If You Absolutely Had to Choose Between Reading or Writing

Several years ago I attended an author event in New York City, where the authors on the panel were asked which they would choose if they could only read or only write (not both) for the rest of their lives. At the time I just thought to myself that it was a cruel, cruel (but fascinating!) choice to give a bookworm or writer, and that fortunately it's not a very realistic question, but the question has been on my mind lately in light of my recent struggles against  my own thoughts and emotions.

Up until a few months ago, I would've probably told you that, if absolutely forced to choose one, I would rather be able to read--and not write--for the rest of my life. There are just too many books in the world that I want to get around to before I die, and the low panic that would set in whenever I thought about the books I haven't read yet if I died early made the choice a relatively easy one. BOOKS. NEED BOOKS. NEED BOOKS LIKE AIR. And so on.

But in the last month especially, I've been writing just about anything and everything I can think of. Endless, rambling journal entries in which I try to be my own therapist and think my way out of my mental black hole. Postcards, on which each word is chosen with care to best complement the image with such a limited amount of space. Revealing blog posts. Letters to old, almost-lost, newly-refound friends. Short stories that blossomed out of a split-second scene I caught outside the bus window. Longer stories with little plot but chatty characters, or too much plot that I haven't yet been able to untangle and smooth out. Even text messages, 160 characters used as a lifeline, reaching out to people who can entertain, distract, help, or enlighten me.

All of this writing has not just given me a permanently cramped right hand and inkstains that mysteriously appear on my clothes, scarves, and bags. In seeking the writing mode as often as possible, I have actually felt myself feeling better. I enter into writing with a hazy mind and annoyances dripping off me like salty beads of sweat, and on the other side of the writing I emerge clear, calm, and centered. It's not the only answer I have to seek, but when something can make me feel better, I'm going to hold onto it as hard as I can and care for it until the end of my time.

Writing is my therapist. Writing is my toughest coach. Writing is the annoying relative who won't leave you be to wallow by yourself. Writing is my best friend. So I guess that if you asked me again which one I'd choose, I'd now say that I need writing to survive.

What about you? If you were forced on pain of death (noooooooo!) to choose between being either a reader or writer (but not both) for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

Marketing Advice for Self-Published Authors

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I very, very, very rarely accept self-published books for review, but it doesn't mean that I'm not open to the idea of reading and reviewing them. It's just that I rarely encounter a self-pubbed book with a presentation that is both professional and appealing. Of course, books published by traditional publishing houses have marketing budgets and people to help market and publicize them, whereas in self-publishing that job falls to the author. There are certain things that I don't see nearly enough of that I'd love for self-pubbed authors to pay attention to when packaging and publicizing their book.

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1. The cover matters.

Ten bucks says you know someone who is interested in art, digital art, or photography and would be happy to help create a professional-looking cover for your book. Sure, the cover isn't everything, but it is something, and with so many choices bombarding audiences every day, you want to make sure that your cover doesn't stand out in a bad way. Do simple research on what makes good or bad covers by browsing the bookstore, making a note of what types of font make a cover look cheap or immature, which trends you'd prefer to embrace (or avoid). A little extra time spent on designing your cover will make a difference when it comes to first impressions.

2. Treat your review pitch email for bloggers as you would a query letter to agents.

That's how you're going to gain the respect--and, perhaps more importantly, the attention--of the truly influential bloggers. If your only goal is to hit as many bloggers as you can, then this doesn't matter so much: there are always bloggers who are eager to get their hands on any review copies they are offered. If you aim for more than a simple gushing review with little to no substance, however, write a brief synopsis that's worthy of a jacket summary or query letter, while avoiding making it sound like every other book summary out there; be courteous and genuine in your tone. I receive a lot of review request emails from self-published or small-house authors each week; the professional and polished emails really stand out and make me take notice.

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3. Avoid gimmicks.

You're not my chum, you're an intrepid author who has to humble yourself for blogger reviews. Don't assume you know my reading tastes or the fact that your book is worth my time. Remember how, after middle school, you were taught not to start your essays with rhetorical questions? Yeah. That. Don't feign nonchalance, the reverse psychology, "I'm cool but you don't know how cool until you read my book" strategy. Don't talk about yourself in third person or from the point of view of a reviewer or from the mouth of your main character. Seriously! I assume you've read books about writing query letters and perused websites that discuss what works and doesn't work in query letters. (Query Shark is a great site for that.) The same is true for review pitch emails to bloggers.

4. Use social media wisely.

In this day and age, you have so many ways to connect directly to your audience. This is both a blessing and a curse. You can make it a blessing by interacting with the large, varied, and awesomely enthusiastic blogging community on Twitter; by reading, writing, and commenting on others' blog posts. You can turn it into your curse by oversharing, over-pimping your book when people just want to have a nice dialogue about whatever it is they're talking about on Twitter, or responding badly to critical reviews, which are inevitable.

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5. Don't abuse the Goodreads friend request function.

Goodreads is a website for readers; it's not a book signing where the author reigns and the mere mortals bask in the author's glorious genius. Few people want to be friends with the Goodreads user who spams everyone with invitations to random events on their blog. I am completely turned off by authors who only use Goodreads as a platform from which to pimp their book, by rating their own book 5 stars (and not rating anything else), by liking all the 5-star reviews of their book, and by friending anyone and everyone they can find. If you want your presence on Goodreads to be a success, use it for what it's intended to be: a place where readers can share their love of books and connect with one another. Save the self-pimping for your author website and those review pitch emails--which, of course, you have meticulously revised so that it won't be immediately ignored by yours truly on the basis of unprofessionalism and redundancy.

6. Personalize--but only to a certain extent.

I no longer respond to review pitch emails that don't include my name or blog name in the email: why should I waste my time replying when you couldn't bother with a personalized salutation for me? At the same time, the over-personalized ones make me uncomfortable as well--e.g., I see you're in China, would you like to read my book in Chinese?--even more so when it's clear that the overpersonalization is formulaic: I'm glad to see that you like [insert] / I see that you want to read [copy and paste from my blog's review policy]. Think of it this way: if all the bloggers to whom you sent review pitch emails were to get together and compare the email you sent them, would you be embarrassed to have them see your personalization formula?

7. Have a writing sample available online somewhere.

Here's one that even traditional publishing houses should really do: make writing samples available online! Post your first chapter, or a snippet of your book, online somewhere, and link to it in your review pitch email. I acknowledge that the email is often not the way to judge your writing, and so I want to have the chance to sample your writing before I decide whether or not to accept your review pitch. (On the other hand, the email is an example of your writing, so you better damn well make sure it's polished.)

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The potentials for the self-publishing world are so vast; let's make sure it doesn't get a bad rep. Hopefully I'll see improvements in self-publishing marketing in the future!

The Crux of Character

Recently I've read a few contemporary realism books that I found myself unable to truly get into. Now, mind you, these are big-name YA books, books that have been raved about for months by a vast majority of the blogging community, awards panels, librarians, book review publications, etc. They are also "issue" books--more specifically, books about the death of a loved one.

I don't know about you, but I always feel compared to give "issue" books a higher rating than contemporary realism that deals with less objectively serious subjects. But the thing is, it frustrates me when an "issue" book receives accolade after accolade when it cannot convincingly answer an extremely important fiction question for me:

Can the main character exist without the book's "issue"?

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Look--I know that most books are written about an exceptional moment of the character's life, such as a life-changing event or period of growth, or both. There's got to be something that makes that particular slice of the character's life worth writing a whole book about. The death of a loved one is life-changing, definitely--traumatic, tragic, heartbreaking. But I get really frustrated when the character development reads like the character did not even come into existence until this tragic event occurred to them. Surely you must've had a personality before the death? Hobbies? Interests? Worries? Crushes? Then why do you sound like, without your Significant Event, you would be a totally unrealistically simplistic boring non-person?

I used to think that bland protagonists existed only in guilty-pleasure paranormal romances, hidden behind the romantic appeal, okay-ed through the editing process because of the flashy premise. But now I know that they can exist in realistic fiction as well. This time, they're masked behind a sad, sad event that screams "PITY ME", otherwise you will be considered a horrible, insensitive person.

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There seems to be this misconception that giving your protagonist as few definable traits as possible makes him or her more relatable to the audience. Because they are a blank slate, deeply, irrefutably, life-changingly in love with the love interest, and we are supposed to focus entirely on the transformative, obsessive, all-consuming power of the romance and how neither character can live without the other. They are, supposedly, the everyman or everywoman.

But this is a misconception, because the way to get people to relate to your character? To make your character as specific as possible. Little mundane quirks that bring out the human in your character. Because I am still constantly being surprised at how related so many of us are in our thoughts and experiences. Yeah, human beings are unique creatures, but they also share a whole lot, particularly in adolescence. Everyone feels lonely. Everyone feels misunderstood. These feelings of isolation, frustration, and fear are what differentiate us, but also what draw us in solidarity when we find someone else who feels the same way we do.

Some of the best contemporary realistic YA fiction I've read deal not with serious subjects like death or abuse, but rather with the completely, absolutely, totally, terrifically ordinary everyday concerns of being a teenager: friendship fluctuations, romantic worries, school, body image, adults who just don't get them. I like a serious, thought-provoking, and eye-opening read myself, but I also love it when a more so-called "lighthearted" or "frivolous" YA book really gets what it means to be an average teen. Because--and let's not delude ourselves in the name of sensitivity and empathy--many of us just want flawed, rebellious, and tetchy screw-up characters that we can read about and go, "Oh my God, I am totally like that." And on the rare occasion where I can find a book with a strong premise and a truly well-developed protagonist, well, that's just incredibly cool and wonderful.

I think that writers should ask themselves as they're writing, "Can my main character exist without the catalyst for their story in this book?" Take away the tragedy and what remains? If you draw a blank--if you can't describe the character beyond the embarrassingly basic facts such as living arrangement, primary extracurricular activities, tentative career ideas, etc.--then you really should rethink your character. YA readers are becoming sophisticated enough to notice when a premise remains only a premise. A novel does not truly take flight on a flashy or sympathy-inducing premise alone. That's why some of the best books--or at least some of my favorite books--can have seemingly little or no plot at all. An attention-grabbing premise can garner the pre-hype and release week bestselling status, but only thorough and relatable characterization can make a story memorable across both one and many lifetimes.

What Makes a Good Reviewer?

The answer to that question is probably best said by a classmate of mine, an extremely talented girl a year younger than me. She's talking about music journalism here, but I think it's so applicable to any other type of writing, particularly reviews:

"The mark of a good music critic is the ability to describe a piece of music so that a listener who has not heard the song can hear exactly what the writer is hearing. It's impossible, but what else can I do but try?

"I love 'Rocky Raccoon' because it's imperfect and atypical. I like it because Paul McCartney's mouth is too close to the microphone, and you can hear him swallowing. His diction isn't very good, and the words seem to roll off his tongue, not quite making it over the edge. The melody is simple, and the lyrics are effortless. Paul's crooning tone adds vulnerability to the song, but the smoothness of the lyrics and the languorous movement of Ringo's downbeat and George's strumming guitar give the tune a lighthearted ambiance." © I.N. 2010

If you can't hear exactly what she's talking about in her description, then pigs are probably flying. I've never heard this song before but I can practically hear it playing right next to me, reading that.

This, friends, is what it means to be a reviewer, or really, a writer of anything. It's describing something in such a way that someone who has no expertise in the subject can almost perfectly understand what you're talking about.

Don't get me wrong: it's definitely hard. It takes lots of practice and direct/indirect exposure to the field that you're writing about and lots of trial and error. As well as a bit of talent. Yes, I believe that people are born and/or shaped to be predisposed to some activities and interests over others, but even that's not enough to be good at what you're doing. It also involves a certain degree of humility, of actually LISTENING to criticism and learning from it, and then learning to separate the good criticism from the so-so criticism.

The way I see it, to write--to transfer anything from thought to language--is to communicate. Doesn't matter if you're only scribbling half-formed sentences in your journal, or drafting an article that's going to appear in the New York Times. They might be different levels of writing, but it's all writing when it comes down to it. To write is to communicate, which means to have an audience. And by "audience," I mean anything from a half-second, grimacing glance before you trash/burn/otherwise destroy what you just wrote, or the legions of readers who will discover and rediscover your writing for centuries to come.

The easiest audience to write for is, arguably, yourself. That's because you know yourself, you can take shortcuts with your writing and still be able to decipher what you are talking about. The more people read your stuff, however, the harder it is to write, and the less easy it is to define the qualities of a work that make people continue to read it generations after it was originally written. What is the reason Homer is still read and taught today? What about Lao Tzu and Sun Tzu, who actually wrote in another language? What is it about their writings that have withstood the tests of time, evolving audiences, and even languages?

Here we go back to that intangible definition of writing that transcends individual language and experiential limitations. As a book reviewer, I strive to describe the book I'm reviewing to myself... my YA-loving friends... readers in general... non-reviewers... my mother's cousin's husband's sister's youngest son's best friend, who HATES reading. On and on and on, attempting to reach whoever manages to stumble across this speck of a blog in this corner of the infinite Internet universe. With every bit of writing I do, blogging or non-blogging-related, I am thinking about audience. Because, from a sociocultural perspective, in our world, those who have language are those who succeed. Sure, you should definitely write for yourself, all of your writing should reflect YOU, but at the same time, the "you" is a form of audience as well.

Language is a construct to bridge--nay, to organize--human thoughts and consciences. It necessarily requires the existence of an audience. And it is the act of a good writer/reviewer that we are able to communicate our thoughts about something to someone who knows nothing about it. It doesn't matter how the reviewer goes about it: they can be snarky, biting, insulting, raving, obsequious. The attitude with which one reviews something is not what I'm talking about right now (and is subject for a different conversation at another time); what I'm talking about right now is the act of communication. My favorite book reviewers have that ability to let me really get what he/she wants to say about the book. And that's what I'm looking for when it comes to writing.

NaNoWriMo 2009 Wrap-Up

I didn't win. I think a large part of me knew that even going into it. I was doing well for the first two-thirds of November, and then life, and all the deadlines, papers, projects, and whatnot, got in the way. So I didn't exactly write for the last 10 days of November, but I wrote 32,772 words in the 20 or so days that I did write, which meant that I was pretty much on track the entire time.

It was a great experience, even if the ending was disappointing. I didn't know I had it in me to set aside time each and every day for writing, what with all the school-related things I have to do. Now I know that I am capable of doing such a thing, given the right motivation!

And the story, you might ask? Well... it changed during the writing process, but I think all in ways that were for the better. I realized my writing and story weaknesses, and discovered two fantastic protagonists that make me giddy with their interactions with one another. Once the semester is over I'll probably continue writing this story and trying to work out the kinks intermittently next semester. I have no idea whether or not it will be published-book-worthy, but I guess that's one of those things you can't really just for yourself, and we'll see!

And finally, I'll leave you (finally) with a synopsis of my still-untitled NaNo:

Since moving to the small town of Rayburn, South Carolina, 12-year-old Darcy Lin has been at a loss for company. The soccer boys in the park don't let her join in on their games. Her older sister ditches her for the company of a creepy male neighbor, and her parents bug her to study and practice 24/7 to be the perfect Asian girl. When she meets and befriends Danny, the quirky boy next door, Darcy thinks her life is looking up--until she enters school and faces racial discrimination and prejudice for the first time she's aware of. The treatment from her classmates brings the normally active Darcy down and causes her to withdraw, painfully aware of the things that make her different from her peers.

However, Darcy's issues are soon shadowed by those of Danny's, who turns out to be a vampire--and wants to attend public school for the first time in his long life, an action that sends the town and nation into an uproar. Vampires have long since been around under the radar, caught between the laws of the human world and the nature of another. They have kept a low profile and endured the raw ends of deals given them by the American government, but Danny's attempt to attend public school calls attention to the injustices that vampires have long since faced, though Danny and Darcy's classmates are hardly willing to accept a vampire into their midst.

Danny's trials take the attention off Darcy, but soon she must decide where she stands: alongside her revolutionary vampire friend, or with her classmates for the chance at her own acceptance.

How Blogging Has Helped My Writing

Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers is all about his theory that success more influenced by environment and experience than innate talent. Sometimes, the "successful" ( put "successful" in quotes because I firmly believe there are many types of success, but Gladwell is talking mostly about fame and a little bit of fortune here) people are the lucky ones who were simply born in the right time period, into a financially secure family, in a community that is poised to unknowingly cater to all their interests, whims, and developmental needs. (See: Bill Gates.) 70-80% of the most successful Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first three months of the year. Coincidence? Not quite. In their school-age junior league, the cutoff for admittance into the league is January 1. There is a HUGE amount of mental and physical difference between, say, a six-year-old born in late January and a six-year-old born in October. Thus, the January six-year-old gets picked over the October six-year-old and goes on to get special intensive training with the best coaches and best equipment, so, naturally, they advance to higher and higher levels...while the original October six-year-old, who at the beginning could've been just as talented as the January six-year-old, gets shunted to one side and, by, say, age 18 or so, is actually perceivably less talented than the January kid who got all the cool stuff... and all because of that arbitrary age cut-off date.

The moral of this story? Canadian parents, if you want your kid to be a hockey superstar, time his conception wisely.

Okay, I'm just kidding for that. NO, WAIT, DON'T GO, I'M SORRY, IT GETS BETTER. It's pretty intense stuff to think about, that so much of our success may be out of our control. However, Gladwell also describes the "10,000-hour" rule: basically, that masters and experts in ANY and ALL fields have only accomplished their success after 10,000 hours of practice. Do you know how much time 10,000 hours is? A heck of a lot of time. Bill Gates skipped gym classes and stayed up all night fiddling with computers for years to achieve 10,000 hours of computer practice by the time he dropped out of Harvard to become a multibillionaire.

The moral of Bill Gates' story? WHAT THE HECK AM I STILL DOING IN SCHOOL WHEN I COULD BE OFF WRITING 24/7 AND GETTING 10,000 HOURS OF WRITING PRACTICE?

(Okay, kidding. Kidding. Toooootallyyyy kidding. Pretend I didn't say that, or else my professors will think they're wasting their time on me, and my family will think they're wasting their money. Teehee. I luff you!)

The gist of it is, 10,000 hours is about the unconsciously universal threshold for mastery in anything. Gladwell's findings indicate that there is a marked difference in the success of violinists who've practiced 10,000 hours and violinists who've practiced only 8,000, or 6,000. Constant and dedicated immersion in one's passion or interest is a crucial factor to success.

Which brings me to blogging and writing. This year has been a year of almost explosive growth in my reading and writing habits. A few days ago I crossed the 200-book mark in number of books I've read in 2009. I've taken two writing workshop classes at school, started and finished writing a novel, and started another one. I don't even want to know how many hours I've spent on book-related websites such as Twitter, Goodreads, LibraryThing, and blogs, because that will just make me feel kind of sad at how much time I could've spent reading or writing.

All of this is PRACTICE for my dreams of becoming a published author. Reading all those books? That's research. I've gotten a better sense of what writing styles I like to read, and what works for others, and what I can write, and what I'd like to write. I've read enough this year and in past years to develop a sense of plotlines and story ideas that I feel have been overused to the point where I either want to stay away from them for my life's sake or am determined to rework them and reach the core of what they used to be about. (Read: vampires. And a slight explanation for what I'm doing with my NaNo...)

I know now that I want to never ever ever write a predictable teen romance: "plain girl falls for Abercrombie-model-hot totally-good/too-bad-to-be-true boy on first sight," or "plain girl's long-time unattainable Abercrombie-model-hot totally-good/too-bad-to-be-true crush suddenly notices her when she gets a makeover, or, you know, zombies attack their hometown." Ack. And I know that I want to keep readers alert; to immerse them in a gradual yet heart-wrenchingly unforgettable romance; to push the limits of YA lit conventions. I want to write minority characters and make them accessible to all kinds of readers, like Justine Larbalestier. I promote discourse and perhaps court controversy with sadly taboo real-life subjects, like what Lauren Myracle and Lois Lowry do. I want to reject mediocrity and conventionality.

Composing blog posts, commenting on others' blogs, and even thinking of ways to say things in less than 140 characters--that's me developing my conversational and narrative writing skills. How does one incorporate tone, irony, or subtext in 140 characters? I'd like to think I attempted to figure that out. My fiction writing has changed over this year, too. Earlier this year I wrote some pretty awful, plotless, character-montage short stories for my workshop last spring. Now, I'm aware of the importance of having a story in your story. Before this summer, I was terrified of writing shitty first drafts, and thus rarely finished writing something if I felt it got too bad or boring. Now, I know that Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird) was right: 99% of the time, first drafts are AWFUL. Probably more than half of my first drafts won't make it into my revised second drafts, and now I know that and look forward to tearing apart my first drafts and rewriting large sections.

I've also learned the zillions of things that I want to work on in the years to come. I'm atrocious at writing families. Research kills the spirit in me. Writing three-dimensional siblings? Fugghedaboudit. I let my characters tell us what they're thinking too often, instead of letting them show their thought process in actions. And, oh yeah, I still need to figure out how to write that "THAT'S IT" first sentence in query letters, instead of writing summaries that sound suspiciously like book proposals or book jacket descriptions. I keep lists of the questions I have for my stories, myself, and my writing, and I look forward to when I'll be able to answer them. Through practice. Always through practice.

So yes, I have been clocking some serious practice hours for writing this year. And the best part? It's all been so enjoyable, so effortless. I love all the new friends I've made through blogging and Twitter. I love going to bookish events and actually be able to connect to people there. And, yes, I even very secretly and guiltily like being the children's and YA lit "semi-expert" in my Children's Lit class at Penn. (And if you, Phil, are reading this, I hope you don't take it in a bad way!) I like striking up conversations with the bookstore employees who ring up my purchases for me, and recommending that they read such-and-such a book if they like this-and-that.

Fellow aspiring authors (and book lovers who don't want to be authors, or writers who are already published), I hope you don't lose heart, especially if you're doing NaNo. Consider the blogging community experience as research and practice towards whatever dreams you have. I know you're all passionate about books: you wouldn't be flittering through the blogosphere or reading this now absurdly long blog post if you aren't. Whatever you read and write counts towards your 10,000 hours. Think of it that way, and it'll be a lot easier to reach mastery in whatever you desire. :)

NaNoWriMo Week 2 Wrap-Up + An Excerpt...

I've had an erratic second week. Due to the craziness of my school schedule, I was only able to write every other day--but oh man! I literally wrote about 3,000 words every time I could sit down to write. Now that my other main character's in the picture, some of the scenes seen to come a lot more easily, which I suppose is a good thing. I'm having a blast working on the dialogue between the two MCs. I really like the two of them. Still don't like my MC's family (darn stupid trying to write three-dimensional parents and siblings! gahh!) but whatever, I'm not going to worry TOO much about that at the moment.

I'm surprised that, at 24,000 words into the story, the plot still hasn't even picked up. I intended for this story to be a middle-grade novel...but that's looking unlikely right now. I might have to rethink a few key characteristics about the characters in the revision (like, uh, their AGE). This week I'm hoping that I'll manage to get them to have their key, plot-turning conversation, and make my MC start school, where she'll face.... well, that's another post for another day.

Now, I usually dislike showing my first-draft work to anyone, but as many people seem to be making exceptions for NaNo, and because I know you're all so ridiculously curious to see how my fiction writing is compared to my blog-post writing *scoffs*, here is a short scene, the second conversation that my two MCs, 12-year-old Darcy and 14-year-old Danny, have together.

And yes, I'm aware that I probably haven't really told you what the synopsis of my WIP is. That's because I'm really bad at writing short, scintillating summaries, and I am definitely not going to post my 10-page synopsis, because, uh, that would defeat the purpose, if you guys know what's going to happen before the book even gets revised and maybe goes on into the great big (and scary) world of publishing! *blinks innocently*

Alright, enough procrastinating, Steph. Here goes nothing... my really rough draft of one scene...:

The next morning, I finally clean up the last of the junk that’s on the floor of my room, and after lunch, I tell Mom that I’m heading out. Only I’m not going too far. I do a couple laps around the neighborhood, just so that my muscles won’t fall into disuse, and I end up in front of the Windchime House—Danny’s house. Thanks to some heavy clouds, it’s cooler than usual, and a mild breeze blows through my hair. My palms tingle as I nervously walk up to their front porch.

I don’t hear a sound from within. Guess Danny doesn’t practice at the same time every day. Is he still somewhere inside his house, though? He told me yesterday that he didn’t go out, but I find that hard to believe. Since when can kids be cooped up 24/7 like that? I leap off the porch and walk around the house, whistling softly.

The living room window that was open yesterday is closed. Disappointment stabs my heart. I was looking forward to talking to someone friendly so much, and now what happens? I slump onto the grass and fight back a pout. This just shows me that I shouldn’t want something too bad: when they don’t come true, it sucks more than usual.

“So you’re squatting on my land now?”

I bounce up so quickly that a passing observer would think I just got electrocuted. I jerk my head around, trying to see where the voice is coming from.

A soft laugh from above me makes me look up. A window on the second floor is open, and a pale-skinned, dark-haired boy is leaning out of it, looking down at me.

It’s Danny. I’m seeing him in natural light. My jaw drops.

“Don’t you—can’t you—get back inside!” I shout.

“What?” For a second he looks confused. His shoulders tense, but then he relaxes and smiles.

“Don’t get so wound up, Darcy,” he says. “Do you see the sun anywhere?”

Actually, now that he mentions it, I don’t. I tilt my head way, way back and stare up into a silver sky.

“It’s only the sun that’s irritating on my skin,” Danny explains. “I like cloudy days.”

“I don’t,” I mutter. Cloudy and rainy days make me listless. I just want to stay in bed all day and not move—very unusual for me.

“Why’s that?” Danny says, and I jump. How did he hear me from twenty feet up? Must be those musician ears.

“They’re boring. No sun. No excitement. No reason for going outside and moving,” I say. “Oh, shoot. Was that insensitive of me?”

“You don’t have to shout. I can hear you perfectly fine.”

I frown. I only raised my voice a little. “Fine,” I say. “Is this better?”

Danny nods; his wild dark hair moves in all different directions.

“Perfect,” he says, grinning. “And now please talk some more.”

“Well, what do you want me to talk about? I already feel stupid about bringing up the sun thing. You must miss it a lot, and here I am blabbing on and on about how I hate cloudy days.”

“I don’t even remember what the sun feels like anymore.”

“That’s terrible. No one should have to feel that way.”

I’m a little doubtful of the fact that he wants me to pretend like I’m having a conversation with him right next to me, when he’s really two stories up in the air. This is going to take some getting used to.

I can see Danny shrug. I shake my shoulders out a little too; they’re beginning to hurt from me craning my neck back to look at him.

“Do we have to continue talking like this?” I ask.

“Sorry,” Danny says. “One, I don’t think we’ve ever had a guest over in our house before, and so the house is a literal pig-sty. And two, I don’t know if my parents even allow guests over.”

“That’s so weird.” I have to look down to stretch out my neck, and I continue to talk while I pace in circles below Danny’s window. “Are your parents really controlling? Some people say that mine are, but they’re pretty laid back for Asian parents, I think. At least, that’s the impression I get from my friends back home. I used to live in Philly, you know. Sorry—Philadelphia for you Southerners. I just moved here ten days ago.”

If anyone walks into Danny’s backyard just now, or if someone looks through the kitchen window in my house, they will see a crazy Asian girl seemingly talking to herself. How embarrassing.

“Nah, they’re not really controlling,” Danny says. “I think they’re just not really sure how to deal with someone like me.”

“What, someone with a sun allergy?”

“That’s part of it.”

“Why would that be hard?” I say as I continue pacing. “Just stay out of the sun, but still be able to invite friends over. Or maybe you can carry an umbrella with you when you go out! Will that work?”

Danny laughs. “I’ve never tried it,” he admits, “but maybe one day I will. Tell me about Philadelphia—or, er, Philly, I guess, as you crazy Northerners call it.”

So I do. I tell him about the narrow, crowded streets of West Philly, the way the townhouses all looked the same as you looked down one street, then another. I tell him about playing pickup soccer and basketball and roller hockey in the empty lots and alleys of my old neighborhood. I tell him about public transportation, about how you can get on a trolley that brings you over the Schuylkill River and into the real city of Philadelphia itself, and how you can get off at various parts of the city and feel like you’re in a different world each time. You can get off at Rittenhouse Square and windowshop at the posh luxury stores along Walnut, pass an afternoon away in the three-story Barnes & Noble. Or you can ride the line into the eastern part of the city, among Independence Hall and old buildings that have been around since the yellow fever epidemic of 1793.

I tell him about the quaint art shops in Old City, buying full meals at silver carts lined up on every block, making fun of the khaki-wearing officers who patrol Independence Hall, holding our breaths as the stinky carriage-ride horses for tourists drive by, waving at silly people from Minnesota or Oregon or Arizona who ride the Duck Tour and quack at us with their free yellow quackers. I remember the country flags flapping in strong breezes down Franklin Parkway.

Talking about my old home makes me a little homesick, but I wave the feeling away, telling myself that I am telling Danny these things because he might never have the chance to see them for himself, and that is a real pity. I talk until my voice is hoarse and I realize with a start that the cloudy-day shadows in Danny’s backyard have changed. I shiver, stutter, cough, and my monologue comes to a halt. I look up.

Danny is leaning on the windowsill with his elbows, his hand propping his head up. He has a faraway look in his eyes, and even though my throat is burning, I don’t want to make a sound, not wanting to disturb the peaceful and wistful expression on his face.

“Thank you, Darcy,” he says, so quietly I can hardly hear him. “I really loved hearing about Philadel—Philly. I hope I can go there one day.” And then his eyes seem to return to the present, and he looks down at me and smiles. Warmth rushes through my limbs as I smile back. Danny slides his window closed, and I go back to my house and drink about two gallons of water straight from the tap while my mom looks on bemusedly.

“Busy day?” she says. “Or did you suddenly realize that when the doctors say 64 floral ounces of day, they actually mean it?”

I roll my eyes and refill my glass. “I talked a lot with a new friend today,” I say.

NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up Week 1

The first week of NaNo (short for: National Novel Writing Month) is over and I'm at approximately 10,500 words. This is a shade under the minimum cumulative word requirement (I'm supposed to be at around 13,333 by tonight), but numerically I'm still really satisfied because I managed to write at least once a day and do that in between insane schoolwork, swimming, reading, and keeping up a semblance of a normal-person social life. I may have to constantly fight to stay within reach of the daily word count, but I think the best part is that I'm able to write once a day, to fit writing into my daily routine without too much trouble.

On the bad side... I'm not really sure where my story is going to go. *sigh* I wrote a really elaborate ten-page plot synopsis before November, so I know the general path my story arc is going to take, but then unexpected things keep on cropping up. For instance, I'm not really satisfied with how the main character's family is currently turning out: a bunch of unfeeling, unsympathetic, and unrealistic characters. Ugh. I definitely need to get more experience writing parents and siblings. Also, I'm 10,000 words in, but the other main character has not even shown up yet. A definite no-no in middle-grade fiction. Also, my MC is obsessed with soccer, which I know very little of. Right now I'm just winging it with my limited soccer vocabulary, but that's something I'm going to research more come December and January. It also brings up the question of whether to do research before, during, or after writing the story. I think that having a small but sturdy base of knowledge to draw from (in terms of characters' interests, the setting, the things I enjoy about the particular genre I'm writing in) is not a bad thing.

I'm trying not to have writer's doubts plague me and cause me to give up on writing this uncertain story, but I know that I'll have my work cut out for me when it comes to revising. Ah, well! I have yet to revise the story I completed mid-October, before NaNo started, so I'm not sure how my new revising strategy will work. The first story that I completed, four years ago, consisted of me often rereading what I had written and fixing as I reread. Now, I don't allow myself to do that. The first draft is seriously the first draft, in that I just tell myself to get my words out in whatever mangled, jumbled, incomprehensible, or terribly cliched way they come out, and I will fix it once the first draft is finished. I suspect that I've done a lot of editing in my past and not revising (editing is getting closer to what you've written in order to nitpick, while revising is taking a step back and trashing complete scenes or characters while writing in completely fresh ones), so I'm looking forward to getting a chance to try out revising.

I suppose I should also talk about the things I'm happy about in my writing so far. I'm pretty fond of my MC and her love of sports and pretty things, simultaneously. I enjoy writing about the boys in the park who shun her when she wants to join their pickup soccer games, because I can sense the boys' internal struggle over whether to let her in because she's really good, thereby risking ridicule and alienation from their friends, or to continue to not accept her because she's different from them, because that is what their society has taught them to think even though, as 12-year-olds, athletic talent trumps old-fashioned forms of prejudice.

And that's my NaNo summary for the week! How are you guys doing in terms of staying with the daily word count? Are you satisfied with how your story is going? Did you plot beforehand, or are you kind of winging it, letting the characters take you where they want to? Have you been revising as you go along, or do you, like me, not let yourself look back at what you've written to avoid being sucked into premature revising/editing? Don't forget to find me on the NaNoWriMo page (my username is stephxsu) if you haven't already! :)