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)

12 favorite quotes on writing and stories

1. Jodi Picoult

2. Neil Gaiman

3. Guillermo Del Toro on monsters in fairy tales:

“In fairy tales, monsters exist to be a manifestation of something that we need to understand, not only a problem we need to overcome, but also they need to represent, much like angels represent the beautiful, pure, eternal side of the human spirit, monsters need to represent a more tangible, more mortal side of being human: aging, decay, darkness and so forth. And I believe that monsters originally, when we were cavemen and you know, sitting around a fire, we needed to explain the birth of the sun and the death of the moon and the phases of the moon and rain and thunder. And we invented creatures that made sense of the world: a serpent that ate the sun, a creature that ate the moon, a man in the moon living there, things like that. And as we became more and more sophisticated and created sort of a social structure, the real enigmas started not to be outside. The rain and the thunder were logical now. But the real enigmas became social. All those impulses that we were repressing: cannibalism, murder, these things needed an explanation. The sex drive, the need to hunt, the need to kill, these things then became personified in monsters. Werewolves, vampires, ogres, this and that. I feel that monsters are here in our world to help us understand it. They are an essential part of a fable.”

4. Laini Taylor

by Jim di Bartolo, Laini's illustrator husband

"Be an unstoppable force. Write with an imaginary machete strapped to your thigh. This is not wishy-washy, polite, drinking-tea-with-your-pinkie-sticking-out stuff. It’s who you want to be, your most powerful self. Write your books. Finish them, then make them better. Find the way. No one will make this dream come true for you but you."

(Read the full article here!)


5. Toni Morrison

6. George R. R. Martin

by Dan Elijah G. Fajardo

"Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true? 

"We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La."

7. Rilke

8. And here's Snoopy, the voice of every aspiring writer.

9. Einstein

And finally,

10.

Any other brilliant quotes I missed out?

More Laini goodness!

In case it's not obvious enough, I've been reading Laini Taylor's old blog and catching up on all her old posts (on both her old and new blogs). In one of them, she recommended this book called A FLIGHT OF ANGELS and hooolyshizzle it looks SO FREAKING GOOD I NEED IT NOW WHERE CAN I GET MY HANDS ON IT?! Here's the blurb:

"A mysterious angel plummets to Earth and lands deep in a dark forest, where his dying body is found by the mystical denizens of this strange place. As the gathered fauns, fairies, hags and hobgoblins debate what to do with him, each tells a different story of who they imagine this celestial creature to be -- a hero, a lover, a protector or a killer. Once all the stories have been told, a final verdict is rendered and the outcome will leave you breathless."

Published in 2011, FLIGHT is a graphic novel written by Holly Black (author of the original and spunky fantasy thriller series, THE CURSEWORKERS) and a few other authors. You know it has to be good if Holly Black is on board. She and Laini Taylor are two of the few authors I would gladly follow to the ends of the earth and back, strung starry-eyed along by their prose and all-around genius. So even though I'm not a fan of graphic novels, I NEED this book now. 

Also, please let April 2013 come quickly. I am thisclose to wetting myself with excitement for the final installment to Laini's epic trilogy, DREAMS OF GODS AND MONSTERS.

Speaking of her books (can I ever shut up about her?), I've finally FINALLY gotten down to reading LIPS TOUCH: THREE TIMES, a collection of short stories with illustrations done by her husband (talk about an artistic duo!). Stories of demons and dancing and kisses and curses. Every word of every sentence of every story in this book is so delicious I'm totally relishing it by taking my time to read them, spinning them around in my mouth and tasting the rhythm of the words, asking myself why she decided to use this particular word or phrase or expression and what its effect is and what I would've written (mine always pales in comparison). 

It is IMPOSSIBLE not to get enticed by her prose. I am addicted.

So when she dishes out advice on revising your first draft, I am ALL EARS: 

I’m not just copy-editing myself here, marking typos and such. I’m still casting my mind out for bigger, better, cooler ideas and solutions, more elegant ways to fit the plot together, new things the characters might say and do. I’m writing whole new scenes; I’m rearranging a lot. I’m cutting whatever I possibly can. I’m hyper alert for any boring parts and I am trying desperately not to deceive myself on that score.

Revising is a huge part of the craft aspect of writing, and it can be a time of luscious possibility. Don’t dread it. Embrace it! Do what needs to be done.

Never has advice been this relevant. BLOOD PROMISE may not be in its first-draft stage, but I treat it as such, because there are so many things to change and shift around, so many things to tweak and ramp up and make into something much more exciting than before - how have I not seen all these possibilities and flaws before?!

I'm at page 156 of BLOOD PROMISE now, and I aim to be done with this rewrite by the end of this month. To all my writer friends either mired in their works-in-progress this NaNoWriMo or rewriting their first drafts like I am:

It may not look like it now, but we will get there.

“You write your first draft with your heart, and you rewrite with your head.”  ~ James Ellison

Neil Gaiman is such an inspiration. He always seems so genuine and passionate about books and writing - no pretensions or self-indulgence - and he got where he is now through sheer determination and hard work. Talent too, of course, but more hard work and true grit. If you haven't read this heartfelt, honest and pertinent essay he wrote a while back, go read it - seriously. There, he argues for the relevance of books - FICTION, in particular. In a world that prizes tangible rewards above anything else, where bankers and scientists are deemed superior to those who pursue the arts, things that we aren't able to quantify - such as the emotions that a well-told story is able to evoke - often get ignored, or worse devalued. Gaiman completely hit the nail on the head with this essay.

"We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all. We have an obligation not to bore our readers, but to make them need to turn the pages."

 Here's to writing the truest things we know that won't bore our readers.