Hopping On That Novelist Train In 2016

2016 was the first year I spent seriously as a novelist-in-training. I want to be published and had realized I wasn’t putting any effort in being published. My fuzzy resolutions had to do with getting on that road and seeing what obstacles may be in the way. And the road was a little rocky at times.

1. Left a writing group

In the fall of 2015, for my birthday, I made a resolution to join a writing group. I found one on Meetup.com that met every other weekend. At first, I got into the groove of the group. Most members were double my age, and because of this a few were rude toward me which I took as racial discrimination. I ignored that discomfort since others were fine. But I shouldn’t have shared my sacred writing with those few racists. Strike one.

Once I molded my full manuscript in better shape, I began sharing it. With the first ten pages, I received good feedback and added changes. Then came to share the full manuscript. I shared mine and received others. While reading other manuscripts, I became frustrated. I felt awful that I disliked their stories and thought the structure was weak or the writing was weak, or a combination of both. Strike two.

In spring, we shared our thoughts on the manuscript. One of the racists refused to read mine. Another member tried to make my story about him and his experiences in New York because my story was set in the city - in a part of the city I doubt he knew anything about. Another woman told me to take out a mention of a tampon because men would stop reading. The other critiques failed to pick up on the obvious themes of mental health and destructive relationships. When I returned home and looked at the revisions, I felt they didn’t understand the theme and purpose of my novel. It’s about college girl drowning in depression and making decisions on relationships along the way like in The Bell Jar or Prozac Nation. But one member even said he didn’t read novels. This worried me. Strike three. 

I was out. 

2. Read more books

Due to anxiety zapping my focus, I had essentially stopped reading books. But I was feverishly writing when I had a chance. Looking back, it didn’t make sense. I had become one of those people who carried a best-selling novel from three years ago around in my purse because I had been carrying it for the last three years in hopes to read it at a doctor’s appointment or any other tedious event though I would just pull out my smartphone for entertainment instead. 

So again after my 2015 birthday, I decided to read books again to improve my writing and also to study how the authors created the structures, storylines, and characters. The resolution continued through the year. Last January, I had planned to read 15 books during the year. I read 38 books. I even read 100 pages of Jojo Moyes’ After You today to start a new book in the new year. 

3. Joined another writing group 

After feeling the last writing group wasn’t a good fit, I was on the lookout for another one. But this time I would have to pay for it. 

With my reading game up, I joined Mocha Girls Read, now a nationwide book club, which had invited members to the LA Times Festival of Books. Back to a bibliophilic life, I was ecstatic about the festival. I listened to authors talk about their books on the soundstage, listened to youth poetry, walked around to the different booths until one caught my eye. 

The Women’s National Book Association booth promoted their upcoming events to support local female authors. Again, a lot of the members of the group seemed to be double my age from the list of officers, but I decided to check out the calendar. Then I saw her name. Francesca Lia Block was my favorite young adult author during the teenage years. I would read her books back to back. She was going to be a speaker at a WNBA tea. 

I met Francesca at the tea and approached her about her writing workshops. I joined her email list and went to an event of hers, where I met former students who loved her workshops. They even took the workshops repeatedly. So I decided to take one.

For ten weeks, I finally felt like a group of writers understood my stories, and they wrote stories I understood. Because we all understood our stories, the critiques were a lot more helpful. The other writing group had critiques that became insults due to lack of understanding. With the right critiques, I was able to turn my novel around and start another new novel on the right foot. 

This past year was productive though I wish it was more productive. I dropped out of NaNoWriMo by Day 10, for example. For 2017, I will have focused resolutions to spend more time on getting published and working on other projects. I’m still working on those resolutions…