous Wandering is on foot. Each city in the Sierra Territory has a team of runners, brave, fast, and cunning, that runs across the Wandering with supplies to trade in the neighboring walled cities.

In the impoverished mining village of Stoln, seventeen-year-old Rook Haxley has her late father’s knack for finding ore veins and precious stones. The pay is decent and it helps to keep her and her six siblings fed. But when her older brother, Wren, one of the village’s fastest runners, is injured, her family is likely to starve without his income and the rest of the team is likely to die during the next Crossing, leaving the village with no resources to prepare for winter. Rook must take her brother’s place as a runner to keep her village and her siblings from a fate of human trafficking to survive.  

Across the Wandering, in the flourishing farming town of Bardeen, luxuries can be afforded. Their runners are treated like celebrities, and Beauregard Galloway has an ego to match. Coming from a long-line of runners, Beau has his family’s legacy on his shoulders. And while he enjoys the infamy of his family name, the horrors he sees during the Crossings are starting to turn him numb. Until he meets Stoln’s newest runner, a tiny bird of a girl with a sharp tongue and an instant dislike for Beau. Which attracts him to her immediately.

With another Pandemic season approaching and an unsuccessful harvest, Stoln and Bardeen’s runners join up to make the long Crossing to the city of Lux, where technology has survived but is selfishly kept for its city alone. There is where Bardeen and Stoln’s salvation lies. So long as Rook doesn’t take her pickaxe to Beau’s face before they arrive.  

It's not dystopian, I swear!! I'd love a few CPs (critique partners) for this story if anyone is interested! Must love: zombies that aren't really zombies, deserts, gore and violence, and tiny, kick-ass heroines (my stories will ALWAYS have some kick-ass women in them).

Happy writing, my fellow wordfolk! And may the muse be with you! 

~Be mindful of the characters inside you. Each one has a story waiting to come to life.~

April in Review

So, my favorite thing about April is... EARTH DAY! Though I can't say I enjoy the irony of celebrating the planet that sustains us only one day a year, it's still a wonderful chance to give back to the planet and reflect on the sort of impact you have on it. If you didn't get a chance to give back or want to understand why doing so is important, watch the movie Racing Extinction. It's a serious eye opener. But prepare yourself for some feels.    

This April I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo (see this post for more info) and, HUZZAH, was successful...-ish in meeting my (meager) word goals for my new WIP. Only thousands upon thousands upon thousands of words to go! *cries internally* 

It's also been an okay-decent month for my consumer heart! Finished two games in a week (not bragging, it's a shameful reflection of how much free-time I have, meh), saw some movies, and read some books. Without further ado, here's my April in review: 

Winter (The Lunar Chronicles) by Marissa Meyer. 

So, I have a few issues with Winter. 

1. I couldn't help but shake the feeling that a lot of this book was filler to make it longer. I have NEVER read such a long YA novel before. There was a whole lot of recapping in all the wrong places and I found myself skimming through much of the book (mostly slipping entire pages at times). I NEVER skim. I FROWN upon skimming! How DARE I SKIM? 

2. And then there was my realization that Wolf and Scarlet were completely useless characters in terms of affecting the plot. Literally NOTHING would change if their characters were removed. 

3. And then there's that moment when it becomes the Hunger Games. Poor people live in districts sectors where they do hard manual labor so the rich and extravagantly dressed people of the Capital Artemesia can live their luxurious lives. Teenage girls arrives, becomes the "face of the revolution," leads poor people in a rebellion against rich people. Love interest is captured, used as an unwilling voice against teen girl's uprising, underdogs triumph anyways, governing ruler is killed. The end. Sound familiar? Suzanne Coll--er, Marissa Meyer tried, unsuccessfully, to throw in some kind of political theme that just did not work against all the deeper themes  so successfully established in the previous books. The revolution became the focus in a Hunger Games-esque move that made me wonder whether this dark turn had been a poor suggestion made by an editor and not Meyer's instinctual course of plot. And I would've much preferred them to use guerrilla tactics, have a face-off at the end, and then have the entirety of Luna's people (poor and court alike) betray the psychotic queen who mistakenly thought she was loved and supported by the people she oppressed.

4. The lack of focus on Winter, the TITLE character of the book. Every book before had been centered around the title character, with a wonderful balance of moments that continued to tie the other characters into the plot and to each other. Not the case in this one. And Winter and Jacin were such deliciously wonderful characters that I feel we were horribly shortchanged by the imbalance of time given to them.

That being said, not once did I consider putting the book down. Which says something I suppose! The series has made me a definite fan of Meyer's writing. I'll await the release of her next book, Heartless, with baited breath!

Vicious by V.E. Schwab. 

This was my first book by Schwab, though she's been on my reading radar for some time. And I'm SO GLAD I finally sat down with one of her stories because it's made me incredibly eager to get ahold of the rest! The way in which Vicious' story was told is very unique, with seamless transitions from past to present throughout the book. The time shifts were never jolting and really added to the pace of the book.
I really enjoyed her fresh take on "superheroes" and "supervillains" (called EOs/Extra-Ordinaries) and how they get their powers. Many summaries and reviews boast the book's "moral ambiguity," the weight of which I never really felt as it seemed obvious who were the bad guys and who were the good (both MCs are sociopaths really, which made for a disturbingly fun read). It had a Frankenstein (though someone else has said X-Men) meets Count of Monte Cristo feel to it and I couldn't put it down. Really looking forward to reading Schwab's other books!

     

Non-books:

Infamous: Second Son (PS4): 6/10. In which a sassy Pete Wentz takes Seattle by storm--er--smoke. Lackluster character and story building. But clever Banksy-ish tags that you get to spray paint around the city.

Shadow of Mordor (PS4): 9/10. I'm a huge Tolkien fan, but have come to realize how little I know about the lore of Middle-earth outside of the books. Shadow of Mordor DEFINITELY filled in many of those gaps in my knowledge and understanding in a very immersive way. While the learning curve had me frustrated at first, once I got the hang of things (and changed the skin to female character and badass, Lithariel) I immensely enjoyed the game! It was also extremely satisfying to see the whole of the Orc army under my wraith-y control. Mwahaha >:)  

Jungle Book: 6/10. TORN. FEELINGS. OPINIONS. TORN IN HALF. On one hand I enjoyed it. Was a little trip down memory lane, but that lane just happened to intersect disappointment avenue. A dark plot, voice casting that missed the mark (Bill/Scar/Walken), and some painfully slow scenes took away from the greater moments. Will now go watch the '67 version to make all right with the world again.

~Be mindful of the things that precious time is spent on.~

The Creative Process

WARNING: Long post is long.

Every author's writing process involves (or should involve... if not, how's that working out for ya?) these four basic steps: pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing. There are a variety of different ways to work through each of those steps and a number of other steps that go with them.
And while there's plenty of advice out there concerning the matter and what you should do, it's SUCH a subjective process--no one can tell you HOW to do it. And believe me, everyone tries. And there's this horrible misconception that if it works for THEM it HAS to work for you too. Nuh uh. No, sir. Don't buy into that.

Writing is an intimate process and you should develop your own way of getting from idea to the end. Which isn't to say you couldn't use someone else's process/routine as an example. But don't go getting addicted to laudanum just cause Dickens did. And because I don't want to be one of those people that tell you how you're SUPPOSED to do it, I'll just tell you what works for me/how I roll. And I'll tell you now--I like to wing it.

For most, the next big step after THE BIG IDEA (and the research that entails) is to create an...ugh...outline. I am not a fan of detailed outlines. THERE! I SAID IT! OUTLINES SUCK!

For me, outlines are like getting on a train. The train can only go where the tracks lead. There is no diversion, there are no spontaneous side trips, and while the views might be beautiful, you have to stay INSIDE the train at all times.

Likewise, if you follow an outline when you write, I think you miss out on some of the spontaneity that can come from just letting the words flow. Often, writers don't know their characters as well as they'd like until they've spent a good amount of time with them/writing them. And as they write, these characters should grow and make their own choices and throw a massive stick in the spokes of your outline wheel.

I think it's best to plan as little as possible, to leave room for the characters and the story to adapt to each other and start to take their own path. But, because people (professors, classmates, how-to books) kept telling me that I HAD/NEEDED to do an outline, I gave it a shot. Once.

In the beginning it felt good to have all the tracks laid out before me. All I had to do was set my locomotive on its way. But then came this humongous pressure to stick to those tracks from chapter to chapter. And then the writing became tedious and forced. But after writing such a detailed plan, it felt like if I strayed from the outline the story would implode on itself. I've never felt so creatively stifled in my life! Needless to say, I've not tried again since.

So here's an analogy for you: outlining is to "train tracking" as winging it is to ________.

You guess it? ROAADD TRIPPINNGG!

I love road trips. You have a general direction, a decided destination, but how you get there is completely up to you.

You want to stop and see the Nation's Largest Ball of Yarn? DO IT. You want to stop at that natural spring and go for a swim... NAKED? Oh, my. Scandalous. DO IT.

Oh? You thought you were getting away without a gratuitous Shia gif? Think again! 

There's a wonderful freedom to road tripping. Don't get me wrong, I still have a list for the big moments that need to happen in different acts of the novel (the best attractions to stop at on my road trip). But how I get to them is completely up to that creative flow.

Are you sick of the transportation metaphor yet? Yeah? Well then, here's my process in a nutshell:

1. Title (GASP! Shock and awe!)
2. Main Character + Plot
3. Research, Research, Research (which involves creating character bios, storybuilding, etc)
4. Plan my road trip
5. Write the damn thing (I edit as I go so this tends to be slow going, but also means I have less work     at the end)
6. 2nd Draft + Revisions
7. Betas + Critique Partners (and further revisions based on that feedback)
8. Send my little mind child out into the world and hope for the best.

Simple, right?

Like I said, and will say again, ignore everything you've read when it comes to developing your own process: all the how-to books, the many different processes of the already-famous, maybe even MY advice, and do what works for YOU! Especially for your routine. Feel out different things: cafe or library, music or silence, sitting at a desk or laying in bed, in the morning or at night, outline or no outline, train tracks or the open road (sorry, had to throw it in there one more time for good measure, #sorrynotsorry).

Do you, boo boo. Do you.

~Be mindful of the influence and opinions of others, stay true to yourself.~

Don't [Pity] Party Too Hard

It's my morning ritual to check my emails as soon as I wake up. It's silly, really, since I know agents are, contrary to popular belief, also human beings and must sleep and don't ALWAYS work through the night to keep on top of the infinite number of queries they receive. But every morning I click on the little mail icon, hold my breath, and hope for a reply. JOYOUS OF JOYS, today I DID actually get one. And one I've been anxiously waiting for. And it wwwassss... yet another rejection. This time for my only full request. And while it was an immensely encouraging rejection that shot rays of hope through my phone screen, it was still a rejection. And so I threw a tantrum.

"I JUST WANT TO BE A WRITER," I yelled, exercising my human right to be a big baby. And while it's not one of my proudest moments, though perhaps adulting at its finest, I'm telling you about it because it's also nothing to be embarrassed of. It's okay to want something so bad that it's the first thing you think about when you wake up and the last thing you think about before you go to bed. And part of me thinks that's the only way to get what you want: to want it THAT HARD.

To want it SO hard that you throw a baby tantrum when you can't get it. Not because it's shiny and expensive, but because it's you and it's your dream and you know your life won't be complete without it.

If only just wanting something was enough! Even hard work--that wholesome, old-fashioned notion--isn't enough sometimes. We'd all be writers by now if just want and hard work were all it took.
But there should be a disclaimer attached to writerly dreams: "writer" is synonymous with "rejection." You'll get rejected. So. Many. Times. And BUY ME A ONE WAY TICKET TO FEELADELPHIA, does being book-blocked start to chisel away at your soul.

But I think there IS a way to protect your heart and soul and dreams against rejection. And it takes three things (the 3Ds if you will): Determination, Dedication, and Desensitization.

The first two are obvious (cue "Eye of the Tiger"). But desensitization sounds like the start of a debate on violence and video games. And what I mean by the third D is, DON'T TAKE REJECTION PERSONALLY. And it's gonna feel awful personal, so it's no easy feat. That was your mindchild someone just passed on! How dare they!?
But sometimes a rejection truly has NOTHING to do with your skill as a writer. There are so many other factors: it's in an overly-saturated genre, your query letter didn't quite do the story justice, or maybe the agent already has too many authors in that area.

And if it DOES have something to do with your writing, be objective about it! Could you have spent a bit more time editing? Did it need a 4th or 5th draft? Could you have found a few more beta readers? Would it hurt to read a couple "how to write" books? Maybe not!

Either way, Desensitize that rejection nerve. Take the hit and then PUNCH REJECTION BACK. IN THE FACE (so much caps lock in this post... left my chill at home). Better yet, print out that rejection and stick it on your wall! Because that rejection letter is tangible proof that you're following your dreams. You're ACTIVELY pursuing something bigger than yourself (because creating something that hundreds--no, thousands--nay, MILLIONS--of people can connect to and see themselves in is soooo much bigger than just one person) and a lot of people aren't brave enough to do that.

But, keeping all that and those 3 Ds in mind, rejections are still gonna suck--no matter how objective you are or how thick your skin is. And I'm not saying you can't throw yourself a pity party. But let's not call it that. Make it something more than about pitying yourself. Let's call it a passion tantrum. And you deserve that passion-tantrum every once in a while. Just keep it brief and then channel it into something more productive when you're done. "Woe is me" does not a writer make... Unless you're Poe. He was pretty woeful.

At the end of the day, all we need is ONE yes. Even if it comes only after hundreds of no's. These authors got plenty of rejections and if they had quit at any time they wouldn't be where they are now. Success could be just beyond the horizon and quitting accomplishes nothing except to ensure that your dreams will not come true. I'm not going to quit, SO DON'T YOU QUIT EITHER (if you're thinking about quitting that is. If you're not, then crack on, my confident writer-friend!)

So while we're allowed to feel like this every now and then: 

  

Turn it into this when you're done:

 

~Be mindful of the pity parties. They give life to excuses.~