STORYTIME MONTHLY UPDATE: August 2018.

Hello!



Welcome to my monthly update and writerly rant about stuff and books and writing stuff to go inside books.
 

I hope you enjoy it!
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:)

WRITING LIFE:

​This month I worked hard on some teacher notes for my upcoming debut YA novel (March 2019) Making Friends with Alice Dyson.
 
So what are Teacher Notes?

Well, that was what I said too!!
 
My version of the teacher notes was a bit of a massive brain dump, and I think they will probably get an edit and be changed around by my publisher a bit, but hopefully I will have the opportunity to share them here in the future, for anyone who is interested.

The process was quite fascinating, and I also really liked googling teacher notes of other YA novels to see how they were structured and what sort of questions and activities they drew from the text.
It is a wonderful way to further explore a story, and I am kind of fascinated to start reading more teacher notes, particularly for YA novels I really love, as I think they could give me a deeper understanding of the meaning behind certain stories and help with the skill of critical reading, which I am still learning myself.
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​I will also admit that writing the teacher notes was extremely hard. Whenever I am in the position of doing something creative with a direct end goal of showing it to other people (unlike writing novels where you have no idea if you’ll ever manage to get it in front of someone who matters) I find myself burning with embarrassment for the dumb things I am sure I am writing.

Working on the teacher notes was no exception.
I was positive every question I was asking was dumb and that I was embarrassing myself, so it was a real struggle, but at the same time, I felt very proud of myself when I had completed the first draft.

It is a wonderful thing to be given a new challenge, and ultimately succeed in creating the thing you set out to do.
 
So that was great in the end, despite the struggle!
But hey, what is art without a bit of struggle?
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Other than the Teacher Notes, this month I wrote the dedication and acknowledgement section for my novel, which was also a stupid experience and way way harder than I ever thought it would be.
Again, not cos I was terrified I’d forget people (although I do really hope I didn’t forget people) but because I kept feeling like I was embarrassing myself.

I still feel kind of unsure about them, especially about the acknowledgements, but hey, I guess I tried to be honest and open and it was the best I could do.

I think I am happy with them, and will just try to be confident with my choices.
 
Gosh, this is how I am facing these little book related projects, can you even imagine how stressed I will be when my actual novel is a real book that people begin to read?
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Goodness!

In other writing news, I have set myself two exciting projects with a deadline of end December 2018, and I’ve been working hard to get a lot of writing done each day.

The best part of the new manuscript I am currently working on, is that I am super enjoying writing it, and after the struggles I experienced in the beginning, which I documented here, this is an utter relief.
 
I found the joy in doing what I love again, and this makes me indescribably happy.
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I hope I never lose it again :)

LIFE STUFF:

Well my lovely husband won a special university award for his smart brain this month, so that was very exciting.
 
I can’t even think of what else I’ve been doing, though I guess I have indeed been doing lots of stuff.
I work 9 to 5 in an office, so I’ve definitely been doing that....
 
But what else?
 
Stuff... I guess.
 
Watching TV? Watching Kdrama? (Gosh I am obsessed with Korean drama!)
Putting together a little playlist of songs I feel embodies my upcoming novel. Cheesy, but true. I’ll probably share it at some point around here, just for fun.
 
:)
 

READING LIFE:
 
In August I read a fun pile of books!
I read:
 

• The Yearbook Committee by Sarah Ayoub
• The Sacrifice Box by Martin Stewart (I LOVED this!)
• Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare (romantic and lush, but I’m not as hooked as I am on the Lady Midnight Series)
• The Last Days of Us by Beck Nicholas (Local Adelaide author so this one was a lot of fun! A romance!)
• Skylarks by Karen Gregory (An author I have hosted for my YA author interview series - find it here)

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• The Dream Walker by Victoria Carless

This was a VERY interesting book. Lyrical and strange, beautiful and ugly.
It was a really dreamy read for me, and sometimes during it I was confused about how I felt (because it is often slow, meandering and desperately sad), but ultimately, after finishing it and feeling it sitting in my head for days, I think I really liked it.

The setting is very powerful, and in a lot of ways reminded me of the place I grew up in central North Queensland, which although quite different, featured a lot of these characters. Like the feral kids running wild, crumbling houses and the QLD isolation and the impossibility for kids to ever get out of town when they grow up.

This book ultimately I found to be very interesting and moving, it’s the kind of book that you really feel, and the writing was special too, both lyrical and harsh, a very real and Australian raw voice but lyrical too.
Actually, I’ve seen this novel just got shortlisted for a prize too, and I can see why, it’s the kind of harsh, raw, dreamy and electric emotion story that sticks to the inside of your head, lingering. I think I would describe it as Literary YA fiction, for sure. A fascinating read. ​

Books, books and more books!
 
I also finally bought Lord of the Shadows by Cassandra Clare (can’t wait to read that).

And also (nearly) all the books in John Marsden’s series Tomorrow when the War Began (except for book 1 and 3....curse the devil who bought only those copies!!!) That series will be a re-read for me, as I read it quite a few years ago (and it BLEW MY MIND) so I am really looking forward to getting into it again (when I can locate the first book in the series....sigh).

Also, I bought Mirage by Somaiya Daud, which is for my book club this month.

That's all from me, what have you been up to?
I hope you had a good month! :)
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