The Drafting List

Some days, I can write as if I have the free brain of a latchkey kid waiting for Carson Daly to announce the top ten videos of the day. More often than not, I am a thirty-nine-year-old woman who’s chronically online and consuming way too much yet manages to produce a decent number of ideas and words. Instead of harping on myself, I’m going to celebrate the fact that imagination still finds me in these times. I might be a grown-up who does grown-up things, but I will be a pirate never.

We all quote Toni Morrison a great deal around here, and honestly, we always should. This popular quote about writing through adversity always comes to mind:

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

While I believe Sister Toni did give herself a healthy balance of feeling and resting, I must state the message here is to feel how we feel but do the work anyway. It is also fruitful to remember that during every dark age, people still created. They laughed and danced. Loved and held on to hope. Hope is not just a concept. It can be tangible as it resides in books or films that show us we aren’t alone, family mementos, an abundant garden, or a sweater that feels as much like a hug as it does a shield. All of them are tied to memory and emotion.

Thankfully, I have a lot of the above. In The Gifted Society, the hopeful memories these items evoke are called “spark tokens,” and they help the characters unleash their gifts for use. Depending on the day, season, or current pop culture events, my spark token might change, but the big picture remains the same. I still create! I can still construct worlds with backgrounds and stories that ask questions.

Here’s a little bit of what currently lies under the scaffolding in my creative brain, but with much caution, because it’s the internet.

My most needy thought daughter at the moment is obviously The Gifted Society 2. I’ve shared a bit about my progress on my Instagram, and if you follow me there, you probably know drafting has been an uphill battle. Now that I’m about 80k words deep into it, I think I’ve gotten through the worst of my blocks. This story is very demanding and ambitious. It isn’t a story I can leave for a week and pick up where I left off. I have to sit with it, move it to trust me, warm up, and listen. Never do I ever tell it what should be happening. I have my ideas, sure, but a book has a soul to it that matures with time, blood, sweat, and tears. Sometimes with this book, I feel as though it’s Audrey 2—nipping at my fingers for ruby pearls of blood—and I’m Seymour. I’m serious. Blood, sweat, and tears, I said!

I can’t say much about it right now without spoiling it but know that it will pick up in the summer, and Alexia will be more uncomfortable than she was in Book 1. Who knew that could even be possible? Poor girl.

It is killing me not to elaborate, so I’m making a plan to join Finish Your Book Fall. That gives me October and November to complete this draft. I’d love to make the ambitious goal of hitting 1k words a day, but 500 words seems more likely.

I’m not sure if I enjoy re-writing and editing more now that I’ve gone through the entire process of publishing a book. I need to publish a couple more books before I make that determination. For now, I can say editing was my favorite part of Book 1. Editing is where everything came together. My dream became an actual entity—ripe with depth, history, and systems. It was a challenge I loved taking on and rising to. I also enjoyed the collaborative aspect of working with my mentor, Kyle Hiller, and developmental editor, Sydnee Thompson. Behind every great artist or visionary is a team that shares the same belief in the mission. Finding the right team can change everything, and my team moves me to lock in, fill in gaps, and take my storytelling to the next level. In that process, I found what the book wanted to say. I hope to see what it means to readers now.

I have previously shared news about The Gifted Society 2’s cover. Reminder: It is done and beautiful! Clara is currently working on the back cover. We will also work on incorporating art on the inside, as we did with Book 1. I do hope to have a Kickstarter for the second book. We have even discussed the possibility of creating a special comic as a stretch goal—which would be insane!

In the meantime, I will be selling a gorgeous round of limited-edition heavyweight t-shirts, embroidered with the title logo of The Gifted Society, soon. I will keep you posted here but be sure to follow me on IG as I am most active on there.

I’m often asked about who I would cast if my book were adapted into a film, so I made a post answering that question. Check it out and tell me if you’d watch!

Now you know I absolutely can’t give you anything here. This is Harriet the Spy notebook territory. KEEP OUT!

Just kidding, but not really.

This project has been in my queue for years, but it is the clearest story I have ever thought out. It dropped in my head fast and built itself. Where The Gifted Society has to be approached like a holiday dinner, Project Blackbird (what I’m calling it for now) feels like a meal that has been mailed with curated ingredients and instructions. The idea is all mine. I put the work into it, but so far, it has felt so natural and easy to access and cook up. Perhaps because it is so close to me. Like so many Americans, I am a child of divorce—along with my sisters, who are my best friends. During my time living in a cold state outside of my beloved California, where I was probably snowed in for eight months out of the year, the story of three sisters who navigate the effects of their broken family through magical and mysterious circumstances came to me. As my sisters and I used endless nights of Guitar Hero and Rock Band to drown out the noise and mend our broken hearts, the Everette sisters: Asha, Zuri, and Satchel take to their garage and make pop punk music to do the same.

I plan to devote more time to this project in between The Gifted Society 2 and 3, when I need space from those stories, or while I wait for edits.

It has always been my dream to write something for my sisters, as they have always been the ones who know me to my core and make me feel safe no matter what lies before me. I feel at home with them, and I hope this book conveys that while marriages might end, family never does.

The best part? It’s a mix of Josie and The Pussycats, The Labyrinth, and Powerpuff Girls! Can you say obsessed?!

The temporary title of this novel might speak for itself. I love watching Gilmore Girls. For much of the year, it is on in the background if TCM (Turner Classic Movies) isn’t. I didn’t grow up watching Gilmore Girls during its prime time. It wasn’t appealing to me then. The right time for me to consume it came at a very complex era when I had to establish myself back into the workforce so my family could make the transition from being a military family to a civilian family. This entailed planning and some distance at times. To get away from all those growing pains I felt, Gilmore Girls provided a great escape with its perfect small town, extensive banter, and defiantly rich main character who cosplays as middle class, Lorelei Gilmore. You’d think I’d crave a more representative story, and I did, but I think it helped to be so far away from anything that hit close to home. Sometimes, film and TV are good for watching someone else’s silly problems, and that’s precisely what Gilmore Girls is. The extent of Rory’s obstacles is largely due to her pursuit of gratification and validation. She can’t accept that some people won’t like her or find her talented. Imagine that! A girl of her breeding can be inadequate. In fact, one of my favorite lines from the show comes from the episode in which she meets Logan (her boyfriend) and his family for dinner. It is the first time she meets the notorious Huntzbergers, and she is astounded to learn they see her as simple and too much of an outsider. “Do they know my ancestors came over on The Mayflower?” she asks Logan in shock.

This show, and my own relationship as a mother, got me thinking what this story would be like with a couple of different elements. Elements I won’t go into in length because, outside of outlining and drafting one chapter, I have barely touched this story. Just know it will be diverse and set on the Golden Coast. And yes, it will have a magical and whimsical element.

I expect to really cut into this in between drafts for The Gifted Society 3.

A bit of special news! I won a year-long mentorship with Aje Roberts, Senior Commissioning Editor at Tor Books UK, a.k.a. Thee Fairy Bookmother. I cannot overstate the power of a positive mind in making this happen for me. I programmed myself to think that this opportunity would knock on my door by believing it had already happened. Sounds very *whoo whoo*, but it’s my reality. One day, I’ll go into detail about how this last month has been such a pivotal time for me. Primarily in terms of energy, I feel drawn to different directions, which is somewhat unsettling. But I am ready for new changes and growth. And I’m glad I am listening to all the signs around me because they were definitely telling me to make room for blessings. Aje and I will connect in October for our first meeting. I’ll be sure to update you all on my journey along the way! Hopefully, going from pumpkin to carriage with glass slippers on my feet!

I hope you all remember to step away and take breaks from the roller coaster we are on. If not in your own world, perhaps the world an author conjured from a simple seed of thought that grew with tenacity and the stubbornness to never give up. A lot of love lives in projects for this very reason. By hook or crook, we believe in crossing the finish line because our stories can be there for the right person, at the right time, when they need it most.