I made an author blog!
I'm not really sure what I'm doing with this. I have so many questions.
I'd like to think I also have some answers, though!
What am I reading right now?
Last night, I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. fully immersed in the incredible worldbuilding of N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season. This book takes my breath away, and when I finish it (or maybe when I've read the entire Broken Earth trilogy) I'll write a more in-depth post about how much I love it.
For now, I'll say that this is one of those rare books where I am giddy with excitement reading the exposition chapters! Jemisin's introduction to her sci-fi, fantasy world where the society and magic system is all based on rocks and plate tectonics... *chef's kiss*.
And there's something very, very cool happening with the three points of view...
I'm also reading The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein for an Urban Issues & Design class at school. I've only read the preface so far, but I loved leading the in-class discussion on it two days ago and I'm really looking forward to learning about all the evidence for Rothstein's thesis. I hope it will help me be a more informed advocate in real life!
The third book I'm carrying around with me everywhere is Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. My 11th grade English teacher recommended it to me when I stopped by her classroom to say hi the other day. (I jokingly tell my friends that every time I visit a former teacher, they hand me another book to read... but looking at how much my TBR has expanded in the past week, there may be more truth to that than I thought lol.)
Anyway, if you like worldbuilding, this is the perfect book for you! I love how it's written in little bits, so you can pick up the book and read just a page and a half at a time. There are so many lines I wish I could highlight or underline because they are SO GOOD, but it's the school library's copy so instead I'm using sticky notes.
As I said, it's a short book you can read in bite-sized pieces. It describes city after city while only having, like, two characters. (Unless something changes later in the book- I'm not finished, after all!) That makes it a really good book to have in my backpack, because it has helped me calm down from a few panic attacks/sensory overloads recently. I can just let the descriptions of cities float around in my head without keeping track of character arcs and plot twists, as much as I do normally love those things.
Everybody is screaming at each other in the AP Environmental Science classroom? No problem! Put in earplugs, hide under the sink, and read five pages of Invisible Cities until your hands stop shaking. 8/10, would recommend.
That was a... very specific way to review a book. Anyway, moving on!
What am I writing right now?
I am so excited to write a nonfiction book about kids and teens getting involved in political advocacy! It's tentatively titled Use Your Outside Voice.
I started outlining and writing a tiny bit of a draft five years ago, actually, while I was still in middle school. Now, I have a goal of finishing the manuscript draft by the end of senior year, so I'm using it as an independent study through the English department at school!
The draft is at about 30,000 words these days, but I'm focusing more on figuring out the structure of the book before I dive back into just throwing words at a Google Doc.
When I'm not writing serious stuff like that, I'm writing fanfiction for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Found Family > any other trope, fight me) And because it seems to be a frequently asked question, no, I don't write romantic relationships unless it's very minor/background. It's more like, if this major event played out differently, how would all the characters react? (Yes, that's already a thing in Marvel canon! If you like What If...? comics or the Disney+ series, then you already have a great understanding of fanfiction. It's a similar concept, but made by people who don't get paid for it.)
I will say nothing more on that topic, because my friend who still hasn't seen Infinity War might be reading this.
What am I not writing right now?
A couple weeks ago, I decided to "formally" put my advocacy blog on a loose hiatus until November. For a while, I felt like the pressure to publish blog posts about my advocacy work was getting in the way of me being able to show up for my team and actually get the job done.
I also have a lot of fanfiction combining Greek mythology with the Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo lying around, plus a time-loop story about the characters from the BBC's Merlin that I haven't worked on in a while. I can always come back to them later!
I really try not to heap a lot of pressure on myself to write outside of school. Meeting certain word counts, or sticking to a schedule, makes writing feel less fun to me. (Unless it's Use Your Outside Voice... the book should have a schedule, now that I've made a commitment to my teachers that I'm going to finish it.)
Why is everything on this website red?
In 8th grade, I started using a single notebook for all my doodling and "writing for fun." It happened to be bright red, and when I finished that one, I got another notebook that was also red. Every "my brain on paper" notebook since then has also been red. (The pictures on this website are of my complete collection, to date.)
Red isn't remotely my favorite color. But I don't have anything against it, so here we are!
I might change the layout and theme of this website a bajillion times, though.
Okay, thanks for reading! Have a nice day!
Hey, interesting blog Yara! Can't wait for more!!