Onward

Hey! So I'm actually working on writing lately (and a million other projects, if you're interested in one, go ahead and request to follow me on Instagram @asherlockwrites), so haven't had a lot of brain power to devote to blogging. I always have such high hopes to make this thing BIG! Alas, I just do whatever I want like I usually do, share a little slice of my love of reading and writing with a handful of you.

So let's do this!

Writing

As I've said I've been writing! Well kind of. I've been working a poem project thing (see my Instagram), thinking of editing a short story, aand working on some not-writing writing work like character worksheets and other world-building stuff. I'm curious if you're into writing, how do you block out time for that kind of writing extras - research and world-building and all that stuff? That stuff that feels a whole lot like procrastination to me a lot of the time, so I avoid it because I'm not getting word count. Which is really dumb because that kind of stuff is really important. Thinking through stuff is actually a huge part of writing, it's just that if that's all you do then you're in trouble. It's a balance, I guess. Why does this writing stuff have to be so haaard??

But I'm actually waiting on feedback from a couple of people anyway so don't want to dig in to another rewrite quite yet, so this is the perfect time to spend on all that extra - excuse me, essential - stuff. And it's fun! I even have Pinterest inspiration boards for my made-up town and a bunch of my characters. 

If you are writing, researching and world-building all at the same time though, how do you divide it up? Or do you do one before the other? Go back and edit later? Tell me your secrets!!

Reading

I finished A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers like two weeks ago and I'm STILL NOT OVER IT. It was so much fun. My review of it made both of my parents immediately buy the ebook so check it out! I did manage to finish Banana Heart Summer by Merlinda Bobis after which is a beautiful, delectable story that made me crave aalll the Filipino food, but now I'm in a reading slump. I think I might DNF the book I'm trying to get into now and skip on to the next one.

Life

 

What else has happened recently? Well, in April I graduated university, in May a friend and I started to talk about booking a trip for the summer, and in June I quit the part-time job I've had for the last year to travel for the summer, and my last shift is in two weeks! Crazy. It's been fun not doing school and working part time and having more time to spend with friends and to write (or avoid writing with other things, let's be honest). I have no idea what the future will hold past the end of August but I'm feeling okay about it for now!

What have you been up to? What have you been reading? What are your best writing tips?

Book Recommendation: The First Third By Will Kostakis

One of my favourite things is finding amazing books that aren't hugely popular, books that maybe not everyone everywhere has heard about (read: The Hunger Games, Divergent, etc).

Well, I discovered one of those books the other day, and I would love to share my love of it with you.

Backstory...

As you probably well know by now, Melina Marchetta is my favourite author. I especially love her books Jellicoe Road, Saving Francesca and The Piper's Son (also the Lumatere Chronicles. So yes, all her books except Looking for Alibrandi). All of her books have very strong family and friendship elements to them, which is basically my favourite elements of any books ever.

Well, a few weeks ago Melina Marchetta had an interview with this young author Will Kostakis on her blog, and she talked about this book and the family and friendship elements of it. I thought, huh. I'd probably like that book.

YES. YES I DID.

In fact, I might even have loved it.

That book is The First Third by Will Kostakis. It follows a 17-year-old Greek boy Billy while he struggles with his "yiayia" being in the hospital and essentially dying. His yiayia even gives him a bucket list to complete, which has ridiculous things on it like find his mom a husband, bring his older brother back home, and fix his little brother, who seems to not want to have anything to do with anyone but yiayia for some reason.

There are so many things I love about this book. I loved how the focus was on the family and the relationships within it. I loved how developed each character was, and how there was too many layers to count in each one.

For example, Billy's best friend Sticks at first just seems like one of those typical crazy quirky John Green-esque sidekicks, but he actually has issues of own. It adds a lot to the dimensions of his character, and also to the dimensions of the relationship between Sticks and Billy.

So, family dynamic, friendship dynamic, characters, A+.

I also just really love Will Kostakis's writing. He's definitely skilled with words and getting across elements of the story very effectively. He uses Facebook statuses in really interesting ways for plot and character development. Sometimes it's kind of hilarious.

And the last scene is perfect. But you'll have to read it to enjoy the wonderfulness of that part of the book.

I would recommend this book if you love family or friendship stories, or if you like anything by Melina Marchetta, Jonathan Friesen, or John Green.

It's only $6.99 on Amazon, and you can also visit Will Kostakis's website at www.willkostakis.com if you want to find other places to buy it. Also, I highly encourage you to read this interview that Hypable did with Will Kostakis, because the thing he said about the book are awesome.

Have a good week!

Why I Critique

"So, you offered to read someone's 300-page book?" he said skeptically.

My dad said this after I put out a call for critique partners in my last post. And yes, dad, I DID offer to read and comment on someone's 100,000 word book. I know you think it's crazy, but I have reasons, you know, and they might not make sense to you but they do to me.

So, why do writers go searching for CPs (critique partners) anyways?

Well, here are the reasons I do it...

1. I get a "free" critique of my own work. I mean, it's not completely free, since I have to critique their work too which takes effort and time, but I can afford to spend effort and time a lot more than I can afford to spend money.

2. A critique of my own work is ESSENTIAL. I am aware of problems to fix after I finish each draft, but the more times I read over my drafts the harder it is to look at it as a fresh pair of eyes (in fact, it borders on impossible). Fresh pairs of eyes are SO helpful. I've spent years on my book, so it's really hard to separate myself enough to see problems. It's so helpful to have someone completely new come in and take a look and point out things I just couldn't notice as I'm not a first-time reader.

3. By becoming CPs with someone, I am switching MSs with another writer, which is incredibly valuable. I do send drafts sometimes to readers that aren't writers, and while they do give good feedback (and quite a lot of encouragement), writers undeniably have more knowledge of what works and what doesn't in a story. As a writer, you're always analyzing books and thinking of what you like or don't like and incorporating those things into your own writing. Not everyone does that.

4. When I critique others' work, I learn so much about what works and what doesn't and just stories in general. You can analyze and break down a published book, but there's no denying that published books always come across as much more polished and complete than other writers' drafts (probably because they are). It's a lot easier to spot what doesn't work with a still in-progress work.

5. I can work on my writing skills. One of the hardest things I've found about critiquing is seeing that there's something wrong, and wanting to point out the problem, but not knowing quite how to put it into words. Or at least, a comment or statement that actually makes sense and will be helpful. You would think that putting things into words wouldn't be that hard for a writer, but it is! (At least for me). It definitely stretches my writing ability!

6. Also, I like helping people. :)

So, dear father, and anyone else who doubts my sanity in taking on other people's works in progress to critique, THAT is why I do it.

 

OK, so now that I've said how much I like critiquing... I guess I'll do a giveaway, which I haven't done in awhile. Two people who comment on this post will get a free first chapter critique from me. Just let me know in your comment if you want a critique, and leave your email address or some way of contacting you. :)

What's Up WORLD

I have been absent from the blog since... well, it's been a few months (oops). But a lot has happened since April so I thought I would update you. Actually I just saw a few "What's Up Wednesday" posts so I thought I'd do it in that sort of style, although it isn't Wednesday anymore.

WHAT'S UP WITH MY LIFE

100 Islands, Philippines. Yup, I went there. And...got sunburnt.

I'm home! If you didn't know, I spent this past year in the Philippines, doing a lot of cool stuff. But mostly doing stuff like working at an international school in the elementary library and being the main playground supervisor which means sweating BUCKETS everyday because the temperature rarely goes below 30 degrees Celsius. (Seriously, the one week of the year when it gets down to 26 C people start wearing toques!!) If you're interested I could talk a bit more about my experience there, but for now I'll stick with reading and writing unless you really really want to know. :) So, yeah I'm back in Canada and gearing up for starting university in the fall!

WHAT I'M READING

I just finished FINNIKIN OF THE ROCK by Melina Marchetta and WHYYY did I not read it earlier?? I actually tried to read it a while ago because I absolutely ADORE Melina Marchetta, but I didn't feel like reading fantasy. Finally I sat down and buckled up to read it and I'm soo glad I did because Melina Marchetta did NOT disappoint. FINNIKIN is fantasy, but it has so much truth and beautiful story in it and AWESOME characters, which is my favourite thing about MM and the main reason I love her work. Give me a good character and I'm in love. PLEASE go read it because I want everyone to know how awesome Melina Marchetta is!!

WHAT I'M WRITING

Since I didn't have school work to worry about this year (a very weird thing for me...), I spent quite a bit of my free time writing. So only a couple of days ago I managed to finish my third draft of a book I've been working on for quite a while! Actually, pretty much exactly a year ago I said briefly that I'd finished my second draft. So... it takes me a year to write a draft. But anyway, I'm super pleased with this draft and I feel like I'm more on the right track now than I was with my disgusting first draft and messy second draft. I've now sent it out to a few readers but actually if you're interested I'm on the lookout for more critique partners. :) Here's a terrible one-sentence synopsis... 17-year-old Percy Collins used to be invisible, part of the world of invisible people called Unseens, until he was injected with the legendary antidote to invisibility and for the first time in history, it worked on him, thus making him a very valuable person in the Unseen world. (Trouble ensues). Yeah, I've got to work on that. But anyway, if  you want to read it email me at kazuntai101[at]gmail[dot]com. You can also contact me through twitter, @AlyssaSherlock!

MY GOALS

I feel slightly lost now that I've finished my draft, because my goal for so long has been to finish it! I think I'll take a break from any writing projects for a while, and then maybe try to work on writing a good summary. Which is kind of daunting, to say the least, but also necessary because right now when people ask me what my book is about I say "uh... people... who are... invisible..." (And I'm only trying to annoy them a little bit).

WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW

Melina Marchetta! Reading Finnikin of the Rock inspired me to work on my book and finish it. It reminded me a lot of my book, just because my favourite part of the book I wrote is the relationships and the growth of my characters throughout. :)

I am also looking for some new music to listen to, so if you have any suggestions please let me know! I'm also wondering what your favourite YouTube artists/musicians are (because then I can just listen to all their songs on YouTube... haha).

Anyway, I've been away for a while. How are you? What are you up to? Have you posted lately on your blog? (I need to catch up on my blog reading...) Let me know!

My Work In Progress

Well, this post has been sitting in my drafts since December 19. That is evidence that talking about my personal writing does not come naturally to me... but I did make a goal to talk more about it once I started these weekly posts, so that is what I'm going to do!

I was tagged in this questionnaire (awhile ago) but I'm finally going to complete it!

The book I'm talking about is the book that I'm currently outlining, which I talked about in my last post.

What is the name of your book?

The working title is "I Am Terrible At Coming Up With Titles". See this post.

(Actually the working title is "Percy", which really isn't much better in my opinion).

Where did the idea for your book come from?

I'm not sure. I think I was just walking home from school one day in the winter a few years ago, and I had this idea to write a story about an invisible girl, and the story starts where some guy tells her she's invisible (because he is too). I've since changed the POV from the girl's perspective to the guy's.

In what genre would you classify your book?

YA dystopian? Maybe? It kind of has that flavour, I think.

If you had to pick actors to play your characters in a movie rendition, who would you choose?

I have no idea, although the actors on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries are pretty amazing.

Give us a one-sentence synopsis of your book.

17-year-old Percy Collins used to be invisible, part of the world of invisible people called Unseens, until he was injected with the legendary antidote to invisibility and for the first time in history, it worked on him, thus making him a very valuable person in the Unseen world. (Trouble ensues).

(Forgive me for that summary... it was the best I could come up with on short notice).

 

Is your book already published?

Nope.

How long did it take you to write your book?

It took me 2 years to complete it ("it" being the first draft - I've a long way to go before it's FINISHED finished) once I'd started. But the thing is, I hardly worked on it nonstop. So I don't think the length of time it takes to write a book is equal to the amount of work or effort you put into it. (In my opinion). If I would've worked on it nonstop, I probably could've finished in a few months at least. But life happens.

What other books within your genre would you compare it to? Or, readers of which books would enjoy yours?

Hmm... well I suppose I would link it to the obvious dystopians The Hunger Games and Divergent, although my book is quite different from both of them. The ways they are similar are: 1. Focus on the relationships between characters and a lot of character and character relationship development and 2. The focus on the fight to create the best world they can from the circumstances. I think these are the main similarities.

What authors inspired you to write this book?

John Green and Suzanne Collins both inspired me by creating an overwhelming desire in me to create something both meaningful and potentially world-changing, or at least worldview-changing. I want to make people think. What I learned in history in grade 11 and 12 (the 2 years I wrote it) also influenced my writing. We were learning about single-party states and Castro and Stalin, so I thought a lot about them and how they came to power and their influences as I wrote.

Tell us anything that might pique our interest in your book.

There are lots of good characters, and the MC grows as a character, and in my opinion this is the best thing I've ever written and therefore my favourite thing that I've ever written. I love the characters and I definitely think that it would be easy for others to fall in love with them as well.

I suppose now I should tag people - let's just say whoever reads this, do it, and then post a link or tweet me or something (or just write about your book in the comments). I want to know what you're writing about. :)