January 2024 has truly been a test for me. I like the idea, the aesthetics even, of winters; gray and foggy and moody, snow and frozen rivers and almost-black pine trees. Not so much practically where my bones feel like I was born in the Great Depression. January stretched for an entire decade and it is still a surprise to me every time that I released a book just some days ago. SO, now that the trial for new year is over, and we can begin proper, I hope you have a good 2024.
As for me, I had an excellent chocolate bread yesterday and am still thinking about.
blank space
I am (kind of) re-starting this newsletter, now called HYBRID GENRE (shoutout to people who are still mad they can’t categorize MBAM and SITD in a single, clear genre), because I think I can take a break from actively promoting my books now that my contracts are fulfilled. I would like to focus more on my own reading, life, and works-in-progress, which frankly is what I like to read from other authors (I’m a newsletter fiend, if an author has one, I am subscribed to it.)
Habits aren’t easy to form, but I remember I used to love writing journals (on paper, and later as personal blogs) as a teenager and well into my early twenties. I can’t tell exactly when I stopped, probably around the same time my mental health tanked so hard I couldn’t get out of bed for days. But, now that I’m very gratefully on the other side of All That, I’d like to resume writing both a private journal and this here.
It’s one part of my rebuilding my writing habits again. It’s not easy to sustain the privacy you need to work out stories once the business part of publishing gets involved. You have many outer voices countering your own. The market, the trend, the publicists, the social media conversations. It’s detrimental to writing, and for a writer, what could be worse, really?
Maybe this little change will help me get my own voice back.
champagne problems
I don’t have much to share this year, since there’s no new book coming out in 2024. I both need this break to fix my brain that I can feel (no I can’t vs yes I can) is inflamed, my sleep schedule, and my health in general but it’s still a very dreadful thing to imagine.
Still, this immediate month of February is dedicated to two big writing things:
Drafting my adult seaside gothic horror. Nicknamed Waves.
Launching Somewhere in the Deep in India now that it’s out in the US.
I do have a title for Waves in my head but I’m not 100% sure about it. Anyway. Waves is still a tiny plant that’s just got a single leaf, still very close to the ground, but its roots are far bigger than can be seen. I am very excited for it, writing something that takes its time with the prose, with the people inhabiting the story, with the neuroses of our minds playing against us. If I have to describe it in one phrase, it would just be a lesbian divorce in a rundown sea-town. More on it next time!
Launching SITD in my home country is something I’m very excited for. I’m not social by nature, but it’s different when it’s books I get to talk about. Being on ground, talking to people is an experience I really cherish, so if you’re around New Delhi and will be attending the World Book Fair this month, make sure you head over to the Penguin Random House pavilion!
This is all February. I do want to get some more things done in this year. Two of the biggest ones are:
Finish the draft and revise my YA gothic horror about a bunch of cousins trying to survive the worst night of their lives. Nicknamed Lark.
Prep for my adult fantasy set in a city of music and arts and (of course) a dark underbelly where one family of hateful siblings gets caught in a murderous conspiracy. Nicknamed Fire.
If you’re confused by the lack of news about Book 3 (after MBAM and SITD), then all I can tell you is that publishing is a game of roulette. I know many readers are expecting Book 3 automatically—but it’s not that easy. I have a synopsis written, I want to write this book, and more in this world. I have ideas for every island, like I’ve said before. But I can’t promise anything because ultimately it is out of my hands. To be clear, it is no one’s fault. Publishing is, after all, an industry and no single salaried/freelance employee is responsible for the structure that holds us all. But if you’d like to see Book 3, tell your friends about either MBAM or SITD, or both! That is the most helpful thing you could do for these books.
the lakes
A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation: “A Palestinian proverb I have heard since I was a kid goes like this: To die along with a collective is a mercy.” A painful meditation published last year in November on Palestine, its people and literature, burial rites, the claws of colonization, that asks questions we must find answers to.
mirroball
Darker by Four by June CL Tan: I loved June’s debut, JADE FIRE GOLD, so I had incredibly high hopes for DBF—which it fulfilled. DBF has all your favorite East Asian story tropes and June uses the comfort and nostalgia of them carefully to give us a fun, elevated, and heartfelt story. I adored all the characters, especially Zizi, and I really rec this to anyone looking for a new YA fantasy.
The Anthill by Julianne Pachico: This is a literary ghost story set in Medellín, in the precarious time after the peace referendum was signed in 2016. It follows a half-Colombian, half-English protagonist who left when she was 8 and is returning home after decades. It’s a trippy narrative employing first, third and second POVs, and I loved reading this book.
That’s it from me. Hopefully I’ll have made significant progress in my wips by next month. Do you have anything you want to make progress on this year?
Very excited about all your WIPs. I have a tentative r&r on one manuscript, and another I need to re-outline from scratch