Hi everyone,
I hope that you are managing well in this heat (it has been quite warm up here in Toronto). I have been taking a break from writing after releasing my newest book, Sleeping Beauty no more, but I have been busy in other ways.
I am still learning about writing and marketing, so I signed up for a few online seminars. The latest one I attended was yesterday by a NYT best selling author. The author shared some interesting insights about how to write a bestseller, but one thing he said resonated a lot. He said that in order to shave off years from your learning curve, you must find yourself a mentor in your field. I think that is a great piece of advice in any career.
The other thing he said was about the role of setup and payoffs within the story. I feel that intuitively I have been including a lot of the things he said in his presentation, which was a relief. My main takeaway from his talk was about editing ruthlessly and giving the novel time to rest before looking at it again.
I wanted to do a blog post about an animated movie today, but my brain refuse to cooperate in this heat, lol. I also have been reading a lot, which I desperately needed after writing on a strict schedule for months. My mind needs to wander in new worlds. I finished the Red Queen series and enjoyed it a lot.
My mind is still ruminating over a new book idea. Namely, a ice queen retelling in an dystopian world. I haven’t written anything like that before, so I am still brainstorming. I think the term is world building? It will be more complex than the setups I had in my previous novels. I will take my time with this one, but like I mentioned in my previous post, I already made the cover and selected the title.
I sense a pattern in how I start a new project, and for me, it tends to be a certain theme I want to explore. For my first book, My Dear Ellie, it was friendship. For Divine Error, it was a career crisis . For the Stone Mermaid, it was forbidden love. And the newest one brewing in my mind, a dystopian world. We will see how it pans out. Usually, even I don’t know the final outcome.
The weather is forecasted to be cooler next week, so hopefully I will write the blog post as I planned. I hope that you are staying cool (or warm, depending on your part of the world).
Take care 😊
Update: I just received a notification that My book, Sleeping Beauty No More, is part of a new Books2Read Promo!
Find your next favorite book at https://books2read.com/rl/KoboAugustWeekendPromo
Another Update:
My book, Sleeping Beauty no more, is featured in the august edition of Bookish magazine 😊 Please check it out:
https://online.fliphtml5.com/cmebw/vodk/
Aisha's Writing Corner 