The Value of Dreams in a Numbers-Driven World

A friend and I caught up over coffee the other day, where we talked about how jaded we were doing work that wasn’t what we fully believed in or what fuelled our actual dreams, and how our creative efforts were being overshadowed by the demand for tangible returns.

Basically, in the corporate world everything comes down to profits. Revenue. Sales. Site traffic. Everything quantifiable in numbers, in other words. But what if you’re someone creating things that can’t or shouldn’t be quantified with numbers, how then do you measure success or worth?

Sometimes it seems like you just can’t win. That art will always come secondary to profits. What good is an ad or campaign if it’s not going to generate sales? What’s the point of an article if it doesn’t resonate with X number of people and they’re not sharing it on social media? We’re told that dreams are worthless until they can be realised, that our art is only as valuable as the amount of money it can be traded for. We start to internalise this yardstick and whip it out when deciding if what we’re creating is good enough. 

And I think that’s the reason people give up on their creative dreams. Nobody sees the value in what they produce, so they think it’s pointless to pursue it.

But really:

It’s such a waste when people give up on their creative dreams because they think their dreams have no place in their environment or society they live in. My dad, for instance, gave up on art school because he thought it was more important to seek gainful employment to help the family. Till this day, he wonders how things might have worked out differently if he had studied design communication like he wanted to.

There is always a place for our art. For more art. And there are people out there who might actually need it, or at least enjoy it. I think as artists (I’m defining this word here as anyone with dreams of creation), we tend to forget that. We think that being in a numbers-driven world what we can offer is of little or no value, or that what we do will always be under-appreciated.

But as long as there is one person out there who believes in your art and your creation and your dreams, then it is your duty to keep producing work to sustain not just them but also – and more importantly – yourself. 

This post by Laini Taylor bears re-sharing. Seriously, read it. It will change your life.

We artists are needy! We need constant reminders to keep fighting the good fight. It’s why most artists I know have motivational messages stuck all over their computer screens or walls

This is what's on my wall.

Or occasionally turn to books like 

And

To reignite that spark in themselves.

Sometimes, I think it might be easier if I were an analytical, logical ENTJ. But then I think, Nah, I wouldn't give up my penchant to dream or any part of my creative life just so things would be easier. Being an INFP may be more complex, but it is also very rewarding.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the need for numbers and weekly reports. They are the most straightforward way to assess the merit of a project, or track the performance and growth of a channel.

But the world also needs artists. People who dream. People who create. It’s the only way humanity can move forward. Sounds grandiose, but I do believe artists, innovators, creators and dreamers are the ones who ask the “right” questions. Not “how much”, but “what if” and “why”.

So if you’re asking those questions and constantly thinking of new ways to tell your stories – be it in a novel, a poem, a song, a dance, a painting, a photo, an ad, whatever – just remember that the world needs your stories, and you owe it to yourself to make your voice heard. 

And if you think no one out there appreciates or cares about your art, for what it’s worth there’s always me, rooting for all the artists dreaming big and fighting to leave their fingerprints on the world.

So go forth and unleash your art, and guard it with your life.

#ReadingList for October!

To read:
 
1. Two Years Eight Months and Twenty Eight Nights, by Salman Rushdie

Is this magical realism from Salman Rushdie? FINALLY.

2. Six of Crows, by Leigh Bardugo

If you haven't read the Grisha trilogy by this amazing author, do yourself a favour and pick it up from the bookstore today. Aside from Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, it was one of the most richly imagined, vividly narrated YA fantasy stories I have ever read.

Needless to say, as soon as I heard of this spinoff set in the Grishaverse, I wasted no time in adding it to my to-read list. High-stakes heist? Sign me on! Plus, I read the sneak preview chapters of the book the Leigh shared, and it was everything I expected AND MORE. It's just mind-blowing, how she manages to come up with such intricate plots supported by stellar writing.

3. The Demon in the Wood, by Leigh Bardugo

Speaking of the Grisha trilogy, here's another story set in the Grishaverse. This prequel reveals the Darkling's past - back when Grishas were reviled and persecuted - that shaped him into the misunderstood villain he later became.

I can't say I have a soft spot for the Darkling, unlike a lot of other fans of the series (the cocky but charming Nikolai is more my cup of tea, along with sweet romantic Mal). But the Darkling isn't evil for the sake of being evil. He believed in his cause, and for that his backstory is worth reading. Besides, more from the Grishaverse - what's not to like?


4. Glass Sword, by Victoria Aveyard

HAVE YOU READ RED QUEEN. Go read it. Now.

While I wouldn't say I was completely, incorrigibly and incoherently smitten with it like I was with the Grisha trilogy of the DOSAB one (Laini Taylor is indomitable), this series by Victoria Aveyard is definitely a masterfully written piece of work. I'm not a fan of dystopian fiction by any stretch (which is why I'm not on the Hunger Games or Divergent bandwagon, sorry!), but this one drew me in with its high-stakes plot and unusual premise. All those twists! Be prepared to have the rug pulled from under you at any time.

So yes, sign me up for the sequel.


Currently reading: 

Magonia, by Maria Dahvana Headley

I've always been entranced by stories set in the sky, among the clouds. It's why I love Studio Ghibli's Castle in the Sky and Howl's Moving Castle (the latter a movie adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones's book) so much. And how dreamy does Magonia seem! Can I sail away to that kingdom in the sky already?


And speaking of books in general, here's the loot from the National Library book sale today!

I know, I know. As an author myself, I should be supporting other writers by buying their book first-hand and not at these secondhand book sales because none of the proceeds go to the writers for all their efforts. But in my defence, some of these, like Silksinger by Laini Taylor, are already out of print (trust me, I've looked everywhere for it).

And, you know, as long as people are reading and getting to know new authors, this is not an entirely bad thing. Right??

So Round Two tomorrow! Hope your weekend is a bountiful one too! :0)


Were you at the NLB book sale today? What titles did you get? Share your loot here - I'd love to hear from you!

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)

Clocked 30K for NaNo - and that's okay

So we're done with NaNoWriMo! One crazy month of uncensored writing, manic word churning, and getting lost in the labyrinth of the world you created.

My word count stands at 30,300. But oh, who cares. I'm having too much fun right now to obsess over word count! With a structure I've never dared to try before but am experimenting with now because what the hell it's NaNoWriMo and there's no better time to write without fear or judgement.

Here is an excerpt from No Room in Neverland (it's a flashback from one of Gemma and Cole's imaginary adventures to Neverland when they were kids):

*

Captain Storm was one of those people who guarded their ship so zealously they barely ever made port. He believed that the sea was his one true home, and to be on land was as unnatural as the hooked metal arm of his nemesis, Captain Hook.

When he first caught sight of the two children, it was on the southern island of Almeta, where he had just gathered enough supplies for another voyage to the Silver Cape. He never stayed overnight on land, even in terrible storms that tore ships apart. But as his men loaded the ship with bags and bags of flour and potatoes, seasoned meat and produce, Captain Storm stepped off his ship.

His crew stared. But the captain’s attention was fixed on the pair of children. They shouldn’t look so out of place in Neverland, where Lost Children made their home. But the two weren’t inhabitants. No, they were just visitors. Port Almeta host vagrants and visitors alike, and these drifters were from the Otherworld.

They were hardy little things, the captain could tell right away even from afar, no more than a day older than eight years of age. Hand in hand, they approached Storm with a steely determination that was absent in the Lost Children around here.

“We would like to cross the Silver Sea with you,” were the girl’s first words to him. Storm could tell she was a lot more nervous than she sounded, mostly because she was plucking at a loose thread in her jeans. The boy nudged her, and she added, “Sir.”

“Captain,” the boy corrected, and the girl nodded.

The captain was being very un-captainlike so far. He cleared his throat and growled, “You want to cross the Silver Sea?”

The pair nodded, their dark eyes too grave for Almeta in daytime.

“Why?”

“We want to know what’s on the other shore.” Tourists, the captain thought irritably. There was no other way to the gilded Hinterlands but sea passage – flight was impossible because of the air sprites out for flesh. Many stubborn visitors have plunged into the watery depths of the tumultuous Silver Sea because of those greedy little bastards.

These children have no idea what they were in for.

“So hitch a ferry. I don’t take passengers,” Captain Storm said.

“You don’t understand. We’re on a mission,” the girl said with enough passion to make the captain’s brows slide up past the shadow cast by his hat. “To save Neverland.”

Storm narrowed his eyes. “Save it how?”

The children shared a brief look before the boy offered, “We know our way around. We’ve studied the maps and everything.”

“We’re not just visitors,” the girl added with an eye roll.

A procession of sailors traipsed by with more bags of ration, staring at their captain and the two children he was entertaining. In the time it took for his men to pass, Storm understood.

“You’re hunting the fool’s treasure, aren’t you? It’s a myth, kids. There is no treasure. Just an old cave and a treacherous jungle.”

“We won’t know for sure until we see it for ourselves.”

Yes, Otherworld children all right. Only they could be this stubborn.

“Neverland is not yours to save,” said Storm. There had been others who tried. Eventually, they gave up after failing too many times, moved on and left Neverland for good. The others ended up as Lost Children, drifting through the days for eternity.

“We don’t know until we try.” The girl possessed a sense of purposefulness and solemnity uncharacteristic of children her age. Not that Captain Storm would know, seeing how few children he came into actual contact with.

How then was he going to have two of them on his ship?

Yet, he looked at the pair of them standing before him now, and heard himself say, “Get on board, then. And try not to fall over. I won’t bother doubling back for either of you.”

*

There is so much to explore for Neverland! So many possibilities, and it reminds me of how fun writing can be if you don't second-guess yourself or let yourself stop writing. It's so easy to make excuses and get overly critical of your writing (and wonder if this is all worth the effort and heartache in the end), but this is exactly how stories end up discarded when all they need is a little more thought and an extra push.

And who cares if I'm having more fun writing the Neverland Chronicles than present day scenes. I'm just happy to go where the story takes me. Because like Chuck Wendig said, "a finished thing is imperfect - but fixable."

NaNo-ers, any retrospective thoughts about the experience? Hope NaNoWriMo 2014 was just as fulfilling for you! :0)

It's NaNoWriMo!

National Novel Writing Month entails copious cups of green tea, manic pounding of the keyboard, dreaming up scenes, talking to your characters, considering what they'd do in your shoes as you go about your life, and basically being taken over by this snarling, squalling, blossoming thing called the Work In Progress. Anything that helps churn out that 50K-word manuscript in a month.



WIP is going relatively well so far, considering how it had bucked and stalled like a horse that needs to poop for the first couple of drafts before I decided to take a break from it (let it, um, poop, so to speak).

Page 198 was where it succeeded in boring the brains out of me, so now I'm giving it another try, this time with a structure I've never quite dared to attempt before. Narrative within a narrative. Flashbacks (always risky). Non-linear chronology. Something like what Karen Foxlee did with The Midnight Dress.

Once I decided on this structure, it's like things finally clicked into place. This is what gets me fired up and excited to write the story! This is what's missing in the first two attempts! This is what makes me dig deeper into my characters!

Okay. *cracks knuckles* *flexes fingers* Let's do this.



Just so we're clear, I'm probably not going to finish 50K in one month. I'm not going to embrace that kind of insanity. But I'll just try my best and log in the daily word count and see where this takes me.

For my fellow NaNo-ers, here's some wisdom from best-selling author Chuck Wendig on the writing process:

"We wish the best for our stories. We want them to be great. We want them to win awards and climb to the top of the bestseller mountain and maybe they’ll change somebody’s life and earn us a giant sack of cash which will allow us to buy a jet-boat or an oil drum full of that very rare civet-poop coffee. Maybe a jet boat fueled by civet-shit coffee."

Yup, that's Chuck.

"... go forth and write. 

Without pressure, without fear, without the expectation of doing anything but crossing the finish line."

And some civet shit-free wisdom from Laini Taylor (please update your blog, Laini - I'm dying for some snippet of your life!):

"Imagine you’re standing at the edge of a jungle in, let’s say, Borneo (because I have a fascination with Borneo). You have a rough idea of how big this jungle is -- you’ve flown over it in a helicopter and seen dense green treecover, and you know what’s on the other side. You know where you want to get to, and you have a very vague idea of what’s IN the jungle, but you have no map, and as of yet there is no trail. What you do have is a machete, a blank roll of paper, and a grease pencil.  

There’s only one way to get to the other side of the jungle: take out your machete and start whacking. Carve your way forward and forward, sometimes sideways and sometimes back, until you get to the other side. That first time through, you’re going to come across ravines, swamps, viper nests, rivers, all sorts of things you didn’t expect and you’ll deal with them and get around them, over them, through them, in all manner of resourceful ways. And when you step out of the jungle on the far side, what you’ll have in your hand is a sprawling, wrinkled, sweat-stained mess of a map of the territory you’ve just discovered. It might not look very pretty, but it is a glorious thing, a document of discovery. You clutch it to you, and after you’ve rested and healed for a while, you go back to the far side of the jungle and. . . you start again. 

This time, with your messy map in hand, you’ll know where to go and where not to go. Some of the things you discovered your first time in, you’ll want to avoid like the plague; others will be perfect, serendipitous things that make the journey richer than you could have imagined when you set out. You’ll know your jungle/story intimately, the good and the bad, from ground level. Outlines, I think, are kind of the equivalent of aerial photography -- you get some idea, but you can’t really see what it’s like down below -- not until you’re walking through it. And when you find things to be not exactly as they had seemed from the air, you have to adapt.  

Be nimble. 

The second time through, your passage will be much more elegant than the first, and it will also be less exciting. Nothing will ever be so miserable or so thrilling as that first bushwhack. . . that first exploratory draft. The misery and the thrill are intertwined -- that’s exploration for you, taking the leeches and fevers with the discovery and getting to name islands and swamps after yourself! The second time, you’ll know what to expect. You’ll be refining your map. It will get more perfect and less exciting with each pass, and then one day you’ll be done. Done with that jungle and ready for a new one."

Yes, this analogy is perfect.

Yes, Laini Taylor is perfect.

Yes, I wish I could write like her.

Speaking of whom, yay for more Laini goodness: her short story, which is collected in this anthology called My True Love Gave to Me, has just been released!

Image from GoodReads

Laini's in good company too: Holly Black, Kelly Link, Stephanie Perkins, Myra McEntire, and more!

And you guys, the UK version has HOT PINK pages:

SO grabbing this from the bookstore.

May the writing gods be with you this NaNoWriMo! :0)

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.



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)

Book review: Dreams of Gods and Monsters

So I've finally finished reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters, dammit.

I'd been trying to stave off the ending for as long as I could, but I guess no story lasts forever.

DOGAM, of course, was amazing. It was a beautiful conclusion to an epic trilogy. I remember how the first book, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, got me hooked, with its gritty premise (bones! teeth! exotic places like Morocco!), vivid characters and scenes (Brimstone the ram-headed resurrectionist! Razgut the foul, bloated fallen angel! the masquerade ball where Akiva magicked a living shawl of moths for Karou! *swoon swoon dies*)

What a ride it's been.

What I loved about DOGAM:


1. THE STELIANS. HOLY SHIT, THE STELIANS. They had me the minute the Stelian queen, Scarab, bared her teeth at the prisoners and offered them the flesh fruit grown of the prisoners' comrades. So deliciously disturbing. (Not sure what that says about my mental state.)


2. The antagonists. Jael, Razgut, Morgan Toth, and Esther Van de Vloet. They are vile. Which makes their comeuppance that much more gratifying.


3. Zuzana and Mik. Let's face it: who can NOT love them? Zuzana, the feisty little marionette girl from book 1, is just as adorable in book 3, but twice deadly and awesome now. And Mik, Violin Boy, is as sweet and romantic and crazy in love with Zuze. Together, they brought some semblance of normalcy and levity to all the doom and gloom and chaos of war.


4. As always, the prose. I've lost track of the number of times I've read and re-read and re-read and taken a screenshot of a sentence or passage I loved. These are just the tip of the iceberg of gorgeous, swoon-worthy moments in the story:

When this passage made me really want to live in the Far Isles:

When I felt Liraz's guilt gnawing at me too:

When I marvelled at the stuff Laini's brain could come up with:

When I whooped with joy at Violin Boy's romantic (and impossible) proposal:

When I imagined the film version of the book (all that makeup!):

When my heart almost stopped at this moment (thanks, Laini):

WHAT is in Laini Taylor's food? No seriously, what. I need to know, so I can produce prose as insanely beautiful as hers.

And come up with plot ideas as original and daring as hers.

And be able to weave it all together as flawlessly as she does.

One thing, though.


What DOGAM could stand to lose: 

I would gush over the perfection that is DOGAM, but I couldn't help but think that the story could be a little bit shorter. I mean, do we need so much description of Karou and Akiva's attraction to each other? I get it, the two of you are in love and it's earth-shattering and the cosmos align every time your eyes meet and the space between you two is electric and all that. Now get on with business already. You've got a world to rebuild.

So if I were being nitpicky, I'd give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

But who am I kidding. This is the closest to perfection YA fantasy can get. So 5 out of 5 stars.

The 7 types of writers

1. The Planner

The Planner outlines and details every chapter, every scene, every line before getting down to writing. Flash cards and Excel sheets are usually involved. It's pretty hardcore.

2. The Pantser

Panster, as in write by the seat of your pants. I.e. the opposite of the Plotter. Plan? What plan? They make it up as they go along. And somehow, it works for them.

3. The After-Hours Writer

Also known as the one responsible for the feverish mutterings in the middle of the night.

4. The Researcher

You know that half of what you've researched won't go into the book, but man does it take the pressure off writing the actual thing!

Also, everything counts as research. Including watching videos like this documentary on McBusted:

5. The Uninspired

Self-explanatory.

6. The Inspired

Well. Good for you. Exit that way, please.


7. The Desperate

Desperate are those who have spent weeks and months tearing apart everything they write because nothing seems to be good enough.


8. The Emotional

They react to everything they write ... or don't write.

Guess which one I am now? 

But I found this quote on Laini Taylor's blog that is somewhat encouraging:

"One reason people have artist's block is that they do not respect the law of dormancy in nature. Trees don't produce fruit all year long constantly. They have a point when they go dormant.
And when you are in a dormant period creatively, if you can arrange your life to do the technical tasks that don't take creativity, you are essentially preparing for the spring when it will all blossom again."

~ Marshall Vandruff


Leave it to Laini to offer a dose of optimism. I swear, that woman inhales sunshine for breakfast. (Although with that fabulous pink hair, can she be anything but happy?)

Hope you're having a more creative day than me!