An update of sorts

It's strange to come back to this blog, because although the last few months have been relatively calm for me, it feels as if so much has happened, personally and in the writing life. 

First things first--I was absolutely blown away by the response I had to my last blog post, the one about ageism in the YA industry and community. It was the product of a lot of feelings I'd had for years, and I wrote the blog post in an one ragey dash because, well, I'd finally found the words I needed to write about it. And I wasn't expecting to get such a big response to it because it pretty much hadn't been talked about *at all* and I was waiting for some sort of denial. Or, worse yet, radio silence. But so many of you read the post and reached out to me about your own thoughts on it, and I'm so beyond grateful for that. 

So, writing? I should probably, you know, talk about that. Because it's been a while since I've updated y'all on my progress. Basically my last few months have been, in no particular chronological order: 

1. Revisions! Revising revising revising. There haven't been super developmental edits as of yet, just some scene rewriting and scene adding. TeaNovel was 80K words when I queried it, and now it's ballooned into a 97K words (O.O). It feels weird, too, because I was so used to rewriting my novel over and over again, like, doing complete overhauls, and scaling back and focusing on the nuances of every scene was different for me,   

2. Brainstorming! I've been doing a bit of idle thinking on the side of revisions. Mostly, I've decided that my next novel will either involve alchemists and secret tabloid societies, or feature lots of ships (among other details). 

3. Ch1Con! I attended this incredible teen writer's conference called Chapter One Conference. It was an absolute blast--meeting like-minded teen writers (some of whom organized this whole event!) and getting to hear authors like Kat Zhang, Ava Jae, and Karen Bao speak and offer their own insights on the writing and pub process. Aaaand, I got to finally meet the lovely Kaye (@gildedspine)! I've learned so much from her these past few years on issues of social justice (she started #YesAllWomen), Islamaphobia, and diveristy in the publishing industry, and it was an honor to finally meet her. 

Aaaand, it turns out, I'm actually part of the Ch1Con team this year! *squeals* I'm thrilled I get to be a part of the gang, and we're doing some awesome behind-the-scenes planning to make this our best year yet. 

meeting up with some of the team members! may or may not have involved the eating of crepes...

4. Sooz's bookstore signing! I got to see her this year at Anderson's Bookshop, and it was awesome, meeting her for the third time. The very best thing was getting to tell her that I had an agent--Sooz had helped me so much with her blog posts on revisions and querying, and had been so encouraging in the whole process, and when she was signing my books we had a mini celebration. Y'all, I am SO SO SO pumped for when her book TRUTHWITCH comes out this winter. Everything I hear about it just makes me EVEN MORE PSYCHED for this series. 

Us! :)

That's pretty much it for this time around! *retreats back into revision cave*