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. 

CampNaNoWriMo Winner!

So this happened today!

I always wanted to do CampNaNoWriMo, but I've always been too busy with summer school to do it. I drafted 40,000 words of the sequel to my middle grade series. I'm going to let this sit for three weeks before I plunge into the editing.

Camp NaNoWriMo

I've decided to take the plunge, and try do CampNaNoWriMo. For those who don't know it takes place during July, and sometimes April in which you set your own word count goal. Normally during November you have to hit 50,000 words. Some writers don't do it because November is hectic with the holiday season.

I'm going to write the sequel to the middle grade series I hope to get an agent for. It's an idea I've been brewing in my head, but the agents I've been following said they are looking for a middle grade series. So by writing this sequel it will let me know if it's possible.

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.

New Years Resolutions

With the year 2015 almost at an end. I decided to post my New Years Resolution list. 

Writer Goals

1. Get an agent. This has to be my biggest goal that I have yet to accomplish. People seem the criticize that just because I'm young I shouldn't really try for an agent. Veronica Roth got her agent when she was in college, so it's possible.

2. Finish the fantasy series I outlined. I wrote a fantasy series that was bugging me, and whether or not it ever gets published who knows. Maybe if it was a two book series when the time came provided I get an agent.

3. Read more adult books. So far the only books I mostly read are New Adult and Young Adult. I have a hard time finding adult books since I read a lot of popular ones when I was in middle school. I'm venturing into historical at the moment. Plus an author friend of mine has a historical coming out in March which I am extremely excited about.

Personal Goals

1. Lay off caffeine. As a nutrition major you would think I would know coffee is bad for me but I still can't help myself. My goal is to to try and lay off how much coffee I drink. Plus I tend to stay up at night. 

2. Write my recipe alterations. I really don't have a goal to lose weight because I'm a nutrition major so I eat healthy enough as it is. I decided that I should go about sharing with the world how to enjoy the recipes they love while substituting the ingredients to make it healthier. I don't know if I will make it into a cookbook for if I get my agent for fiction, do a Youtube channel, or post on a blog.

3. Looking for a better part time job. I like my job I have right now, but it's not what I am going to school for. So I have decided that I will want to look for something else.

I hope within the next years I can try to accomplish some of these goals. Happy New Year everyone!

Another Year Completed

This has to be some record of how many book I can write before I end up getting an agent. I want to see if I can get an agent with the historical fiction I wrote. This one took me faster to write because it was a contemporary thriller. So all I had to do was worry about plot.

I'm going to finish with the last edits on my historical that I was really excited about writing for the first time. Then I can hop back to this one when I send out the queries.

7/7/7 Challenge

I was tagged by my fabulous writer friend @WriterRivers to participate in the 7/7/7 challenge.

RULES

• Go to page 7 of your current WIP
• Scroll down to line 7
• Share the next 7 sentences in a blog post.
• After the blog post tag 7 other writers to continue the challenge. 

Adrianna nodded her head. She was about to get into the carriage before she turned around.

            “Carlos I need to ask one thing from you,” Adrianna said. “Not as your queen but as a friend.”

“What is it?” Carlos asked.

“Promise me that you will look after my mother,” Adrianna said.

            “I promise,” Carlos said. “Your grace.”

            Adrianna shook her head. “Carlos how many times must I ask you to call me Adrianna,” she said.

            “Once more my queen,” Carlos said. “If the regent hears me not calling you by your nobility I could lose my head.”

I tag

Amber Riley, Rachel Stevensen, KM Guerin, Diana Gallagher, KT Hanna, Vanya Stoyanova, Katie O'Shea

WINNER

For the third year in a row I won NANOWRIMO! After finals I will spend every waking moment editing, so I can send it out.

NaNoWriMo Check In

This year I tried something different. Instead of what I normally do writing as I go along I ended up outlining my whole book before I wrote it. I outlined chapters, wrote the synopsis, and pitch. I found myself writing faster than I normally do. I do write fast enough as it is, but this time I ended up trying something different and I am amazed with the results I am getting so far.

Hope everyone else is doing well. I plan on posting my playlist for the story soon.

NaNoWriMo Check In

Day Three of NaNoWriMo, and I wrote 10,000 words!

I'm really excited for this story, it's nothing like I ever have written before. Normally I draft faster than this but this semester is piling up on me.

HAPPY NANOWRIMO

NaNoWriMo Pep Talk from Chuck Wendig

Imagine being allowed to do something you’re not supposed to do.

Imagine you’re given the keys to a mud-bogging Bronco, or a dune buggy, or a Lamborghini. And then, you’re pointed toward a field. A soccer field outside a high school, or maybe just a wide open grassland. Nobody there. No kids playing. No animals frolicking. In fact, right now, nobody is here to see you at all.

You have total freedom to rev the engine, slam the pedal to the floor, and gun it through that field. You can do donuts, spinning the car wildly about, flinging up mud, leaving tracks that look like the calligraphy of an old, mad god.

You can slop mud on the car. You can get out and dance in the grass.

You can do whatever you want.

This is not something we’re particularly used to, as adults. My toddler gets it. He isn’t fenced in by the boundaries of adulthood—which, okay, yes, that means he doesn’t necessarily know not to shove a ham sandwich into a whirring fan (instant ham salad!) or not to climb the tallest thing and leap off it like a puma.

But it also means he doesn’t know why he can’t just pick up a pen and start drawing. It means he has no problem grabbing a blob of Play-Doh and creating whatever his fumbling little hands can manage. It means that he’ll grab a Transformers toy and half-transform it into some lumbering robot-car monstrosity—and when an adult might say, “No, no, it’s like this or it’s like that; it’s a robot or it’s a car,” he’s like, “Uh, yeah, no. Go back to your tax forms and your HGTV, stupid adult, I’ve just created a Frankencarbot and you can go hide your head in the sand-swept banality of grown-up life, sucker.”

His entire creative life is the “Everything Is Awesome” song from The LEGO Movie. Because he doesn’t know what he can or can’t do. He doesn’t know about art or form or criticism or any of that. He can do whatever he wants. (Ham sandwiches and fan blades aside.)

And you can do whatever you want, too.

The blank page is yours. Cast aside worries over art and criticism. Imagine a land without rules. Imagine that nobody has ever told you that you cannot or should not do this thing. Those people were wrong. Forget those voices. Because, for real?

It’s an empty field and you’ve got the keys to a freaking Ferrari.

It’s a white tablecloth and you’ve got ketchup, mustard, and relish.

It’s a blank page and you’ve got all the letters and words you need.

Rev the engine and take the ride. Paint with all the colors the condiments at your table allow. Create whatever robot-human monstrosities your mind cares to conjure. Crack open your chest and plop your heart onto the page.

Right now: just write. Donuts in an empty field.

Leave your mark.

Chuck Wendig is the author of the Heartland Trilogy, the Miriam Black series, and The Kick-Ass Writer.

NaNoWriMo Pep Talk From Erin Morgenstern

Dear Brave, Beautiful NaNoWriMo Writer,

I feel a bit like I am writing this from the other side of the looking glass. I am more accustomed to being the participant and not the pep talker. Also, “pep” is a strange word. The Online Etymology Dictionary informs me that it dates from 1912 as a shortened form of “pepper” figuratively meaning spirit or energy. (“Pep talk” only dates back to 1926.) It sounds to me more like a soft drink or a nickname for a small dog. Feel free to think of this pep talk as a small dog full of spirit or energy.

I have been where you are. I suspect this might feel like someone yelling encouragement from a far dry shore, sipping a fancy-glassed drink with a little paper umbrella precariously perched atop it, waving with my free hand while you swim through icy, toe-numbing water. But I have been in that water, many times. My toes have been numb during those dismal days when even minimal wordage seems unattainable and that 50K beach is barely visible through the salt-spray surf. There are probably sharks involved in this analogy as well.

(True confession: I love analogies. I also love adverbs. There, I said it. I love adverbs so much I sometimes contemplate getting an –ly tattooed behind my ear to encourage the whispering of sweet, sweet adverbs. But I digress.)

I participated in my first NaNoWriMo in 2003, after years of thinking about writing and not actually putting words down on paper. I managed around 15K before I quit.

I’m not sure why—perhaps I am determined, perhaps I am simply stubborn—but I attempted again the next year and made it to 50k. And again the year after that, and the year after that, and so on and so forth, the most recent being 2009. I have a 6/1 winning record over 7 years. I think my personal best is in the range of 80k in 27 days or something like that. The pride that comes with that winner icon is still a joy. (I particularly liked the Viking-themed year, those were good icons.) And I do so love a progress bar, that gorgeous visual representation of word count progress. I’m a visual person, so that bar helps, it really does.

2010 marked the first NaNoWriMo that I haven’t participated since that first try, and I didn’t have the time mostly because I was in the midst of my final edits for The Night Circus, which began life as a surprise tangent in NaNovel ’05 and was very roughly, sprawlingly drafted during NaNo ’06 & ’07. I am aware that this is cheating. I’m sorry. In my defense, I’m not certain it had enough plot at that point to be considered the same novel.

The circus was my variation on the wise and ancient NaNo wisdom: when in doubt, just add ninjas. I had this plodding, Edward Gorey-esque thing with mysterious figures in fur coats being mysterious and doing very little else. I got tremendously bored with it because nothing was happening so I sent the otherwise boring characters to a circus. And it worked. I ended up tossing that beginning and focusing purely on the circus. An imaginary location I created out of desperation expanded and changed and became its own story over many non-November months of revisions and more revisions and now it is all grown-up and book-shaped and published and bestselling. And it all started with NaNoWriMo.

I like to think of NaNo-ing as excavating. You uncover different things at the 30K mark than you do at 10K. Things that felt like desperate, random nonsense on page 72 (the abandoned broken pocket watch, a partially obscured tattoo, that taxidermied marmot on the mantelpiece) are suddenly important and meaningful on page 187. Everything could hinge on the fate of that marmot. Or the marmot may be a red herring. Or perhaps the marmot is just a marmot. You have to keep writing to find out.

Even if you’re an outliner, leave room for the unexpected things to sneak in. Surprises are half the fun, the spontaneous road trips through tangents and subplots. They might end up being more important than you think. And if they’re not, you can always edit them out after November. No one has to know so for now, for this glorious November, you can do whatever you please. It’s your world to create and explore and even destroy if you want.

I wish I could think of cool, witty things to say. I want to mix you each the beverages of your choice, cocktails or sodas or tea or foam-topped espresso drinks that all magically maintain perfect drinking temperature. Bring you truffles or tira misu or chocolate-covered popcorn and give you wrist massages while whispering these encouraging, fortune-cookie bits of wisdom-esque whatnot garnered in my years of NaNo-ing:

Never delete anything. If you can’t stand to look at it, change the font to white and keep going.

If possible, get a running start. It gives you flexibility for later in the month when you desperately need to do something, anything that doesn’t involve writing once in a while.

Do something, anything that doesn’t involve writing once in a while. Take a walk, go to a museum, do yoga, paint your toenails, spin around in circles. Shake your brain up so the ideas can move around.

Backup. Frequently. Flash drives are your friends. Also, I hear you can store things on clouds now but I’m not sure how that works. It sounds very whimsical, though, and I am a fan of whimsy.

Take risks. (Microsoft Word wanted to autocorrect that to “Take care.” Clearly, Word does not understand NaNoWriMo. Also, this is why I normally write in Scrivener. Scrivener would never suggest such a thing.)

When in doubt, just add ninjas. (Ninjas do not need to be actual ninjas.) (But they can be.)

Let yourself be surprised.

I wish you happy, daring writing laced with surprises. Have fun. Bonne chance.

Erin Morgenstern

Have Your Inspiration Board Ready to Go

To help you get through NaNoWriMo make sure you have an inspiration board in pintrest.

For example I'm going to show you the one that Kami Garcia made.

I agree with Kami about being visual I have always been a visual learner. Before I changed my major in college to science I was originally in the arts. So when it comes to writing I have pictures of things that relate to my story to give me inspiration. Here are three things that can help you get the visual.

• Having pictures if it takes place in a town you've never been before
• Get pictures of actors who resemble your characters
• Pictures of the outfits your characters wear

Since this year I am writing a historical I have to have tons of pictures. I had to get pictures of that time period. Pictures do help when your writing. If you're writing a book dealing with a mystical closet get pictures of that and make it in pintrest. The visual aspects will help you with your story.

Good Luck with NaNoWriMo! Write On!

NaNoWriMo Pep Talk from Kami Garica

In October, you were busy plotting your novel, or—if you’re like me—pinning motivational quotes on your Pinterest boards. Now it’s almost November, and the plot that seemed perfect a month ago reminds you of Harry Potter or Star Wars, and those motivational quotes aren’t as motivating as you thought.

It’s the 11th hour, and Doubt is paying you a visit. Giving Doubt a name is helpful. I call my unwelcome friend Ozzy because he sounds suspiciously like Ozzy Osbourne from one of my favorite bands, Black Sabbath. Whatever you call him, Doubt’s endgame is always the same: to keep you from writing. There are so many reasons why you shouldn’t write this book, right? Here are a few of the things Doubt whispers in your ear:

• You’re too busy. You have a job, or kids, or a spouse, or a pet, or a pint of chocolate ice cream waiting for you. How can you possibly find time to write? So what if Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a typewriter during his lunch breaks?

• Your idea sucks. Now that you’ve read over your idea a few times, it’s clear that your idea is worthless—and there is no way to fix it. Real authors come up with ideas that are completely formed from inception, and they never outline or rework an idea, or call a friend sobbing because they think their plot isn’t salvageable.

• Your muse is MIA. Everyone knows that when real writers sit down in front of their computers, the words just pour out. Real writers have muses who whisper ideas to them in their dreams and solve their writing problems. There are, of course, a limited number of these muses—and to date, they’ve all been assigned to other writers who are not you.

• You aren’t qualified to be a writer. You don’t have an MFA in Creative Writing; maybe you don’t even have a degree, which everyone knows is a requirement for successful writers. Harper Lee, Ray Bradbury, Charles Dickens, Jack Kerouac, and William Faulkner are the only exceptions to the rule. Or maybe you have an MFA, but now that it’s time to start writing, you don’t know how you earned that degree in the first place.

Here’s the truth, from me to you:

• Most writers are “too busy” to write. We have spouses, or children, or dogs, or cats, or gremlins we’re responsible for. Some writers even have another full-time job that (gasp) has nothing to do with writing. Yet, they still write. Instead of finding the time to write, you make the time to write.

• As far as having a plot that sucks, welcome to the first draft of every idea I’ve ever had. If you don’t believe me, ask one of my writer friends; most of them have endured at least one of my sobbing phone calls, during which I insist that my book is broken beyond repair.

• And the muse? I have no idea who has one, but if anyone does, I’d like to know so I can stage a kidnapping.

• While it’s wonderful to have an MFA, you don’t need one to be a writer. At the end of the day, the only thing you need to be a writer is an idea and a pen. Your job is to write the best song, poem, story, or book you can.

Here’s the million-dollar question: how are you going to write this book if you’re afraid to start writing? Give your friend Doubt a name, and then block his calls.

I’m not a fast writer. I type with three fingers, and there’s a video on YouTube to prove it. The way I finish my novels is one word at a time. Don’t focus on 50,000 words or 30 days. Just write one word at a time, and focus on hitting your word-count goal one day at a time.

So start writing your novel. I’m waiting to read it, and I’m rooting for you.

XO Kami

Kami Garcia is the co-author of the Beautiful Creatures series, and the author of Unbreakable and Unmarked.

Write Your Pitch, Your Synopsis and Your Full Detail Synopsis

My next tip for planning for NaNoWriMo is that will help you get your story done is writing something that is so important when you send it out; the pitch, the synopsis and the full detail synopsis.

You pitch is one or two sentences that hooks someone into the book. Have your pitch ready. For my example I'm going to try doing Harry Potter.

Harry Potter is not your ordinary boy he's discovered he's a wizard. When he goes to a boarding school to learn how to control his powers he also learns the mystery of his life he never knew.

The hook helps to suck the reader into the story.

Next write your synopsis, and your full detailed synopsis. After writing the outline for your book you should be able to write the synopsis fairly easy. By following your outline you should be able to write your full detail synopsis.

After you have written your full detail synopsis try to compress that into the synopsis that you will send to agents when it comes time to query, but query for at least five months until you've spent about three months editing your draft.

If you have not tried doing this before you must try to write your full detail synopsis before you write your story. Know the major scenes that are suppose to happen can help you write the story faster than you think. Just try it!

For Reasearch

Okay so since I now have my idea for the story I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo. Since this particular genre hasn't really been popular it's going to require I do a bit more digging. For the particular book I plan on writing it's going to require for me to remember the feel of the book.

So I bought a two new ones that were recently released, and one that is my absolute favorite.

The ones that were released

My favorite of all!

Craft Your Characters Ahead

Okay so now that we are getting back to the NaNoWriMo post I'm going to do a post on characters.

Writers get asked a lot how do you come up with your characters? Frankly I have no right way to answer that. Every writer comes up with their characters differently. In one of my completed stories the characters came to me in a dream. In other book I wrote the character was similar to my personality which is what made it easier to write.

An author Susan Dennard did a post on crafting characters and her idea made so much more sense when I couldn't think of how to write it down.

Her five tips for creating characters went like this

• Voice
• Desperate Need
• Backstory/History
• Behavioral/ speaking Quirks
• Looks/Physical Quirks

I followed her advice and found it really easy to make my characters for what I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo! I try to find new ways when I write something new to see what works best for me.

Now back to crafting the characters. By using the points she wrote here are the questions I ask myself when I am making each character. If you follow it you can be sure you will get the voice of the character into your mind that the story will just pop onto the pages! Here is my tip for each.

Voice
How is this character supposed to be? When we are in their mind are we going to be able to tell what they are feeling all the time? 

Desperate Need

What is it your character desperately wants? What do they need to get what they want? What is it your character desperately wants?

Backstory/History
What are the events leading up to the story? What is the characters background history? Did the family recently make a move?

Behavioral/ speaking Quirks

What is their behavior when they are around others? Do they slouch? Sit up straight? Do they have their legs crossed? How is the pitch of their voice?

Looks/Physical Quirks

How does your character dress? What is their body type? Does the way they look match their personality and voice?

Have these characters crafted and you are sure to have something that is going to pop off the pages! Good luck with making your characters for NaNoWriMo!

How to Start a Novel

For all new people looking to write a book. I wanted to point you to a post written by Chuck Sambuchino in Writer's Digest How to Start a Novel

Source: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/how-to-start-a-new-novel-in-22-easy-steps

1. Open a new Word document.

2. Save it as tentative book title.

3. Wonder if any other books have this title

4. Check Twitter.

5. Google tentative book title.

6. Feel relieved that you’re somewhat original…

7. Type the title and “Chapter One” in Word document.

8. Check e-mail.

9. Check Facebook.

10. Stare at blinking cursor in Word document.

11. Check latest favorite blogs & tumblrs.

12. Type first sentence.

13. Click “save.”

14. Feel accomplished.

15. Feel thirsty.

16. Refill water glass.

17. Check Twitter.

18. Click on five different-yet-equally-inane HuffPo links.

19. Stare at blinking cursor after first sentence.

20. Realize that, though this is the third novel you’ve written, you’ve completely forgotten the principles on how to successfully start a novel.

21. Write blog post about it.

22. Type second sentence?