Today it is raining.

Pouring. Literally.

I live in Chicago. The city in the winter is usually poker-faced with an emotionless, blustery gray. The wind was vicious as always, and the dirt-flecked slush was wilting in the streets.

The winter has been long. Too long.

The rain always puts me in a bit of a contemplative mood. For some people, it makes them depressed. For me? It's soothing.

I'm thinking of the things that will happen. Amidst the brainless homework and everything with school, I know that somewhere under all that stuff, something is beginning.

I've been talking a lot about starting anew, I know. I just don't know how. Or what.

But today it is raining, and I feel that now it is truly spring, something, something is finally, slowly beginning.

On Revisions

My lovely writing friend Rosanna is doing revisions for her epic novel right now, and a few days ago we were talking about the process. She expressed how slow revisions can seem--on how she was supposed to write out ever itty bit of her plot out on index cards and how she was supposed to follow certain "steps", but how she was so ready to jump in--but she wasn't supposed to.

And because I've been through the long slogging process of it all--and I'm going to be back in Revisionland soon, I want to throw my own two cents in there.

I wanted to be a "pro" at revisions. I wanted to proudly display sticky-notes on the wall and whip out my typed-out Excel outline and brandish a staggering pile of index cards that were crammed with the goodness of Story and Writerly Things. I wanted to follow a clinical, procedural checklist that others did. I wanted to write out a synopsis and be organized for once, dammit.

I wanted to be a Writer. A Writer who Revises.

I couldn't do it.

Why couldn't I? Why couldn't I get myself anywhere near an index card? Why did writing out my plot feel so torturous and slow when they said it was supposed to figure things out? What happened to the Post-it notes?

Was it because of the story? Was it so beyond salvaging that it just couldn't be broken down?

How was I supposed to revise, then?

You guys won't believe how much quiet frustration I went through, when I was on Twitter and others showed pictures of their plot binders and character cards and I thought to myself, Am  I supposed to do this? I thought that if I didn't have a "system"--I wasn't legitimate.

In the end?

Well. I ended up pulling off revisions just fine. Without a single index card. I went through months of revisions and figured my story out--with the help of only a legal pad (with messy stream-of-consciousness scrawls) and my brain.

Oh, maybe a pen, too.

I am a writer that lives by intuition. If the character's decision "feels" right--I'll go with it. I'm ready to write scenes, novels even when I can "picture" it running through my head, structured almost like a movie trailer.

I figure things out in my head. I think and I sit and maybe I eat the entire jar of Nutella, but in the end, I think it through. It took me nearly eight months to solidify the plot of my story--but I needed that. Because I finally constructed a plot that I never thought I would have done in the first place--and I love it.

In the end, it didn't matter what kind of route I took through revisions. I got the job done. And that's how I operate. By an unconventional intuition.

Because here's the truth. I know that if I only had one piece of advice to give to writers, it's this: find your own process. 

Bigger?

Find your own process. 

It's not like people try to deter you with their advice--they're trying to be helpful, I promise. And to be organized, to have a systematic way of going about things--that's amazing. There are people that swear by index cards. They get the plot down on the first try and its brilliant. I love it, and I sometimes wish that's how I work.

But it's not my process. Maybe my process isn't common or even advisable, but it works for me, and I'm so glad I found it.

Don't be so easily swayed by people and resources that say that something is "the way it works". Go with your gut. You could be a Post-it person. You could be a checklist person. You could be a person that just writes and revises along the way.

Find your own process.

In the end, revisions aren't about endless index cards. They're about getting the job done.

Something new

As I'm querying TeaNovel, I realize that there has been this small gap in my life in where the project once was.

I remember--a year ago, this project was going nowhere. The characters and plot made a terribly messy story. But I did it--I tore apart and rewrote and rewrote some more and revised it and twisted my mind into pretzels. I figured out the impossible ending. 

Where's it going? I don't know. But I hope somewhere good. 

Now, though--now, I can finally focus on my other project.

The MagicalThing. 

Oh, yes. This was the novel with the playlist and all the amazing bits of inspiration. This was the novel that first hit me while I was staring into the atmospheric sunrise over Sweden--up in the air and in a plane. This was the novel with some of my favorite things--and this is the fantasy novel whose first seeds of inspiration struck me back in 2011. 

I'm excited. 

A bit of a beginning

Hey guys! It's March!

*peers outside at snow*

*shrinks back in*

I've finallyfinallyfinallyFINALLY finished revisions/edits on TeaNovel/Lilies. After about a year and a half of working like mad over it (getting torn apart and put back together and then getting torn apart again and then...) It feels great. Now that I've taken a step away from it, it turns out that its not actually as bad as I thought it was in the midst of revisions. Things may be looking up...

I think that now that TeaNovel revisions are over, I'm going to go back to the novel I wrote in NaNoWriMo '13--the book of Magical Things. I've actually crafted a playlist, little by little, of the novel and every time I hear Bravado by Lorde or Illumielle by Jo Blackenburg, I'm instantly transported back into those awesome days of November. (Awesome, crazy, hectic, insane, but mostly awesome.) And I know there will be some more head-splitting revisions involved...but man. I'm excited.

In the Life of Christina, I've been so busy these past few weeks and scrambling around, and I have a strong sense that things will start to get even crazier/busier in the coming months. I feel like in the midst of all this running around, this blog is like a nice little cupcake shop I can tuck into when I have that little pocket of time. Nom.

Now that I've started to take one step away from the project that basically defined my last year, I realize that I'm so glad 2013 happened. In retrospect, it was a little hazy and some parts of the year were awful and I was basically stumbling around, completely clueless about writing and revisions and blogging and the "industry", but to see what I was like in 2012 and to see what I'm like now...2013 was really a year that bridged that gap and taught me so much stuff about writing and about the process, and where before I was the perfectly oblivious, slightly reclusive writer, now I'm opening up, and I've met so many cool people!

Here's to an even more awesome future.

:D

Song rec

Sometimes I encounter some sounds so pleasing to my ears and so meaningful that I feel like I should share it to spread the goodness of it.

Especially the lyrics:

"We will have to cross the ocean
This is the price we'll have to pay
Standing just these know it's good for you and me. 
There is gold beneath the ashes
No matter what I have to say
There is a roaring sea there passing hard to find
And I dream of Zarathustra
Sailing through the Caspian Sea
Oh, the way the shining heart is
The fire of the Northern light.

We can build the temples for our fires, 
Set the world ablaze.
Whatever, after all this the way we chose
The beginning and the end 
Send me back to the Rockefeller joys..."

(adapted and revised from www.sing365.com)

There's so much about this song that speaks of the journey--of the sacrifices and goals of reaching something that is "the beginning and the end". 

And also the music is amazing. I love it. 

Happy Monday, everyone! :)

Pep Talk--on Overcoming Jealousy

Today, let's talk about something that all passionate writers/aspiring authors go through.

Jealousy. 

(side note:: it's not just writers; everyone goes through this.)

Authors Sarah J. Maas and Mandy Hubbard have both written incredibly articulate posts about this; (here) and (here) and I thought I'd like to talk/rant about it too. 

You know that feeling. When you're puttering around on twitter and your feed is positively glowing with great news from everyone else. When you scroll through blogs you follow, and someone just announced something amazing. When someone gets an agent. When someone sells a six-figure book deal. When someone happily squees over their own cover reveal and proudly displays the fan art they get from adoring readers.

And you're there, in your polar bear pajamas and gray sweatshirt and the empty pot of coffee, half-thinking about your own unpolished manuscript and blatant anonymity...let's just say that your heart dips a little bit. There's a little internal sigh of disappointment.

 Every writer feels this, and the words jealousy and envy sound so conniving and evil but most of the time, it's just this one tiny voice in your head that quietly says, "What about me?" 

It's the small feeling you get when someone you are friends with suddenly has a writing breakthrough. An author you admire sells another solid book deal and everyone is singing praises.

Here is the thing though: you know they deserve it. They deserve every inkling of their success. Their manuscript is amazing; the author is brilliant and kind and hardworking. But hell, you work hard too and you wonder if the day will ever come when someone talks about YOUR writing and praises your characters. 

I would like to call that feeling The Want. 

The Want is like a small, baby lizard.Or perhaps a little imp, a species derivative of the Monster (what I like to call my voices of self-doubt). Yes. let's stick with the imp. 

It's small and nagging, but if you feed it thought and doubts and worries...you feed it flames and then it turns into the Dragon of Jealousy. Which happens all the time. Unless...

If you stick with the Dragon of Jealousy and feed it more flames and resentment and anger, then the Dragon eventually destroys you and takes over your thoughts, and ends up hurting only you. Trust me. If you don't trust me, trust Sarah J. Maas. 

You can't ignore it, just like you can't ignore the Monster. 

Here's what you do; you use it.

You turn the envy and use it to fan the flames of your ambition. You take a look at your shelves of all the successful authors you look up to and you think, this is where I will be, and the conviction alone turns into pure motivation. You take the energy of envy and jealousy and turn it into an awesome, "THIS IS SPARTA" drive that will make you an unstoppable force. You vow to yourself that you will work hard, that you will writewritewritewrite until your writing is so good, so solid and beautiful that they have zero chance of rejecting you. 

And you snap some reins on the Dragon and race it to victory. 

Because there's something fiercely brilliant and freeing about being the underdog and the dreamer. Because at the end of the day, writing is your sport and you love writing and you love books and no one's accomplishments can take that from you. 

You hear that?

Use The Want. It is an incredibly, incredibly powerful tool. Take another's success and shape it into your dream and goal. 

And in the end, I may still be a completely unknown writer who is sitting in polar bear pajamas and blogging about dragons, but at least I am writing my stories, one word after another and slowly shaping my dreams into reality. 

Use The Want. 

A few words on writing

Usually, it is my habit to make a cup of tea before I start writing, and lounge around with some music.

Today? I didn't make my tea. Some days, I get so caught up in my "writing rituals" that it makes me procrastinate. In order to get into the 'writing mood", I get caught on doing the things that relate to writing instead of writing itself. 

And here's the truth:

Writing doesn't need to be done to a big pot of coffee or a soundtrack blasting in your ears.

Writing doesn't need to be done with scrumptious tea or kittens lounging by your side. 

Writing doesn't need to be done with Scrivener or fancy plotting cards, even though they help.

You don't need an outline, but you can have one.

You don't need five thousand Stickies and a to-do list to prove that you're a writer.

Some people will tell you their processes and methods, their exact "methods of success" to writing.Some people have perfectly organized methods that I frankly envy and admire, but I have realized that it's just not me.  

And their organized processes can be perfectly effective, but every writer's process is unique. Sometimes, when I get too caught up in my own rituals, I just like to sit back and think and completely take myself back to the essentials.

Because you don't need "proof" that you're a writer. Scratch that; you need one.

You need to put words down on a page. One word after another. Then you're a writer.

And everything else--coffee, kittens, gin and tonic, stacks of writing books, even outline--that comes second.

Just words on a page, and you are a writer. What you do next is completely up to you.