FINN-tastic!

After all was said and done, I got through 49% of the manuscript.  I feel good, having made progress, but there’s still plenty of work to be done!  I hope to get through the rest of the manuscript over the next week, two weeks max.  Then, let the rewriting begin!

In the meantime, some pictures of the desert, taken from the comfort of my car as I blasted the A/C.

I arrived at my desert destination at about 1:15pm today, and immediately settled in and ate lunch (PBJ on wheat courtesy of my friend Erin).  After writing my last blog post, I got busy tagging up the manuscript.

There’s a lot of change ahead for Tossing the Gloves, but I am beginning to see how it holds the potential to be a better, stronger piece once I incorporate all the notes I’ve scribbled in the margins.  After a half-day’s work (or less, really, as we took breaks for dinner and Starbucks), I’ve gotten through 10 chapters out of the twenty-seven, or judging by pages, I’m 31% of the way through the initial edits.  That means I’ve made more progress in one day than I’ve made in… oh, the last two months.

But that’s what being locked away with another friend to keep you accountable and focused does to you!  You buckle down, lock it up, and get it done.

I may not get through the entire novel before we leave tomorrow, but at least I would’ve made a hefty dent in the work ahead.  And on top of it, I’m hoping that I’ll gain some momentum from this weekend and roll right through to rewrites!

Lately, I feel like I’ve been all over the place.  I can’t get focused; I can’t get grounded.  So, I decided I needed to get away.

Now I’m in the middle of nowhere, in a California desert, hidden away in a hotel room with another writer friend in an effort to get focused and grounded.  And, naturally, get some work done.  The goal for the next 24 hours that I’ll be here is simple: read Tossing the Gloves, and tag it up with my handy pen and flag it up with my color-coded flags.  It’s high time I got cracking on that manuscript and ripped it open for better, stronger plot and dialogue.

Yippee for editing!

In other news, I bought a Nook!  It’s very pretty and very easy to use.  I’ve read one book on it so far (Sh*t My Dad Says), and have started reading Dumas’ The Three Musketeers (you know, in an effort to actually make a dent in my TBR-challenge).  I can’t wait to read more on it.

Not that I’m giving up regular books or anything.  In fact, I’m simultaneously reading Tessa Dare‘s One Dance with a Duke.  (And I’m enjoying it immensely!)

But for now, it’s time for me to get down to business and get working!

Off to the editing cave I go!

Lately, I’ve been trying to be a little more diverse in my reading selections.  Lots of authors suggest that aspiring authors should read everything they can get their hands on.  (Hey, sometimes, I can only get my hands on work-related items, you know what I’m saying?).  So, in an effort to diversify my reading habits, I’ve joined up with my Alumni Association.

Hellooooooo, English Department… and the subsequent book club that came with the membership.  I blew off the first book because, well, quite frankly, I was reading something else.  (Marley and Me by John Grogan, the first non-fiction book I’ve willingly picked up only because my boss lent it to me and because it was about a dog.)  I’m not one of those people who can read two novels simultaneously.  I’m the kind of reader that likes to finish what I’m reading before I pick up a new book.  If I happen to pick up another book while I’m reading another one, it’s usually because I was bored with the first one and the chances of me returning to the abandoned book are slim to none if I pick something else up.

But I’m on board for the second book we’re assigned: Reading Lolita in Tehran (Azar Nafisi).  It will be the second novel I’ve picked up this year outside of my usual taste in romance and young adult.  If anything at all, this will help refresh my ability to analyze literature the way I once did (ahem, not that long ago).

On top of all that, the other summer activities I’ve had going on included watching a Shakespearean play put on by the good-hearted folks at Shakespeare by the Sea.  I’d forgotten how funny Twelfth Night was, but it was a nice night out for free!

In the meantime, my writing is coming along slowly but surely.  I have begun edits on Tossing the Gloves, and am attempting to outline the Elementals #1.  We’ll see how it goes!  Wish me luck!

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book caught my attention a few months back when I saw the author interviewed on the Borders website. The author’s own history of being a double-descendant of women who were accused in the Salem witch trials made me more interested in seeing what this book was about. One day day when wandering around the Book section of Target, I saw the book and remembered that I was curious about it.

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I thought, being a academic research type of book, that it would be a little dry and boring. But Howe works the history in with the storyline so well that I found myself becoming more engrossed in the story as I read on. I would say that the story unfolded gently. The pacing was not too fast, not too slow, and each new revelation whetted my appetite for more.

The book took a slight turn to the paranormal, not unsurprisingly, toward the end, and offered interesting viewpoints about time period. In some ways, the book reminded me of the recent tv show WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? which showed celebrities tracing their lineage back in time. This book is not quite like that, as the main character Connie Goodwin is not researching her family history, but information for her doctorate dissertation — and happens on her own connection to the research somewhat inadvertently.

The journey goes through some triumphs and setbacks, culminating in discovery provided a fascinating read that I would recommend for those who are fascinated by history and/or genealogy.

View all my reviews >>

So, some of you may know that Tossing the Gloves was sent to an editor for feedback as part of the Book In A Year program at one of my local chapters.  I’ve received the editor’s feedback, and an invitation to revise and resubmit, earlier this month and now have a long list of revisions ahead of me!  Whee!

I actually am excited because a lot of her comments confirmed things that I suspected were wrong with my manuscript, and she brought a few other points to light that I had overlooked.  This is all good news.  It means that I have a decent idea of where I should be going with this work, and her letter has helped me to refocus in that direction.

The only bad thing that’s happened to me lately is that my car was broken into and my backpack was stolen.  My backpack had my laptop in it along with my planner and a few other things.  If you’re thinking “that sucks”, you’re totally RIGHT.  So, right when I was getting geared up to leap into revisions, that happened and I was pretty devastated for a few days.  My car is relatively new (barely a year old) and had this great, big gaping hole where my rear windshield had once been, and it was a nightmare for a little while.

Now, I’m laptop-less and just counting down the days until June when I’ll be able to re-invest in one again.  See, I’m trying to look on the bright side here — I get a new, shiny Mac!  Bad news: I have to pay for it. -__-.  What’s that thing “they” say about lemons?

Lesson to the wise: don’t leave stuff in your car in plain sight.  Some hooligan might thing it’s worth it to break your window and jack your stuff.

So I’ve got this list, see?  Of things I NEED TO-DO.

Top of the list: put away laundry, er, after I organize my closet.  Followed by:  sweep & mop floors (note to self: investigate a way to do so under the bed), go through the random stacks of paperwork lying stashed into sections of my shelving unit and put in trash-or-shred piles, then of course, trash or shred said paperwork.

And there’s that business of throwing a bachelorette party and a million other things on top of the whole Oh, I need to submit my fanfic assignment thing!

Riiiight.

Remember last month, when I said I was going to get back to my roots and jump into fanfiction for a little while as an exercise to get the writing blood flowing?  Yeah, the experiment is undergoing further research as I attempt (again) to work on that 1,000+ word story starring a couple of my favorite characters from television.

Obviously, I should probably just settle in and get typing, but like that long list of to-do’s, I find myself struggling to get it together long enough to piece the story together.  Tonight or tomorrow (once I’m over this pesky cold), I’ll try to get in gear.

In other news, I’ve been reading some during my non-writing time.  So far, I fit in Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker by Leanne Renee Hieber, and Fallen by Lauren Kate.  I’m finishing up In Over Her Head by Judi Fennell, and then I’ll try to get back to the writing biz.

I used to be a great, dedicated blogger.  Of course, this is back when I was writing entry after entry on the Anaheim Ducks over at Girl with a Puck and neglecting fiction.  But I abandoned the hockey blogosphere to re-enter the world of fiction, and opted to start this blog to keep track of my writing.  Well, turns out the inconsistency of writing a diary or journal (online or otherwise) from the days preceding my hockey blogger days are really just how I happen to operate.  Without the near-daily hustle-and-bustle of the NHL world, my blog tends to suffer from “Uhh, what should I write about now?” moments.

As you can tell, I’ve been having one of those moments for a while now.  But here I am, hollering out that I am indeed alive and well.

I’d tell you how the writing is going, but complaints don’t get me very far.

So, instead, I’m trying a couple of new things.  I’m kind of going backwards.  I don’t want to step back from my WIP (re-named WINDBORNE) exactly, but I do want a little bit of space.  It’s not you, Windborne, it’s me.  And no, we’re not breaking up, darling.  We’re just “on break” right now.

I need to get back to my roots, see?  My fanfiction roots.

In my early writings, I penned stories of a set of twins a la Sweet Valley Twins (who will be making a comeback to a bookstore near you soon enough).  I was in the fourth grade writing about my own set of twins, after all, I’d always wanted a sister.  In junior high, I wrote about a band I loved and wanted to follow all over the world.  (They were Australian and New Zealand boys… my obsession with foreign hotties started early.)  By the time I was in high school, I was writing fanfiction about *NSYNC… by hand. Then, like many other aspiring writers, I wrote my friends into stories and gave them twisted, soap-opera-esque plots.  (I still have that.  A novella clocking in at 100 pages… terrible, terrible writing though).

Then came the discovery of fanfiction.  A wonderful outlet for someone like me to take characters someone else created and play with them.  At the time, my fandom was centered on Alias, a spy show with fantastically complicated relationship dynamics (family, friendly, and romantic!).  I explored, wrote, posted.  I meandered the links of fanfiction.net and got lost in alternate universes, crossovers, and (back when FF.n allowed it) smut/slash fiction.  Oh, how I loved fanfiction.

After Alias, I tried writing Lord of the Rings fanfiction, but I wasn’t nearly as good at that.  I tried writing fanfic for Pirates of the Caribbean and Prison Break but never quite got around to it.

But now?  Now that I feel a need to ease back into the writing regimen that I’ve fallen out of, I’ve signed myself up to participate in a Burn Notice “ficathon” over at Winter Deaddrop.  I hope that by playing around in someone else’s world for a while, tinkering with their characters, I’ll somehow find my natural rhythm and locate Lazy Bum, my muse, since his desertion post-December.

What do you do to jump start your muse?

I’ve pretty much stayed off the publishing world’s hot topics since I’ve started blogging here.  For the most part, that’s because I often feel “not informed enough” to formulate a response to some of these industry stuff such as the Amazon/Macmillan kerfuffle (ongoing, as far as I know) and the Kindle Missile Crisis.  I haven’t yet wrapped my head around the agency model and I haven’t stopped agonizing over which eReader I should lust after more (nook, Sony Reader, Kindle, etc).

But I have been growing more and more interested in the subject of whitewashing in publishing and entertainment as a whole.  This has been a snowball of an argument in the last few weeks as Bloomsbury made the mistake (for the second time) of whitewashing the heroine on the cover of Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore.  (The first time they made the mistake, they did it to Justine Larabalestier’s Liar.)

The more I read about people’s reactions and personal feelings, the more I grew aware of my own feelings.  I thought back to the stories I’ve read and enjoyed, and I haven’t read many books featuring a prominent Person of Color (POC) as either the hero or heroine.  (The last one I recall reading was Paula Yoo’s Good Enough about a Korean-American girl.)  This might speak of my limited reading choices, or it might be commentary on publishing and marketing as a whole.  Like many others, I put a part of my identity away because it’s irrelevant to the work I’m currently reading.  My Asian/Pacific Islander-ness is forgotten as I read or watch TV/movies (and no, I don’t relate to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon any better than I do The Breakfast Club).  It’s never really bothered me, per se, because for some reason I’d been conditioned to accept and assume that most heroines are of Caucasian descent.  It never occurred to me to be offended because that’s just how it’s been.  But you know what?  It doesn’t have to be that way.

I read this incredible post at Hello Ello (via Moonrat) and suggest you go read it.  Like, now.  Right now!  She, like me, is an Asian-American writer.  She states:

Change happens when we make what was once so different the norm. Representing diversity is especially important for publishers of children’s books. Books are the gateways for the imagination. But the ones in North America are apparently only gateways for white children as minority children are relegated to watching wistfully from the side. We are left hoping for a token side kick or small character that we can relate to. But not the main character. Because even if the book has a POC as the main character, we can’t be on the cover cause we won’t sell the book. That’s what this controversy meant to minority readers.

Since I am about to embark on Candace Havens’ Fast Draft and Revision Hell class, offered by OCC, I’ll be focusing on my paranormal YA that I set aside last October to focus on writing Tossing the Gloves.  Initially, I thought all my characters were white, but after feeling a bit left out of the loop, I opted to throw in a little of my Asian-American self in there.  I made one of the supporting characters Asian… and non-technical, non-human-calculator.  In fact, she’s kind of pyro and likes to blow stuff up.  I just wanted to put a little bit of me in there, and it felt right for the character.  I’ve been thinking recently about expanding the cast to include more than just whites and Asians — after all, we’re a diverse country full of diverse people… why shouldn’t our entertainment reflect the same?

It saddens me to see that in both film and publishing, non-white leads are being whitewashed and that the division between races is still so evident.  (See Hello Ello’s bit on how the film version of Avatar: the last airbender has an all-Asian cast of characters to be played by almost all white actors).  It’s 2010… isn’t time we embraced what it truly means to be AMERICAN?  And by American, I mean, encompassing all faces, colors, and shapes… I mean Asian-Americn, Afrian-American, Mexican-American, whatever-American… the common thread there is American.

Let’s celebrate our diversity, the shades of our skin, and be shameless.  American culture preaches tolerance and acceptance… so, it’s long past time for the whitewashing to end.  We are different, and yet, we are all American.  That’s what we ought to focus on, and that’s what we ought to fight for.

My name is Christy Finn, and I am a Filipino-American who identifies as either Asian or Pacific Islander.  I have no other country but the United States of America and speak no other language but English.  I was born in the land of the red, white, and blue, and feel pride swell whenever America does something great, and experience shame when we have failed miserably as a nation.  I have never appreciated being taunted with racial slurs and I am often overcome with a sense of awe when I see someone of my cultural background featured prominently in the media.  Why?  Because it’s so rare to see one of us celebrated for our talents, smarts, and aspirations — of which, I can assure you, there are plenty.

New Poll: What do you think about whitewashing in the media?