Somehow, in the course of things, my dining table became my “office,” from where I’m writing this, and my bed became my dining table, and my living room rug became the place where I sit for hours and watch SEVENTEEN’s music videos. If I had to invite you to one place to truly get to know me, it would be the rug. We could sit and I will tell you every bit of background lore of the music video we’re watching, confirming that a) I like this group b) I have a tendency to hyper-fixate c) I don’t gatekeep interests, you will hear about it.
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February was a weird time-space month, at least for me. I don’t remember much of it, except visiting the New Delhi World Book Fair in India, seeing my books on shelves and talking to readers.
I love being a writer, but I am, of course, a reader first and a super chatty person if you’re talking about my interests. So, at the fair, I would hear snippets and join conversations—the longest ones about The Mortal Instruments, The 100, and Strange the Dreamer—which is something that I find incredibly appalling from this vantage. It’s the sort of thing that if someone else told me they do, I’d want to know where they get the courage from. Frankly, I don’t know where I got the courage from in the moment either.
It just felt natural to talk about those things with people who knew what they were talking about, too.
Which just makes me miss what social media used to be, to be honest. I miss making threads of books/shows I’m watching, the collective appreciation for a cultural moment like, idk, Game of Thrones, and the moment when a pregnant Beyonce leaned back on that chair and gave everyone else the worst anxiety of their lives.
I did, however, buy that moleskine and very happy to say I’m going to start a physical journal for the first time since, uh, ninth grade I think. Journaling was such a great way to keep the writing muscle working, especially on days when I’m too distracted to actually give a wip the attention it deserves.
I have made significant progress in my Mandarin, and by significant I mean I can distinguish characters and pick out a word or even two (!) when someone is speaking the language.
I don’t have a particular reason, except to watch shows with more ease, which feels trivial but also is the reason how I winded up learning Turkish years ago and I’m actually pretty good at it now.
Plus, learning a language gives me something specific to do that is not related to my writing profession and which I can actively track daily. It’s very helpful for my brain, which thrives on validation.
In school, I sucked at math. Like, don’t even remind me. But I was so, so good at languages. English and Hindi were natural, of course, but learning French in school was the kind of activity my brain needed that most people ascribe to math. It made me think clearly and kept me sane.
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Last month, I told you about my writing goals for February which were drafting my adult gothic horror Waves and launching Somewhere in the Deep in India. And the bigger yearly ones were drafting my YA gothic horror Lark and prep for my adult fantasy Fire.
There’s going to be a bit of rescheduling with the drafting stuff.
I’m now 50% into Lark, and it’s Waves that’s now on the yearly mark.
It happens all the time, and I don’t mind it because Lark has been extremely fun, despite the dark tone of the story.
Lark is about a bunch of cousins trying to survive a brutal night. It’s a slasher but via gothic—two things I love despite how incredibly opposite they are on the horror spectrum. It’s still too early to talk about plot points/beats, since that could change once the manuscript is complete. But I’m in love with the atmosphere of this story. Dark and gloomy, filled with shadows and blood. Oh and there’s a hedge maze :)
I’m currently doing some light line-edits on the first half.
I know, I know—you shouldn’t be editing during draft zero period because it’s a waste of time, but I feel like, since this book is character and setting-driven, I need the atmosphere right to stay immersed.
And there’s never ever one foolproof way to write anyway, we know that right? You do what works for you best, and for this particular book, it’s immersion first.
I’m very excited for it, in case you missed it ^.^
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Shogun on FX: Oh, I’ve MISSED good acting, good cinematography, good lighting (what a concept! give them an emmy!) in TV shows. I’ve missed dialogs that move stories forward, that aren’t written to be a quip on social media but working in context and telling me something about the character speaking them. I’ve missed good TV so much, and I cannot recommend this enough. Based on the first two episodes that have released so far, anyway. But if this keeps up the quality, I know I have a new all-time fav in the making. Shogun is adapted from a book, which itself is a fictionalized story of a white man in Japan in the 1600s (I know, but I promise, it makes sense and is in fact, dealing with a lot of Catholics vs Protestants stuff from that time) and the return of the shogunate in Japan after centuries.
The actors are incredible; Hiroyuki Sanada never disappoints, Anna Sawai is a fav from Pachinko, and Cosmo Jarvis, the erstwhile mentioned white man, acts like he’s about to turn into a werewolf at a moment’s notice. It’s all very fun.SO, that’s it for today! By the end of March, I hope to finish the zero draft and tell you more about it. Are you working on anything this month?
I’m still working on revisions 😭
As a perpetual journaler and by-hand-drafter, I hope the journal brings you immense creative fulfillment as it does me!