Writing Inspiration for the Week

For when you lose steam:

For when you feel like giving up:

from lipstickandlacquer.blogspot.com

For when the ideas stop coming:

For when you lose sight of your goal: 

For when you need a no-nonsense reminder of why you write:

Here’s the thing about being a writer, or a musician, or an artist, or any sort of creative person. The ones who make it are the ones who make themselves do it. They’re the ones who practice even when it seems like they aren’t getting any better ... They’re the ones who send out query letters and hear no and they send out more query letters and they hear no again and they send out query letters and they hear no again. They’re the ones that hear no as not yet and nothing is ever a failure, it’s only a complicating plot point in the arc of their life. They’re the ones who realize that there’s no point tricking your way into publication, because the point is to write something other people fall in love with; that’s what being a successful storyteller is. They’re the ones who are hungry for it. No, they’re the ones who are starving for it.
~ Maggie Stiefvater

Happy creating! :0)

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

1.

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4.

5.




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)

binge-read this book, and I'm still not over it

This book.

Read it.

That is all.

...

Okay, not quite. Of course that's not all. You need more reason to pick it up. Just know that if one of your areas of interest is abnormal psychology, then this book will move you to tears while giving you an honest insight of bipolar disorder.

Isabel and Connor are friends who met at summer camp, where they served as counselors to teach children art. Connor fell for the eccentric, irreverent, out-of-this-world Isabel, and even though they've gone back to their own lives in different states after camp has ended they remain in touch via email and instant messaging. They talk about everything, share every detail of their lives with each other, including Isabel's negligent boyfriend Trevor, Connor's new gay friend Jeremy, and their families.

However, Connor soon realises that the brilliant, smart, and funny girl he met at camp experiences extreme emotional highs and lows that are making her more and more self-destructive.

Many times, the book hit very close to home. It's upon reading books like this that you feel you're not so alone in your emotions. It's like it sneaked into you and listened to all your thoughts. I cried several times throughout the story, and swooned many more times at passages like these:

“Maybe there's a galaxy with a planet that's just a little more tilted, with a sun that shines just a little bit darker, and that's where I'm supposed to be, where it somehow makes sense to feel this broken.” 

“Your memories of me are part trees and part ocean and part magic, and I don't know if I will ever be that girl again. She was the best version of me.”  

Connor to Izzy:

“You never heard me tell you that I want everything, not just the perfect pieces, not just the sparkling, charming snapshots of you. You never let me tell you that I want every piece of you, even the broken ones, even the dark places where scary things hide.” 

“Even though I was crying harder than I ever remember crying, even though I was sick with fear that I lost you, something about being held like that made it bearable. Somehow just knowing that there was that space for my pain, I don't know, maybe it didn't hurt so much. 

Isabel. Come home. Someone needs to hold you like that. We all need to hold you like that. You don't have to carry all your pain alone.”

And my absolute favourite:

Seriously, if you're into abnormal psych, and are a sucker for whimsical prose and some romance, drop everything and read this book now.

(Belated) Friday 5: 5-Sentence Story Openings

 

The stag head loomed over her, mounted on the door like the beast had decided to peer out just seconds before it met its doom. Its glassy marble gaze reflected her tensed body, ready to lash out in a crackle of energy at the slightest sign of trouble.

She tried not to list out the ways this meeting could go wrong, but Althen’s voice played out in a loop, almost becoming a mantra that braced her for her first meeting with Death.

Avoiding the stag’s gaze, she pushed the heavy mahogany doors open. It couldn’t be an omen – the stag’s fate was not going to be hers.

She watched the last of the parachutists drift towards the beach, where a crowd was cheering and clapping even though the team was one short. Maybe no one had noticed yet. It wasn’t the first time the explorers had returned incomplete.

The sun was still hovering above the horizon, as though holding out for the last survivor. There was still time – one could hope.

He found the journal on the train, a black battered leather-bound volume stashed between the seat and the window. Whether it was meant for him to find, he didn’t know. But he worked it out of its hiding place and gingerly cracked it open. His grandfather had told him to stay out of other people’s thoughts. But then erring on the side of caution had landed him in the enemy’s hands anyway, so there was no reason to heed his advice.

Red was the colour of her hair, the flush in her cheeks when she laughed.

Red was her dress at the ball she had never wanted to attend – she preferred to wander in the forest with me instead. But I made her go, watching her from the shadowed bushes far from the bright lights of the palace.

Red was the bloodstained marble when she plunged to earth like a dying star, the pawn in a ruthless game of power and betrayal.

Red was the colour of the sky when she breathed her last in my arms.

The town of In Between hadn't had a visitor for as long any of its inhabitants could remember. It wasn’t a proper place, after all, just an afterthought squeezed between two warring colonies. But the town was blessed with an abundance of rainfall and a roaring underground trade – two unrelated reasons the visitor cited for settling down. That was the year the town of In Between broke the rules by taking him in. They were no longer invisible, not with a rain thief in their midst, and everything changed soon after.




(Images taken from Pinterest and Tumblr - none of them are mine.)

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Feel free to create your own story openings! Have a fruitful 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)

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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!

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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?

how Girl, Interrupted completely wrecked me

 
So thanks to my friend's recommendation, I watched Girl, Interrupted (1999) over the weekend. She kept raving about Angelina Jolie's performance and told me that since I was so interested in psychological disorders I should watch the movie.

So I did and now I don't know if I'm still out of that funk. You know how some stories wreck you from inside you and stay inside you for days, maybe weeks or years? Girl, Interrupted messed me up and turned me into a complete emotional wreck.







Speaking of Misha, he had a tiny role in the movie too. I couldn't help it - I burst out laughing when I saw him try to seduce Winona Ryder.


Castiel, socially awkward since 1999.


What It's About

Susanna (played by the beautiful Winona Ryder) is admitted to Claymoore and diagnosed with borderline personality disorder after a failed suicide attempt.



There, she is thrown into a contained, isolated world far removed from reality as she struggles to make sense of her emotional turmoil. She meets a host of patients each with their own diagnoses - a pathological liar (Clea DuVall), a bulimic cutter (Brittany Murphy), a burn victim who behaves like a child (Elisabeth Moss), an anorexic (Angela Bettis) ...

And then there's Lisa (Angelina Jolie), charming, manipulative, rebellious, "dead inside" Lisa, a sociopath who has been in and out of Claymoore for eight years.



Lisa takes an interest in Susanna, who now lives in the ward vacated by Lisa's best friend who killed herself. Susanna finds Lisa exciting and magnetic, but is drawn into a downward spiral the more she hangs out with her.


How It Broke Me

The scene where ***spoiler alert (for the rare few who haven't watched it)*** Susanna found Daisy the bulimic cutter dead in the bathroom after she hung herself completely broke me. It just made me think about all the people out there who battle their inner demons daily, pushing away the voice in their head in an attempt to feel normal and be normal.

Some parts got close to the heart, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels alone or sad or like a failure sometimes. Some days, all you want to do is just curl up and be alone with your feelings, to cry yourself to sleep and let the debilitating self-doubt and sadness consume you. Other days, you just want them to go away and wish that you didn't feel anything.

But it's probably easier to give in to these emotions than dust them off and press on. The trick, I guess, is to keep moving and not stay stagnant with those feelings curdling around you and holding you back.


Favourite Quotes

"Crazy isn't being broken, or swallowing a dark secret. It's you, or me, amplified. If you ever told a lie, and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child, forever."

What Susanna wanted to say to Daisy (after Daisy killed herself):

"...I will never know what it was like to be her. But I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside."

Psychiatric nurse Valerie's advice to Susanna:

"I think what you've gotta do is put it down. Put it away. Put it in your notebook, but get it out of yourself. Away so you can't curl up with it anymore." 

I wanted to give Valerie a hug too after she said this!


Scene between Susanna and her psychiatrist:

Susanna: I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favorite word.
Dr. Wick: Do you know what that means, ambivalence?
Susanna: I don't care.
Dr. Wick: If it's your favorite word, I would've thought you would...
Susanna: It means I don't care. That's what it means.
Dr. Wick: On the contrary, Susanna. Ambivalence suggests strong feelings... in opposition. The prefix, as in "ambidextrous," means "both." The rest of it, in Latin, means "vigor." The word suggests that you are torn... between two opposing courses of action.
Susanna: Will I stay or will I go?
Dr. Wick: Am I sane... or, am I crazy?
Susanna: Those aren't courses of action.
Dr. Wick: They can be, dear - for some.
Susanna: Well, then - it's the wrong word.
Dr. Wick: No. I think it's perfect.

I love how this exchange shows how we are in control of what we think, what we allow ourselves to feel, and the reality we construct for ourselves.


Afterthoughts

Girl, Interrupted is the kind of story that you don't know whether to love or hate, like this little book called We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. On one hand, you love it because it is so well executed and emotional and moving; it opens up your eyes to the lives of mentally ill people and makes you see the blurred lines between what's real and what's in your head. On the other, it totally runs you over like a freight train and leaves you in pieces all over the ground; it worms a little too close into your heart for comfort, and I found myself sobbing during more than one scene towards the end.

I love stories that take you through a whole range of emotions. They make you feel so pathetically human, yet so wonderfully alive.

Okay, I think I've written my way out of this emotional fugue. Back to normal life!


Have you watched Girl, Interrupted? What are your thoughts about it, or of mental illnesses in general? I'd love to hear from you! Oh, and if you have any more recommendations on similar subject matter, feel free to share!

To-Read List for May!

It's a magical realism feast this month, in both contemporary and historical fiction. I'm liking this trend VERY MUCH.

Roald Dahl

Magical realism is such an unexplored genre (as compared to, say, crime and mystery) and I really love how it brings the fantastical into real life and stretches your imagination to accept the strange and the wondrous things that happen every day. That's probably why I wrote Until Morning - and now No Room in Neverland - because I wanted so badly to read something set in the real world that contained romance and magic.

Speaking of Until Morning, I've decided to go the crowd-source route and post it up on Swoon Reads (which published a lovely contemporary romance novel A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall). You can read it (and rate and share if you enjoyed it!) here. And if you need an idea of what it's about, here's a teaser:

Lexi Keen has found her soul-mate, although she has never met Night, the elusive street artist who leaves his paintings around the city.

Still, that doesn’t stop her from penning letters to him – until she finds herself living in his paintings after a car accident lands her in a coma. In her mind she is wandering through Night’s paintings. Her only companion: a boy who doesn’t understand why he is trapped there with her and wants to leave.

Sam Young is trying to make sense of the dreams he has been having of late, dreams in which he meets the irreverent, free-spirited Lexi. When his father’s latest development project involves taking over the inn that Lexi’s father owns, Sam has to choose between his loyalties to his father and staying with Lexi in the dream, safe from reality.

So anyway, I'm really looking forward to this month's haul. Yay for magical realism and contemporary fiction! That's not to say fantasy is a dying genre, but I think readers as a whole are now looking to take a break from all that supernatural good-versus-evil stuff for a while and go back to something closer to the heart. Even agents I've queried have told me they're not representing fantasy because the market's too saturated and people are veering away from the genre at the moment.


To Read:
 
1. Magonia, by Maria Dahvana Headley

2. Girl At Midnight, by Melissa Grey

3. Above Us Only Sky, by Michele Young-Stone

4. Bone Gap, by Laura Ruby

5. The Cost of All Things, by Maggie Lehrman

6. Love Letters to the Dead, by Ava Dellaira

7. Love Fortunes and Other Disasters, by Kimberly Karalius

I can't stop fangirling over these books. I mean, HAVE YOU READ THEIR BLURBS? ARE YOU NOT PROPERLY EXCITED ABOUT THEM ALREADY? Ships in the sky, memory erasure (coincidentally, I've been working on a short story about memory erasure too), Lithuanian bird-women, pickpockets in black markets and missing people. This is while I love reading and creating stories. There are so many exhilarating possibilities that set your mind on fire, so many stories that fill you with ideas and life.

And of course, there's LANGUAGE itself. Prose. The stringing of words to form beautiful, heart-breaking sentences with rhythm and music.

From Magonia:

"I'm dark matter. The universe inside of me is full of something, and science can't even shine a light on it. I feel like I'm mostly made of mysteries."

"I know everyone has dreams of flying, but this isn’t a dream of flying. It’s a dream of floating, and the ocean is not water but wind.
I call it a dream, but it feels realer than my life."

Breathe, Joyce, breathe.


Currently Reading:

1. Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard

SO GOOD. The execution, the plot (and plot twists), the prose - all skillfully done. If I HAD to nitpick, I'd say that my connection with the characters isn't as strong as the one with Alina and Mal from the Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. Those two (plus Nikolai Lantsov) got me swooning and dancing and grinning and spazzing. Red Queen, while nicely done, doesn't send me reeling. But this is probably subjective and different for every reader. This book is still HIGHLY recommended!

2. Before My Eyes, by Caroline Bock

Two words: mental illness. I'm a sucker for any story that deals with issues like this, especially anything creepy or disturbing or psychologically messed up and sheds some light on people dealing with the demons in their heads. Plus, it's told in alternative POV and it reminds me a lot of Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn and *ahem* Lambs for Dinner by me.


Queued:

1. Saint Anything, by Sarah Dessen

2. Friday Brown, by Vikki Wakefield


What's on YOUR reading list this month? Recommendations always welcome! :0)

When Super Junior Came to Town

(Okay, I just need to get this out of my system before I get back to writing again. I'm experiencing what my friend Liz calls "concert withdrawals", so just let me indulge my inner fangirl before I return to Neverland. Promise I'll get the words out again!)

So I've been too busy fangirling this past week to blog, which I know is a very sorry excuse. 

Geddit? SORRY? Haha.

But Super Show 6 only comes by once! And pricey concert ticket aside, it was completely worth it. So I just had to drop everything and go catch Super Junior live (for one day only!) when they came to town last Saturday. SS6 Singapore is the second last show before they wrap up their world tour. Plus, it's the last before a couple of key members enlist (trying not to think about that because NOOOOOOO).

So this concert noob went to see SJ.

People selling official idol merchandise around the concert venue. I got the SS6 jersey and varsity jacket (because, you know, you always need clothes)!

The concert tickets for SS6 sold out in 10 minutes! I had to log in at noon sharp to snatch up mine. And here you can see why.

A sea of sapphire blue lights, the colour of the fandom

My bae.

 

Yes, they cosplayed Elsa in various forms - just one of the crazy thing this group does.

Everyone remembered to mount the rotating platform this time! *claps*

Hae was right in front of us!

(The following images are from SMTOWN's official website)

 

Baby looks nervous

It's so different watching them dance live. Hae's moves look a lot more powerful in real life than on the screen!

Forever rebel, Kim Heechul

I'm wearing this jersey to sleep, just so you know

Thanks for the memories, SJ! You completely SLAYED. I only wish the concert had been longer, because 3.5 hours with you guys just isn't enough!


What was YOUR first concert experience like?? :0)