Best Books of 2017.

I'm a little late in making this post BUT I still wanted to give it a go because I've read some incredible books this year, and I wanted to put in my recs for everyone. This is just what I've read this year, not ones only published this year. Some were, some have been published a while ago! It's that time of year where us book bloggers have to narrow down the best books we've read and try to (and fail) to calmly explain why we liked them!

Sooooo~

A CONJURING OF LIGHT - V.E Schwab

- Fantasy YA
- Last book of the main trilogy!
- Explosive!
- MAGICIANS
- Badass females who fight dirty and for what they want.
- Two words: Lila. Bard.
- Bisexual prince and captain who have so much sexual tension throughout the series.
- Apparently we're getting spin-off books!
- Alternate Londons!
- Amazing taunting characters who secretly love each other

A COURT OF WINGS AND RUIN - Sarah J. Maas

- Fantasy YA/Borderline Adult (I think)
- Again, last of it's trilogy
- But novellas to come next year!
- Writing style is basically a DREAM.
- Please read just for tiny, fierce Amren.
- Actual squad goals in this series - The Night Court cannot be beaten.
- Seasonal courts!
- Feyre becoming badass and having an amazing character ARC.
- *CONTAINS A LOT OF SMUT THROUGHOUT THE THREE BOOKS, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED*
- (Some) diversity; could definitely be better though.
- Stabbing hearts, tearing through flesh, SJM writes violence so well.

A QUIET KIND OF THUNDER - Sara Barnard

- Beautiful Contemporary YA.
- So soft
- Male MC is deaf; female MC suffers with anxiety
- Mental health at it's most raw
- Beautiful friendship
- Trying, trying, trying.
- Steffi is so inspirational, I love her.
- Shows relationships at it's most new and awkward point
- The author doesn't hold back in how real life is and that's why I adore her.

CARAVAL - Stephanie Garber

- First of it's series!
- THANK GOD LEGEND IS OUT NEXT YEAR.
- Beautiful writing. If you truly want escapism, read this book!
- THE NIGHT CIRCUS meets ALICE IN WONDERLAND (for me, anyway)
- Incredible, mysterious villain
- SO MANY PLOT TWISTS
- I have so much love for this book
- Sister bond, sisters looking out for each other (Well, one does, at least)
- MAGIC. MAGIC. MAGIC.
- High stakes, high tension, nicely-paced
- Every chapter has something new to fall in love with.

HISTORY IS ALL YOU LEFT ME - Adam Silvera

- Contemporary YA.
- Openly gay characters
- So much grieving
- All hope is lost before it's found
- If you want to cry and have your heart torn apart and stitched slowly back together, read this!
- Has flashbacks to the past and it's so soft and beautiful and awkwardly lovely at the same time.
- Hint of a love triangle?? I think?? I'm actually not too sure if it can be classed as that

HOLDING UP THE UNIVERSE - Jennifer Niven

- Contemporary YA
- Just like ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES, this book will tear out your heart.
- Inspiring, empowering, beautiful
- Chubby protagonist being the amazing person she is.
- Will not take no for an answer, dances like nobody's watching when everyone is.
- Misunderstood male protagonist
- Anxiety is fought
- Standing up for oneself (Female protagonist literally punches the male when he's being a d*** and he stands up for her too because he can admit he was disgustingly wrong)

MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES - Jasmine Warga

- This book saved my life
- Beautiful, inspires hope and determination to go on
- Suicidal theme
- About finding reasons to live when you want to die
- Jasmine Warga writes so literally but so amazingly
- Contemporary YA.
- So much pent-up anger and guilt and blame
- Inspired me so much

REBEL OF THE SANDS - Alwyn Hamilton

- Desert fantasy setting!
- Badass Amani
- GIRLS WITH GUNS - NO MORE IS NEEDED
- Incredible dynamic between characters
- Rebellion against royalty is my favourite trope
- Has a stunning sequel out now and the third book is out early 2018!
- Alllll the magic, of all sorts.

THE CROWN'S GAME - Evelyn Skye

- I like my fantasy books HEAPED with magic and this does not disappoint
- Rogue characters
- Alternate Russia!
- Soft Pasha
- Seriously, I love Pasha
- Tailoring magic!
- Vika is a beautiful person, please love her.
- Amazing secondary characters
- MAGIC COMPETITION, DEATH, VIOLENCE.
- Enemies-to-lovers, basically.
- IS A DUOLOGY, THE CROWN'S FATE IS ALREADY OUT!
- The ending is soul-destroying so you will want that next book.

THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR - Nicola Yoon

- Probably the best Contemporary YA I've ever read
- I read this eight months ago and I'm still not over it
- Diversity!
- So much!
- South Korean male protagonist who is super quirky and loves poetry; cynical, Jamaican female protagonist who is a realist I can get behind
- Clash of beliefs and passion
- Love experiements!
- All told on the ONE DAY.
- Perfect, beautiful writing
- Has so much cultural history in it!
- Chapters for side characters so we can actually understand who everything ties in together.

TOWER OF DAWN - Sarah J. Maas

- THRONE OF GLASS SERIES AS A WHOLE

- Unleashed magic

- Magic training

- Sassy, burdened, sacrificial protagonist

- Identity crisises

- SHAPE-SHIFTERS

- Fae

- Assassins

- Dark magic

- Pure magic

- Dorian Havilliard

- WITCHES.

WHEN DIMPLE MET RISHI - Sandhya Menon

- The soft, Indian romance you've been waiting for

- Cutest book EVER.

- Nerdy, quirky Dimple and soft, traditional Rishi!

- Indian culture!

- Summer camp setting

- Tech interest!

- Please read this book; it's a masterpiece.

WING JONES - Katherine Webber

- Another of my favourite debuts this year!
- Diversity!
- What you need.
- If you're feeling lost or a bit underappreciated, read this and know there's always something more inside of you
- Running females
- Track team
- Younger protagonist Wing is amazing
- Family angst
- Amazing Grandmas who literally rule.

All About Querying.

As I'm currently in a bad loop of building myself back up with my confidence with writing, I thought I'd write a post about the very thing that knocked me, that knocks a lot of other new, fearful, hopeful writers: querying. Those dreadful, daunting eight letters that strike fear into even the coldest of hearts in writers. We may kill our softest characters, play with readers' emotions, battle winds and ice through magic, and create literal worlds, but querying. Now, that's a DIFFERENT story.

So you write a draft. You perhaps send it to a beta-reader that you trust to see it in it's bad glory (that's how I prefer to process, anyway, so I can begin to compile an "Edit List"). You edit and edit; your voice gets hoarse from the many read-aloud sessions you do. But eventually you have a (hopefully) shiny draft which may not be as shiny as you want but it's still considered ready. Now the work starts, some would argue. Not only do you have to compose a delicate, informative but not overloading query letter, but you also have to go back to polishing some sample pages. And think again if you think you can use the same material for each agent. Nope. It has to be tailored; it has to be exact to them, even down to a simple thing of agents wanting to see a longer or shorter sample. Some even only want five pages--that is a challenge in itself. Whilst polishing, whilst writing that letter, whilst working out what your story is actually about in your synopsis, you then begin the thought process of, "But is this good enough?" "Is my story good enough to hook this amazing agent in only five pages?" You comb through your sample material, knowing you've read it seven times but you still find a "so" instead of "do" somewhere in there, or a silly spelling mistake.

Take it from my experience, in which I've actually queried agents whilst having seasonal continuity errors in my sample, and very detailed ones! Also sent whilst a line said "she crossed her eyes" instead of arms when there was major sexual tension building. That mistake just zapped the whole atmosphere, lemme tell you.

So you do all that. You get critique partners to read both your manuscript and sample material, right? If you don't have one, I suggest looking for one via a simple Google search for forums and websites. They're so, so helpful! You compose your query beautifully and attach or copy and paste into emails, as needed. You smile to yourself, breathe a sigh of relief as you click send. Think it's over? Nope. Now begins the horrid lapse of waiting. For me, this time includes second-guessing my work; it includes getting as far from that project as possible so I'm not tempted to scrap and rewrite the entire thing on empty doubts. Realistically, I know my story is good but is it enough for these people who may as well be gods to us lowly human writers for all the faith and need we put into them? Like, these people are the kick-starters to careers for becoming an author traditionally. We need them, and so the desperation to find the one that says, "Yes! I LOVE this! Can I see the full manuscript?" to then go on to accept your whole thing, is MASSIVE.

And after allllll that, all the mental strain and work and effort you've put in, you get a lovely rejection email. I'll admit I've never had a rude or blunt one. It's always been a nice message but at the end of the day, they're still turning down your work and that hurts. Comfort is somewhat found in the whole, "You just need to wait for the right one. You want one that feels so strongly for your story" but at the end of the day, you can't escape the "oh god, my story wasn't good enough for these ten agents, at least."

I'm in that part now. I'm querying via events like Pit Mad and SFFPit, and even those agents who were interested at the pitch stage don't want the full thing. I had an agent interested in my SFFPit pitch, so I queried them riding on hope and delight, but they didn't fall in love with it as much as they'd hoped. I'm disheartened because I wasn't told what was missing for them. It may be missing for others but I am so in love with this story myself that I can't see it clearly. I can't ask what was wrong. I have to graciously accept the rejection, and move on. But right now, I can't even look at that story. Every time I do, the story I have adored writing is crumbling around me, wondering why it wasn't good enough. I know it was just one agent but it's the why that gets me. I always want to know why it wasn't good enough, what I can do to improve it for my future querying tries. After that rejection, I got another one five minutes later and that was a massive double-hit to my confidence. I've pulled back on any projects for now, until I have the confidence to return maybe in the New Year. Most may argue this is bad behavior but I get disheartened easily; I've never been an open writer in the sense that I share a lot of things from the actual thing with people directly. I draw into myself. I can accept criticism, of course, but two rejections in such a short time, especially when one came from someone liking my pitch of their own accord, was hard and I can't write anything new or fix things just yet.

Querying is terrifying. Non-writers don't really seem to grasp how intense it is; how much we have to put in to give it to someone else to consider offering representation for it. So, here are some tips. I don't know what works with queries but this is just standard, because there are so many conflicting reports on what to include in queries:

• Always read their guidelines. Font size, type, and page size. Do they want it in the email of the body or as attachments? - This is so important. If they're attached when specified otherwise, some agents state that they go straight into the bin.
• If they don't have instructions, email them if you're unsure (I've done that! They're usually fine with inquiries like that). If they don't have font specifications, just assume it's 12 for size, and double-spaced. It looks easier to read that way.
• Read, read, and read over your sample again. Even your letter and synopsis need to be professional and without mistakes. Read it aloud to family or friends to see if it sounds intriguing enough, or if it sounds too wordy.
• Read again - note things like setting, the time it's set in, the season it starts in, the time progression of your sample.
• Sometimes it's hard to know whether your first chapters are good enough to hook. Just think: if you read this as a reader with a massive TBR pile, would you continue? If not, find out why and get fixing.
• Start with the hook in your query letter. That's the biggest advice I've ever had.
• Include some themes, and definitely the title, in an ending paragraph after the story has loosely been told. Usually, the word count goes in there too.
• Writing credits are only usually desired if they relate to your project. I've learnt the hard way that they don't care if I won some writing competition last year simply because it's not relevant to the story I'm telling.
• Don't say your book is the new Throne of Glass unless you're trying to pitch it on an event on Twitter, or elsewhere, and getting across the feel. But in a query letter, your story is your own.
• Thank them for their consideration. End the letter politely.
• Your synopsis is a simple (hah!) timeline of your story; that's it. It's just a bit more detailed, and some agents specify the length they want it to be, either one or two pages. I suggest looking on Writers' Digest for tips on a synopsis, or on Marissa Meyer's blog, where she wrote a good article about writing a synopsis!
• Cry, get chocolate, load yourself with coffee. Do whatever you need to do to get through this process, and good luck!

If you want to see me go through my own writing/querying journey about (Disney) Assassins (not Princesses, okay? That's the point of the story) follow me on Twitter: @ShaneDReid!

Diversity (Part One)

In YA, diversity is stepping into the spotlight, and it's wonderful. Instantly, books like WING JONES, THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR, A QUIET KIND OF THUNDER, SHADES OF MAGIC (series) come to mind, all for different reasons.

A lot of people think that diversity only means cultural, that inputting a random character of a different race makes their book diverse. (If you're going to have a POC, don't just put them in the background where they have one line or only show for two chapters just to say you have diversity in your book.) But it's not just having POC in their work. It's having LGBTQ (honestly there's so many letters on that phrase now so I'm sorry if I missed any out, please correct me) characters, it's exploring asexuality because there's barely any representation of that. For me, A QUIET KIND OF THUNDER, was the first contemporary YA where the two protagonists were diverse. Rhys was deaf; Steffie dealt with severe anxiety and was a selective mute. As someone who can identify with deafness and anxiety, that was important. It wasn't just a side character with these issues; they took the story in their hands and owned it.

As a reader, I've noticed that diversity is more embraced in contemporary YA in terms of same-sex couples. So reading Victoria Schwab's SHADES OF MAGIC series and seeing characters like Rhy and Alucard made me feel hope that a lot more fantasy writers will be inspired by that and embrace wider sexuality in their books. I think that a lot of people think that only diverse authors can write diverse stories, because they know first-hand. It helps, I'm sure, but with that logic, there would only be a lot of white characters and stories, which would get boring and ignorant. Not all books need to feature blond haired, blue-eyed females, and ripped, white males with over-described beautiful hair. Many more diverse authors themselves are being embraced in the author world--and not just culturally--and Twitter events like DVPIT get to bring that to light. For me, one of the best books I read this year was WHEN DIMPLE MET RISHI, written by Sandhya Menon, and I was asked why I wanted to read a book that was about Indian characters and their culture, when I'm from the UK and I'm white.

Here's the simple answer: because I'm not closed-minded, and I'm not ignorant when, embarrassingly, too many white people are. Because I want to see and learn about other cultures, and I want that to be embraced widely not only in fiction but in general. I got told that diversity should be earned, like it's not just a humane thing. But we live in this world that's so hell-bent on disliking anything different and it's such a destructive, hateful to live. So little by little, I like to think at least the world of YA can start inspiring a change in looking at the world and becoming equals, no matter what colour a person is or whether someone likes men or women, or whether they identify with one gender or another, or none at all.

Too many people are more focused on being closed-minded rather than appreciating the opportunities diversity brings. Some people would rather ignore a book because the main character is  a POC than think about the writing inside, than think about the amazing exposure this brings so many people that have been waiting for their chance to have characters they can relate to.

Where are all the books about shy teens discovering their sexuality in high school where everything is scary and awkward, needing help or support to lead the way by example? Sometimes fiction is self-help; sometimes it's a teacher that people seek out not just for enjoyment. Sometimes, it's a comfort when readers are scared and they need a book to help them, to advise when nobody else will. Even down to mental health, some new writers are scared to include it to the extent most mental health issues are, because too many people sneer at the imperfection of it, "why would you want to read things like that? Don't you want happy stories?" (What, so people with mental health issues can never feel a sliver of happiness? Okay, whatever.) Yet this should be embraced because it's human. Too many people mentally suffer to not have relatable characters in books, too many people are beautifully different to go without representation.

New NaNoWriMo Project, and Katherine Webber's Advice

A while ago, I kept posting updates on social media (and on here) about Camp NaNoWriMo. Welllll, that's back next month and I'm participating again. Bring on strain headaches and whirlwinds of progressing and aching from writing so much! No, honestly I love this. It's what I live for. So my November will be spent writing 50,000 words of a new project. Notably, my fifth manuscript drafted this year.

But before I can go ahead with that, I need to finish editing. Remember my Alice in Wonderland twist? That's FINALLY being edited. It's sort of ironic for me because this was the story I wrote for NaNo back in July, so I'm literally coming out of one lot of that, into another straight away. Hopefully, with no breaks. (Because taking breaks like that damages me more than constantly not taking breaks.) I'm just under halfway my first edits on MAD REBELLION and when the 18th of this month arrives, I'm going to start planning my new NaNo project. Then I'll dive right into drafting that.

Why put myself through so much stress? Because my brain doesn't like to turn off. It constantly throws up ideas at me and I have to sift through those and find which is bad and what can actually work in a developed story. This new project has been in mental planning for a while now (Dayna, my best brain-storming partner, I adore you) and I'm finally getting to extensively write it all down in my notebook to go ahead in November.

It's another twist, not on one story but rather eight. The concept is this: What if those shiny Disney girls we grew up with had their stories make them assassins rather than princesses? I'm taking that what if, taking the girls down to their origins again and put into a story set in Underground Paris. Each assassin has their own reason and past that drives them to kill diplomats, high-society ladies and lords and anyone they're sent to. But when their leader, Teiran, is kidnapped and hauled onto a ship, they must forget their own personal vengeance paths and help her. But in doing so, they become more than fellow assassins to each other and actual people with stories beyond their weapons.

--

As a reader, attending author talks/signings is enjoyable. As a writer as well, it's a source of advice straight from people who are in the industry I want to be established in. In January, I met Katherine Webber, author of WING JONES just after her debut. She's the only author I've ever got to talk personally to about my own writing. In the group, she talked about how NaNoWriMo was a massive factor for creating WING JONES, how she pushed on with this writing event. For me, this is incredible motivation to have. When I got talking to Katherine after getting my copy of her book signed, I explained how I was working on my own draft. She told me that any progress is progress, whether it's just 100 words a day or 1,000. It's still something. She told me how to manage interfering story ideas when I need to finish the one I'm writing. Her advice was invaluable to me and remains my most inspirational encounter. I'm a harsh writer on myself; if I want to write 2,500 words on one day, I'll do anything I can to reach that. If I don't, I make myself write more the next day. Unhealthy, maybe, but it works for me in terms of self determination.

In July, I drafted 50,000 words of MAD REBELLION and it was hard. I think I cried when I was finished but it was so exhilarating to know I'd actually just reached those lengths. I got a certificate for that achievement and it's stuck to my wall, above my desk where I write, to constantly remind myself that I'm a far better writer than I always think, that I can set large goals and reach them with the right steps prior to drafting. But those reminders from Katherine Webber always echo in my head, reminding me that even if the world is hard one day, there is always another day and they go on with so many chances to do more when I can.

I quit everything in life when it gets too hard but never writing. When writing becomes hard for me, I steel myself and hit back at my manuscript harder than before, determined to prove to myself that I can do it. That writing is something I can never quit because it's a massive passion that I thrive on.

The Names They Gave Us - (Spoiler) Review

Title: The Names They Gave Us

Author: Emery Lord

Rating: 4*

Summary: When Lucy's mother finds out her cancer has returned, Lucy finds herself volunteering as a counselor at Daybreak, a camp for young children facing some sort of trauma in their lives, as her mother's wish. Half-guilted, thinking it may be her mother's last request of her, Lucy leaves her church camp and finds more than just herself at Daybreak, but belonging and friendship and what love really is.

***

Lucy is seventeen, a pastor's daughter, and thinks her life is perfect. She has a long-term boyfriend and both parents who love her, and is becoming captain of the swim team. Being a pastor's daughter, a lot of the book involved God and Lucy's belief. Upon hearing about her mother suffering with cancer again, Lucy's belief starts to become hazy and slippery. As someone who lost their faith in a similar situation, I found it hard to read so much about when she believed. But then she begins to lose it and some horrible part of me related to that incredibly. However, being the girl she is, Lucy is surrounded by others who believes absolutely and tries to sort of feed off that when she realises how angry she is at God, who hasn't given her mother a break, who hasn't looked down on their family. Only her mother seems to realise her turmoil, how she can't use the church camp as an excuse to try and get her belief back from being surrounded by it. If anything, it seemed to make her angrier that she was.

When asked to go to Daybreak, the camp a mile away from Holyoke (the church camp she usually goes to with her family every summer), she's reluctant but warms to the idea only because she worries that it will be the last thing asked of her by her mother. That if she denies her this then she'll be a bad daughter or never get to fulfill a request from her mother again. So she goes, under mostly unexplained circumstances from her parents as to why that camp. At first, Lucy figures it's because its so close to Holyoke and she can find solace there, dealing with her mother's diagnosis. But as she spends more and more time at Daybreak, Lucy uncovers a lot more than who she is. She uncovers who her mother is, or, rather, who her mother once was as a teenager who'd been in foster care.

At first, I was unfair to this book. Not even halfway through, I thought it repetitive and that was ghastly unfair of me as a reader (as well as a writer who thinks this many times of their own book). I'd just finished reading another book that featured a summer camp. Where that author passed her novel's time through the development of a relationship and focused on the romance aspect heavily, Emery Lord passed hers by days because it was important to the reader to know, by those days, what was happening. Quickly, I realised that I needed to respect the way it was done and soon found myself enjoying it that way because it gave more insight to Lucy's relationship with her parents, only seeing them once a week over the summer (those important Sundays that had to be specified), and it gave development to how long it took Lucy to relax at Daybreak and for the kids there to open up to her as their counselor.

At Daybreak, Lucy becomes surrounded by important people: Keely, Mohann, Anna and Henry. Each has their own story and reason as to why they're a part of the camp. Emery Lord brings so many feelings in relation to both the counselors, who've suffered for most of their lives, as well as helping the younger campers. Through their stories and past, Lucy learns that it's okay to be upset and that she can talk about how she feels and what her mother is dealing with, along with the rest of the family. Just before Daybreak, Lucy's boyfriend paused her and halfway through the book, after Lucy begins to realise what true affection for someone is, what truly having a crush on someone feels like, she completely breaks up (mutually) with Lukas. The quick shift in her love interest worked because of how utterly pliant and agreeing Lukas was with everything, agreeing with things, having very specific rules for his own life, and pausing with Lucy because he didn't know what to do with her, a girl whose mother was suffering with cancer.

With Henry, it's different. In him, Lucy finds true feelings and what it's like to share sadness but also unimaginable, immense happiness, even amidst the trauma of the occupants of Daybreak. In him, Lucy finds that people can live and get through sadness that seems like it can never get better. In him, Lucy realises that despite losing family, there is still hope and there is still everyone else, each a piece of life to help get through the harder times. The shift of this on the pages is beautiful and so freeing to read. It's so real and demands admiration for this break Lucy finally seems to get away from her pain.

Tara, a fourteen-year-old girl at camp, is pregnant. When she sees Lucy's mother (a nurse) when she begins experiencing pain, Lucy has already been advised not to judge her. When Tara leaves with Lucy, she says, "She told me about the birth and everything." This is taken as her mother reassuring a scared girl, telling her beforehand what giving birth may feel like. But then, when Lucy is pulled away from a camp leader, Bryan, and told that her mother's been taken to hospital, she finds pictures in his cabin. She finds out that her mum had a past she was not ready to share, bringing anger to Lucy's pain as well, towards her parents for lying to her. Her mum had been the pregnant teenager everyone whispered about from years before. It had been Bryan's, who hadn't made himself come out of the background much until now. They'd decided to put the baby girl up for adoption.

When she finally gets to hospital, she confronts her parents and quickly makes peace with them over the concealed past. Lucy finds all her camp friends waiting outside, too. They've come to support her in this horrible, dark time. Lucy's father, so usually calm and collected, goes out to his car when her mother is taken to another unit for her health and rages. Lucy watches in secret as he mouths swear words and falls apart in his own space, not wanting her to see him like that. It's never specified whether Lucy's mother dies but I think she does.

The Names They Gave Us ends with a reflection chapter, which is something I love seeing, assessing love and who can be there even when they're not. Overall, it's a wholesome, inspirational book that gives comfort and safety when the grip on those feelings slip. It's about belonging and finding yourself and what's best for you, and was a beautiful read throughout. Emery Lord brings an array of colour and feelings to her book. After enjoying When We Collided, reading this was entirely different. This book seemed to be about breaking constraints that were always unquestionable. It's anguish and love and belief all coming together in a beautiful, heart-achingly good story.

Everything Everything - (Spoiler) Film Review

Based on the book EVERYTHING EVERYTHING by Nicola Yoon, Stella Meghie directs a beautiful film to tell the beautiful story that had already caught my heart in paper form. Supposedly released in the UK on the 19th May, I finally had the exciting experience of watching it last week and was literally jumping in my seat because I'd waited so long to see it. I'd read the book in 2015, fallen in love completely, been moved by Nicola Yoon's debut, and followed all the production of the film over 2016, the interest coming from being an ex film student.

Set in Los Angeles, EVERYTHING EVERYTHING tells the story of Maddy, a girl who's been sick all her life and has never left her home since being diagnosed with SCID (Severe Combined Immune Deficiency). The film opens with Maddy's voice-over, telling the audience why she likes a certain room in her house. The room is open, decorated with outdoor pictures, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. She likes it because it makes her feel like she's outside. Playing the part of Maddy, Amandla Stenberg gives a convincing and innocent performance of a girl who's been trapped and, bit by bit, discovers what freedom is when she meets Olly, the boy next door.

Honestly, Nick Robinson, for me, was an unsure choice for Olly. For one, I found it strange how much his shaved head is made a thing of in the book, yet in the film, Olly has long hair. It worked though. I loved the slight differences I could spot from the two versions. I hadn't seen Nick Robinson in a role like this to imagine how he would play the part. He has played awkward characters in previous things and I felt like book-Olly was easy-going. But he brought a slightly different (and charmingly awkward at times) Olly to the screen, one that I enjoyed watching. The film gave a more insistent side to him, which I loved to see.

There are scenes in this film, between Olly and Maddy, where they talk before they meet. He writes messages on large boards for her to read, making her smile. He writes out his number on his window from which they begin proper communication. This brings a charming aspect of reality-to-imagination for the two, where they meet in their head, in Maddy's diner that she's building with the help of an online architecture class. Everything they exchange over text is conversed in their imagination, face-to-face. "Ellipses," Maddy says often, when she's thinking or doesn't want to respond to something. These parts had me grinning in my seat, adoring what I was watching and seeing the relationship start to unfold.

Because of her condition, everything has to be sterilized for Maddy. There's an air suction room from the front door, to take any outside air away when someone enters the house. Carla, sweet and humorous at times, played by Ana de la Reguera, is Maddy's nurse, who works alongside her Mum, whose profession is a doctor. Pauline is performed with excellent talent by Anika Noni Rose. Maddy's mum is riddled with concern for her daughter, engaging the audience with the fact that Maddy truly is sick, believable because she's a medical professional. She's a serious woman who tries to be lighter, more fun, for her daughter but struggles being the mum Maddy needs following the death of her husband and son. Maddy's condition ensures she has clothes specially washed and all in plain, white material. Perhaps it was that aspect that caused it but the film had a pure feel to it that made it all the more believable. So when Maddy finally learns that she can be free, it was more of a shock (even when I was expecting it to happen) when she packs new clothes (once discovering how easy a credit card is to obtain for online shopping) and leaves to go to Hawaii with Olly.

It's when they leave that really gripped me. This is where the commendations really go to the cinematographer, Ludwig Goransson, because not only did they film in a beautiful place but everything was so incredibly portrayed against the amazing beach setting. In the car, going to their hotel, Maddy finally sees the ocean for the first time and she's so enthralled by it, and that's the film's moment. She's always wanted to see the ocean and she's waited eighteen years to do so, beyond looking at photographs. Maddy has gripped her freedom with both hands, risked her life for it, and now she's finally where she wants and feels she needs to be.

In Hawaii, Maddy finds physical love, honest love, herself and a life. She finds happiness and peace, miles and miles away from her fancy cage that kept her healthy. Yet she went to Hawaii and you end up watching, waiting for something to happen. You want to believe the beauty and the free sense of it but you know something is going to shatter that perfect image. And it does: Maddy collapses one morning and is rushed to hospital, her illness catching up. After this incident, she's sent back to the empty home she can't face anymore now that she knows what it's like to be outside. Carla has been fired due to her part in helping Maddy and Olly meet, against Pauline's wishes. Thinking that there's no future for them, Maddy and Olly have a scene--again, via texting but together in their minds--where she desperately explains why they can't pursue anything, that she can't leave the house. Olly tries to talk to her further but she keeps on saying, "Ellipses," until she fades away from him, ending their contact. She deletes any emails he sends--including one important one, saying that he's moving away again, which Maddy watches the process of out of the window.

But then Maddy gets an email from the doctor who saw to her in Hawaii: she doesn't have SCID. She collapsed due to a viral infection. She does have a very weak immune system but not to the extent that her mother has let her believe. Amandla turns Maddy from a pliant, innocent girl to an emotional one when the truth comes crashing down on her, guiding an audience to sympathise with the lie she's been told all her life. Maddy raids her mum's office, looking for her files on SCID but when she finds nothing, she confronts her mum and the truth comes out: she'd been afraid to lose Maddy after the death of her husband and son, so she used one bout of sickness years ago to build on it, to keep her close. Too close. Her emotion turns to sheer anger as Maddy leaves the house properly and finds her nurse who was her closest friend.

On a risk, she texts Olly, telling him to meet her at Ye Olde Book Shoppe, where she explains everything to a bewildered Olly, who opens his heart to her again now that they can both see a future together. The film ends with them walking on a busy New York street, smiling and laughing together, a beautiful shot to explain what lies ahead for them: hope, happiness, love.

In conclusion, EVERYTHING EVERYTHING is a five-star, pure, stunning film that addresses a completely different, intriguing concept, with each actor bringing their own individuality to the screen where a production crew has worked incredibly hard to make it the awing visual it is.

EVERYTHING AROUND US - In Progress.

“Is it not just nice to imagine? To collect thoughts and versions of what the world could be like and use that as fuel to create?”

            “Create what?” I asked, my voice rising harshly. “Unhappiness because those ideals will never happen?”

***

Contrary to the snippet above from my current WIP, I'm a massive believer in imagining other versions of myself. Is it weird to be able to pin-point the exact moment your life kind of went downhill? I can, and it was weird. It was something I couldn't adjust to and have fallen prey to. So I planned to write a book, out of my comfort zone, to deal with it. I knew I wanted it to have truthful situations I knew I'd be able to realistically write about. But it was going to be another version of me. I wanted to write a boy suffering with anxiety and relying on something creative. I wanted to use my knowledge of film-making which has just been tumbling round in my head since I left college last year.

I left it as a really weak idea for months before I even named my male protagonist. But in December, I watched an episode of The Vampire Diaries and listened to Concrete Angel and suddenly, I saw this boy in my head, and the song became something to me. The lyrics turned into thoughts and I  viewed how he saw a girl that he wanted to befriend. He wanted to reach her but they both had their own boundaries, and the girl had a good reason to put up her walls.

Hazel came to me in tiny bits. Her trademark ballcap fashion came first, slightly inspired from a friend I used to have. Her attitude came from another song (Cider by Yezi), and I went from there to build an image of the girl who'd oppose Nicholas and tell her own story.

EVERYTHING AROUND US follows both their POVs, to see their struggles and the different people they find in a small film club. In total, there are only five people (including them), largely underestimated by the leader of the group who missed his shot at being on a lighting team in Hollywood. So they only end up making one short film. This story is about inspiring each of the five to look beyond the ugliness they see in their worlds and find beauty, and to capture it.

Hazel finds it hardest to adjust. Taken from another friend, I made her restless. I made her a free spirit who found it hard to sit still or stay in one place, to go where her feet took her when she wanted. But she finds her place there eventually, as each of the others do. They find that they have a place, that they're needed to make something bigger, which is what they've always missed.

The club coaxes Nicholas to deal with his anxiety rather than just sit and waste away in his room, pondering over a fulfilled past. Anxiety is something I've not dealt well this past year and I've used that in Nicholas to see how he handles it, to see the support he gets and what he does from that. Hazel comes from a family that has slowly broken down because of something she did three years prior to the start of the story, and her side is fun and free to explore. The other three all add so much life and exploration to the story: Stuart, who can't decide on how he wants to look and relies on the opinions of others to guide him because of his own past; Hank who hates his name and switches from being called Dean or Alex depending on his days, who has a lot of parental pressure to be academically clever when he just wants to explore; Ailee, a girl who wants to fly and make art but got rejected from her dream school and finds the club as another creative avenue.

This story is in the drafting process and incredibly close to me. I'm taking situations I know or have seen and making them into something I can work through and find answers to. Through it, I'm finding old passions again and showing that I'm a lot more than just a person who sits at their desk and writes and that's all. I've lived and explored and whilst that may not be the case so much now, I will again because if I can write it, I'll believe it and become inspired by it.

When Dimple Met Rishi (Review)

TITLE: When Dimple Met Rishi

AUTHOR: Sandhya Menon

RATING: 5*
GENRE: Young Adult

Summary: Dimple Shah lives under the strict rule of her parents, with her mother's voice mostly winning out in arguments. All she wants to do is attend Stanford after a summer camp where she can develop an app and possibly meet her idol, Jenny Lindt. Rishi Patel is a traditional Indian son. He follows his parents ideals and agrees to go to the same summer camp, just to meet the girl his parents have set him up with for a potential future marriage. But when they initially crash and then find happiness amidst the camp where they find a similar goal, they also find themselves.

"This is our life. We get to decide the rules. We get to say what goes and what stays, what matters and what doesn't." What matters to Dimple is her life and her own choices. That's all she ever wants: her own choice. Where her parents want her to find the Ideal Indian Husband in college, Dimple wants to go to learn web development and follow her dreams, not just go for romance. She's not even interested in that aspect of her future. At the start of the story, these dreams are met with great resistance. But eventually, they relent and allow her to go. The reader thinks that they've finally realised their daughter's dreams.

"That's what you think I should be relagating my brain space to?... Like, if I don't make the effort to look beautiful, my entire existence is nullified? Nothing else matters--not my intellect, not my personality... my hopes and dreams mean nothing if I'm not wearing eyeliner?" What made me pick up this book was the culture I knew I'd find in it. I'd not long read The Sun is Also a Star which made me aware of how much diversity in culture is needed in young adult books. So when I saw When Dimple Met Rishi, I needed that sort of exposure. What Sandhya Menon does is something uncommon. Not only does she write about Indian culture in her book but she strays against tradition with her female protagonist. Dimple is quirky, short-tempered and not afraid to stand up for herself when she meets Rishi. She's not afraid to be different or herself. She's strong and won't adhere to the image other people want her to be, even those who don't even know her.

"She refused to be one of those girls who gave up on everything they'd been planning simply because a boy entered the picture." Dimple and Rishi meet before Insomnia Con even officially starts. Due to one poor joke about their future, Rishi immediately destroys any hope of any sort of attachment and gets a shower in Dimple's coffee. For most, this was the moment they fell in love with Dimple. For me, it was when she stood up against her mum in the first few pages; it was finding out she had a love for web development. As someone who had a mum who wanted me to wear a bit more makeup a couple of years ago, I sympathised with Dimple for her reasons of not wanting to. She didn't want to impress boys; she just wanted to live her life for herself. She didn't want every choice she made to be for boys or an ideal romance. She just wanted her own life and ambitions. Her mother didn't understand the concept of looking a certain way for yourself.

"I feel like I need to speak out, because if no one speaks out, if no one says 'this is me, this is what I believe in, and this is why I'm different, and this is why it's okay', then what's the point?" The moment I fell in love with Rishi was when he took her to the store with the buddha statue; he'd already scoped places out. He'd already followed his love for his culture to find a place he'd feel at home. Rishi is a boy who seems to consider everything and everyone. He's so unabashed in his background when other people try to make him feel ashamed for it.

"If you always look like you're going to bite them, beti, no boys are ever going to want to talk to you." Throughout the book, Indian terms are specified. They made me pick up my phone and search for them to get a better understanding of what Dimple wore, makeup terms, food, and researched to understand the family terms used. This really opened my eyes to something that is seriously missing from most young adult books. Readers of young adult are diverse as well and they need that ability to relate. Not everything is about rich, straight, white people. And the ones that are in this book are typical, which I actually liked. Celia, Dimple's camp roommate, is bisexual and black, and she has her own character development. Everything central is this book is on diverse characters and that's what makes it so important.

"But that was Rishi... He was like a pop song you thought you couldn't stand, but found yourself humming it in the shower anyway." The other importance of this novel is the development of endurance Dimple experiences towards Rishi, from wanting him to go home immediately, to finally feeling for him. Without meaning to, I think Dimple fell in love with him, despite how they clashed at the start. The ambition in her found the smothered ambition in him with his art. Rishi buried the fact that he lived his art in order to be the son his parents wanted and needed. He was willing to follow an future he'd not even chosen before Dimple showed him how much he couldn't just keep art as his hobby with how much it lived in him. There's a really beautiful scene at a party where Rishi goes up against another artist and Dimple finally sees why he can't have his art as a hobby. The description is something so incredibly stunning that I closed the book for a few minutes, just to live in it before moving on.

"He wondered if he should feel a stab of jealousy... but all he felt was this warm, almost gooey feeling in his chest." Ashish, Rishi's brother, is also a character who gets great development. He goes from being the annoying younger brother with no responsibilities to the reason that Dimple and Rishi win the talent competition within the camp, something fun before the winning app gets decided. He practices with them, and through that, Celia and he get their own sub-story, in which he stands up massively for her against the rich, white boys. He becomes more level-headed with Rishi with the problems start happening and the final argument against going after his heart.

"She'd say this for him: he had no guile." What I adored about this book was that passion is never sought out by themselves in the end. Both Dimple and Rishi go behind each other's backs to prove to their respective idols how amazing their work is. That causes so many problems but it was something I loved. It was something relatable, especially Rishi's. When he meets his idol, he loses the nerve to show him his artwork. He plays it off because he can't handle the weight of the possibility. Ambition and the future is important in this story, something I've thoroughly enjoyed reading in relation to such incredibly-written characters.

When Dimple Met Rishi is truly a gift, so much that I wrote this messy book review for it in an attempt to convey my love for it. Sandhya Menon has started something beautiful and I can't wait for anything more she writes to follow her style with.

Writing - It Doesn't Always Work.

Sadly, that title isn't a lie, as I've recently discovered. On the 16th August, I finished drafting my Alice novel, Mad Rebellion. I flew through that draft, as far as speed goes for me. The problem? I couldn't turn off my brain, even when I was getting strain and stress headaches. I'd been editing and writing like crazy, getting up to 6,000 words a day. My usual is 2-3K but I was so full of that story that I had so much to pour into it. I couldn't switch off my brain long enough to recover from the last writing session before I started again.

But I finished it; I never ate the morning I did because I couldn't tear myself away from my laptop even for a second. My entire body ached from the tension of the ending. That was a story that I was so encompassed in and worked for me. The next day, I began drafting a new story, having finished editing another story for my critique partners. For the time being, I couldn't do more on anything but this new story that I'd been planning for a while.

EVERYTHING AROUND US is my first try at a serious contemporary. It's my recovery and survival story; it's encouraging not only my characters to find beauty in the world but for me to do the same. I'm using one of my loves, film, to add to it and explore each character's creativity. There are five central characters and I thought I could write them all. It started off with only Nicholas and Hazel leading this story--but then Ailee, Stuart and Hank all asked for their stories to be told at least once from their perspective. They wanted to share how they came to find out about the film club that brings them altogether. I sat at my laptop for four hours yesterday, trying to continue with writing it. The problem? It wasn't working. The characters that wanted to be central too needed to be secondary.

When planning new ideas, I think over a story for a while before moving it into my I Will Definitely Write This list. It moves from my brain into my notebook; it gets content and surroundings. That's how I make things work usually, because the story has had time to steep and become a fixed part of my need to write it. So I wrote and it felt halted and bland and I wondered why. Then I realised that although my extra voices wanted to be heard from their own perspective, they didn't need to be. I realised it wasn't working because I was trying to put too many voices in, whilst trying out a different way of writing--in both the sense of genre and voice. I've written three manuscripts in the third person and now I'm trying first person, in a genre far away from fantasy, as I'm used to.

Everything is different and I'm finding it hard to adapt to that but for me, this is a story I both want and need to tell. It's something I want to share.

Sometimes, stories don't work out, and that's fine. It's fine because there are so many other stories out there to be told instead, that do work for you, that do make you fire away on the keyboard like nothing else exists. I'm not yet giving up on this story because it's living in my mind and notebook so much that I can't let go, but I need to take out the extra voices and see where I go from there. When I realised it wasn't working for me yesterday, it took me a long time to get out of the mindset of not being good enough to write this story, that maybe I needed to open up to a collaboration, and just find the problem rather than blame my actual skills. I've pin-pointed the three issues I'm finding: genre, voice, person.

I just need to work out the voices that are going to tell this story, the ones who need to tell it most. I'm not used to going past two view-points in my stories and now I'm throwing in five, with a new genre to try at. It's too much, so I need to tone down my idea and focus how I can easily tell EVERYTHING AROUND US going back to my initial idea of it just being Nicholas and Hazel, and its how they see everyone around them.

Love Yourself.

Let me tell you something about confidence: it's not something you learn to have and then get to keep forever. It's slippery and unreliable. It's not always there when you need it but once you know what it feels like, it has the power to come back. Confidence is a tricky thing; its the fine line between boosting yourself to amazing heights or dragging you down to horrible depths. It either helps or it doesn't. Sometimes its a raging war in your own head, wanting to feel a lot more positive but there's a tiny voice saying you're not worth it.

Confidence and self-love have always been things in short supply for me. I could never get past the fact that I was always second-best or not worth a voice. Being spoken over for years tends to provide that opinion. It wasn't until I was sixteen when I first learnt to smile honestly at my reflection and thinking who looked back at me was worth feeling confident of. I rose and rose, out from the depths of feeling less than average, finally ridding myself of that lovely phrase, "I'm ugly." For me, college did wonders for my confidence. I explored thoroughly with style, looks, and my own talents. I found that in the class I attended, I had a voice that was often worth listening to. I found that I could be funny and laugh with people. I was valued there and had a place that I could look forward to being in.

But I got some comments in my last year of college. They took place outside, from someone I trusted wholly, and that was what had me sliding right back down that hill I'd worked to climb up. My face was criticized beyond what I could help and I was pointedly compared to someone who appreciated their features in the same way they put mine down. I was negatively commented on my style (which I thought I'd found) and eventually lost myself in that whirl of self-hate those comments ignited. I became obsessed with changing things I shouldn't have been able to change. I'd check my face everyday, hoping to find something more beautiful there. At the same time, I wondered why I let those comments affect me so much--but we're human; we're sensitive at times so things do hurt. I laughed whenever someone told me I was beautiful because all I could hear was that echo of comments telling me all my flaws. I became incredible self-deprecating in such a critical way.

But bit by bit, I saw a change in how I viewed myself. A change I liked but also hated because I'd clung onto that negativity enough to acknowledge and do something about it when I should have shrugged those words off and loved myself regardless of what I didn't have. I became more serious about how I appeared to people, more self-conscious of what people said about me. Again, my style changed because I feared I looked silly. Still, through that, something broke through barriers and told me that I shouldn't care what others think to that extent.

Through that, I climbed up a higher hill to finally smile once more at myself and say, "Yes, I can be attractive." I got myself away from the person who gave me such negativity and learnt to enclose myself in confidence. Again, it's slippery some days but I'm at a point now where I can say to people: "I learnt how to love myself the hard way. I learnt that by acknowledging someone else's opinion of me that wasn't love. Adhering to other people's perception of beauty isn't worth it; you only need to feel what you do and change according to yourself and nobody else."

I still have confidence issues but they're nowhere near the drastic low they used to be. I got support in my lack of it and slowly learnt to know that even if my reflection was flawed then it's okay. I searched for perfection long before I realised it doesn't exist. I searched to get rid of who I used to be, that person shrouded in negativity, and let another me rise up to take their place. I get laughed at now for taking so many selfies but that's because I'm finally at a level where I can stand to see myself on a picture so I use that as much as I can. If I feel good about myself, I capture it. If I don't, I still capture it and then write down why in order to work on banishing those thoughts.

Loving yourself isn't a walk in the park or something that comes easy to most people. It's not just for appearance; it works for talents too. I've been writing for years and I stepped out of a shadow and found my own world to work in and finally have the ability and confidence to say "I'm talented and could actually make something of this." There are still times when I think that I'm only a good writer on the surface but I constantly develop that when those thoughts creep in. If my lack of confidence affects something I can change, I'll work on it healthily. If I can't, I have to leave it and learn to look past it to the amazing person I know can be underneath my own thoughts.

There are still times when I can't help but compare but I told my sister that comparisons are the most destructive thing ever, because you'll keep making more and never be happy. Your only comparison is you, and who you want to be. Imagine yourself and not anyone else. Imagine only changeable things and don't chase them to a point of hating yourself. You're beautiful and worthy of feeling confident and loving yourself. You deserve self-love and to smile encouragingly at everything you do.

Creating Characters and Who They Are.

To me, when writing, the characters usually come first. Not in the way of a name or how they look, but usually how they feel and the first action I can see them doing. I wrote HARROW CITY based on me sitting on a balcony alone, wishing I could dive into the swimming pool below. That was the start of that entire story idea. From there I pictured a girl, far from me, who was alone because she was trapped and the room behind her was her prison. Developing that, I created my witch-heir, Nova, and then Tollen, the magician, simply followed.

When I first thought about writing IMPERIAL INFILTRATION, I could imagine a servant girl moving around a dining table, collecting dishes and talking with other staff. She was small yet part of something bigger in the palace she worked at. I knew her sister had left but there was the rumour of that sister returning, but not as Aritha knew her. The names came after I had the image of that scene because I knew who I wanted my younger sister of the two to be, why she was there and what she was facing.

Upon that story taking shape, I took pieces of my own experience to better understand Aritha and what she was feeling having lost her sister. I created Aritha to be a stronger version of what I wanted to be. She'd been grieving, broken and lost, with nowhere else to turn but give herself up to a life of a servant, but she still went on. I tweeted the other day, jokingly, that I wanted a tattoo saying, "What would Aritha do?" because despite everything, she's my strong character. Her sister, Reya, is the praised one, carrying their legendary name better, going further places, but Aritha battles every day just to stay upright in the harsh conditions of the palace kitchens, serving and working. What would Aritha do? She'd take a deep breath and go on.

I'm planning a story called EVERYTHING AROUND US and some characters will be battling with something they need to overcome within themselves. I'll write them broken but then I'll write them becoming stronger. I write my characters in similar situations I've been in, in the barest sense, and then see how they overcome them to draw on that.

I don't entirely create a character off someone because once you start dropping those sorts of hints, everyone is all, "So if I'm this character, then who is this person in real life?" and that gets super annoying. But if their story fits (what I've already created) with something I know I can see and experience, I'll take a little piece of that and drop it into them.

Each of my characters represents something for me to follow and explore. Aritha shows determination that I can write when I feel like I'm losing my own. Reya is the personification of searching for something bigger and following dreams. In HARROW CITY, Nova shows being trapped in her own world and wanting to break free but being unable to, watching everyone else go about their lives when she can't. She can only remember the Before in her story. Tollen represents wanting to be someone else when he's been forced into a mould of what other people wanted him to be. He finds the strength inside of himself to break free from that.

I won't go on with a character until I can know their initial thoughts and situation. Sometimes, I see that it's something from their past and I write that down until I can pave the way forward. Other times, I see them building up from what tried to knock them down and work backwards, finding what that thing was.

Basically, I use my characters when I've fixed them in their place in a story to explore their lives and to find inspiration to go on myself.

Legends in Stories.

As a reader, I love legends in young adult novels. They add a sense of history and mystery--and often magic--to the overall story. A lot of the time, legends provide a heroic figure of inspiration to the protagonist and that's what I love: that they're not so utterly great alone that they're above having people to look up to, to remember when accomplishing greatness.

As a writer, I incorporate my love of legends into my own stories. In Imperial Infiltration, there's a legend about a "snow girl" called Rowen, who survived a desert for three months because she found a sort of dreamscape place where she discovered her survival powers. When writing, I use legends to foreshadow future events. (Book Two of II spoiler here) For instance, Rowen's legend isn't just a legend. It's a story that happened years ago, long enough to become something of a myth but is actually the pathway for Aritha Zenii to discover something deep inside of her soul. I have other legends of a desert princess which is foreshadowing the talent of the Emperor's daughter and the story behind Con's eyepatch. A theme is that most take place in the desert and that's because that area is forbidden in the story so it holds most of the secrets that has made it so off-limits. But legends surround it because I think deserts are unending and mysterious and anything can literally happen in them. With fantasy, anything really can.

I hadn't found an incredible author who incorporated legends into their books until I read Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton. She has no shortage of legends winding into that desert setting for Amani to listen to, and I adored it. Honestly, this series is my reader salvation for a quality in the stories I love to read. These legends inspire different characters in the story and give them a level of what they want to achieve. It's not just one legend that becomes an obsession but lots of legends, all affecting the present events, years after they supposedly happened. After reading both Rebel and Traitor to the Throne, I became heavily inspired to find my own legends and stories. Mine also take place in a desert, but its laid out in an entirely different way and concept and leads to far different things.

In the fantasy draft I'm currently working on, Mad Rebellion, the protagonist is told a story by her grandmother, about a girl who peered over the edge of a well and fell down into the depths of the water below. But rather than drown, she sunk in a panic, down far enough that she discovered a world beyond. The protagonist reflects on this at a pivotal part of the story, where she finds the doorway to a world that caters to her thoughts and she can't help but make the comparison between her curiosity and that of the girl's who fell to another world entirely.

I think young adult fantasy definitely needs more legends in them because they allow creativity to extend just beyond the current events of the story; they allow exploration of different themes to the ones being written about. In Imperial Infiltration, magic isn't acknowledged but with the use of legends, I still got to write about those with a bit more to them to form a path to Book Two, where I can start bringing in the true magical side of the story. I'm using legends to slowly bring that concept into what is a fantasy duology.

I'm always up for more fantasy young adult books with this theme so if there's any recommendations, come find me on Twitter and let me know!

Stardust in Your Soul

A writer and reader's endurance through mental health...

This morning, a girl that has become one of my closest friends from afar, introduced me to a beautiful poem by Nikita Gill that moved me to tears immediately. It's been a long time since I've cried from something other than my own thoughts so it was nice to read this and cry because of it's beauty.

What You Are, What You're Not

You are:

A walking, breathing universe

of thoughts, ideas, stories as your stars

supernovas full of adventure in your veins

galaxies of emotion.

An untamed, powerful ocean

of every experience that made you

into a journey full of storms

and quiet starry nights.

A sky that has held

the worst of storms

but never forgotten

to let the sun shine through

But you are not and never have been

an apology, a mistake

or a thing to be forgotten.

Remember that in the way

you wear your skin every morning.

And I read this over and over until I couldn't actually see anymore because my vision had blurred with either tears or from being tired. As someone prone to apologising for anything and everything, my fault or otherwise, the last verse struck me deep enough to stick. I adore poetry but it becomes slippery in my mind no matter how much I love it. But that last verse spoke to me. I am not to be forgotten. I am not to be an apology. Where I'm at in my life right now, this was important for me to read.

I debated over writing this blog post. I wanted it to be honest and me as opposed to a cry for help because I don't want that. This is not that.

In my life right now, I'm struggling. It's been months since I've gone out with friends or even seen a couple of close friends at a time. It's been a few weeks since I've been able to dredge up some excitement at that prospect. Talking to my friends via social media is comfortable for me because there's no requirement to go out when I don't want to. I have very little desire to leave my house because there's no comfort out there for me, a person struggling with numerous health issues, including fainting. As someone who has that worry hanging over them constantly, it's hard to pull up excitement and to look forward to going out. All that remains is dread and anxious anticipation. From this, anxiety has stemmed cripplingly so for me. That, in turn, has pushed me further into a place that I don't want to leave.

My mind is a maze of wonder and creativity. Somehow, despite not going out very much unless it's with the anchors that are my mum or sister (and even then, I won't dare go far), my creativity has not left me. It's all that's left. So whilst my mind flourishes and builds other worlds for me to get out  and live through and explore, my body fails me and I lack the strength now to push it to overcome these fears. Because I don't want to. There's something in me that cowers and snarls at the thought of that. Some days, I can go walking and think, "I am capable of coming back from this. I am capable of finding friends again rather than relying on my friendships from afar because there's no physical demand of seeing them. I am capable of finding love without wanting to back away because I know there's no way I can go out on dates with my current state of health."

I've always depended on stories to help me escape. Now my bedroom has become a comfortable prison in which I've locked myself up in to protect myself from my fears in the world. Dramatic, right? I'm a writer, I blow things up. But reading that poem, I can recognise that I've survived storms and self-destruction in my past but that I'm walking through the biggest storm I've ever had to endure. Some days, my legs don't even keep me up in order for me to walk on. So there's no end in sight for me right now. But perhaps nothing is a mistake. I go onto Pinterest every day, hoping for inspiration, and I find it. I just can't take it and apply it to myself anymore in the way that matters.

Yesterday, I wrote over 4,000 words on my current novel, bringing my goal closer to achieving. Great, amazing, go me. But it's no physical effort or fight to sit at my own desk, in my own bedroom, forgetting to eat breakfast because I've fallen into the world inside my own head. I think to myself I should go to a coffee shop near me and write there. I should compromise: take what I love and what I find comfort in and situate myself some place that I need to develop comfort in.

I made a move that I thought I'd never make this morning. It was a thing I've only confided to one person and she's incredible (Marian, I love you, and thank you because I finally sent that thing). Then I got the poem sent to me in way of my friend, Sara, needing a caption for a picture. She sent three poems; two were short and powerful, but the longer one stuck with me and I needed to share it. I needed to share me because I don't think some people who have put pressure on me to be the old me they once knew can understand just how big that storm in my head is right now and why that hinders me in being who I should be.

Anxiety and depression is part of mental health and a major part at that. They're very real and valid and they shouldn't be forced to go away from someone. I'm around some people who think that they can force these problems out of me rather than softly encourage me to take small steps at a time. The problem is that the wonderful people (virtually) holding my hand and taking small steps with me are the people far away, who I can't see but spend all day talking to. But they're there and it doesn't matter that they're not nearer to me because they're doing the most for me right now. I've had to cut off friendships that were suffocating me or adding mental strain to my already crumbling wellbeing and they were steps I'd struggled to take and put off. But I did it and I've been chided for that, for trying to look after a part of my mind, because they were still friends but they weren't good or understanding friends for my current state. In a fragile place, a person needs friends to understand them, not pressure them or be argued with when they can't do something.

It's not all doom-and-gloom, don't get me wrong. Some days, I'll wake up smiling, having slept well, even if I don't quite feel like I have. I'll still get up, get dressed and make an effort to go walking for a while. I leave my house alone occasionally and just get lost in thoughts, which all go right to a novel I'm planning because that will be my recovery and survival book. I'll be passing my problems onto someone who will carry them better and do something to overcome them, someone with support around him, someone who gives himself a chance. And through that, I may inspire myself with my own character. That'll be called EVERYTHING AROUND  US, referring to the beauty of everything around, whether it's seen or not.

Right now, I have 12,000 words left to write of my 50,000 word goal for July and I know I can do that. Give me writing to do and I can smash it in the way I feel able. Writing is the only thing I have left and I'll be damned if I let it slip away too. It may give me some strain headaches but it's my forte and what I can surround myself with in positivity because I know that I'm good at it. I can finally hold up my hand and admit that I'm a talented writer and that took me years to be able to do.

CampNaNoWriMo and Mad Rebellion!

At the start of this blog, I used to post every Wednesday. Then I lost inspiration of what to write; after a while, I renewed my efforts and tried to turn this into a more writing/book-related blog. Now, I do still tend to post once a week but I always feel like I have a lot to share to those who want to hear. So my posting schedule is all over the place.

But today seems appropriate to talk about the topic I want to post about because of two things. Firstly, I hit a major goal with my current project. Secondly, I shared a part of that project with a trusted friend-slash-reader who is so loyal to my writing its actually incredible.

I've been taking part in CampNaNoWriMo for the first time and set myself a target of 50,000 words. I thought that was pretty ambitious to someone who forgets their own goals and then yells about having not met them. But I went ahead and made that my goal to hit by the end of July. So off I went into a new adventure to write and reach this word count with.

Said adventure has been titled Mad Rebellion and it's a fantasy retelling of the famous Alice in Wonderland. Aaaaand yesterday, I hit over halfway to my goal! I felt so close to not reaching it but come evening time, I made myself sit down and write with determination whilst watching Word kindly tell me when I reached 25,000 words. I was actually sweating by the time I checked and I'd hit 25,200 words.

Mad Rebellion is the story of Amina who works as a baker and follows the instruction of a fortune-teller and takes a drink that allows her glimpses into another, very different world. One day, a boy comes into the bakery where she works and leaves a red coin, which prompts her to find the fortune-teller once more and demand to know what's happening. This leads her to find the "doorway" to Wondering Land. The world Amina finds is divided in two, depicted mainly by colours. Ruling over it is the "red side", where a queen sits on her throne. Fighting that power is the Hatter, the leader of the purple rebellion, trying to claim her throne back, as she's the rightful ruler. Years ago, the red queen's mother was the king's commander. But she overthrew the king and ended his rule, bringing her own family into power. The Hatter is the forgotten princess of that king who just wants her father's legacy to continue. When Amina literally falls into Wondering Land, she's wanted by both sides because she's the added piece for either side to gain the upper hand. She has to choose who gets her loyalty, as each ruler demands something different from her and her choice will affect the result of the war Wondering Land is caught in.

Along the way, Amina meets creepy rabbits, a fortune-teller who serves as the go-between through Wondering Land and Ferran (where Amina comes from) and pays the price for it, twins that show her what she could be depending on her choices, and finds love deep among the madness of the strange world she finds herself starting to like.

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I've written this book for two of my friends. They showed me a different side to the original Wonderland and characters, in two very different ways, and spurred my interest to find out what more this tale could offer in terms of weirdness and to reach an older audience. Earlier today, I sent one of my friends the first two chapters of Mad Rebellion and nearly cried happy tears at the feedback they gave me. When you know you're writing a story and dedicating it to certain people in your mind, you get nervous when you send them it, hoping they'll love it, even the messy glimpse of a first draft. But it was loved and stirred intrigue and that's the most I had hoped for in the stage that the story's in. I still have a long, long way to go with telling it but I'm happy to have passed over halfway at the right time for CampNaNoWriMo and the goal I set.

Stories (In the Making and) Untold.

"Writers write; everyone else just talks about it."

The quote above, seen on an online writing course I've been flicking through, has stuck with me for a few weeks. It's been there throughout my Imperial Infiltration edits, through drafting my current project, and now, as my notebook is being filled with yet even more ideas.

These are ideas I'm immensely excited about. You know the initial idea, it's all fresh and new and able to be explored without the messiness of first drafts corrupting it yet. So my notebook is sprawling with new things and I just wanted to share a little about these ideas.

Notebook Writing:

For me, I can't write on paper so my notebook boasts the messiest of my writing snippets. Barely does it have anything beyond a few lines that makes it into the story. For me, my notebook is for the initial idea, for random words I want to jot down for a story, and for mindmaps, which has been a new and fun thing. I've also outlined a story in my notebook (once) but I can never write proper, good sentences in there. My hand forgets to write--it only knows typing when it comes to creativity.

But my notebook has my mind in it: messy, uncultured, scribbled-out, uncoordinated. And at the beginning, that's all story ideas are; they're small things, like the slight breeze coming in through an open window that coaxes you to get up and feel something bigger than just that hint. That's what my notebook is.

Desert Ascending - (It's not the real title but just once that's been floating around in my mind). This is the second half to the Imperial Infiltration duology, the book I'm currently querying with. It will completely wrap up the Zenii sisters' story whilst throwing a whole lot of extras in there. It's the only book I've ever outlined in preparation to write. In 28 points, I've outlined this second story and I'm just waiting for the right moment to return to it. It seems like bad luck to start writing it whilst querying with it's companion.

Everything Around Us - As most know, I write fantasy stories. It's mainly because I read a lot of fantasy, it is where my passion in literature lives, but I also have a massive love for contemporary young adult books. And that's what this story in my mind is: a contemporary. But I think writing that sort of thing requires a skill to not cross the border between having the narrative witty or pretentious/asshole-y. But it's there and I've drafted out an opening paragraph for both Hazel and Nicholas, the main characters carrying the story. Surrounding them, I've fleshed out some secondary characters and a plotline. Basically, the idea is to have Hazel as this constantly wandering free spirit who finds her way into a film class, where Nicholas, having suffered an incredibly bad year due to depression and anxiety, has already been bullied by his older sister (Argument Extraordinaire) into attending. Through that, they meet three other people and they all form this weird and wonderful friendship group where each of them has their own uniqueness to bring to the story, all whilst trying to capture the beauty of life around them through this class, when they can't always directly see it. That's the theme of the story: beauty is there if you look for it; it's there even if you don't.

Laptop Writing -

Maybe some people have different views or too many deadlines to only stick to one story per time but I only have the mental ability to draft one story at a time. This one is still my magician story which I've admittedly had to halt a little during this month (explained below) but I'm so close to finishing. It's the story of Tollen Erst who is trying to fight his past, lie by lie, and cover up a terrible secret and find redemption for it in Harrow city. At the right-hand of the king, he serves as an advisor, where he decides the fate of criminals through seeing magic, expressed through a set of dice. Each dice is made up of six symbols, all representing something, either good or bad. Alongside Tollen, the story has incredibly strong female characters (a gang of them) who basically own the story, especially Dhae Chalon, an artist with a touch of magic in her and who the citizens of Harrow say walked right from the throne of Hell itself. So that's proving fun and dark and strange to write. It's a standalone that I'm planning companion novellas for because there's so much that happens to different characters in different places before the story starts that I want to explore.

At the start of July, I began my first CampNaNoWriMo project, which is a fantasy, young adult Alice in Wonderland retelling. It was in planning for a few weeks before I started typing it down. So far, I'm making decent progress with it. Not yet enough but all projects have different progression times!

Mad Rebellion - I watched a stage performance of Wonderland and it was incredible and inspired me to think beyond the classic box of Alice in Wonderland. It's been playing on my mind and my notebook now bears the start of an outline (I'm outlining as much as I can do as I'm still learning how so I then write up to where I point out and then go back). It's a strange story of a reluctant Red Queen who never asked for her throne, an Alice who loves a little too much, twins that reflect other personalities and a Hatter who brings newer madness to Wondering Land. It has wonderfully crazy themes and my Pinterest board is so inspiring for it.

Even though I recently made a Where I'm At post, this one just says about the things my mind is constantly at work with and forming. If anyone wants to know more, find me on Twitter here, where I've posted aesthetics and progress updates, or on Pinterest to see visuals of the things I'm working on here!