Pep Talk with Min Jin Lee

Kind of throwing this one out last minute, but these pep talks are always a fun topic to mention.

In the most recent NaNo mail, Min Jin Lee basically points out that, while we all have a book in us, sometimes it's not the one we think it is. We tend to set out writing a book that we think people will admire and our work suffers for it.

While I don't believe I'm entirely guilty of writing purely to ego, I can certainly understand why you might not be writing what you're most capable of. No matter how crazy your young life was, writing a memoir in your 20s or 30s is usually premature, for one. The decades that you spend reflecting on those events are important too. The questions you will ask yourself when you learn to ask the right questions. The genuine curiosity to not just record events but to learn more. Even when I jot down things for my how-to book, I never set out to only teach but to learn. To pose questions to a reader that they have to answer, to try to anticipate the needs of an audience and cast a net that includes their concerns in the best way possible.

I've said before that one of my regrets is that I set out to make UnNamed so short for querying purposes. I think it should have been a longer book, but I've decided the best way to rectify it would be to add some short story serials to it later. I let myself be guided by word counts that confined the traditional route, but I'm writing epic fantasy. I'm not here to wait for the permission to write the books my stories need to be. So often, authors need brand recognition to write longer books. This is why J.K. Rowling's first book was so small in comparison. Until your publisher is sure that you can sell, they confine the hell out of the requirements.

All I can say is that, in this golden age of publishing, write the book you have in YOU. Not the one you think people will want to read. That book is going to do a lot of transparent posturing and not be as genuine as you think. While, yes, I do want to write something an agent/publisher will want, that book isn't what I'm doing right now. I might have to wait for trends to change, for my work to find its niche, but that means exactly what I believe Min Jin Lee is getting at-- I'll come by that book genuinely, rather than intentionally. Whether it takes 10 or 30 years, I'll keep crawling along my path stubbornly.

As I've said before, I loved UnNamed, my flagship book for the UnQuadrilogy, yet that wasn't the book it could've been. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Was it complete? Sure. But there were many character aspects that could have been given more time to flourish in a larger format. The Rain Maidens and the main character both would have been deeper characters if I hadn't restrained them. Especially since my mercenary is a tough character to like. While I wanted him to be that way, I also felt like he deserved more time than he got.

So there will certain be more short story collections that will actually be supplemental to the main series. I even have working names for them. Gods and Sentinels will be one and Marked in Rain and Flame is the other. Sentinels and Gods will be a historical prequel that takes place where a lot of the problems in this world first started. Marked in Rain and Flame is a more recent prequel that will cover the mercenary's life leading up to UnNamed as well as the Rain Maidens' lives prior to meeting him. In the original, his past is only briefly glanced over, the Maidens only got a few pages of back story at best. It's enough that you get their motivations, but I feel like their backgrounds were just too constrained before. While the Gods and Sentinels are explained well enough, I wanted to showcase their conflict, their vulnerabilities and the grey areas that the main series was only ever meant to hint at. The focus was always on correcting their imbalance, not on justifying it or fully explaining the bumps and bruises of their indecision.

At least I am certain that UnSung, UnHeard and UnVeiled will better benefit from that trial and error. No more writing books that aren't what I think they need to be. As an American white girl, I can't bank on diversity to do me favors either. I don't write invincible females and guarantees. The trends are actually so completely not on my side that I had to come to terms with that uphill battle. 

The important thing is, I'm doing just that. I'm flexing my brain and my craft and I believe in my work. I see great things for my stories and if I have to hump out a studio and indie this shit to hell and back, it's happening. Because I'm not sure I care if I should or not, just that I can't imagine doing anything else.