a few loose ends before flying off to sushi-land

One more week to Japan, and I'm scrambling to get as much work done before I leave - which explains my absence from this blog. From year-end projects at work to editing Neverland (yes, again) and planning for the next novel, Before I Remember You, to preparing a script for the Singapore Writers Festival panel (you know, just a brief outline of what I'm planning to say so I don't seem like an utter fool up on stage), I'm swamped!!

In the meantime, here's something that's been keeping me busy at work: ZALORA Community!

After a whole year of planning and writing and executing (back-end is waaaay more complicated than you'd think), after months of soliciting help from service providers and the IT team and coordinating with everyone in all the eight countries ZALORA is present in, after all the frustrating glitches and back-and-forth emails, this baby is finally born and ready to roll!

Not sure if I've explained it before, but Community basically a fashion/beauty/lifestyle/entertainment content site curated by in-house content managers at ZALORA (including me - I oversee all eight countries but I mainly handle the Singapore site). It's called Community because the content comes from a community of writers, in-house and external - bloggers, freelancers, anyone with the passion for trends and the ability to write a grammatically-sound and engaging article.

I'm super excited to grow this site, so if you're keen on contributing, send us your samples (all instructions can be found in the Our Contributors tab) and we'll take it from there!

Meanwhile, Neverland is calling. Will I ever be free of that magical place? Do I even want to be free of it? I want to live there! (And so does my critique partner - hi, Jenna! If I haven't said this already, I love my crit partner.)

Okay, back to the fourth round of edits for Neverland! And hopefully by the time I get back from Japan, I'll be ready to start writing Before I Remember You - just in time for NaNoWriMo!

Have a great evening, everyone! :0)

It's time for #PitMad again!

Image from Middle Grade Mafia

It's harder than you'd expect, writing pitches no longer than 140 characters that are supposed to summarise your stories and entice agents to ask to read the full manuscript. But here's the final product for BLOOD PROMISE, NO ROOM IN NEVERLAND, and UNTIL MORNING:

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

— Joyce Chua Xiu Wen (@joycewrites2509) September 10, 2015

 

#PitMad #YA What starts out as make-believe adventures in Neverland escalates into schizophrenia for 17 y.o. Gemma who lost her mother there

— Joyce Chua Xiu Wen (@joycewrites2509) September 10, 2015

#PitMad #YA Lexi’s search for an elusive nocturnal painter ends when she finds herself trapped with him in her dreams after a car accident.

— Joyce Chua Xiu Wen (@joycewrites2509) September 10, 2015

#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.

— Joyce Chua Xiu Wen (@joycewrites2509) September 10, 2015

#PitMad #YA Gemma, who lost her mother in the imaginary Neverland when she was 8, has to revisit it to find out what happened to her mother

— Joyce Chua Xiu Wen (@joycewrites2509) September 10, 2015

#PitMad #YA To save her brother, a changeling teams up with a fairy prince to stop a fairy-human war, where changelings are used as pawns.

— Joyce Chua Xiu Wen (@joycewrites2509) September 10, 2015

#PitMad #YA Gemma's search for her estranged parents brings her back to Neverland, where a terrible accident left her memory in pieces.

— Joyce Chua Xiu Wen (@joycewrites2509) September 10, 2015

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

— Joyce Chua Xiu Wen (@joycewrites2509) September 10, 2015

Just a couple of hours into PitMad (it started at 8pm and ended at 8am for me because time difference is not on my side) and there were already more than 400 tweet pitches. Can you imagine the total number of tweets in 12 hours?? How is an agent supposed to sieve through all that? The odds are high, but good thing there are some agents who tweet the following:

If I don't star your #pitmad tweet & you think we'd be a fit PLEASE query. There are over 20k tweets flying around (according to Twitter).

— Carly Watters (@carlywatters) September 10, 2015

So writer friends, did you #PitMad? :0)

5 Things Wikipedia-ed in the Name of Research This Week

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On a related note, No Room in Neverland is currently being put through the wringer as I scrutinise, cut, and edit the hell out of it. (Still can't get over the fact that the first draft is done at last, after all that agonising and rewriting!)

Meanwhile, I'm also working on Shiny New Novel, developing the central idea and structuring the novel and fleshing out the characters. This is the fun part, where anything can happen and your story can go in any direction. But it's also daunting, because there are SO. MANY. POSSIBILITIES. But yeah, good times. Let's keep rolling.

Have a good weekend! :0)

Neverland is DONE!!

One script, three drafts, and more than a year later, I am finally - FINALLY - done with the complete first draft of No Room in Neverland.







*throws confetti*

*does a happy dance*

*spends a day taking a complete break from Neverland*

*reality sinks in*

Now for the even harder part - crafting a query letter and synopsis. Because, really, how are we supposed to condense a 79,000-word novel into approximately 250 words that will hook a literary agent to request for the complete manuscript and eventually sign you on (query letter), or 500 to 750 words that will cover all the salient characters, plots, sub-plots, complications, and resolution (synopsis)? HOW?

*bangs head on desk*

*stares blankly at page*

*writes a draft*

*visits Tumblr*

*rewrites*

*posts an Instagram photo*

*rewrites again*

*keeps rewriting*

Happy Tuesday! :0)

June reads, pink hair, and manuscripts that just. won't. end.

I couldn't blog last week because work was relentless (ZALORA's digital magazine community is going live soon!) and I was nursing a fever, sore throat, headache, and runny nose last week (doesn't rain, but it sure pours).

Buuuut I'm back - with bolder, brighter, and pinker hair! :0)

I was going to go with just the darker copper this time, but it felt a little too dull. So I went and doubled the pink streak! Here were some hairstyles and colours I considered:

Totally leapt up when I saw this - SOOOOOO GORGEOUS!!!!! *__*

I'd love to go this red, but I'm not as fair as pretty Ms Han Ji Min

So I settled for this slightly browner tone like Tiffany's

Not gonna lie - I wish I had the guts and freedom to go as nuts as Laini Taylor because look how fabulous that shade of pink is! But my dad will probably flip. Maybe someday, if I ever make it onto the NYT bestseller list, I'll do this to celebrate!

My dad shook his head at the expanding pink strip as soon as he saw it, but oh well I love it. EMBRACE THE PINK! :0)

*

And as if my May reading list isn't long enough, here comes another one for June. But with more swoon-worthy tales of literary apothecaries, OCD romance, mysterious guardians, kidnappings, and magical guardians, the reading list just won't quit! I mean, just look at these drool-worthy tales:


1. Every Last Word, by Tamara Ireland Stone 

A girl with purely-obsessional OCD finds her place amongst a bunch of misfits, and falls in love with a guy who plays guitar and writes poetry. Sorry, but I'm a sucker for stories like this.


2. Emmy & Oliver, by Robin Benway

Touted as a book to satisfy Sarah Dessen fans (that's me!), a girl meets her childhood friend whose father kidnapped him years ago. Ever since The Snow Queen, I've loved the idea of childhood friends who become lovers. Plus, this one has got all the drama and tears, so I don't care if the plot seems cheesy. It's not cheesy if it's well written. And based on the reviews on Goodreads, it sounds like it might be!


3. The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins 

"Father could do strange things. He could call light from darkness. Sometimes he raised the dead. And when he was disobeyed, the consequences were terrible." Don't you want to read it already? I know I do!


4. The Little Paris Bookshop, by Nina George

Books to heal a myriad of ailments and undiagnosable woes, a literary apothecary - sounds like a delightfully magically realistic poignant read already!

*

And finally, an update on the WIP that is No Room in Neverland. 

It feels like I am NEVER going to finish this story. The word count currently hovers close to 79K. 79K! This is the longest I've ever written. Granted, it has two stories in one (Neverland Chronicles, and current day), but come on. 339 pages for a YA contemporary, really Joyce??

I'm trying to convince myself that it's better to write too much than too little. But that just means you might end up cutting out a lot of scenes that drag down the story. And that's just as hard as trying to thicken the plot! Conclusions are just as hard as beginnings, if not possibly harder. You have too much to lose by the end of the story to mess it up, so the pressure is ON to tie up the story nicely without making everything too convenient or cheesy or draggy or rushed. 

My problem with the first draft of Neverland was that it didn't have enough of a plot. But this third draft feels like it has TOO MUCH of a plot, and there are so many loose ends I haven't finished tying up. And I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to end everything neatly because that's just lame. A story doesn't end just because a book does ... Am I making sense?

One more scene. Two more chapters. And I'll be done. And then I can go back and hack out all the extraneous parts. Come on, Joyce. You HAVE to see this through. You've spent way too much time and effort on this to stop now.

Writer friends, how do you when to end your story?

when you hit the 70K mark!

Crazy busy at work this week (yes, I have a day job - it's to feed myself to keep the writing dream alive), on top of writing Neverland.

Met a minor road bump at page 298, but it was nothing a bit of sleep and mulling over the plothole couldn't solve. So now I'm back on track and making my way towards the end ... but also trying not to reach the end at the same time! There's this conflicting desire to finish the novel but also ... not, because that would mean the end of this story and I'm not sure I want to leave Neverland just yet.

But still, I just realised I've hit 70K this morning!

Heading out for brunch now. Have a good Sunday! :0)

Highlights of the Bali Trip!

Touched down late afternoon on Sunday after a four-day trip to Bali, and as promised - pictures!


Day 1
 
We hit our villa straight after arrival. The Bali International Airport is only five months new after renovation!

Our villa (which cost only S$125 a night, and is owned by a Russian couple who currently live in Bali) in Seminyak was a rather touristy area that's like a mini town with shops and cafes and restaurants packed close to each other and is only a stone's throw away from the sea.

This is where I spent my early mornings

Bali was crazy hot, so it was a relief to step into this quaint cafe named Corner House for TWO glasses of freshly-squeezed watermelon juice:

The nicest, most street-savvy girls I have ever been on tour with

 

 

Followed by some shopping (yes, in that heat):

Local handicraft - look how cute!

And, of course, the beach

Then dinner at this hip Italian restaurant called Ultimo, where we got drunk on music, laughter, wine, and food.

Day Two

We brunched at this adorable diner called Sea Circus:

Sea Circus is well-known for its brunch menu

And then hit Karma Beach, where you have to pay about S$10 for a magnificent view:

 

 

We took a cable car down to the beach

On the cable car ride back up

The hotel room there costs 800SGD a night, apparently

Lastly, we went to this temple in Uluwatu called the Water Temple to view the sunset:

The temple was on a cliff overlooking the sea

It was like monkey kingdom there, and our guide told us to hold on tightly to our belongings or the monkeys will snatch them away! Our sunset viewing was punctuated by periodic screams of tourists who got their hats or cameras or scarves snitched by frisky monkeys.

 

We concluded the day with dinner at a seaside restaurant, where we had a seafood spread at Jimbaran Beach.

Day 3

We had a light breakfast at our villa before heading on a two-hour drive to Ubud to see the padi fields, lunch at a famous barbequed ribs place, and do some shopping at the local market. Our driver for the day got a little too enthusiastic and drove like a fiend. We swerved in and out of traffic and sped towards Ubud, and by lunchtime the girls and I were feeling too queasy to stomach much of our lunch (although the ribs at Naughty Nuri's were good).

Shopping and padi field sightseeing made us feel slightly better, though.

By the end of day 3, the effects of too much sun and food kicked in. One of the girls had a bad case of food poisoning, while I was dehydrated and had a sunstroke. So we headed back to our villa and completely crashed.

In the evening, Huimei's food poisoning got worse - she was throwing up every few minutes - and we had to take her to the BIMC Hospital in Kuta.

Thank goodness we all felt better by the next morning so the trip didn't end on an entirely bad note.

Plus, I managed to get some writing done on the plane.

Still, it's good to be home. See you again, Bali! Thanks for having us.