my top 10: books, highs, lows, lessons, and advice of 2023
let's take a look back at the last year...
Before we jump in, I finished the poetry module of my master’s, so let me share a poem that’s been clinging to me for months:
10 books:
I’m A Fan by Sheena Patel
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
The Guest by Emma Cline
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Bonus: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. Read this and understood the hype around the author.
10 highs:
I signed with my agent.
I traveled to Tanzania on a project (but really an excuse to visit my roommate’s family in Dar es Salaam).
I graduated college. First gen club, whoot whoot!
I got accepted into my creative writing master’s program.
I won a fellowship to fund it.
I did some postgrad travel to Ethiopia and China with another college roommate.
I taught a creative writing class in Shanghai.
I did four rounds of revision with my agent. Took a whole grueling year, but I am, as of a this month, officially done (!!!)
I moved abroad.
I started two new novels.
Bonus: I became a cat aunt to THREE of my friends’ cats.
10 lows:
I have lost so much faith in my representatives, that in 2020 I campaigned to support. Silence in the face of genocide. They’re my Never Again.
I have lost faith in authors and directors and brands whose work I’d loved, but have learned - they were never a necessity. Trying to consume less in general (what I buy, etc).
My siblings are growing up without me.
Eleanor Catton came to speak to our program cohort. I came back home that night feeling strange, and as soon as my friend asked me what was wrong, it broke: “I will never *sobbing gasp* be like that. She’s j-just so smart, and I’m…” then devolved into inconsolable tears. All to say, there have been several moments this year that I’ve come up against my limitations. The realization that I know so little, that the more I write, and read, and talk to people smarter than me, I feel like I know even less….It’s overwhelming, and devastating. (But maybe this is what growing is, in the active.)
Likely most of life after entering adulthood is trying to come to terms with the trauma of childhood, but I feel that especially about the 20’s. Grieved a lot this year.
Living back at home is hard. Being away is hard.
Being a people pleaser and then resenting the person for it is such a terrible way to live, and even though I had this realization a few years ago, I’m still struggling to overcome it.
Don’t know why I can’t ever feel bad about just one thing - it starts off as that one thing, and becomes about everything.
As one of Love Island’s wisest said, weeping to her friend, "I don't want to be a pick me, but f**ck. Pick me." This is how I feel about publishing.
I thought I’d decided that I have to choose myself. That writing was it for me. That even if it’s hard, and pays me nothing, I will choose it, because nothing else can make sense for me. But being the oldest immigrant daughter™, knowing how many people I’ll be letting down if this really does take long, feels crushing at times. So I shove it back, and try to ignore it.
10 lessons:
Trends will come and go, so write something you’ll be proud of. I used to think virality could maketh a book, but if your book isn’t good, it won’t hold with time. I come back to something Ocean Vuong said on resisting pressure to writer for a white audience [reworded]:
Publishing only lasts a certain amount of time, working with an editor, cover designer, etc. But you have to live with your book forever, and go to sleep every night knowing it is yours.
Most often than not, authors of books I love are off social media, at least in large chunks when they’re writing. I’ve come to appreciate those who are sparse because yes, I get less updates, but hopefully that means they’re spending more time on their books. I took time off Twitter and TikTok, save for an update here and there, and God, that’s been so good. Smaller communities on Discord have been amazing. If I could, I would wipe myself off the whole of the internet (which is why I keep deleting and archiving things.)
Being on submission for so long before has attuned me: I know better how I want to talk about getting agented, and my story on sub. I know better how to approach people, and how to pick out which people are there for the long run versus only for successes. The wait is a blessing in a misery of a disguise.
Sometimes you publish not because you’re ready, but because you have to. I want the privilege to write for this decade and publish in my 30’s. But I can’t live off of that, so we’re doing this thing.
I communicated a boundary and the world didn’t end! It was uncomfortable for a bit, yes, and but it smoothed over in a few weeks.
I know now I’m one of those people that even in a relationship, would want my own bed, if not my own room. I used to think that meant it was just not the right partner, but no, no.
What Twitter/[insert social media platform] wants is not always what publishing wants.
One of the best advice I got when I was leaving my agent was from Tigest Girma (author of the vampire book Immortal Dark) [reworded]:
I look for 3 things when it comes to my agent: comfort, sales, and trust. I must at least be getting two of those things from my agent. Comfort = someone I can ask anything without feeling like I’m bothering them even if it’s the same question over and over again. Trust = believing truly every single thing they do goes to bettering me as an author and selling my books. Sales = Sometimes the market is awful I get that and can accept that, but what I can’t accept is having any feeling that those books could have sold better if my agent did something different.
Upkeeping friendships takes continuous, deliberate effort. I’ve been trying to be more active now that my friends and I have graduated college and are living all over the world. Picking up calls even when I’m not feeling it (I never feel like it), making sure the groupchat remains alive, sending postcards, gifts, etc. I haven’t always been good at this (staying close once I’m not living physically close with someone) but I’m making the effort now because it makes me sick thinking that I could look back one day and see: we’re not close anymore, and it was because of me.
This year in my own space has taught me that all I dream of is a room of my own, a few bookshelves, and some quiet.
Bonus: Different friends have different places in your life. Some you can live with; some you can travel with; some you should only ever see once a year, and that’ll be more than enough.
10 advice (for writers):
You’re only as good as your best critique partners and beta readers.
Make sure your social media and website is up to date on what you want agents/publishers/bloggers/readers to know about you.
Start your acknowledgment page now. Doesn’t matter if you’re still drafting, querying, subbing. Add to it as the months and years pass.
Think of arguments (in your writing) as a sword fight, and trying to get upper hand.
Sometimes what’s said in prose/thought should be said in dialogue. It’ll make it more active instead of passively letting the thought go, and create a challenge for the protagonist.
You should have a “set piece” in your story to anchor your story — a sequence of events that even if the reader eventually forgets what happens in the rest of the book, that piece will stick to them. (If you’ve read The Ballad of Black Tom, the scene with Malone with his eye lids, and being forced to look into the portal with Cthulla is one of the the set peices).
Advice a teacher gave me: “If you hit writer's block, it’s a thinking block. You’re afraid to go somewhere or write something false.” Take a shower, take a walk, take a break. Then come back to it, and be honest on the page.
This might apply more for adult, but if you get to a point where you don’t want to describe how something gets from A to B, then…don’t. You’re allowed to just…skip. A few days, a few months, a whole conversation. You can summarize it in a line, or don’t and just bring it in a callback later if it’s important enough.
This was given by Tigest Girma (she has so many nuggets of wisdom), but when you’re thinking of character arc, think of who your character is at the beginning of the story, at the middle, and at the end. They should be different in each.
Ask yourself: “Do I genuinely not like this person, or is this jealousy speaking?”
Bonus 1: Command + Shift + up arrow/down arrow selects everything between the insertion point and the beginning/end of the document. Was I the only one who would select and scroll and scroll and scroll to get the section I wanted?? Game. Changer.
Bonus 2: For fast drafting: MOST DANGEROUS WRITING APP: https://squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app: You set a timer, then start writing. If you stop writing for longer than a few seconds, all your words disappear. It's chaotic and brilliant.
reading & roaring with praise
Friend Book Of The Month:
Pangu's Shadow by Karen Jialu Bao [Coming out: Feb 6, 2024]: Sci-fi murder mystery about immigrant lab girls taking down the male chauvinist trying to scapegoat them? Say lessss. (Also before we became friends, Jialu was my neuroscience teacher in college, and she’s just so big brain and big hearted, I love her).
Current reading:
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sôsuke Natsukawa
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Got my brother to buy it for me for my birthday, and have picked it up again. Let’s see if I get farther this time.
Happy happy happiest of new year, friends. This year is an even number, so I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one.
With love,
Birukti
no bc the bonus (1) advice for writers is about to change my life