Writing:
This revision is going surprisingly well. I’m at the point where I know exactly what I want this story to do and how to get there, so this time around I’m enjoying the scene craft. Some people like to polish as they go, but I like to work in layers from the big picture down to the details. I find that a lot of the world building and character details come in while I take breaks between drafts.
Also, I wrote about my experiences as a writer of colour for the POC in Publishing mailing list. You can check out the October newsletter here.
Living:
Oh Jenny Han and “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”, thanks to you I’m having a crisis. You reminded me that how we see ourselves is not always how the world sees us.
I mostly live in my head. I’m in the worlds I’m creating or the work that I’m doing. It always surprise me when the world intrudes, and it means I’m also a walking disaster. I break things, and when people I know suddenly say hello, I’m often too surprised to do anything but squeak and turn away, embarrassed.
I was also a painfully shy child, and all my life I assumed that I was invisible. Somehow when I became ‘not so shy’ the second part never really left me. It’s often easier to feel invisible, because then I don’t feel cripplingly self-conscious. If I were invisible, I could act any way I pleased. Anonymity offers a strange kind of confidence.
But the truth is, I’m not as invisible as I always thought. I get so lost in my own head that sometimes I’m the one guilty of not paying enough attention. I have some amends to make.
Reading:
- The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
- The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
- I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo (YA)
- Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrett
- Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (YA)
- Hero by Samantha Young
- Monstress Volume 3 by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (Graphic Novel)
I started trying that “big picture” approach on my second book, and it’s amazing how much more focused things turned out! Probably will keep doing that for that draft when I get back to it. So far, it seems to be helping with avoiding unnecessary info dumps.
Monstress and Six of Crows are great! I kinda got distracted in the middle of them with other things, though, so I’ll have to get back to those soon. 😏
*high fives* I don’t want to worry about sentence details if the whole scene might just get cut in the end, you know?
And yes they’re great! I usually borrow my books from the library so there’s a ticking timer for me to finish them all.
Aww, I love how you related to Lara Jean. That movie was so wonderful — not like the greatest film(making) of all time, but a delightful teen rom-com with a ton of heart, and more depth than you’d expect. For me, it was a perfect reminder that I don’t have to write a “perfect” book in order to have a huge impact on people.
I think that as long as it has its heart in the right place, it will connect 🙂
I always do some amount of polishing as I go, partly because I write serially and partly because it gets me out of that “Oh, my golly, I have to do months of edits now!!” thing. 🙂
I wish there weren’t months of editing ;D Serial publishing does have its advantages.