Friday, September 26, 2014

24 Things About Turning 24

(Or, A Frivolous Post on Discoveries Made At 24)

((Or, What My 24-year-old Self Will Tell My 18-year-old Self))


1. You will never stop looking for stories.



2. Or loving them.


3. It's okay to go all out with pink, even if people give you this look

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And this

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4. You still won't know what you're really good at.



5. But you know what you will keep doing even if you're not paid for it.


6. You will learn that you are not supposed to wash away toner.


7. You will still hate wearing heels.

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8. Your Facebook feed will be filled with your friends getting engaged/married/pregnant.


9. Meanwhile, you're just like

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And

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10. There is nothing wrong with reading Young Adult fiction even though you're technically a New Adult.



Don't ever be a book snob.


11. There are books that will move you




12. And shake you to your very core



13. And books you wish you'd written



14. You will face rejection. Lots of it.

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But you will keep trying. Because you want it that badly.


15. It pays to take a shot and put your work out there. You never know when it might get published.



16. The only way to get anywhere near published is by sitting your ass down and finishing that novel.

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17. A long swim makes everything better.


18. Graduation ceremony is important to the people who saw you through to that point.

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So take it seriously!


19. You don't like being lonely. You just like being alone.


20. Sometimes it's better to cut your losses and move on to better things.

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21. Don't regret or be embarrassed by the things that make you happy.



22. When you stop obsessing, things fall into place.

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23. People can be nice to you if you open up to them.


24. You still don't have shit figured out.



Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Book Review: A Little Wanting Song

So after the magic that was Graffiti Moon, I reached for another Cath Crowley book, A Little Wanting Song.


It was everything I hoped it would be - sweet, funny, poignant, with beautiful, heart-breaking prose, characters you fall in love with and find a bit of yourself in, and music (pun intended) woven between the lines.

Graffiti Moon, which I raved about a while back, is a quiet, funny, and bittersweet contemporary novel about two people trying to find a place for themselves and their art. It inspired me to write Until Morning, and now I'm a die-hard Cath Crowley fan. I'd read ANYTHING she writes, including those strange, beautiful prose and poems on her blog.

The premise for A Little Wanting Song is music instead. It's about how shy Charlie Duskin, who lost her mother seven years ago and is still reeling in the aftermath of her loss, relies on her music to get her through life with her emotionally distant father.

Love and loss are themes done to death before, and by so many fantastic authors like Sarah Dessen and Christie Hodgen, but the thing about Cath Crowley's writing is that she leaves a lot of things unsaid. So it seems like a very simple YA story told from a teenage narrator's POV, but there are so many emotions and layers you can get to if you know where to look.

Her prose just DOES THINGS TO ME I CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN IT.







*insert incoherent babbling and flapping here*

I want to do that too, with my writing. I want to reduce my readers to a sobbing, laughing puddle of emotions and incoherent thoughts.

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I'm convinced there's something in that Australian soil that produces writers like Cath Crowley, Vikki Wakefield, Karen Foxlee, Lucy Christopher and Melina Marchetta. How can I ever write like thaaaaaat.


*


Okay, I set out partly to talk about that beautiful book, and also to complain this writing rut I'm in (NOT writer's block - I refuse to fall back on that excuse), about how I can't find anything that makes me want to write and lose myself in the magic of words again. But then I headed over to Laini Taylor's blog, like I always do when I need something reassuring and uplifting, and it's helped LOADS.

Seriously, just reading one of her blog posts (she updates less regularly now, alas!) puts me in the happy, hopeful mood. And it makes me want to write! HOW is that possible?! It's not even a post about writing, but about a friend, Kiersten White's book (which, by the way, now I'm DYING to read).

But yes, the problem still stands. I still don't believe in No Room in Neverland enough to write it. And I'm afraid to work all the way to 289 pages before I realise it's not working again. Okay, time to re-read THIS POST!

Also, this little pep talk from best-selling author, and writer of this hysterically funny and on-point post, couldn't be more timely. I SPURTED OUT MY TEA READING THIS, CHUCK WENDIG, THANKS FOR THAT.

Have a great mid-week! :0)

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Did you PitMad?


So there was this thing that went on in the Twitter-sphere on a couple of days ago (or technically, 8 p.m. Singapore time) on 9 September. PitMad, which involves aspiring authors pitching their manuscripts in 140 characters or less (at regular intervals within 24 hours) in the hopes that a literary agent will request for it by favouriting the tweet.

Apparently, there are quite a lot of authors who have found representation this way, and literary agents are all for it too.






And since I have two completed manuscripts, I'm totally ready for this.


Tweet Pitches for Until Morning

#PitMad #YA Girl meets boy in a dream when she falls into a coma, only to find that he is the elusive painter she has been looking for.

#PitMad #YA After an accident leaves her in a coma, Lexi meets a boy who is like the nocturnal street artist she has been searching for.

#PitMad #YA Lexi and Sam are trapped in the same dream that is like the paintings a mysterious street artist has been leaving all around town.

#PitMad #YA Lexi’s search for Night, the elusive nocturnal painter, ends when she finds herself lost in her dreams with him.


Tweet Pitches for Blood Promise

#PitMad #YA A long-lost fairy prince, a changeling hungry for human souls, and a not-quite-human boy team up to stop a fairy-human war.

#PitMad #YA To save her brother from fairies, a changeling stumbles into a full-blown war with humans, where changelings are used as pawns.

#PitMad #YA A changeling struggling with her hunger for human souls forges an alliance with a long-lost fairy prince to stop a war.

#PitMad #YA When her brother is captured, April struggles to curb her craving for human souls, until she steals a dead fairy prince’s magic.


So far, I've only gotten two favourites, which is kinda sorta pretty damn depressing.


But is that going to stop me from pitching my manuscripts?


Best of luck for all the writers who took part in PitMad! Hope you're having better response than me so far :0)

Friday, September 05, 2014

Book Review - Eleanor and Park

So despite the slightly underwhelming experience that was Fangirl, I've decided to try another Rainbow Rowell novels, Eleanor and Park. It came highly recommended by friends, as well as Goodreads folks, and Fangirl was enjoyable enough, so I gave E&P a chance.


Overall it was ... okay. Better than Fangirl, in terms of plot and character. But I was still left wanting. Not for more of the story, but for something to seriously blow me away. Like, "reach into your chest and crush your heart to smithereens because THE FEELS THE FEELS" blow me away.

Or maybe I'm just dead inside.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.


The Story

Basically, Korean-American kid meets weird chubby girl who dresses differently. Eleanor ends up sitting next to Park on the school bus, and they start sharing his comic books and discussing music and it's all very nice and dandy, except that Eleanor is being bullied by the kids in school and her stepfather is an explosive, sadistic ass. Plus, she keeps find sick, perverted messages scrawled in her textbooks.

Eleanor tries to keep Park a secret from her family (especially her stepfather, who will destroy anything good in her life), and her family a secret from Park (because she's ashamed of them). But the story eventually reaches breaking point, and all the secrets come tumbling out as Eleanor's carefully curated life comes tumbling down.


The Pacing

Compared to Fangirl, there is way more conflict and tension in E&P. I like how the subplot of the creepy anonymous notes ("suck my dick" - very classy, step-daddy) contributes to the main narrative arc at the end and actually creates a very cool twist to the story.

Plus, the tension builds steadily towards the climax at the end so it's quite impossible to put down the damn book (looked up to find a couple of hours just gone).


The Characters

I'm still not sure how I feel about Eleanor. Park, I get. Park, I empathise with (he feels like he's always falling short of his dad's expectations and sometimes just want to retreat into his own world). Park, I might actually be in love with.

(If I imagine Donghae as Park, Park is practically swoon-worthy. I mean, they're practically of the same build, they're gorgeous - at least according to Eleanor, but she might be biased about Park - and they're sweet and kind but sometimes a little brash.


*Swoon*

I swear, that's what I did. Imagine Donghae as Park, I mean. He fits the character to a T! Even when Park went through the eyeliner phase. I mean,



Come on.)

Anyway, Park I love.

Eleanor, though. Sometimes, I got a little impatient with her. She either wants to jump Park's bones, or she shuts him out. She is either super frail and in need of saving, or super snarky and mean. I get that the hostility is a defence mechanism, but it doesn't seem very consistent.

Sometimes, she's completely self-flagellating:


Sometimes completely smitten (and horny):


And sometimes just plain weird.


That's a fine stride you're making for feminism, love.


The Romance

As with Fangirl, Rowell did not hold back her horny rabbits characters. They are all over each other, and can't stop gushing over how beautiful each other are and how they just want to eat each other up.

I thought their romance progressed a little too fast, to be honest. Like Steph from Cuddlebuggery said,
Park went from “God! Just sit the fuck down, Eleanor!” to “God, she has incredibly soft hands.” 
Eleanor went from “That stupid Asian kid” to “He’s so pretty. I love his hair! I want to eat his face!”
The next thing I know, Park is telling Eleanor that he’s in love with her, how he can’t imagine being without her, that she’s IT for him. Then Eleanor is telling him she doesn’t breathe when she’s away from him.  

The breakneck-speed romance is a bump in the road, but if you manage to get over it, the rest of the story is all right.

Except, REALLY? Park is swearing undying love for a girl he barely knows and Eleanor can't live without a boy with whom she barely shares anything about herself?

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The Setting

The story is set in 1986, Omaha. But Park, or Eleanor's African-American friends Beebi and DeNice, seem to coast through the book without much trouble. Instead, Eleanor is the one getting bullied.

I'm not saying pile on the hate, but everything else about the time and place seems to fall by the wayside when it comes to E&P's epic love. Why set it in 1986, Omaha then? It could have taken place in 2014, and frankly it wouldn't have made much of a difference.

I do like Park's mother, though. How her backstory affected the way she perceived Eleanor and how she finally came around was something I wish Rowell teased out more. (It reminds me of Mrs Kim in Gilmore Girls and how she came to accept Lane's boyfriend Zac, except I think the show did a better job at highlighting the character arc). I think it'd be more interesting to see more of Park's interactions and domestic tension with his family members instead of him and Eleanor taking about comic books.


The Ending

This was me, basically

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Please tell me the story doesn't end here. Seriously. There are so many loose ends untied. And while I get that not everything has to be tied up neatly - nor does everyone have to get their happy ending - there are still too many questions and uncertainties that the ending doesn't quite address.

*Spoiler* Is Eleanor going to stay with her relatives until she's legal? Has she been in touch with her mom and siblings? She just took off like that suddenly and built a new life so easily, cutting off from everyone, including Park.

One whole year, no word from Eleanor, while Park writes long, rambling lovesick letter after letter. And finally, when she does decide to write to Park, the message is only three words long on a postcard?

If I were Park, I'd be like

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But Park's a sweetheart and a hopeful, hapless git. Like Noah from The Notebook. Which means he probably doesn't exist outside of the book.


The Rating

Still, E&P had its moments. There were some parts that quite poignant:


And some dramatic and pretty:



Although I kinda paused at this bit:


Oh, I can come up with a lot of hot Asian guys, but I suppose since this is 1986 Omaha, the Asian boy fetish hasn't caught on. Yet.


In all, I'd rate this book 3.5 out of 5 (compared to Fangirl's 3). Not spectacular, But Rowell's voice is natural and the writing never too heavy-handed (except when it comes to describing love interests). Some parts she sort of skated across (I'm sure there are a lot more social dynamics left to explore, considering the setting) to make way for the romance. And there were still a lot of questions left unanswered towards the end. But at least this one has more conflict and tension than Fangirl.



Have you read Eleanor and Park? What do you think of it? Is there something about Rowell's books that I'm not quite getting??