#BookReview of My Eyes Are Up Here by Laura Zimmerman

The Operation Awesome theme for the #atozchallenge 2021 is book reviews. I had the chance to re-read some old favorites to see how my perspective has changed over time, as well as some new loves!

Z is for My Eyes Are Up Here by Laura Zimmerman

MY EYES ARE UP HERE is a YA contemporary novel about high school sophomore Greer Walsh who seriously got done dirty by puberty - last time she checked, her bra size was 30H. Greer is constantly trying to fade into the background with her oversized shirts and slouchy posture, while her best friend is always making waves. When Greer is voluntold to help the new boy at her school, Jackson Oates, she has to grapple with her crush on Jackson vs. her desire to be seen as more than a walking pair of boobs. 

As someone with gender dysphoria, I totally got Greer's unhappiness with her body. I hated everything about going through puberty - especially no longer being able to cross my arms tight over my chest. Greer constantly struggles with finding a bra that fits, going swimming with her friends, even finding a volleyball uniform she can wear. She's always self-conscious, and while that was certainly relatable, it got repetitive at times. I wanted the novel to show some growth on Greer's part, whether that was her deciding that she wanted to pursue breast reduction surgery (which she does consider during the novel), or her coming to terms with her body the way it is and accepting herself. By the end of the novel, though, neither of those things happen. I felt that the novel ended before it should have and didn't really resolve the main conflict. 

I liked that it was Greer's friend Maggie and not Greer herself who was making waves. I often find that the main character in YA contemporary is the Everything Girl: cute and funny and quirky and stands up against prejudice and, and, and. It was nice to see a main character who would rather be on the sidelines, someone who is relatable to those of us who were too shy to ever want to be the center of attention. Maggie is the one protesting the dress code, or speaking up against the sexist nature of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the spring musical. (I've been in that show, and let me tell you, yuck. Maggie had the right idea.) Towards the end of the novel, Greer does stand up on behalf of Maggie, which was some well-needed character development on Greer's part. The romance subplot was also enjoyable, since it wasn't the main focus of the novel. It felt more real for Greer to be dealing with things other than her attraction to Jackson. 

I would recommend MY EYES ARE UP HERE to YA readers of all ages. In addition to the body image issues, there are also discussions of how moving often makes life difficult, family dynamics, and sexism. 

Goodreads

A to Z Challenge

#BookReview of This Will Be Funny Someday by Katie Henry

The Operation Awesome theme for the #atozchallenge 2021 is book reviews. I had the chance to re-read some old favorites to see how my perspective has changed over time, as well as some new loves!

T is for This Will Be Funny Someday by Katie Henry

THIS WILL BE FUNNY SOMEDAY is a YA contemporary novel about the hapless, quiet high school student Isabel, who always thinks of something witty to say to people but can't ever bring herself to say it out loud. Her boyfriend is overbearing, she hasn't talked to her best friend in months, and her family seems content to leave her to her own devices. So when Isabel stumbles into a comedy club in downtown Chicago, she suddenly finds that she has a pretty good voice for comedy. Isabel falls in with a group of college students who think she's in college as well, and increasingly finds herself lying to everyone in her life to keep her comedy a secret. (Quick warning: this review contains some spoilers.)

If you liked The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, you may like this book - the "funny woman hides her comedy life from everyone" plot is pretty similar, and I've seen the book pitched as "Mrs. Maisel goes to high school." That said, my main criticism is that the reader never really sees Isabel be all that funny. She performs a couple five-minute sets and has an epic takedown of a bully at the end of the novel, but there's no sense of growth. She seemed as funny in her first set as she was in her last, and because we don't get to see her process of working through a joke like we do in Mrs. Maisel, I had a hard time believing that she becomes this amazing comic by the end of the novel, which is just a few months later. Isabel ends up beating out a bunch of college students to perform in a highly-exclusive college comedy showcase, which didn't make sense to me. She's been doing comedy for a few months; how could she really be that innately good that she could succeed over college students who have been doing this for several years? I just didn't buy it. 

I also thought that the reveal of Isabel's secret comedy life to her family was a bit over-the-top: one of her bits, in which she mentions details about a lawsuit her high-powered lawyer mom is litigating, ends up being videotaped and sent to her mom as blackmail. Isabel's mom pays a lot of money to keep the video from ending up on the internet. I hate to keep going back to the TV show, but it almost seemed like a better reveal would have been Mrs. Maisel-style, where Isabel suddenly looks up and realizes her parents are in the audience. Her whole reason for not speaking up at home is that she constantly feels talked over and ignored - what better way would there have been for Isabel's parents to see her actually in her element, and then Isabel would have to deal with it in the moment while she's on stage? The blackmail plot was so quickly resolved that it didn't have as much weight as I would've liked. 

The relationships in Isabel's life were what really brought this book to life for me. I loved the tension between Isabel and her (ex) best friend; I've been in similar situations and it truly felt real. When the two of them were paired up to do a project together, the awkwardness was so tangible that I actually cringed. There's bad blood between them about Isabel's boyfriend, and they dance around the topic in a way I think only us Midwesterners can truly accomplish. Isabel's relationship with her boyfriend was okay, but not quite as relatable. The summary in the book flap calls her boyfriend "controlling," which was disappointing because I wanted to find that out as I read. His controlling and gaslighting nature is blatant from page one. I would have liked for his character to be more subtle at first, so that the reader sees in him what Isabel sees - more like Nick Manter in Rainbow Rowell's FANGIRL. I wanted to be able to root for them as a couple and slowly be proven wrong, not be told before I even started reading that their relationship was doomed. What I really loved was Isabel's family dynamic. She slowly finds ways to engage with her older sister, who always seemed to pick on her and reject her. Isabel feels ignored and forgotten, and this feeling is bolstered many times throughout the novel as her family forgets about lunch dates with her or ignores her problems so they can talk about their own. 

THIS WILL BE FUNNY SOMEDAY is a good read for anyone looking for something light and casual yet so compelling that they can devour it in two days. 

Goodreads

A to Z Challenge

#BookReview of Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

 

The Operation Awesome theme for the #atozchallenge 2021 is book reviews. I had the chance to re-read some old favorites to see how my perspective has changed over time, as well as some new loves!

N is for Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

A friend sent me a copy of BINTI as a gift last Christmas. Both of us were looking to support more Black creators, and since this novella had won several awards, it seemed like a good story to pick up. 

BINTI is an Africanfuturist science fiction horror novella about the titular character, Binti, a Himba girl who is the first of her people to be accepted to the prestigious Oomsa University elsewhere in the Milky Way. She gives up her traditional life to travel on a spaceship to Oomsa, but along the way, the ship is attacked and taken over by the jellyfish-like Medusae. The Medusae kill everyone but Binti, and their next target is Oomsa University, where their chief’s stinger is on display in a museum. Using a mysterious piece of technology called an edan, Binti acts as a go-between for the Medusae and Oomsa University and manages to negotiate the safe return of the stinger without loss of life. 

Before I really start on my review, I just need to say off the top that I did not enjoy this novella. There were a lot of elements that didn’t work for me, even though I really wish they did. 

I had a hard time with Okorafor’s style, especially in the first half of the novella. Events would go from the present, to Binti explaining her culture, to random events in the past, back to the present – the narrative was constantly bouncing around. For example, when the ship is attacked, an extremely dramatic moment that will change Binti’s life forever, the narrative is told in a very broken way, with Binti jumping around from the event itself, to the weeks leading up to it, to her running out of the room, back to when the Medusae first attacked…it would have been much more impactful if it had been told straight through. Additionally, every two to three pages there would be a section break that implied time had passed, but not how much. Sometimes these breaks would be between a long section about culture or history and the present, a stylistic choice that seemed like a lot of telling and very little showing. I would much rather have seen the info integrated into the story, revealed slowly within the narrative. 

The second half of the novella flowed better with little interruption, although for me this was when the suspension of disbelief became far too much. There were just so many coincidences that centered on Binti: she found an edan – a mysterious piece of technology – in the desert several years previously and she never figured out how to use it until the Medusae attacked, at which point she realized it could be used as a translation device. Somehow the edan protects her from the Medusae – they say that the edan is “shame,” but that’s never explained. It’s also referred to as a godstone, but again, no explanation. Later in the novella, when Binti has to give up the edan, she somehow is still able to understand the Medusae. She says it’s because she’s a “master harmonizer,” but never explains what that means. At one point it's said that her father passed down this oral tradition to her about circuits, currents, and math, but what that means for harmonizing is...unknown. Then there’s the otjize, a mixture of clay and oil that Binti’s people coat their hair and skin with. For Binti, it’s a part of her cultural identity. For the Medusae, however, it has magic healing powers, although the reader never finds out why. Somehow Binti is stung by one of the Medusae and grows tentacles from her head like hair, but again, it’s not explained. There were simply too many coincidences and questions left unanswered. 

There was also a lot of repetition that seemed wholly unnecessary. The reader never gets to know Binti’s friends – there are six of them – but their names are recited over and over, as if they mean something to the reader. When Binti learns she can understand the Medusae with the edan, the Medusae ask her over and over “How do you understand us?” and her answer is always, “I don’t know.” And because she doesn’t know, the reader doesn’t know. That never changes. There's no info that lets the reader figure it out before Binti does, so why have this question be asked so many times? If Binti suddenly understood, she’s the type of character who would volunteer that information. She repeats how important otjize is to her, but that information had been given to the reader many times already and I started to wonder if Okorafor thought the reader wouldn’t be paying attention.  

The pacing was both too fast and too slow in turns. This could have been better as a stripped-down version and turned into a short story – toss all that needless repetition and just start with the Medusae attacking the ship – or fleshed out into a full novel, where at least there would have been better space to introduce other characters and see more of Binti’s friends, family, and journey. Binti mentions that she’s received a lot of messages from her family back on Earth, but we never find out what they say. She says she’s a master harmonizer, but we don’t know what that entails. She repeats the names of her friends so many times, but we don’t know them. Even the ending dragged on, going through Binti’s process of applying otjize to herself yet again – we know how this works already – then her having to find clay to make more once she runs out. 

Binti is clearly clever and wise, able to come up with a way to save herself and Oomsa University and appease the Medusae. She is scared and alone, and those feelings are made clear. The best I can say for it is that Binti is a relatable, realistic character in a story that felt new. This novella won several awards, including a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, so clearly there’s something about it that other readers liked that just totally went over my head. 

Have you read BINTI? What did you think of it? 

Goodreads

A to Z Challenge

#BookReview of People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins

 

The Operation Awesome theme for the #atozchallenge 2021 is book reviews. I had the chance to re-read some old favorites to see how my perspective has changed over time, as well as some new loves!

H is for People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins

I’m a big fan of Ellen Hopkins, have been since I was a teenager. I love her free-verse poetry and how much she can destroy you with so few words. FYI, this review does not contain spoilers.

PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE is a multi-POV contemporary fiction novel in free-verse that follows six characters whose lives are impacted by gun violence. It opens with a man accidentally shooting his wife to death with a gun he bought to use against "punks" (read: his Muslim neighbors). After killing his wife, he sells the gun to one of these six characters: There's Rand, a nineteen-year-old with a toddler, who has some serious trauma from his past that he'd like to avenge; Cami, Rand's wife, who secretly deals weed to make money for their family but fears a drug deal gone wrong; Silas, a white nationalist with a love of violence; Ashlyn, Silas's on-again, off-again girlfriend who is new to the white nationalist movement; Noelle, who sustained permanent brain damage from a road rage incident involving a gun; and Daniel, who just wants to protect his new girlfriend from Silas's stalking behavior. One of these people will kill people. 

Overall, I found PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE to be an enjoyable dive into six very different characters. The conceit of the novel is that you are being spoken to directly by “the voice of Violence,” interspersed with slipping into the heads of the six POVs. The guessing game about who bought the gun was a bit fun, but in all honesty, four of those characters were easily dismissed as the purchaser – too obvious, nothing to gain by having a gun, hates guns, doesn’t have a real reason to buy one. So by the halfway point, I’d already narrowed it down to two, although I didn’t figure out which character would die until the page before. On that note, as soon as we were in the killer’s head, it was obvious what was about to happen. I’m not sure if this was an intentional move by Hopkins, or if she couldn’t come up with a satisfactory way to narrate it otherwise. 

The six POVs – seven, if you count Violence – could be a bit much at times. All of these characters’ lives were intertwined, which initially made it a challenge to remember who was related to who by blood or by marriage, and who had dated who vs who had broken up, etc. but it didn’t take long to sort everyone out. I loved how Hopkins wove in little jabs and nudges from Violence into each character’s narrative, showing how their rage or fear was building in a believable way. I’ve certainly had bad days and then one more thing happens that makes me want to lash out, and Hopkins perfectly captures that feeling, that moment on the edge. At the end of the novel, she gives a short blurb about what happens to each character afterward, and all but one were satisfactory. 

PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE is a great read for teens and adults. It may be a good choice for parents who want to talk to their kids about gun safety and gun violence: it’s not preachy, it has believable characters, and it contains situations that could very well happen in real life, like a convenience store robbery. However, please be aware that it contains racial slurs and descriptions of sexual assault against a child. 

Goodreads

A to Z Challenge

#BookReview of The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Graphic Adaptation by Nick Bertozzi

The Operation Awesome theme for the #atozchallenge 2021 is book reviews. I had the chance to re-read some old favorites to see how my perspective has changed over time, as well as some new loves!

B is for The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Graphic Adaptation by Nick Bertozzi

This was an interesting read because Buck was a white woman who spent the first forty years or so of her life (approximately 1890 to 1930) in Zhenjiang, China. She could fluently speak both the local dialect of Chinese and standard Chinese (though I couldn't figure this out for sure, I think this refers to Mandarin). Many of the events detailed in her book were events she witnessed, or lived through. 

The book dramatizes family life in a Chinese village in the early 20th century, beginning with farmer Wang Lung marrying his wife O-Lan. The plot centers on Wang Lung, who tries to build his family's fortune by buying up land from the wealthy House of Hwang. Over time, his fortunes rise and fall, as with years of drought that force the family to move south to beg, and back to years of plenty when their farm produces a great deal of food. Wang Lung is portrayed as hardworking and cautious, though not without his faults - he struggles to be faithful to his wife, and as his wealth grows, he becomes consumed with outward appearances. In the end, though he built his entire family's wealth and wellbeing on the land he bought, Wang Lung's sons go behind his back to sell it. 

I have never read the original text of THE GOOD EARTH, so it was an interesting experience to read it for the first time as a graphic novel. The story encompasses a time and place I know very little about. I would like to track down a copy of the original work, but before I do, I want to learn more about China in the early 20th century. It's hard to judge whether the book is accurate in its portrayal without that kind of information. I would recommend this to older teens and adults, but it would probably be helpful to have the background on the setting before reading. 

THE GOOD EARTH really called into question the same thing we've been grappling with as a community for years now: Who gets to tell what story? Buck was a white American woman, and she won the Pulitzer Prize for this work. It was even re-popularized by Oprah in the early 2000s. It's not as if there weren't Chinese Americans living in the United States at the time who could have told their own stories or the stories of their parents' or grandparents' generations. However, she did grow up in China - is her experience being Chinese as valid as someone born in the US to Chinese parents, but who doesn't know the culture or speak the language? Maybe her work and her fame were simply due to the privilege of being white. Maybe it was because she was well-educated. And yet, at the same time, her privilege made this work famous. Maybe it wouldn't have been as well-received coming from another writer. Maybe I never would've heard of it. There is some evidence to show that THE GOOD EARTH paved the way for Americans to acknowledge China as an ally during WWII, so it can't be condemned for that. Buck founded the first interracial, international adoption agency in the US. Are good works enough to overcome someone writing about a cultural or ethnic group to which they don't belong? I still don't know. 

What do you think? Do you think people should only write about characters that are like them? Or do you think writers are free to write any character of any background? 

Goodreads (original novel)

Goodreads (graphic adaptation)

A to Z Challenge

Sneaky #NaNoWriMo #WriteTip #NaNoTip

I've participated in NaNoWriMo on and off for the past five years or so, although I only won in 2018 and 2019. To be honest, I'm still not sure if I'm going to participate this year - I sure don't have a lot of time left to decide! Whether I choose to do it or not, I have a few tips to offer from my personal experience that have made NaNoWriMo easier the past few years. They're sort of sneaky tips, things that might be a little writer-unethical, but they'll get you there in the end.

1) Give yourself permission to write badly. Like, really badly.

It's something that's so hard for us as writers, but it's kind of the whole point of NaNoWriMo. Our only goal is to get the words written, no matter what they are. Let yourself write your worst manuscript without stopping to edit along the way. If you really need to change something, make a note to go back and do so after NaNoWriMo is over. Remember, words written are words written - the last thing you want is to make an edit and find out you have fewer words now. We're going for quantity over quality here. 

Take an example from my 2019 NaNoWriMo manuscript. As I was getting to the end of my MS, I was seriously running out of steam. I used the phrase "Then something bad happened" twice on the same page just as a way to transition to the next plot event. And you know what? 

Who cares?

Who cares if your first draft is messy? Who cares if you talk around that word you just can't remember in the moment? Who cares if you use the word "just" five hundred times? All you have to do is get to the end of your manuscript, regardless of how you get there. 

2) Use juicy scenes as a reward.

I usually write from an outline, so I usually write my manuscripts sequentially. Sometimes, though, I get bored of a particular section, or I lose my momentum thinking of how much I have left to write. So, I tell myself that if I hit my word count goal for the day, I can skip ahead and write a scene I'm really looking forward to. It's an excellent motivator, because it gets me three wins: I get my daily words in, I get a little extra done with the bonus scene, and I end my writing time on a high. 

Good luck to everyone who's participating this year! We hope you've picked up a new tip or trick to make your 2020 NaNoWriMo experience a little better.

Why NOT to query agents who don't represent your genre

Querying can be extremely frustrating. Odds are, eventually you might get to the end of your "agents to query" list without signing with anyone. At that point, sometimes it seems like the thing to do is to branch out a little, maybe query an agent whose interests are only tangentially related to your MS. Or maybe you see a cool agent post on Twitter that they're looking for something specific, and you want to work with them. You wrote high fantasy and the agent is looking for low fantasy - they're both fantasy, that's close enough, right?

[Image: "Well yes, but actually no" meme]

Agents have manuscript wish lists and interest lists for a reason: that's their area of expertise. You wouldn't take a motorcycle to a mechanic who only works on trucks. In the same vein, agents explicitly state what genres and age categories they're interested in (and often what they don't want to see) not only because they prefer to read that sort of work, but also because they have connections in that type of literature. That is their field, and as querying writers, it's our job to respect that.

It's not only a bad idea to send a manuscript in a genre an agent doesn't represent, it's unprofessional. It's like saying to the agent that you know they have preferences, but you're choosing to ignore them. Angie Hodapp at the Nelson Literary Agency said it best:

"Dear Agent: I read on your blog that X doesn't work 99.9% of the time, but I believe my novel might be the exception." #doubtit #pubtip

— Angie Hodapp (@angiehodapp) June 30, 2015

At the end of the day, you shouldn't query an agent who doesn't represent your genre. Period.

#AtoZChallenge - scriVener

Here at OA, we're talking about writing motivation for our A-to-Z Challenge: what motivates us, how to get motivated, and - according to me, at least - what apps are useful to keep motivated!

Today I'm talking about Scrivener, the program that many writers consider a one-stop shop for all things manuscript-related.

How it works

If you've spent any time in writing circles, you know that Scrivener is extremely popular; subscriptions are often given out as prizes for writing competitions. Once you buy Scrivener, you can use it for your entire writing process, from draft zero to ready-to-query. It allows you to outline and notate your manuscript as you go, comes with templates for various styles of writing, will let you export your work in various document types, and can even be used to prepare your work for self-publishing.

I don't personally use Scrivener, but I downloaded a free trial and played around with it a bit. I can definitely see why people rave about it so much. There are so many options available to make it your own and along with ways to help stay on-task, like fullscreen mode. I particularly liked the feature that lets you go back to previous versions of the manuscript, which is always a struggle for me and my Word documents because I want to recover that one sentence and I cannot find it between Draft 1, Draft 2, Draft 3, Draft 3.5, Draft 4, Draft 4 The Real One, Draft 4 Final...anyway. I also appreciated how easy it was to drag and drop big sections around, since reorganizing a manuscript is such a bother.

Pros

• Many options for customizing your use
• Widely-used; lots of other writers to ask for help
• Can be used to set up a manuscript for self-publishing
• Basically it has all the features you'd need to write a manuscript from beginning to end

Cons

• Pay to use
• Not supported on Android
• No way to get feedback, share, or collaborate with other writers

Final thoughts

Scrivener is really cool, but it's not for me. There are a lot of other users and a lot of features available. If you struggle with organizing your manuscript and its many drafts, Scrivener might be right for you! Give the free trial a download and see what you think. You can also find a learning course here.

***
J here! Check back tomorrow for a counterpoint post on this program from me, a long time user.



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#AtoZChallenge - Pomodoro

Here at OA, we're talking about writing motivation for our A-to-Z Challenge: what motivates us, how to get motivated, and - according to me, at least - what apps are useful to keep motivated!

Today I'm talking about the Pomodoro Technique. There are a lot of apps and websites that use this method, so it's up to you to figure out which one is best for you - I recommend Marinara Timer for web use. As far as apps go, I haven't found one that works better for me than the web versions, but you might be different!

How it works

The Pomodoro Technique is a 25-on, 5-off method for task management. You set a 25-minute timer, do the task until the timer dings, then set a 5-minute timer and take a short break during that time. Applied to writing, you simply write for 25 minutes, take a break for 5, rinse and repeat as necessary. It can be extremely useful for getting yourself to just sit and write because 25 minutes isn't too long of a time to commit to, and you may find that the rhythm of these half-hour blocks helps get you into the writing groove.

I've had mixed success with this method. When I write short stories, I find that this works really well because I like to do flash fiction and this is just the right amount of time. With longer projects and full novel manuscripts, it's a little trickier. If I'm really struggling to get words onto the page, Pomodoro helps a lot because I can think of it as "okay just write until the timer goes off and hopefully something good will come out." But if I'm doing well and the writing is really flowing, it's not helpful for me to take a break because I'm worried that I'll lose my mojo. Of course, it's not absolutely mandatory that I take a break when it tells me to, but as someone who needs to follow the rules, it can be hard to ignore that "ding."

Pros

• Free!
• Lots of options, so you can figure out which version works best for you
• Short amount of time to stay on-task, plus breaks!

Cons

• Hard to take a break in the middle of a sentence/scene
• Might spend a lot of time testing various apps and web-based timers to find the right one

Final thoughts

The Pomodoro Technique can be really helpful if you struggle to stay on-task when writing for long periods of time. Breaking up writing time into smaller chunks may work for you, or it may not. Whether this will be useful for you depends on your writing style.

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#AtoZChallenge - OneTab

Here at OA, we're talking about writing motivation for our A-to-Z Challenge: what motivates us, how to get motivated, and - according to me, at least - what apps are useful to keep motivated!

Today I'm talking about OneTab. OneTab is, in all seriousness, one of the most useful Chrome extensions I have ever used. And, it's totally free.

How it works

Always have fifty tabs open? Can't figure out where the music is coming from? Computer speed reduced almost to zero? You need OneTab. OneTab is a tab condenser - all you have to do is install the extension for Chrome, and when you want to close a bunch of tabs without losing the links, tap the OneTab icon. OneTab then converts all of your tabs into a list on a separate OneTab tab, delineated by the date and time they were OneTabbed. When you want to open one of those sites again, you can select them individually or restore all of the tabs in a group at once. If you decide you don't want those links anymore, you can easily delete them. OneTab will also let you lock a set of links to prevent it from being deleted, star it to find it more easily, rename it, and even share it so you can access it from another computer.

I have used OneTab for a few years, but hands down I use it the most for writing resources. I'm a completionist, so I have problems when I'm given a long list of resources like "Here are 20 websites to check out if you want to write female-female romance!" You can bet that I'm going to look at every. single. website. And of course, I get distracted in the middle, or I wear myself out, and those remaining 10 tabs just stay open forever, the tabs getting skinnier and skinnier as I open even more tabs...it's a vicious cycle. With OneTab, I just condense all of those sites into a list and give it a name, and then I can come back to it with fresh eyes. It's much faster than copying links into a Word document or something, and all of those resources are there are my fingertips when I need them.

Pros

• Free!
• Easy to collapse links and search through them later

Cons

• History metadata for sites is lost - you can't go to the link and hit "back" to go to a previous page on the site
• Can't convert links directly to bookmarks
• Only for Chrome

Final thoughts

OneTab makes it so easy to collapse tabs and manage your writing resources, you'll be kicking yourself that you didn't start using it sooner! Writers who don't use Chrome may be left out of this one - sorry about that. Give OneTab a try and let us know how it goes!

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#AtoZChallenge - Forest

Here at OA, we're talking about writing motivation for our A-to-Z Challenge: what motivates us, how to get motivated, and - according to me, at least - what apps are useful to keep motivated!

Today I'm talking about Forest. Forest is a fun little app you can find in the Google Play store, the Apple App store, and as an extension for Chrome. It's free, although it also contains some paid content.

How it works

Forest blacklists sites that you might use to procrastinate and motivates you to stay on-task by growing a tree! You can set how long you want the app to run, from as little as 10 minutes to as much as 2 hours, and if you navigate to an app or website you blacklisted during that time, your tree dies. You get a few seconds to navigate away from the blacklisted site, so there's a bit of wiggle room if you forget that you put IMDB on there. The blacklist automatically contains some common procrastination sites at initial install (like Facebook and Twitter) and is also open to customization, as is the whitelist.

The longer you set the tree to grow, the more coins you earn, which you can use to unlock new varieties of trees like ginkgo and palm trees, along with some seasonal items like scarecrows and flowers. Plus, every tree you successfully grow appears in a little forest plot that you can visit! Forest also has a short quiz you can take to customize your use of the app, but all it really did for me was "unlock" a new type of tree and told me that I work best in a study group in a college library.

Pros

• Free
• Easy to use
• Can be used on a computer as well as on a smartphone
• Timer doubles as a way to commit to a length of time to write

Cons

• Have to pay to synchronize the forest across devices
• Relies on the user to adjust the blacklist
• Error time is very short

Final thoughts

Overall, Forest is easy to use and a very cute app in general. As long as you can actually commit to putting websites or apps onto the blacklist, Forest will probably work well to keep you on-track while you're writing. Don't let your tree die!

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Writing Now That Things Are Different

For a lot of us, things have gotten really intense really fast. Shelter in place orders have a lot of us now spending way more time at home than usual. (For those of you now spending all day with small children, I bid you strength.) However, to me, it was a dream came true when my state issued "shelter in place" because it meant that I would have so much more time for writing! At last, nobody can invite me to some event that my Midwest Nice upbringing won't let me refuse - I'm quickly learning that I'm more of an introvert than I thought I was, haha.

Just as quickly, though, I'm realizing that simply being home does not equal more writing. Don't get me wrong, I've been productive, but I've been doing things like hanging photos on the walls or deep-cleaning the spare room or learning to make macarons. Exactly zero writing has happened so far. And it makes me feel so guilty that I can't sleep at night. Here I have this golden opportunity to knock out an entire round of revisions in a weekend, and what am I doing? Staring into a pot of sugar water to make sure it doesn't crystallize.

Being at home all day felt like it should be perfect: I could wear sweatpants, snack all day, and spend hours with my cat. Once work hours are over, though, I'm stuck with two things: a desire to write, and a burning need to not sit at my computer anymore. And somehow, writing keeps getting pushed back, usurped by some household chore that just needs to happen right now for some unfathomable reason. Every night, I curl in on myself, hating that I didn't even think about revisions.

But the thing is, we shouldn't beat ourselves up for not being our most productive during a literal pandemic. Things are different now, and they will be for the foreseeable future. An adjustment period is expected - natural, even. A lot of us have more pressing things to deal with, like trying to arrange child care while also working from home, or suddenly being without a job, or dealing with the fact that a close relation is sick. It is okay to not write a single word during these trying times. It is okay to write an entire novel because you can't go to work and you're self-isolating. If you can, reach out to your writing friends and check in on them. But remember, don't take on more than you can handle. Nobody is keeping score.

The only things you really need to do are stay home, stay safe, and wash your hands.

OA's NaNoWriMo Progress

National Novel Writing Month is officially upon us! Today is NaNoWriMo's Double Donation Day, so if you can, please donate to the equally-awesome operation they've got going on over there! Here at Operation Awesome, two of us are participating this year, J Lenni Dorner and Amren Ortega. We're excited to share our progress (and pitfalls) with all of you, and hope you'll share with us.

What genre/age are you writing?

Adult Urban Fantasy

Young Adult Contemporary

Are you a planner, pantser, or something in between?

Somewhere between those two. I was going to write a different novel. Then changed my mind a week before NaNo started, so I have a partial outline-like thing going on. It's all because of a non-fiction book I started reading. (More on that another time.)

Usually I'm a plantser - I plan a bit and let the rest come as it may - but I wanted to try something new this year, so I've been planning for about a month and a half. I have a pretty solid outline and a lot of information about my protagonist and antagonist, as well as a plethora of information about robots (which is relevant, I promise). 

What's your word count so far?

4831 at the start of today

3717 at the start of today (J is a rockstar)

How it's going?

Okay so far.

Pretty good! I haven't found myself struggling to meet the word count yet, but it is only day three, so we'll see how I fare in the next twenty-seven days...

Link to your NaNo profile

J Lenni Dorner

Amren Ortega

Lifetime November Achievements

WORDS= 333,263 ~2011 winner; 2012 winner; 2013 winner; 2014 winner; 2015 participant; 2016 winner; 2017 winner; 2018 participant

WORDS= 148,907 ~2014 participant; 2015 participant; 2016 winner; 2017 winner; 2018 participant

Other notable NaNoWriMo achievements

Book published because of the writing challenge= Fractions of Existence

And I did my donation for today!

For Double Up, I'm going to try to double my word count, so check back on my NaNoWriMo profile tomorrow to see how I did!