don’t doubt yourself
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Keni
styofa doing anything

pixel skylines
todays bird
wallacepolsom

oozey mess
sheepfilms
trying on a metaphor
KIROKAZE

Kaledo Art

Andulka

⁂

Origami Around

@theartofmadeline
One Nice Bug Per Day
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
d e v o n
Game of Thrones Daily
Peter Solarz
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@iamyourdoom
don’t doubt yourself
How do you stay organized?
With my blog and this account and everything else in my life, I’d be a total mess if I didn’t keep track of everything. I’ve tried digital planners but always come back to pen and paper!
IG: novelknight
New books! Excited to read these. And I still have several more preordered 🤗
Here’s September’s most anticipated releases, a bit of a starry/fiery theme going on this month and all first books/one-offs again! Without further ado, here they are:
For a Muse of Fire by Heidi Heilig (#1)
A Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna (#1)
Ignite the Stars by Maura Milan (#1)
Pride by Ibi Zoboi (#1)
I’ve been looking forward to Pride for months and I’m so excited that I’ll finally be able to read it!
What books have been taunting you lately?
IG: novelknight
The colors on the cover of IGNITE THE STARS are absolutely gorgeous so I had to try to recreate them! In case you don’t know, IGNITE THE STARS is a new sci-fi adventure releases on September 4th! • • What are your favorite books set is space?
Book Expo + Book Con 2018
Hi all! I'll be at Book Expo and Book Con this year. I'll be signing free arcs of Ignite the Stars, so make you stop by. There's be some enamel pins and bookmarks at the booth as well! Hope to see you all there!
And there's going to be a cool photo-op w/something from the book. I'll announce it closer to the day. Get ready to take pics!
YALLWEST 2018 - I'll be there and I'll be square
I'll be at YALLWEST (is it supposed to be all caps? I've just been doing it that way because it's easier for me). I'll just be wandering around, looking tired because I'm thinking about book 2, but then happy again because hopefully i'll be eating a sushi burrito at the food truck lot.
Anyway, if you wanna say hello, I'll be there. Just yell my name, and it's alright if you can't pronounce it--not many people know how to!
We can talk about Ignite the Stars, kpop, dogs, anime, Buffy, what it'd be like to live on Mars, fashion. Say hello, we can high-five, or just nod at each other from across the way. I might be dressed in all black, but I am not mean.
In high school, I hated Birkenstocks with an intense passion, but now slap a Rick Owens label on it, and I’m like maybeeee
There's a cover! THERE'S A COVER!
I am so beyond thrilled for all of you to finally see the cover for IGNITE THE STARS.
Doesn't she look amazing?!?!
When I saw the first draft of this cover, I wept like a mother seeing her newborn child for the first time. I've been writing this character for over two years now, and now I finally get to see her. And it's oh so satisfying.
And on top of that, the fact that Ia Cōcha is on the cover is BIG DEAL for me.
It's so important to me that young readers also see women of color on the covers of books that they read. When I was younger, I looked up to Buffy, Xena, and Scully. I wanted to be just like them - heroic, confident, bold. But there was this dangerous mode of thinking, a parasite of a thought, that told me I could never actually be like them because I didn't look like them. My skin was dark, my Asian features were not like theirs. Instead, characters who looked like me were the background players, at most a brainy sidekick...so by default, I often took that part. I was quiet and studious, because I thought that was the role I had to play all throughout my life.
Being exposed to these depictions of As there are certain narratives that we think we have to follow. It's hard to swim up against that current, loaded with stereotypes, expectations, and labels. These will hold you back only if you let it. So don't. Let. It.
But also don't resent who you are. Embrace your culture, your skin, your beautiful eyes. They make you who you are. So I love that Ia is on the cover, to show everyone that heroes can be short, Asian girls too. Ia Cōcha is for the readers who need her, so that they never doubt themselves.
You are fierce. You are bold. You can take on the universe.
If you wanna spread the love, here's the tweet for the cover reveal. Don't forget to sign up a chance to win a free ARC!!
The Art of Invisible Movement
Several weeks ago, an aspiring writer asked me what my opinion was on “in-between” scenes — scenes where “nothing happened.” She noted that her favorite scenes in books were often ones where characters were only talking about their lives. How did I recommend including these while maintaining pacing?
I have three thoughts on Nothing scenes.
1. Always Be Mindful of Invisible Movement
I don’t believe in Nothing scenes. I believe in scenes that appear as Nothing scenes to the reader, but are actually full of invisible movement. I have a rule for myself — insofar as I do rules — that every scene should be doing at least two things, preferably three or more, no matter how much it appears to be about merely one.
Here are examples of things scenes can do:
• give backstory
• demonstrate character change
• create a sense of place
• satisfy logistics; i.e. move a character from place A to place B
• establish character
• explain worldbuilding
• move through action sequence
• move external plot forward
• establish dynamic between two characters through conversation or action
It can be tempting to grab just one of those and say DONE. SCENE. GOOD. But efficient storytelling, powerful storytelling, involves doing many of these at one time. A scene may appear to be merely about a character crashing his best friend’s car. But it must also be about his character journey and about his dynamic with another character, all the while pushing the external plot forward. Complexly written, but simple to read: ah yes, these scene where Ronan takes the car.
A Nothing scene might overwhelmingly appear to be merely a conversation, but it needs to be doing heavy lifting in the places in between words. Work in place, backstory, character motivation. Let the unspoken seethe inbetween the spoken. Subtly tie the conversation to the external plot. Why is the conversation happening now? Make sure it references the steps that came before it to make it seem inevitable instead of like an element that can merely lift out and be placed elsewhere without consequence.
What you’re attempting to do is maintain invisible movement. Remind the reader of what is still lurking during this quiet moment. Or remind them that this is the stake: that this quiet moment is what the characters are fighting for. Or situate the quiet moment within a larger, external plot machination, and end the conversation by wrenching them externally according to the plot.
But don’t just let them talk. You can at first. Draft it that way. Be delighted by the quiet conversation you’ve written. But then get back to work. You ain’t done. Push things forward invisibly by having the scene do something else in the background.
2. Earn It
You’ve got to earn all frothy conversations or quiet moments in two ways. First is the rhythm of the thing. It’s like a mix tape. Don’t group all the quiet stuff together, dude! Tense action scenes seem more speedy when interspersed with quiet moments, and vice versa. Earn your quiet moment by putting us through our paces for a bit first.
Second: you’ve got to emotionally earn your quiet moments, your Nothing conversations. You may have been daydreaming of the moment your two characters finally open up and reveal their deepest truths through memes, but if you do it too soon, the scene will feel empty … and slow. Like just a Nothing scene.
An emotional conversation should be a reveal, a satisfying culmination of something half-seen until that moment. Timed correctly, far enough along in the emotional journeys, these conversations will feel like a resting place or a reward instead of a lull.
3. You Can’t Live on Ice Cream Cake, or You Ruin Ice Cream Cake
There’s a reason why a lot of readers think they love Nothing scenes — they mean the scenes mentioned above, quietly emotional scenes placed well within the narrative. They feel amazing! But the chemical make up of these scenes mean that they only work when used sparingly. It’s not the quietness of them that makes them incredible. It’s what had to happen to make the quietness possible. Ice cream cake is special because it’s a rarity, brought out only for special occasions. The same goes for all pleasurable excesses in novel-making: banter, kissing, action sequences, emotional porn. They all need to be used sparingly, and to be placed as a result of story, not instead of it, or you’ll find yourself with a Nothing novel, because ice cream cake for every meal makes it lose its meaning.
The thing to remember about novel writing is that the key to pacing is tension, and tension doesn’t always come from negative consequences. Positive consequences can work just as well (think of it: love stories, exploration narratives, training sequences). Make sure your Nothing scenes maintain invisible movement by continuing to promise some kind of tension, and you’re golden.
Oh yeah, and most important? Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t pull it off in a first draft of a scene. Just because you have to end up with a hard-working scene doesn’t mean you have to be able to juggle all those layers at once. Writing is revision, revision is writing, etc. etc. etc.
Kyoung Hwan Kim - https://www.facebook.com/tahraartpage - http://www.tahraart.com - https://www.artstation.com/artist/tahra - http://drawcrowd.com/tahra
New author photo
HELLO TUMBLR!
It is us. Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka, the YA authors of ALWAYS NEVER YOURS, our debut forthcoming from Penguin Books on MAY 22, 2018! (This year! We’re wrapping our heads around the wonder of that.)
Here’s our beautiful cover. We can’t wait to interact with y’all on here, and when the time comes, we hope you love the book.
If, perchance, you want more of us, you can find us on Twitter (@Asiegemundbroka and @Wibbs_Ink) and Instagram (@Austins_b and @Wibbs_ink). Here’s ANY on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34092885-always-never-yours
Love,
Austin & Emily
#ya #youngadult #yalit #coverlove #bookcover #alwaysneveryours #yacontemporary #bookstagram #book #books #writing #writer #amwriting #author #debutauthor #publishing
I have a date!!! Not the romantic kind. But the book kind. #IgniteTheStars is going to be released Sept. 4, 2018! If you love space outlaws with fierce attitudes, definitely mark your calendars and add the book to your Goodreads shelf: goodreads.com/book/show/3571…