hello, 2016

Funny how quickly years just pass once you start working. Ever since I started working in the fashion e-commerce industry, time has been measured in sales campaigns, and season by season, festival by festival, we reached the end of 2015.

And really, all things considered, 2015 has been pretty kind to me.

2015 was the year I travelled with my dad to one of the countries I've always wanted to visit.

2015 was the year I was tasked with bigger challenges at work that made it all the more satisfying and engaging.

2015 was the year I made new friends and became closer with existing ones. Friends found in unlikely places, and friends who made the workplace a lot less dull. Old friends I didn't see as much as I would have liked, but remained in touch despite our busy schedules. Thank you for being in my life - you know who you are.

2015 was the year I had (in a long time) that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling whenever I saw someone. It's a feeling that makes you smile whenever you think of a person, and realise you aren't actually dead at heart.

2015 was the year of Neverland, where I spent a good part of it slaving over the manuscript that I'm pitching to agents now.

2015 was the year I got invited to my first ever panel at Singapore Writers Festival and met other writers, accomplished and aspiring. They made me go more confidently in the direction of my dreams, and the young ones in particular reminded me of that budding passion for writing that I might sometimes have lost sight of in my hurry to get published.

2015 was the year I met fans and made new writer friends who counselled, inspired, and encouraged me whenever my confidence and passion wavered.

2015, however, was also the year I experienced the loss of a family member. It was the year of rejection letters and more moments of despair and thoughts of giving up. It was the year of second-guessing myself and wanting to do more to live up to expectations. It was the year of having a lot yet wanting more. And I don't see that as a bad thing, because it's only when you strive for more that you actually get closer to where you want to be.

So in 2016, I will want more. Do more, see more, experience more. And hopefully, I can keep going forward in the direction I choose.

And I wish the same for you, dear readers. Thank you for your constant (invisible but palpable) presence. May 2016 be a year of serendipitous encounters and discoveries for you. I wish you more - I wish you passion and hunger and lofty dreams to chase. May you have more gratifying experiences that are fulfilling but also leave you wanting more.

So here's to new beginnings and all that. Let's hope this fuel keeps burning till the end of the year.

Post-CNY Book Updates and Writing Links

Happy Lunar New Year! 

It's been a whole week (and more) of preparations (who knew one good meal with your family involved so much effort?) and spring cleaning and general merry-making that involves too much grilled honeyed meat jerkies (physically impossible to resist), pineapple tarts, cashew nut cookies, sashimi salads (I know I'm not doing the food much justice with these descriptions, but just know that they are basically the reason why the clean eating programme is going out the window this festive period), and mandarin oranges. Many, many mandarin oranges.

But it's Monday again, so here's an update on No Room in Neverland, and some great links to share:

1. Sophie Kinsella's advice for writing a book:

Everybody, no matter who they are gets to the middle of a book and thinks crikey, I've had enough of this. You get bored with your story and your characters, you hate them all, you can't think why you started this wretched story in the first place.

The truth is, every book is hard to write, everybody reaches a wall, whether it is a plot hole or a scene that you can't get past. So you've just got to get to the end. Even if it's not the greatest draft, if it needs rewriting fine, at least you have a book to rewrite.

Truth.

So this is me trying to put one word after another towards the end. I'm at page 220 now, which may not seem like much, but between Lunar New Year and spring-cleaning and hosting a party and trying to prolong reading Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta and watching this Korean drama called Pinocchio so they won't end so soon (which, of course, requires Herculean effort, because that book oh god that book and that drama oh god that drama I need to rave about them soon!), I think any progress is good progress.

At least what I've written so far for Neverland doesn't make me want to barf, which is more than I can say for the first draft.


2. How wild is it that Harper Lee is writing another novel, "a sequel of sorts" to her breakout To Kill a Mockingbird half a century after it was published? It's called Go Set a Watchman, and she wrote it in the 50s before setting it aside. Just goes to show that it is never too late to pick up that figurative pen and revisit a novel that didn't quite work out.

3. As you know, I've been caught up in this fantastic fantasy trilogy lately. The Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo is set in ancient Russia, and the plot and characters and writing just gets better and better with each installment. I'm on the final book, Ruin and Rising, now and am trying as hard as I can to read as slowly as humanly possible.

Here's an interview she did with The Midnight Garden, a book review blog that features a gorgeous whimsical layout and thoughtful reviews on young adult books. In the interview, Leigh reveals her upcoming book, Six of Crows, which she describes as an "Oceans 11, Inglourious Basterds, ragtag band of misfits, impossible heist story" that stars a supporting character from the Grisha trilogy. Big yay for more stories in the Grishaverse!


4. Another old post from ex-literary agent Nathan Bransford, where he offers some advice for young writers:

Don't judge your writing success by whether you're able to find publication immediately. Instead, write to get better, write for catharsis and practice and fun. Your future self will be thankful for the time well spent.

I'll admit, it's easy to get caught up in the whole publishing game (not sure if game is the right word here, but let's go with it for now). It's easier to fire out query letters to literary agents than writing that book, but it just distracts from the whole point of writing a book in the first place. You end up worrying too much about whether the book will be worth the time and effort, and worrying about whether people will like it, and forget to enjoy the process of writing it, and forget to write the story that you will like.

quote by Timothy Zahn

5. And more great advice from the inimitable Laini Taylor:

Daydreaming, however awesome it is, is passive. It happens in your head. Learning to make dreams real is another matter, and I think it should be the work of your life.

Enough said, really.


Okay, back to working on Neverland now! For the first time since I started writing it in November/December 2013, I'm actually properly psyched about it. Because I see the end in sight and I'm making my way there, one word at a time.


Hope the year of the goat is kinder to you than the horse one! :0)

First To-Read List for 2015

Realistic Fiction (oxymoronic as it sounds):


1. Saint Anything, by Sarah Dessen

I would read ANYTHING by Sarah Dessen. Ever since I first picked up Keeping the Moon when I was 14, I was sold.

Saint Anything didn't come by smoothly for the writer. Sarah struggled with a story that was going nowhere, and was miserable when she wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it again. It's hard to churn out a novel a year, and after writing more than ten books in the same genre, I guess she got a little burnt out. But I'm so glad she took a break, because Saint Anything looks SO GOOD, slightly different and darker than her usual books.


2. Made You Up, by Francesca Zappia

Ever since E. Lockhart's We Were Liars wrecked me emotionally, I've been looking for more stories told by unreliable narrators. Plus, Made You Up also involves mental illness, another theme I gravitate towards. And the cover art! How pretty!


3. All the Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven

This book is touted as The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park, a "love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die". Even though I found E&P a little over-dramatic at times, I'm holding out on the hope that this won't be as overplayed.


4. The Howling Boy, by Cath Crowley

This book is a mystery. No cover art yet, or confirmed publishing date. But after reading - and rereading, and re-rereading - the magical, bittersweet, poignant, inspiring Graffiti Moon, this book CANNOT come soon enough.



Fantasy:


1. Six of Crows, by Leigh Bardugo

More stories from the Grishaverse (that's Grisha universe, by the way). YES, PLEASE! I'm still savouring the final installment of the Grisha trilogy, Ruin and Rising, so it won't end so soon. So more Grisha tales are definitely welcome.


2. The Darkest Part of the Forest, by Holly Black

Faeries, monster-slaying children, fairy-tale retelling. What's not to love? And knowing Holly Black, it would be dark and sinister and all kinds of delicious.


3. Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard

OMG OMG OMG. I have never been this psyched for a book to be released before -

Okay, well that's not true. But this is definitely one of the books I'm properly excited about. I mean, just read the blurb. COME ON. Does it not want to make you read it already?! I can only hope it won't disappoint, because I am all ready to sink my teeth into this juicy novel.


4. Beastkeeper, by Cat Hellisen

I love how fairytale-ish the premise is, yet how real and current the protagonist's conflict is, with an age-old curse and an absentee mother. "The day she falls in love for the first time, Sarah will transform into a beast ... unless she can figure out a way to break the curse forever." Okay, I'm on board.


What's on YOUR To-Read list for 2015?

By the way, I am HOOKED on Aussie YA, thanks to incredible writers like Cath Crowley, Lucy Christopher, Melina Marchetta, Karen Foxlee, and Vikki Wakefield. There must be something in those Australian waters that lets them churn out such dreamy prose and create such relatable characters. If anyone has any recommendations, please share the good stuff! :0)

state of mind for 2015

 
So here it is. We've made it over to the other side. 2015. How should it be any different from 2014? 2014 was a mess of a year, rife with natural and man-made disasters, and social turbulence, tragic accidents ... Ugh, good riddance to 2014.

This time, I don't want to pin too much hope on 2015. Because that's what I did last year. Built up all that expectation and anticipation - I want to write two novels this year, enter this competition and that, write a short story and a blog post every week, post it up on forums, make more writer friends, take up a new hobby! THIS is the year I land a literary agent and get published and start leading a more fulfilling life! - only to meet roadblock after roadblock for No Room in Neverland, and receive rejection letter after rejection letter.

I'm not saying I'm going to be completely pessimistic and dour this year, in case you're thinking I'm starting this year as a grumpy puss. No, I'm just tempering my expectations, taking whatever comes along for what they are. I'm not going to get ahead of myself, just do what needs to be done - rewrite that novel for the fourth time? Bring it. Edit and polish old manuscripts and look for new platforms to gather feedback. Read more books, read outside of what I typically read, watch more movies and drama series, find more new music, to collect fresh, new ideas. Just the gritty work that are a lot less pretty than those daydreams of being published. As happy as I am for authors who achieve mega success because heck yeah they deserve it, I'm done with sighing wistfully over their writing and wishing I could have what they have.

These novels, all this effort into editing and rewriting and pitching to agents, may amount to nothing. And it's easy to get caught up in the whole quest of getting published. But really, what I really need is to write a book that doesn't suck, that people would want to read.

As Chuck Wendig said,

Writing a book and putting it out in the world is an act of ego -- not egomania, but the willingness and decision to create a story out of nothing and push it forward into the world is a bold, brash, unflinching act. You say: this story matters, and it matters that I wrote it. It is a demonstration of your belief in the story and the belief you possess in yourself as a writer, storyteller, and a creator. It takes a rather epic set of genitals to write something that's 300 pages long and then say to someone: "You're going to sit down and you're going to read this and you are going to love it the way I love it. You are going to take hours, even days out of your life to read the little ants dancing across the page, ants that make words, words that make this one big story full of people.

That said, I've been considering other options outside of traditional publishing. Chuck Wendig, as well as many authors and publishing experts have been touting hybrid publishing and embracing crowd sourced novels for a while. Forbes also laid out the pros and cons of hybrid publishing. Some even go so far as to call hybrid publishing the future of publishing. I'm still reading up as much as I can about it so I can decide whether to take this route. If anyone has any thoughts on this matter, I'd love to hear them!

Happy New Year, everyone! Here's hoping for a less turbulent, more forgiving 2015.