On my Questionable Decision-Making (April 25, 2015)

Some fun facts about me:

1. I often write more when I'm sleep deprived. 
2. I'm impulsive when I'm tired.
3. These two often mix in awkward ways (for example, resulting in a Huffington Post article).

I've been asked why on earth I consented to put my name on that piece. I've been reminded multiple times that it could hurt my career options (so I guess I'll be a slightly-more-starving writer/teacher? Fine ...), destroy my friendships (it didn't to my knowledge), make the universe collapse, etc.

Okay, I'm going overboard with the last one, but the point is: the consensus was that I should've stayed anonymous, or not written the piece at all.

I struggled with the decision to put my name on it. I was given the option to publish the piece anonymously, and thought I'd do that. I know from the unfortunate times I've scrolled through comment sections underneath articles about assault that public reactions are often negative. Negativity is not even confined to comments sections — I've had someone joke about it to my face, leave an intimidating note in my locker, and gossip about it when I was standing right behind them (yes, my painful personal experience is apparently on the same level as the other gossiped-about topics like prom asks and seniors ditching). And some people now look at me strangely. Overnight, I crossed the threshold in people's minds from strong to fragile, like something changed in the one second between the article not being online and being online.

But despite knowing these things would happen, I put my name on the piece because I felt like it needed a name. It is completely valid (and arguably far more intelligent) to remain anonymous when talking about personal histories with violence. However, I always feel an obligation to do my characters justice when I'm writing their stories, and I didn't feel like I was doing myself justice by leaving my name out.

Could this article make more people avoid me, not want to work with me, and treat me differently? Yes. But as someone pointed out to me, the kind of people who'd treat me with any less dignity and respect because I'm a survivor are not the kind of people I want to be around. I'm no less an activist, writer, bad joke teller, or friend than I was a week ago.

March Madness (April 8, 2015)

I've been horrifically MIA for the past month (or more ...). Oops! March was crazy. I figure I should post an update so it doesn't appear like I'm dead.

• Badminton season started — we're 8-0 thanks to my wonderful doubles partner :)
• Won a Writing Portfolio Gold Medal in the 2015 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
• Wrote 60,000 words of a new novel, threw out 50,000 of them, and am now writing a second draft (yes, this is how I write)
• Spent far too many hours watching A's and Giants spring training games
• Remained fairly zen about Indiana (mainly because it's pretty clear the Supreme Court will overturn the law)
• Technically happened in April, but got the awesome opportunity to meet the cast from Elementary! And gave my friends the satisfaction of seeing me in a holding cell on the set ...

..... Writer's Block? (February 20, 2015)

"The Passion of Creation" by Leonid Pasternak

Someone asked me earlier today how I deal with writer's block. I think it's only fitting that I address that question in writing at midnight, because I write best the later it gets in the evening.

Writer's block is something I had a lot of problems with back in sixth grade. I would start the same story seven different times and never get past the first page. I'd get frustrated and decide the beginning was too boring, my character wasn't likable, and the plot was stupid. Then I'd switch the font a dozen times because watching something change on the Word document made me feel productive.

Everything changed when I did NaNoWriMo in seventh grade. In one month, I went from being the person who hadn't finished a story in a year to writing 50,000 words. It was the worst thing I've ever written, but hey, I wrote it! And that's what matters.

Even though I still get writer's block sometimes (example: procrastinating by doing this blog post), doing NaNoWriMo helped me come up with many strategies. See if any work for you.

---

1. If you're stuck, try letting characters/plots come to you. You don't need to force it. As you're walking down the street and pass someone, do you think about where they're going? Do you give them a name, hopes, histories, destinations? There, you have a character! Trust me, once you stop forcing yourself to think of characters and plots, characters and plots will come to you. You have to be patient and willing to listen.
   
2. Screw the opening. Who cares how the story starts in a first draft? Heck, start with a quote you like if that helps you get going as long as you get rid of it later. My novels all at one point started with the same sentence from The God of Small Things. Whatever you put on the page first in a first draft won't be there later anyway, so why stress about it?
   
3. If you're like me and you obsess over evil squiggly lines that yell at you for spelling things wrong, turn them off. It's miserable editing everything later once you enable the feature again, but worth it because you don't compulsively go back to fix typos when you're writing.
   
4. Allow yourself to procrastinate. If you need a day off, take a day off. If Netflix is calling to you, watch Netflix. Don't stress about never taking breaks so you can finish extra early. Take the time you're given by a teacher, editor, agent, etc. and use it! And yes, relaxing as well so the writing feels less forced counts as using it.  
   
5. Write at night. You'll be less inhibited. (As much as I'd like to discourage doing this on a school night, there's actually a fun sneaky feeling that comes with writing at 1am the night before a math test that lends itself well to mystery/suspense writing.)
   
6. Finally, and most importantly: write FOR YOU. Write because there's a story that needs to be told, a character who needs to be heard, because you won't sleep until you've gotten all the thoughts in your brain onto a page. If you realize you're only writing because you need money (hint: pick a different job) or have a deadline, you're not writing for the right reasons. Do it because you hate to love it and love to hate it, because you desperately want to press the same letter on your keyboard thirty times in frustration at 3:06am because the words you just typed don't sound right together, because you miss the buzz of drinking three cups of hot chocolate, because you crave the feeling of your hand going numb from a carpal tunnel syndrome flair up from typing too much. Don't write because you think you should be an author; write because you're a writer.
   

February 15, 2015: Sunday Night Catchall

The New York Times front page on the day of Nelson Mandela's release

“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison." - Nelson Mandela

---

If you know me well, you now I love Nelson Mandela. Long Walk to Freedom is my favorite book. Madiba proved that peaceful revolutions are possible and effective. This week was the fifteenth anniversary of Madiba being released from prison.

The San Francisco Panhandlers Steel Drum Band

Had a blast playing in a concert with my fellow San Francisco Panhandlers Steel Drum Band members at Ashkenaz last night. I still think drums are romantic. My lack of a love life means I must be right about that ... okay, on second thought, ignore me completely. And congrats to the Trinidad All Stars for winning Panorama last night (biggest steel drum competition in the world)! I linked to their song above.

Discovered that my beloved school badminton team follows some anti-social/outcast stereotypes when I tried to make a Facebook group for team members and discovered that 70% of members did not have Facebook accounts. Badminton is cool. I say this with the conviction with which I say that drums are romantic. :)

February 8, 2015: Sunday Night Catchall

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr. 

---

The quote above has been on my mind this week. There are positives and negatives to all events. The negative of what has unfolded at my school this week is I had the unfortunate experience of seeing how many people at my school are content being bystanders in situations of online harassment. The positive is that I learned to value that much more the people who weren't bystanders. I find the quote above very true. I won't remember what hurtful comments were said by my classmates this week in a year or even in a few months. I will, however, remember the silence of all those who watched and did nothing.

On a similarly serious (but more positive) note, huge shout-outs to Obama, Katy Perry, and Brooke Axtell for raising awareness about domestic violence at the GRAMMY Awards! I was similarly impressed by last Sunday's powerful Superbowl ad from NOMORE.org. These two TV events sandwiched an incredibly powerful week on Twitter with the #TheresNoPerfectVictim hashtag, which I encourage you to check out if it won't be triggering for you.

On a lighter note, I want to repeat to anyone who thinks otherwise that badminton is a sport! Some people at my school think otherwise ... somehow ...