Writing Resolutions
Happy New Year!!
With a new year comes New Years resolutions! Beginnings offer fresh starts, new pages, and clean slates. People tend to focus on dieting or working out at this time, but if you ask me, there are far more important resolutions to make: Doing what makes you happy, saying “no” more, ignoring the haters, stepping outside your comfort zone, embracing positivity and so on. Along these lines of personal resolutions, I thought it might be fun to talk about writing specific resolutions.
As a people, we writers are notoriously filled with self-doubt and second-guessing — we really are our own worst critic. These self-imposed pressures can lead to little writing, less confidence in allowing others to read, and sometimes (sadly) giving up. That’s where these writing resolutions come in. I’m going to focus on what my resolutions are, but I’d love to hear from all you lovely people, too! I hope together we can make 2016 a word-filled year of success!
Finish Drafting
I have an unfinished MS from NaNoWriMo and I would like to complete it by the summer. It’s a little over halfway written but a total and utter mess. Instead of focusing on how much editing it will need, I want to finish without letting the impending work ahead stop me.
Complete!
Embrace New Betas
I adore my betas. They are my rocks. Reliable, informative, thoughtful, keen-eyed and all around awesome people. For some new projects, however, I need readers with identities my current betas do not have. The idea of insulting someone or hurting their feelings terrifies me, but I will resolve to tough it out in favor of a better reviewed MS.
In progress
Stop Comparing
I am a constant over-thinker. Every book I read makes me second-guess my own abilities and has me wondering “Am I really a good writer?” “Am I worthy of this profession?” which is nothing but detrimental to my success. I know myself enough to know I will always over-think, but I can at least try to stop comparing myself to other writers/books. Every author’s style is different and every story is different as well.
Doing better 🙂
Revisit Old MS
I wrote a story nearly four years ago that had SO much potential, but I was afraid at the time of going the distance to make the words on paper live up to the hype. Impostor Syndrome to the max. This year I will rectify that and edit the story to be the best it can be.
TBD
Keep Blogging
Blogging allows me to get out of book-writing brain and practice my creativity and craft in short spurts. I intend to write more writer’s sketches/flash fiction this year in order to keep pushing myself and continue to grow.
Making it happen!
Make Small Goals
The publishing journey is made up of several dozen smaller goals. Instead of getting down on myself for not achieving the BIG goal yet, I will spend my time achieving smaller goals. I can begin the year by checking this one off as I have set these goals for myself above!
What are some of your writing resolutions for 2016?
Korra One Year Later (Why Representation Matters)
Typically I don’t get this personal on my blog, but here it goes. I’ve been out to my friends and family for quite some time now, but even still, I’ve never been the type of person who has felt the need to announce my sexuality over a loudspeaker. Granted, my twitter is pretty rainbow-tastic.
Regardless of the setting, I speak my mind, I say how I feel, and I am unapologetically me with everyone I know. However, I have felt for years that I’m sort of…invisible. Not literally, I’m not that awesome. Just that a very important part of who I am gets erased all the time. With my straight friends, I’m straight. With my gay friends, I’m gay. Moreover, somehow people believe my sexuality changes depending on who I’m in a relationship with. But that’s not how it works and it can be very frustrating to feel I don’t fit or that I’m not seen. I honestly blame this on the excruciating lack of bi representation in any and all media.
Growing up I was a voracious consumer of all things–books, tv, movies, comics, fanart, fanfic, etc. But I just never honestly saw myself in those places. Yes, I identified with bookish girls, the x-men, kids with anxiety, tomboys, suburban misfits, wizards, etc., but it wasn’t until last year, when I was 25 that I actually saw ME! It took a quarter century to see all of myself in something and that’s a damn shame.
Enter Korra.
I have been a HUGE fan of the Avatar World since it came out ten years ago. I watched Aang with adoration and awe (honestly the greatest MG fantasy of all time, bar none. If you haven’t watch it, watch it now. I’ll wait…), so when they announced a sequel series featuring a female lead I pretty much lost my ever-lovin’ mind. Korra was just like me in a lot of ways, so I stuck with her story over the three years it aired, viewing every episode with my brother or little cousins the day it showed. Korra’s story was the YA version to Aang’s adventure so on top of darker themes, there was a lot of romantic drama between Korra and her friend Mako as well as her other friends, Asami and Mako. Triangle of death basically.
When the finale hit, I completely expected Korra and Mako to reunite after being split for a couple seasons. I had much preferred she stay super bamfy by herself, but it would be fine. Mako had grown and I was cool with him by the last season so it was no big deal. After all, my fanship of Korra and Asami wouldn’t ever be happening in a million years. That was all for funsy. Imagine my utter shock when this happened:
And this:
I literally was lost for words. And I basically never shut up so this was a BFD! As I watched the finale with my cousins, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There had been some hints for Korra/Asami but I thought I had been reading into them given my person bias. I stared at the TV totally flummoxed by the fact that my fanship was actually the canon endgame couple. Two girls were the final couple in my favorite series in the world! The series with the female lead that I saw myself in!! They were both like ME!!! (Check this out for similar reactions to mine aka ALL DA FEELS) I let it all sink in until I literally exploded from squees that night. Happy cried my little eyes out because it had taken so long to finally see all of myself in something.
From that moment on, I decided I was on a mission to find as much other material where I could see myself. I read a bunch of books and found Far From You, I watched a new series and found The 100. I was actually starting to see myself in more places and that’s when it hit me about how fracking important representation in stories actually is. Think about how many stories are about straight, white, able-bodied cis-males! Countless amounts. More diverse representation is desperately needed. It can be life saving. It can be life changing. It can remind people that they’re not alone even when they feel like they are.
So a year out from watching that episode, I find myself in a very different place from then. Korra gave me something I didn’t know I was looking for: Hope. Hope that I could see myself in more places, hope that other people could see themselves, too. Hope that one day it wouldn’t be ground-breaking to have a character like Korra. The hope that people who felt different or like they didn’t fit wouldn’t feel invisible any more. If I can have even a small part in making someone or some people feel seen/heard, then I’ll write as many stories as I possibly can.
Not a NaNo Winner
NaNoWriMo is over and the verdict is in. I am not a winner!
I’ve won two years before when it was incredibly effortless to write 50k for a variety of reasons but this year the story just did not come as easily as it has before. Maybe I didn’t have enough time. Or maybe I didn’t plan well enough. Perhaps I hadn’t let the story incubate in my head before putting it on paper. Whatever the reason–it didn’t happen.
And you know what? That’s totally fine.
Winning is awesome and makes you feel like the biggest achiever of writing in the history of words. But when you don’t complete a story in 30 days it feels like some kind of failure, doesn’t it? Like suddenly you think you’re not worthy to word anymore. Like maybe those successes before didn’t count at all. You start to let that self-doubt creep in and second guessing becomes second nature. But I say that’s a bunch of crap-a-doodle-do! Don’t let this one empty check mark on your list hold you back from the overall goal. Writing.
You still wrote words at some point. A few hundred…a few thousand…several thousand. Maybe it wasn’t 50 thousand words, but you got ideas down! You can still finish this book! The ending of NaNoWriMo doesn’t mean the end of your book or the end of your career in general. This was just one step in the process. It was just an outlet, a motivational tool. It’s meant to rally everyone together behind a common goal and get support from each other throughout the challenge.
It’s not supposed to be a negative event for the writing community so let’s stop comparing ourselves to each other or each others’ accomplishments and celebrate that each victory is different and just as valid. It frustrates me how some people think winning NaNo makes them better than those who didn’t. Or how people who couldn’t finish feel less than because of the set back. Sure, some people won. And yeah, some of us didn’t. We’re both successful at the end of the month, though, because we kept working on our goals. We kept working at our dreams!
Keep at it into December, and even into the new year and beyond if you have to. One day you’ll have a finished novel that you began during NaNo, but completed on your own time. Writing isn’t a race. Writing is a long, arduous process but in the end, all that time is worth the investment. So let’s not take not finishing as a bad thing, but rather just another bump in the road along our writing journey. Instead of feeling bad after not winning NaNo, feel awesome! Whatever you accomplished is just as worthy as people who won and someday down the road, you’ll reach the finish line with this project and it will be just as sweet.
Flash Fiction: Rainy Day
Everything looks different now.
The sun has found a hiding place between pewter clouds and the birds forget how to sing. I can barely see through the sheet of mist coming over the hill, it’s shroud darkening the world as far as the eye can see. I am not prepared for this. I am not yet strong enough to survive such torrents, but I must. Surrounded by thousands of kin, but more alone than ever reminds me of how small I am, how I am but one blade of grass.
If I could reach into the sky and pull out the sun, I would, but I’m restrained by my earthly tether. Never reaching farther than my outstretched arms. Never protected from the world’s worst. I wish at least the birds would sing, carry a tune through the solemn weather to remind me of brighter days. But they have all gone. I don’t blame them–I envy their freedom, their ability to leave at will. That is a luxury I was not afforded, and instead I must stay and welcome the rains. Standing in the vast field, the unrelenting wave approaches. Gaining ground, coming closer.
Bracing for the worst, I cling to myself, holding tight to where my roots have planted me. Winds thrash me against my neighbors, but no one seems to notice we’re in this together. Each one of us is alone, an army of individuals. So we sway about, letting the wind beat us down as the first droplets fall from the sky. They are not soft and gentle, but like hundreds of stones crushing you one-by-one. I take the pain in stride, nimbly twisting my way around whatever I can but the rain still hits me. Over and over until I fall limp upon the ground.
The kind thing would be to let up, for the rain to move on and shower it’s vengeance upon someone else, but it remains. The torture intensifies and suddenly I am choking. Drowning. Each second passes like an eternity, the weight of the rain holding me down, clouding my once bright view of the world. In the brief moments of relief, I cannot stand. I am bruised and torn, unable to regain the strength I felt in spring. So instead I stay low, waiting out the storm, knowing one day the sun will return and the birds will sing again.
Pitch Wars Mentee 2014
Awards
