Hello, Wednesday! (What's Up Wednesday)

This week's post was going to be a long, really involved list of indigenous fantasy books out there, but as happens with a lot of research, I came up with an entirely different conclusion than I expected and thus have to completely rethink how I'm going to do that post. (Also if you have recommendations for fantasy/speculative fiction/sci-fi written by Indigenous authors, please let me know!) So today I'm just going to fall back on the ol' What's Up Wednesday formatting and we'll just have a nice chat. Grab yourself a cup of coffee or your preferred hot drink and get comfy.

Reading

All the fantasy! One of the reasons I want to make a book list is for my own TBR. I'm now to the third book in NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, The Stone Sky. I'm very excited to see how the end of this series ends up because so far each book in the series has ended with a solid bang. She's such a good writer, please go read her books.

Writing

After spending a few years working on two different contemporary books (which were necessary for my state of mind), I've delved deep into fantasy! I have about 25k of a new fantasy thing and it's so much fun! I love the crazy imagination that can go into fantasy. If you want to see a few lines of that, you can check out my #1linewed tweets on Twitter. This is also the first time I've ever spent a significant amount of time world-building and outlining before ever sitting down to write. My mind is always set on the concrete productivity of word count, so sitting down to spend hours not actually physically writing was torturous sometimes, but SO worth it. Now when I am writing, I don't get stuck (as often) after a few pages because I know the characters, the world, and where I want the story to go. I'm just like whyyy did I not do this before now?? I mean I'm still a pantser at heart (my outline is one page and a lot of "a bunch of stuff happens to get them from this point to this point"), but I'm definitely becoming a plotter convert.

Life

In my last update post about six months ago I said that I'd graduated university! Well I have since finished all traveling and settled into the ups and downs of funemployment as I look for work after university. It has been fun having more time to do personal projects, writing (hello, finishing two drafts in the space of three months), cooking and spending time with people, but I'm starting to get a bit antsy. I also feel like I may have been a bit ambitious with my goals for the blog this year, but it's still early yet! If you have any ideas or comments about what you might like me to write about on the blog this year, please comment and share! Or even tell me what your favourite kind of posts have been over the years.

Happy Wednesday!

Mid-Year Wrap Up

Hello, everyone! Well, I have finally failed my blog-post-every-week goal. But I think it's pretty good that it took me this long. So what have I been doing that I haven't been able to write a blog post since June 29? Mostly I've just been doing a lot of summery things like strawberry picking or going to the beach or biking around town, and I've also been doing a bunch of writing. I even finished a second draft yesterday (woohoo!) It's the second draft of the book I finished the first draft of in December. I think this might be the fastest I've written a draft.

So what else have I done in the past almost seven months, besides finishing a draft?

JANUARY

2017 started! I made some reading goals. I think I'm actually doing pretty good with most of them, although right now I've gotten distracted rereading Harry Potter. This reread has been interesting, and I'd like to share more about the rereading experience, but I think I will leave that for another post.

I wrote one of my favourite posts of this year, 5 Things To Remember When Looking For Diverse Books. The reminders still help me. :)

I discovered the talented Dawn Dumont and wrote a review of her book Nobody Cries at Bingo. I have since read her most recent release, Glass Beads, which is such a good book with an awesome cover. I think Dawn Dumont deserves to be "that one Canadian author that everyone is talking about", her writing is so good and relevant. 

FEBRUARY

February I went to Vancouver on reading week and had no inspiration for writing bookish posts, apparently. The curse of committing to once a week blog posts. But you can see what my room looked like when it was clean, which also includes a picture of my cat.

MARCH

My favourite posts in March were my post on J.K. Rowling, Megan Whalen Turner, and Authorial Intent, about the different ways that authors exert authority over their books and what the effect is, and my post on the 7 Lies I Believed About Writing. 

APRIL

I finished my fourth and second last year of university, started my summer job full time, and started my blog series Local Book Nook (which I'd still love more participants for, by the way!) 

MAY

I turned 23, read and did a review of the fun cross-genre sci-fi novel Sputnik's Children by Terri Favro.  The fifth Queen's Thief book, Thick as Thieves, also came out and I had a fun time putting together a nerdy release party with one of my friends. 

JUNE

I read a bunch of awesome memoirs I did reviews of, including A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, From the Tundra to the Trenches by Eddie Weetaltuk, and Duran, Duran, Imelda Marcos and Me by Lorina Mapa.

I also wrote a post on 5 Strategies For Finding Under the Radar Books.

Oh, and my garden really started to grow! 

JULY

I survived working on Canada Day weekend, enjoyed some especially spectacular fireworks and time with my family and other Canadians, thought about what I've learned about being Canadian from all the books I've read in the past year. 

I started rereading Harry Potter, learned a lot of things at work, was exhausted most of the time, finished registering for classes for my final year of university, enjoyed doing summer things with friends, and finished the second draft of my book!! 

And now we're all caught up! Hopefully I pointed out some posts you missed. How is your summer going? How are your reading goals going?

currently

I am too tired to do anything interesting on the blog this week, but I don't want to break my streak yet! I am stealing this update idea from another blogger, who took it from another blogger... you know how it goes.

currently loving

The revival of the Queen's Thief fandom since Thick as Thieves came out! There is a thread on Sounis with 151 comments! Insane! I'm so excited to reread Thick as Thieves and get into all the analysis with my fellow Queen's Thief nerds, and try to figure out exactly what Megan Whalen Turner is up to. ;) I am also very much loving the web series Away From it All, which is sadly almost at an end :( (but a perfect time to binge watch!) One of the most enjoyable part of the series is the transmedia. I've particularly been enjoying the characters' Tumblrs, which I find give so much background to what the characters are thinking and feeling. The Away From it All team is doing something so right with their transmedia. 

currently reading

I am slowly making my way through the Indigenous Sci-fi short story anthology called Love Beyond Body, Space and Time, edited by Hope Nicholson. I've read three stories so far, and fell in love with two of them. I'm excited to read more! 

currently watching

Last night my brother and I finally watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which was a lot better than I expected it to be. I love Newt and his creatures, and it was so much fun being back in the Harry Potter world, and also interesting experiencing the adult world of Harry Potter. Since it got us excited, my brother and I are now planning to do a rewatch of the whole series.

currently listening to

I have been listening to the French indie folk/ukulele band Nazca a lot because they are amazing (I am so sad they are not popular enough to have everyone publishing ukulele chords of their songs... but still amazing.) I've also been listening to the Hello Internet podcast a lot because it's always entertaining, and my friend just introduced me to a couple musicals that I'll probably listening more to soon, Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away.

currently thinking about

I think about way too many things at any given moment, so you probably don't want to know. Right now I am thinking about whether it is a good idea to go to bed at 7:30.

currently anticipating  

The weekend. Also, I am experimenting with a vegetable garden this year, so I am also waiting to see if anything actually happens with it.

currently wishing

That I could sleep all day. (I really should not write blog posts when I'm tired.) I also wish that the next Queen's Thief book wasn't another probably ten years in the future. And that it would never end.

currently making me happy

• good meals I've managed to cook myself
• time with friends 
• the smiling, enthusiastic and always willing faces of volunteers
• cycling to work through a park and seeing all the people enjoying the outdoors 

So what are you currently up to? 

What's Up Wednesday

I have no idea if the official What's Up Wednesday is still a thing, but I figure it's time for an update and I like the formatting. (The original What's Up Wednesday was created by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk to help writers stay in touch!)

What I'm Reading

If you didn't already know, The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner is one of my favourite series of all time, and the fifth book in the series came out this week after seven years! So I'm currently halfway through rereading the series before reading the new book, Thick as Thieves. That is probably going to consume me for the next few weeks, and then I really need to get started on reading stuff for Women in Translation month in August!

What I'm Writing

I have been working on rewriting the book I finished in December, and I am currently at about 34,000 words. I have been making good progress on this thing. I even made a semi decent outline before rewriting, which is not something I usually do. Because of that, I think if I just sat down and powered through, I could probably finish it in maybe a month. Except I keep giving myself a million other things to occupy my time when I'm not at work... heheh. I was thinking of doing Camp NaNo, although now it looks like there's only sessions in April and July. Another year I did it June and that would've worked better for me... we'll see. Maybe I'll do my own Camp NaNo in June. Anyone want to join me? ;)

What Inspires Me Right Now

Weirdly enough, the beautiful storytelling of the TV shows The Get Down and Skam have really inspired me lately. They are the kinds of art that are so good that they make you want to sit down and create art. And also Megan Whalen Turner's genius, of course.

What Else Is New

Well in April I finished my second to last year of university! Next year I will be graduating with a 4-year Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences with a concentration in Intercultural Studies. I also started my full time summer job a day after I was done everything for school. This summer I'm working at a volunteer department, helping coordinate volunteers. I really enjoy it - it's always busy and there's always something different to do. In just my first month, I've had to fold clothes, organize a uniform swap, call someone to tell them a visitor dropped their phone in with the snakes, go to and help set up volunteer trainings, send a million email reminders, and have lots of lengthy conversations with talkative volunteers who ask a million questions. And that's not all!

So work has been keeping me pretty busy since it's full time, and then I get home and I'm too tired to do much of anything. But I'm still trying to work on my own projects, like my book, this blog, and my garden! I am going to attempt to grow things this summer, although I'm such a newbie gardener, we'll see how it goes. Anyway, I think this summer is going to be hectic, but fun!



What are your plans for summer, writing or vacation related?

The Deal

First, a quick update:
Life: Still in school. Only in two courses this semester. It's great. Still hasn't snowed (!!)

Reading: Just started Kay's Lucky Coin Variety by Ann Y.K. Choi. I'm pretty sure I'm behind on my goal of reading more books set outside of the US, so I'm trying to catch up by reading a bunch of CanLit. Recently finished The Miracles of Ordinary Men by Amanda Leduc, a strange but suspenseful and beautifully written book.

And, writing! Which is what I wanted to talk about today. I feel like I'm doing a lot better with my writing lately. I've slowly discovered a few things that help my writing:

1. 500 words a day. For the last half a year or so, whenever I don't feel like writing (which is all the time basically), I tell myself, okay, just write 500 words. That's it. Just 500. It's a super manageable number of words, and if I don't have a lot of time, it doesn't take a lot of time either. And it works! I get words out, and on good days I end up writing a lot more than 500 words. Like today! I sat down to write 500, and wrote 1300. 

2. Part time studies. I'm only taking two courses this semester for a few reasons, and while I'm doing quite a bit of volunteering these days, I don't have a part time job (perks of living at home), so that leaves a lot of time for writing and other creative things. It's not just the time that's freed up, but the mental energy. After spending all my time either in class, studying, or writing essays, I usually wouldn't want to spend time writing. Since I have that room to breathe now, I feel like I can actually spend time on writing.

3. Social media hiatus. Since certain events this month, I've been very motivated to stay off of Twitter and Tumblr, my go-to social medias and procrastination tools. Twitter is great for connecting with writers, but it's a huge time waster for me a lot of the time. Now I'm telling myself that I'm not going to go back on until I can tweet that I finished writing 50k.

4. Competition (aka The Deal). Back in August my brother and I went camping together. There was one night when we spent almost an hour sitting on a bench by the lake, just talking as the sun went down. (I don't think I've talked to my brother that much, cumulatively, since then.) Anyway, somehow what came out of that weekend is that we made a deal that I would write a book by the end of the year, and he would finish write a game (my brother studies computer science) by the end of the year. The deal has motivated me a lot, because for one thing, my brother won't let me back out of my commitment to write a 50k book by the end of December. For another, I am definitely not losing a deal to my brother. (Also, we still need ideas for rewards/punishments for success/failure so if you have any suggestions they'd be most welcome).

It feels good though. It's been a long time since I've been this consistent with my writing, and I'm excited that I've figured out a few things that are working for me. What helps you to stay motivated and committed to writing?

What's Up Wednesday

Kind of belated What's Up Wednesday... oh well. Anyway, here we go!

What I'm Reading

I just finished reading The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson. To be honest, not exactly sure where the title comes from, but the book was really good. The setting was made up of jungle and desert, which is quite a bit different than the Europe-in-the-dark-ages setting of most fantasy books. I also loved the main character Elisa. She is such a strong character, but she also was vulnerable at times. She was definitely relatable.

Now I'm reading an MG that was recommended to me back when I worked in an elementary library, Summer of the Gypsy Moths. I'm only the first chapter, so we'll see how it goes.

What I'm Writing

At the moment, nothing. I'm writing critiques for a CP, but that's about it. Every time I think about starting in on figuring out edits for my book, I'm kind of overwhelmed with figuring everything out. Especially the beginning, which I have never liked and still don't. How do I set up the world so it makes sense, but also introduce conflict soon enough so that readers are hooked? It is complicated, I tell you. (Although I'm sure you don't need ME to tell you that).

What Else I've Been Up To

I just got a job, so that's cool, but so far I've only had one shift and don't have anymore until next week so my days have been pretty laid back. Um... yesterday my mom, sister and I sat down like we do every week to watch the next episode of The Amazing Race Canada. I have to say I really enjoy The Amazing Race when I do watch it, but especially this time since everyone is Canadian and they're travelling in Canada. :) I love my country.

What Inspires Me Right Now

There's this web series called Video Game High School, and it's a really cool web series but besides that they also put a ton of behind the scenes content up on the creators' website, rocketjump.com. A bunch of that content has been the writers talking about, well, writing.

In this one podcast they did (which you can find here), the writers reflect on writing season 1 of VGHS. Everything that one of the writers says around 33 minutes is really inspiring to me and motivational. They talk a lot about the writing they did for the show, but a lot of the stuff they say applies to writing in general. I don't know, I found it helpful and inspiring. (And if you want to, check out VGHS! It's pretty fun).

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!