Happy New Year, friends šš·
We made it to 2021! I hope youāve spent the first day of the year tending to your heart a little, whatever way helps: good food, peace and quiet, a videogame playthrough, staying warm (or if youāre in a tropical climate, keeping cool in comfy clothes). Iāve had a good January first. I spent it with family, taking it easy; I even managed to do some research and planning in the afternoon, which balances out holiday lounging in a way thatās good for my brain.
I have a tradition of intense journaling at the end of the year, usually starting with 20xx was the year ofā¦ then freewriting whatever comes to mind. The last few years, due to reunions, Iāve tended to write these lengthy entries on airplanes. This year, Iāll be doing it in the quiet of home, sometime this weekend. My year-end recaps make me wistful, but also determined. I find myself wanting to set intentions, to be clear-eyed about what Iād like to do in the year ahead. But I also try to remind myself to be flexible with whatever the year brings. Some years are kinder and some are simply not, and so much of that is outside of my (our) control.
For me, 2020 was going to be a year of massive changes no matter what, but of course I was as blindsided as everyone with how it played out. It was the longest year ever, but Iām also shocked itās over. The days blurred together, such that with the exception of the long/terrible US election (remember that? feels like it was eons ago and also just yesterday), itās been hard to distinguish one week from the next. Iāve got this weird, blinking-in-the-sunlight feeling. In some ways I canāt believe Iām no longer in grad school. Like many, I kinda feel like my year froze back in March. At the same time, when I shake myself from this stupor, I know my situation is lucky and Iām grateful to be where I am.
If youāre doing all right at the start of 2021, Iām really happy for you. I hope youāve been paying it forward where possible; Iāve been trying to.
If youāre not doing so wellāthis feels so paltry, but have a digital hug. Iām sorry. It seems inadequate to say itāll get better because, while I genuinely believe that in the long run, I know itās painful now and I donāt know when things will clear up. Hang in there might work, except I bet youāre already doing that. So instead Iāll say: do what you must, both to care for yourself, and improve things. It might be hard, but you can do it. ā¤ļø
Since this is the first newsletter of 2021, I did want to share some thoughts on writing. Iāll talk about something thatās helped me with drafting, some feelings about debuting (?) in a few weeks, and a few things that gave me joy last (?!) December.
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Some months ago I wrote to you all about being stuck in the mud of a draft. It was bad. Iām happy to report that Iāve moved to a better place words-wise. I am learning a ton by doing, which Iād like to share with you all eventuallyāat least whatever I can translate, because so much of it is āfeel.ā Trust me, I am also severely frustrated with how unscientific and difficult to explain/replicate process is. It has genuinely felt like intuition mixed with a big dose of Bumbling Along, and itās hard to put into actionable steps. š¤·āāļø
Truth is, Iām not deep enough into my project yet that I feel I can share things without immediately jinxing my work into oblivion. So youāll have to be patient with me until my gut says fine, share it.
My gut is letting me share this: writing an anchor scene helped immensely. Itās basically a thesis statement for the heart of the story. The action plot or specifics of the scene donāt have to be explicit or even clear, but the central emotion of the work should be there, as well as a tone or voice that captures the overarching feel of the piece.
Alexander Chee mentions it in this NaNoWriMo pep talk:
If you have a paragraph or two that is just how you want the novel to sound, print it up and put it somewhere you can see it.Ā Read it before you begin writing to put the tone in your head. Thereās what Sigrid NuƱez calls āthe tone that makes everything possible.ā The tone that seems to make the writing come all on its own. When you find that tone, keep it handy. Somewhere you can read it easily to get it back.
I actually wrote my own anchor scene before I encountered his essay, but I felt his description resonate. For my current draft, which I started after throwing out 10k of a bad attempt, I picked a moment that I could kinda see, close to the end of the book, and wrung it out on paper.
Iām not convinced the POV is rightāI donāt use that POV in the rest of the story. In classic pantser fashion I donāt even know how that scene happens. But this story, at its core, is about two characters and their feelings towards each other. I dug into that as deeply as I could in my one paragraph, which now sits at the top of my document.
I donāt know if thatāll be my actual opening. Iāll figure it out in revision. For now, though, Iām keeping it. I call it an anchor scene because every time I think Iām losing the thread of the pieceāwhich happens several times a weekāI reread it. Then I remember: oh, all right. All I have to do is make it feel like this. Somehow get there, if not in plot-sense, at least in emotional-sense. Ideally in story-sense too, but letās not worry about that too much now.
If youāre stuck, this might be worth trying! Also: while I donāt think you should really worry about prose in the first draft, if youāre like me, you canāt not worry about prose on a baseline level. So do spend some time making this anchor scene sound the way you want it to. Since youāll be coming back to those lines, it pays dividends for you to actually kinda enjoy them: their music, the devices you employ, the individual words you chose. You donāt have to love it (though itās awesome if you do!) but I encourage you to get it to a place where you at least like it.
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Since itās 2021, that means sometime in the next few weeks (?!) my debut short story collection will be out.
ā¦gah?
Never Have I Ever is not my first published book. That was Hurricane Heels, with Book Smugglers Publishing, back in 2016. To be honest, itās a little blurry to me whether Hurricane Heels is a collection or a novelāit was classed as the latter, because the total word count added up to a (very short) novel, but I wrote and developed it as a set of short stories.
That experience showed me what it was like to write against deadlines, with an advance, and with only an outline to start. I wonāt say I learned how to do these things, exactlyā¦but I did them, and that doing has been and will continue to be useful. Plus Iāll always be deeply grateful to Ana and Thea for believing in my story. I still remember how thrilled I felt, getting their acceptance letter.
Given a second chance, though, I would do things differentlyāin particular, since I missed my first deadlines, the editing and publishing process was quite rushed, and (I feel all right saying this now) the finished product isnāt what I wish it was. Itās actually hard for me to reread the book, because I wish I had edited it more. None of that was particularly unusual for publishing, but having been through it, I understand the risks and potential consequences better.
The book is no longer available from retailers, though itās still free to read online. I dream of one day updating and reissuing it, but thatāll have to wait until I can justify the time investment. (I am happy to say Hurricane Heels is part of Never Have I Ever, as the original standalone short story I wrote back in 2014.)
Why am I sharing this? Maybe because Iāve unknowingly been carrying a fear I got from that first book: namely, that it wasnāt read by a lot of people. Iām deeply grateful for the attention it did receiveāRachel Swirsky, one of my prose idols, wrote this very kind review on Strange Horizons; and it won a Sippy Award from Charles Payseur for Excellent Relationships in Short SFF. It also has some positive feedback on various websites (weirdly enough, Amazon has a few). But I remember it went live, andā¦well, that was it. 2016 was a stressful year for me for lots of other reasons (day job! moving! grad school appsā¦which resulted in failure!), so I didnāt even have time to pay attention to how the book was doing, but that also means I blame myself for not trying harder to get it out there.
Never Have I Ever is, of course, a completely different project, with a very different set of circumstancesāeverything from how the stories were written to the resources at my publisherās disposal. I have a lot of feelings about it coming out so soonāsomething Iāll tackle in the next newsletter, if I donāt chicken out. Thereās apprehension-fear-anxiety-joy-excitement-terror-shyness-determination-gratitude-surprise, all bundled up in a nice cloud of feeling, well, slightly dazed and dissociative about everything.
One emotion that keeps bobbing to the surface is hope. My brain is trying very hard to keep that hope in check. This is both shitty, and maybe a good thing. Itās definitely a balancing act! I donāt want to hope so much that Iāll find myself disappointed. At the same time I donāt want to play it so cool that I canāt even embrace how fucking cool it actually is, to have this book coming out. Iāll allow myself this: Iām incredibly proud of this book, and of the hard work my publishers and I have put into it. Thus, Iād like to believe itās not a jinx to the word-gods to say: I hope it finds its audience, lands where it needs to, and connects in some meaningful way to readers.
If you havenāt pre-ordered yet, I hope you do consider it! Of course, Iād be happy if you pick it up once itās live, too. And if youāre excited for the book, I hope you tell a friend or two. The Table of Contents is now on my publisherās page, as well as some early responses from authors I love to pieces, which are slowly being collated in the thread below. š
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To end on a slightly less personal note, here are three things I enjoyed in the last month of last year:
The Nancy Silverton Chefās Table episode (Season 3, episode 3) had such good reminders about working hard at oneās craft and being true to oneās self.
Poetry Twitter. This by Jean Valentine, this by Marvin Bell, and this by Linda Gregg. Also Devin G. Kellyās substack, Ordinary Plots, each one of which deep dives into a single poem (TY Sara for the recc!).
Stephen Kingās On Writing, a reread. It was amazing to reconnect with it in the midst of a longer drafting project. Some things that were opaque to me two years ago make more sense now.
And hereās a recc to start your 2021: Iām in my third year of filling out the Year Compass to help with reflection and planning. Itās a free, printable booklet that lets you look back on the past year and dream big for whatās next. Worth a look if youād like some structured guidance on those two things!
Iām trying to figure out what cadence I want for hot yuzu tea next year. Twice a month is doable, but thatās assuming I donāt get busier. Tbh, I started this draft a few days before Christmas, and didnāt get around to it until now. Thereās a lot I want to share with yāall, but my brain is also scrambled eggs, so what I can say moving forward is Iāll try my best for every two weeks as usual, but Iāll take it easy if I miss it, and if I feel randomly inspired and want to share something off-schedule Iāll do that too.
Until next time, Chaser and I are wishing you a peaceful end to your holiday season!
The title of this newsletter is from Naomi Shihab Nyeās Burning the Old Year.
It means a lot to me that youāre here, so if you got all this way, thanks for reading! If you liked this post, feel free to share it with others, or sign up if you havenāt yet. And if you have any debut adviceāIām all ears.