Food in Latinx Fantasy

One of the reasons my story takes place in this country is because I grew up around a lot of people of this culture. The country has a beautiful rich culture that is also influenced from their African ancestors, but also the country is beautiful. One of the things that made writing this so difficult was about the food. I love their food. When I lived in Georgia, which is where I went to school from first grade until I graduated high school, I loved when the school did culture day! Learning about every culture was just fascinating, and I loved every minute of it! I discovered a weakness for this countries food at the time.

These are some of the dishes in my Latinx historical fantasy

Moqueca Capixaba

Ceviche is also a popular dish in all Latinx countries.

Shrimp Ceviche

Ceviche of Sea Bass

Maria Mole

Cajuzinho 

Writing in Isolation During COVID-19

Hello World,

I hope wherever you are you are trying to stay as safe as possible. This is going to be a difficult next few months. 

My town so far has not had any major issues as our count of the infected is still low, but I am taking extreme precautions. I'm lucky to where my current job allows me to work from home, and I always buy in extra every grocery story run, so I have a good amount of stock. I work part-time as a librarian and until further notice all libraries are closed. 

It's scary. I don't know if it's a sign that I've read too many dystopian novels, but I FEEL like I'm living in a dystopian book where a highly dangerous drug is spreading and killing people. Where food is scarce and everyone is fighting over getting to the stores to buy the last of everything before it runs out. Where the money is dried up and people are struggling. I might have read it in books, but it's starting to seem too real.


On Writing

I have two diverse YA fantasies that I am editing to make sure I have it as perfect as possible to ensure that it's ready for DVpit. In my historical fantasy I'm adding some minor changes to add more magic to the story. My fantasy is loaded with magic. I'm mostly glad I'm getting more time to edit and write it after the past two years of disappointment from contest. Will keep you posted. 

Angela Quarles 7 Steps to Revising Your NaNoWriMo Story

So a USA Today Bestselling author who is also a participant of NaNoWriMo. Her 2010 NaNoWriMo story became a bestseller. These are her tips for revising her NaNoWriMo stories.

1. Read it through in its entirety, but don’t get hung up on nitpick-y editing. At this stage I’m looking to see what the heck I’ve written and make notes of any changes I’d need to make. Some of these are big-picture thoughts I write in the Notes section for that scene in Scrivener, or it’s a footnote I’ve added to a word or sentence. 

At this point, I’m only concentrating on the big picture—the bones of the story. This is the Emergency Room stage—your story is bleeding, the plot has so many holes, or is missing an entire limb, and so you should only be figuring out what the massive wounds might be and how to fix them. Don’t worry about the small cuts. Not yet. Resist.

2. As I’m going through, I also write down a short summary of each scene in the Synopsis “card” in Scrivener.

3. Once done, I go back through each “card” and make sure that the scene has a goal, motivation, and conflict, or if it’s a sequel scene or transition scene, I make note of that and see what might need to be added. This is a final check to make sure I haven’t missed some important story bones.

4. I then take a deep breath and see if I can write down a 25-30 word or less “logline”. If I can’t succinctly capture the protagonist, their goal, and the conflict, while also getting across the tone and genre, I know my story could be in trouble. 

Some of you plotters might have already done this before you even started writing—make sure it still applies!

5. If I’m really having trouble seeing the “shape” of the story, I print out the scene synopses and make notes on there, marking and shifting things around. It’s essential to find some way of seeing your story as a whole, instead of getting mired down in the words. Believe me, that’s a quick way to feel like you’re drowning in revisions, unable to get a grasp of what needs to be done.

6. Once I’ve let all this marinate and plugged in all the notes where they could be tackled in Scrivener, I start revising. But, I don’t do it by starting from the beginning and editing and changing as I go. I only dip into the parts of the story that I marked during the read through. This keeps me focused on the big picture. It also has the added benefit of preventing story fatigue. 

I’ve found that the fewer times I have to read the story, the fresher it stays and the less of a chance I get sick of it by the time I’m ready to publish. The scene synopses help at this stage to keep me oriented so I don’t have to reread each scene.

7. Then I read it again, smoothing out the patches as I go, and hand it off to my Alpha reader.

After that, it goes through what I’d call edits, instead of revisions, and that’s a different tactic. But I do another revision pass after it comes back from the Alpha reader (again only dipping into the parts that need fixing). 

Next, it goes to the developmental editor I’ve hired in the past. Then I use a color-coding highlighting system to help me self-edit—this is basically my own line editing pass. Then it goes to my Beta readers, then to my line editor/copy editor. I incorporate changes, and then hand it off to two separate proofreaders before I’m ready to format and publish.

But, as I said earlier, I didn’t have all this in place when I first started. So if you don’t have a critique group or Alpha and Beta readers, don’t despair. ForBreeches, I participated in several forums and used a ton of Beta readers until I found ones that were solid. I also found places like critiquecircle.com extremely helpful in learning and honing my craft. Many people read chapters (or the whole story) there and helped me get it into shape.

How you handle revisions will be depend on how you think and perhaps how you drafted—are you a plotter or a pantser?—so have patience as you learn what works for you. The important thing to keep in mind:

Take it in stages, working from big fixes down to small fixes.

There is no sense in fine-tuning the cadence of a sentence in the opening scene, getting it just perfect, and then realizing that the whole first scene needs to go because it doesn’t do what you need it to do for the sake of your story.

Article on Worldbuilding

I found an advice article on world-building on a blog called Freshman Fifteen, it's columns written by authors who are having their debut books released in 2015, and one of them has a fantasy novel releasing. Victoria Aveyard author of the Red Queen coming out in 2015 wrote about world-building for books, and I thought I would share it. (I found a lot of the material in this helpful since the first book I wrote was YA urban fantasy and I mostly made it all up as I went along). 

Source:http://freshmanfifteens.com/freshman-fifteen-author-victoria-aveyard-talks-worldbuilding/

I’m lucky in a lot of ways. 1) I got my hair ombré-d last September and haven’t had to touch it up since and 2) I can pinpoint the exact moment when I discovered my great love of creating stories. I was eight years old, flipping through a Legend of Zelda guidebook while my brother navigated through that god-awful Water Temple. Even back then, I was obsessed with maps, but I’d only had atlases to look at. Now I had an actual fictional map, and it was like setting off a firecracker. I immediately forgot it was my turn to play and got to work with my crayons. A few scribbles later, I had a map of my own. It was a terrible Zelda knockoff, but I didn’t care. My mind was racing. I was already thinking about the people who lived in the little dot cities and what monsters ruled the oceans and mountains. So begins my obsession with world-building, which is easily my favorite part of writing, and one I don’t think any story can be without.

Naturally, some stories require more world-building than others. A fantasy is going to have a lot more intense work than a contemporary, but world-building is equally important to both. In my opinion, world-building isn’t just a way to create the bones of your world. It’s a way to completely envelope yourself in its skin. You might not need to know the layout of your protagonist’s high school, but once you do, it’s that much easier imagine your characters in it. You basically remove one more barrier between yourself and the story, to the point where you’re not even writing it at all. You’re living it, and just happen to be jotting down what’s happening.

I’m a big believer in copying what works, so I’m going to outline what works for me when I start a new project. My own stories err on the side of the fantastical, with expansive worlds and back-story. Summary: I go pretty hard on world-building. My method is probably bit of overkill for a lot of genres, but applies very well to historical, fantasy, sci-fi, and paranormal.

Of course, you’ve gotta kick things off with the kernel of an idea. What kind of story do you want to tell? It can be as simple as one sentence. The rest will come in the world-building, I promise you. Let’s take an example: a boy decides to masquerade as a long lost prince.

I personally like to start with a map. It’s what got me into writing, and it’s just a hobby of mine. Again, not all stories require a map, but anyone can use one. Do it for neighborhoods or star systems, whatever. My favorite tools for mapmaking are graph paper, pens, and Photoshop or its equivalent. Computer programs are particularly helpful for using layers to denote things like geographical formations, roads, political borders etc. My very best advice regarding making maps is to read maps. Atlases are great, and I personally use Google maps on a daily basis. Just have fun and tool around. Look at how rivers interact with coastlines, where lowlands are, how mountains affect nation-building etc. Fictional maps are a must as well. My favorites are, of course, Middle-Earth, Westeros, and Narnia.

After the maps, I like to have a brief history leading up to my story time. Just the basics. Why this place is a monarchy, where the people migrated from, etc. Emphasis on the word brief. This is not the world of your story, but it is a bit of the foundation. Where would Lord of the Rings be without the Second Age? Or Westeros without Aegon’s Conquest? I’ll stop.

Maps and intense histories don’t have to be necessary to the reader (i.e. Harry Potter), but I think they’re essential to the writer. I personally would go nuts if I didn’t have a map of the Red Queen world at hand, even though it’s not something a reader needs to refer to every five seconds.

Back to the example. Now that your basic map and history is set, you know the boy pretending to be a prince grew up in those cool islands you drew. He was raised a pirate. Now he’s got to hide that rough and tumble upbringing to pass himself off as the heir to the throne. See where I’m going? Every step of world-building adds another layer. Bones, then muscle, then skin. Metaphors!

After maps, I usually start my info doc. If you don’t have them already, get down the basics about mountains, rivers, countries, cities, peoples, cultures, languages etc. Basically take your map and fill in the blanks. Go wild. As you do, you’ll naturally want to expand out. Oh, that’s called Whitetooth Mountain? Why? Giant wolves live there? Cool! Write it down! Use it! Go through Wikipedia and random history articles for inspiration. Pretty much all of A Song of Ice and Fire (minus the magic stuff) comes straight from historical events. Remember the Red Wedding? Look up the Black Dinner! I also advise going wild with family trees. I certainly do. Each piece of this will get your story muscles working, and it will be so easy to leap into characters and plot. You’ve pretty much built the mold, and now it’s just a question of pouring a person in. You’ve laid all the groundwork, so the character will pretty much shape themselves.

Now pirate boy has parents, friends, maybe a religion or educational background. You know him. You know what he sees when he wakes up, and why he wants to get so far away from it. This is where plot comes in. Just like character, you’ve got a mold, and you have all you need to fill it up. Pirate boy turned prince. Build from that. Outline, bullet point, index card. This is always the hard part for me (I hate outlining), but it pays off in the long run. By the time you’ve got your outline ready, you not only have a great story, but you’ve got a deep one at that. You know what city pirate boy is going to sail to, and who lives there. It will be second nature to describe, because you already understand it. You built it. This is your world, and it’s that much easier to control.

A word of caution: I am a chronic over world-builder. I get hamstrung by this all the time. I go too deep and I burn out. Red Queen is the project I did the least amount of building on (and it was still a lot), and it was also the first novel I finished. That’s me. I’ve got a limit as to how far I can build before I crap out and get bored. So whenever you feel that twinge and think of greener pastures, sit back. Even if you don’t have outlines, write down some prose. I’m a big believer in quote docs. I have one for every project, where I basically write lines, dialogue, and descriptive prose about stuff I know will happen, or stuff I just think would be cool to include. My favorite lines from my books usually come from these docs, and they’re a nice little carrot to keep you going. “I know this awesome comeback happens in two chapters! I need to get there!”

I can go on forever about world-building (and my Middle-Earth atlas), but I’m going to take my own advice and reel it in. At the end of the day, the point is to feel comfortable in the world you’ve made. You’ll know when you get to that point, because you’ll close your eyes and see what your characters see. Beyond that, you’ll see what came before, what’s beyond that hill, who lives in that house, etc. It’s like shooting practice before a basketball game. Eventually you’ll get to the point where you don’t have to think, and it’s all just feel. That’s my favorite way to write, although it makes me look a bit crazed (according to my roommates).

What are your favorite world-building methods? Better yet, favorite maps and fictional worlds? I won’t lie to you, I am thirsty as hell for an official map of Panem. WHY DO YOU TORMENT ME SO, SUZANNE COLLINS?

Cheers,

Victoria

If you decide to write something for NaNoWriMo 2014 that requires a lot of worldbuilding I highly recommend to plan the month before using this advice for your worldbuilding. 

FINISHED FIXING

I finished fixing my manuscript!

THIS makes me very happy. There were a couple of spots that were bugging me, and I couldn't put my finger on it on how to make it better. So I had to keep brainstorming to see how to make it better.

Now one thing I am worried about is the word count. I feel it's just right, but then a little bit too low. When Asked Veronica Roth on twitter about word count she said 55,000 was a good range. She told me when she started submitting Divergent that it was exactly 55,000 words. Then when she under went revisions with her agent the word count went up to around 78,000. Then when Harper Collins bought Divergent and she did revisions from her editor the final word count went up to 105,000. So I hope I am in an okay range. I like stories that get right into the action and don't mess around adding unnecessary background stories.

Now to decide if I will submit to #PitchWars or not.

Revising

Now that I am done with summer school I am taking the time to revise the couple of spots manuscript that were bugging me. I would sit in class thinking how can I change this? How can I make the plot twist more realistic?

Then in the middle of the night the idea hit me, and I didn't care that my class started at 7am, I had to put that in before I forget. So I sat down

Plus #PitchWars is starting again. I don't know if I will submit again this year. Depending on how fixing the couple of scenes goes I'll decide then.

Another Semester Down

I finally finished this semester. Some of my classes were really hard so I glad this semester is over.

I submitted to PitchWars, and sadly I didn't get in. But one of the mentors gave me some really helpful feedback on my first five pages. So I will be taking that feedback I got from my mentor and working with my beta on getting the first three chapters into shape before I send off to agents in January.

NaNoWriMo Letter from Nora Zelevansky

To all the participants of NaNoWri last November, Nora Zelevansky  a novelist, journalist, essayist, and editor, whose writing has appeared in Elle and Salon wrote a letter to all of those who are working on publishing their NaNoWriMo story.

Dear Writers,

There is a long-standing debate among us about which is more daunting: a blank page or a rough draft. Historically, I consider myself a stalwart of the former camp; something seems preferable to nothing. At least, I thought I felt that way until I recently finished the first draft of a new manuscript, stared into the editing abyss, and promptly developed a case of vertigo.

In 2009, I participated in National Novel Writing Month for the first time. Along with thousands of others, I aimed to write 1,667 words every day for a month in hopes of manifesting an honest-to-goodness book. I hemmed and hawed with the best of them, but ultimately relished the process of letting my imagination steer.

That year, when I finished the original manuscript, I started editing right away. As a journalist, editing is second nature to me: you write, you chop, you edit, you polish. That's how it works. And I was fortunate: in December of the next year, St. Martin's Press offered to publish the book. And in July 2012, my novel hit bookstores.

This past fall, the hoopla quieted. The time had come to sit down and write another book during November. This time, writing the first draft was a little more strenuous. Expectations and self-imposed pressure loomed large, but I kept reminding myself that I could always rewrite. No big deal, right?

Wrong. Once I finished the first draft and had to begin the edit, I felt more overwhelmed than ever. I realized, no matter where you are in your journey as a writer, the editing and notes process remains arduous and stressful. It will always test you.

I am currently awaiting notes. And I am terrified. I know that I'll likely be facing down some overarching issues without easy fixes. But I want to rewrite and take notes because I want my book to be as good as possible. We all feel that way, of course. Still, "daunting" doesn't begin to describe the feeling of staring at a document that you created, wondering how the hell you're going to take it to a final draft.

Be kind to yourself. As hard as it is, try to remember that Rome wasn't built in a day. Even award-winning authors have to rewrite. A first draft is never the final product. Don't give up.

Ultimately, rewriting is hard. Maybe even harder than staring at a blank page. So I say, applaud yourself for the effort and enjoy the miraculous moments when an edit works and the language begins to click. And I will try to do the same. After all, there are few things as satisfying as that.

Nora Zelevansky 

NaNoWriMo Letter From Marissa Meyer

In my email, this is soemthing that New York Times author Marissa Meyer who in 2008 wrote her novel Cinder during NaNoWriMo and got it published.

Stars above, Fellow Novelist, you did it!

Whether you tackled the 50K challenge last November or have spent the past five years plugging away at your first draft, you now stand among the few, the proud, the somewhat mad. You wrote anovel.

If you harbor dreams of seeing that novel on the shelves of your local bookstore, then writing "The End" is the first step toward making that dream a reality. In fact, it's the most important step, and you might be surprised at how few aspiring writers ever get there.

But not you. You set out to write a novel, and that's just what you did. You toiled, you struggled, you laughed, you cried, and when it was all done, you cheered and celebrated this awesome achievement.*

Now you're ready to tackle whatever comes next. Which is, naturally, the process of revision.

There is a lot that can be said about revision. Countless magazine articles and blog posts and even entire books** have been written on this very topic. Some writers loathe revisions, while others love them. Some writers find them tedious and agonizing, while others think they hold more magic than the first draft. (I fall into the latter group, myself.) Whichever camp you belong to, the fact is that revisions are necessary. Revisions eradicate inconsistencies and fill plot holes. They increase tension and deepen characters. They bring worlds to life and make your writing sing.

So here's my advice as you embark on this exciting second leg of your noveling quest:

Take your time.

I mean it. Don't rush the revision process. Yes, I know it can be painful to pace yourself now, when you seem so very close to a finished product. Maybe you've already bookmarked the websites of your preferred literary agents, drafted your query letter, and made a list of famous authors you think might be interested in writing a blurb for your jacket. Maybe you're ready to jump in—right now!

But rushing through the revision process can not only result in a manuscript that may not be as finished as you think it is, it can also cheat you out of some of the most euphoric discoveries about your own novel. Remember when you were writing that first draft and you got an out-of-nowhere idea for such a brilliant plot twist you actually squealed out loud—prompting everyone on the bus to slooowly shift away from you?

Well, guess what. Those lightning-strike moments happen during revision, too! And they have the potential to take your novel to an entirely new place. To raise it above all those other manuscripts that cross an agent's or editor's desk every day.

So take this time to re-explore your story from the beginning. Experience every plot twist anew and ask if you can make it even more exciting, even more surprising, even more intense. Delve into the backstories and motivations of every character and question if they can be more intriguing and more insightful. Consider foreshadowing, sensory details, underlying themes, character quirks, building suspense, and subplots that tie up nice and neat at just the right time. I don't know about you, but I certainly can't keep all these things in my brain at once, which is why I work them into the story gradually, one draft at a time. Layer upon layer upon layer.

Take your time. Be patient. Experience the thrill of falling in love with your book all over again. Eventually you'll reach a point where there's nothing else you can do for your novel. You'll have written the best book you're capable of, and it will finally be ready to be sent out into the world.

Trust me, it will be worth the wait. Happy Revising, Novelists!

Marissa 

Editing

I am now back at school. Vacation was hectic but I was able to begin writing the sequel to my nanowrimo trilogy I plan to self publish. I wanted to self publish it while the genre is still high and there are readers out there. But as vacation time is over and now it's time to do the most exhausting thing with my project.

Editing. This has to be the most dreadful part about writing the novel, going back and editing the approximate 55,00 to 75,00 WORDS that you wrote back in November. It's just pages and pages of things that need work. My first draft was completed at approximately 65,000 words, and once I do some editing myself, then send the chapters to my critique partner, I end up with a higher word count that could range over 100,000 words. I'll have to see what editing takes me with this NaNoWriMo project. I was so tempted to go back and edit the what I had written. After day one of NaNoWriMo I had 15,000 words written. All of it was mispelled and all but I had to remember from king, don't look back at that draft. 

I know this particular project will be very hard to sell, but it's something different which is what all publishers want. My writing teacher thinks I did something new with this particular sub-genre. Hope all goes well. Happy editing everyone.

Character for NaNoWriMo Project

I'm one of those writers where I need a visual of my characters before I begin working on my new writing project for NaNoWriMo, so these are the people I pick that resemble my characters the most. ( I DO NOT OWN THESE IMAGES)

Character for Realms Torn

So while I continue to write books two and three in my trilogy for publishing purposes, these are the actors who I would pick for my book, and have pictured in my head. This really helps me to have a visual of the characters so I know who I am writing, how to describe their looks, what kind of personalities will they have, and what will be the major challenge in the series. I have minored in theater, so the actors are picked are the ones who match the personality of the characters in my trilogy. I DO NOT OWN THESE IMAGES

La Terres de Fey

Nephilim

or