Breaking Glass Ceilings: The Rest of Us Just Live Here

We all love our Chosen Ones. The boy who lived. The girl on fire. The first jumper. It was a wild phenomenon, as fans and readers enjoyed cheering for their heroes. However, with the amount of Chosen Ones we have encountered, one would wonder if there’s still a Chosen One, at all. 

It’s a concept that continues to be present in many forms of literature – whether in printed word or digital media or deliberately stated or implied – and it'll most likely continue until the end of time. While there is nothing wrong with the Chosen Ones, it has become a generic trope that most readers, such as myself, are exhausted of reading about. (So, this is essentially the origin story of how I have fallen in love with anti-heroes.)

When The Rest of Us Just Live Here was first announced, I was instantly intrigued. A book deliberately not about Chosen Ones? Count me in. It was time for the rest of Hogwarts’ students, for the faceless victims of Panem, of the citizens of a revolutionized Chicago. 

The Rest of Us Just Live Here was an interesting lovechild of light fantasy and young adult contemporary. Patrick Ness’ take on the Chosen One trope was creatively woven where our protagonists’ stories happen side-by-side whatever heroic journey the Chosen Ones – or as they are referred to, the “indie kids” – are on, where the latter was simply considered as a background matter. 

Patrick Ness’ book was a satirical and even, parodic response to the trope of the Chosen Ones but what made it substantial were the seemingly ordinary characters that were just like the rest of us. The main protagonists’ Mikey, his sister Mel, Henna, Jared, and even new kid, Nathan and Mikey’s younger sister, Meredith, all have their own personal demons with themselves and the world. However, as Caitlin White stated it, The Rest of Us Just Live Here isn’t an “’issues’ book”. She insinuated that the characters themselves know so, reiterating it after the reader gets a look at some particular familial struggles:

“But all of this, this isn't the story I'm trying to tell. This is all past. This is the part of your life where it gets taken over by other people's stories and there's nothing you can do about it except hold on tight and hope you're still alive at the end to take up your own story again. So that's what we did. Me, Mel, and Meredith all moved on and we're the stories we're living now.”

Going on a tangent here: while I did just state how The Rest of Us Just Live Here was going beyond its characters having their issues, I would still like to commend Patrick Ness’ presentation of mental illness, in particular, OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. One of the main characters, Mikey, was diagnosed with it and I found his journey through this mental illness truly heart wrenching, especially as the book is told from his perspective. Honestly, I am not well-versed in mental illness in fictional literature (something which I really should change) but the portrayal of the hard reality of having OCD was very raw and grounded. I had understood deeply through Mikey – the frustrations, the compulsions – that until now, the single scene of his multiple repetition of hand washing until his hands were red and bleeding had stayed with me. 

Continuing, The Rest of Us Just Live Here also brought to light struggles we, as the rest of us, entertain from day-to-day through our group of characters. Mikey and company only want to survive their Senior year, enjoy prom, and of course, graduate. (Being a Senior right now, this resonates deeply.) At the same time, there were these challenges of “friendship, family, changing and growing up, and” discovering your identity in this “complicated world” that they had to face. Juxtaposed to the very eventful and adventurous lives of the indie kids, The Rest of Us Just Live Here poke at the idea that living as the rest of us is infinitely more challenging than fighting against alien invaders. In White’s words, “[…] being the Chosen One is far more “normal” than just trying to exist as no one special in the world.” Being extraordinary in our own way as ordinary people is a tougher journey. 

“Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.”

The Rest of Us Just Live Here, in its hilarity and realism, was obviously set to dispel the trope of the Chosen Ones. It successfully did so through complementing the overused cliche in making substantial ordinary characters, instead of merely mocking it.

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Breaking Glass Ceilings is a collaboration with Julienne of Vasari Pages. So make sure to also check hers out!

To be back is like trying chocolate for the first time - again

It's been approximately 2 months and 17 days since I last graced this - my - book blog with my presence. Of course during that time, I grew not just physically but mentally and emotionally through the many events I experienced and obstacles I overcame. (A lot can happen in 78 days.)

Like most, I realized how much I wanted to be heard. And that yearning continues to nag at me endlessly.

How incredibly ironic that the reason I went MIA is because I cannot properly express myself. (If you know me, you also know how a lot of my life revolves around juxtaposition.)

I am a writer, though amateur. We live through words and sentences and forming imagery through them.

I can't fully describe what I'm going through. (See? Problems.)

It's not writer's block, or any artistic block for that matter. I just can't be the enthusiastic writing machine I once were. It's not that I don't enjoy writing (this entry is particularly uplifting to do) but it's just...

I can't seem to write the right words.

When I've got an idea in my head that begs to be released, I open MS in my computer or Werdsmith in my iTouch or get a random piece of paper and just write.

But it doesn't fit.

The emotion I'm hoping for isn't there. The prose sucks. It's straightforward and boring. It's absolutely shitty.

Maybe it's my state of mind that's the problem or my collapsing self-esteem. I just don't know. (Been hearing that way more times than I can count, lately.)

I create this (and my personal) blog to write, to express, to share. And so, I'm trying and I will continue to try to be the writer I once was: confident and passionate.

Yes, I am turning over a new leaf (in June, who cares?). I will write more, even if the sentences aren't coherent or the character's too perfect.

And so should you.

Within these past months of MIW (missing in writing), I also realized that the process of writing isn't magic. It's takes a great deal of effort, not just in moving your fingers to type but also in thinking.

You've got to think positive. Cliche but true. The only person who could bring you up and make you forward is you.

The determination has got to start from you. From the inside, the mindset.

Self critiquing is fine. But don't overdo it. (Like what I am now.) There are nearly perfect results but none that are perfect from the start.

Writers, write. It's what we do. Don't let yourself be your own road block to success.

Camp NaNoWriMo: This or that?

Along with the undeniable summer heat (in my case), April also brings another month of writing:
CAMP NANOWRIMO.

Camp NaNoWriMo is kind of like a toned down NaNoWriMo done during April and July. Instead of the mandatory 50,000 word count, word counts can range between 10,000 to 1M even. Which is really great for me (and maybe even you) who just can't reach 50K in 30 days.

I knew and signed up for NaNoWriMo first but it was in Camp that I actually got started with the writing. Some delay-in-function caused my statistics and my entire account, basically, to disappear into the void of deleted sections of the internet. It was sad since I was having fun but no worries, my memory of the experience is still fresh. 

I actually prefer Camp than NaNoWriMo because, for one, it is during April and April is equivalent to summer for me. So more time to write than just formulate the words in my head and try my best to remember it. Another reason, as mentioned above, Camp presents a wider range of word count goals wherein you could choose one the considers your situation. It is really fortunate advantage.

If I enjoy Camp NaNoWriMo so much, then why am I not opening MS Word and typing my novel instead of this post?

Well, for my first official NaNoWriMo, I wrote a 9,245 (see my point?) novel entitled Breathless which is currently in its 5th chapter. I took a break from continuing for a while because of finals then the annoying K-12 Summer Bridging and my recent sickness. Of course I want to continue it being that I put quite a lot of effort in not abandoning it forever. 

But then, days ago, while dying of boredom in class, I opened my journal to find one of my past ideas. It wasn't polished, nor fully developed, but it was a shiny new idea before that when I reread it, it grew even more shinier. 

Camp came up and I kept debating on whether I should continue with Breathless or start anew with Shiny. It's a question that kept me up since I had to make a decision before I ran out of time. 

I know that it would be stress to write 2 novels at the same time. I know that one would have to be a back burner for the other to prosper. 

I have no idea what to do. I guess novel writing isn't a piece of cake as other would've thought. 

At some part of your writing life, you have probably experienced the same thing: having to choose between 2 great ideas. It is like picking between 2 adorable pairs of shoes. You want both but you just can't (unless you've got a lot of dough, of course). With ideas, you have the rare choice of merging the two into one. But it isn't for everyone. So when troubled, you have to think of both sides - their benefits and disadvantages. 

In the end, you've got to follow your heart (or mind, whichever works for you).

NaNoWriMo 2013: Writing Labels

Every NaNoWriMo writer has heard this question more than a million times: are you a pantser or a planner?

The pantsers are those who go with what they got; may it be a phrase, a sentence, a picture, or even a word that covers the gist of their novel. They are known to 'fly by the seat of their pants', thus the name.

The planners, on the other hand, are those who...plan. They create outlines that include the story peaks and plot twists, character sketches from their history to their physical builds, world lay outs with rules and maps and secrets passageways. 

When asked which corner I belong, my answer would automatically hover over the planner. After contemplating about it, I count myself as neither both. But someone in between, instead.

Usually a simple statement jump-starts my imaginative jet and like a pantser, I work with it, twisting it in a million different ways in search of the perfect bottom line to continue writing. And that's when I become a planner.

The blank spaces on my walls and half filled notebooks would be brimming with flowcharts, character blueprints, and printed maps. They layout my novel for me, answer some questions I have, serving as a history book in case I miss something. But these are just created out of...boredom and necessity.

So whenever I start to yawn every 30 seconds in class or mope around every room in the house, I bring out my notebook and just write. I write the story's end, excerpts from this chapter, conduct and manners of their home, where her name came from, and all that stuff. These prompt me closer to the characters, to their lives and their world, which is crucial in writing fiction.

I guess, one way or the other we are both planners and pantsers, because these characterizations depend on each other, in ways that we tend to not notice. I have nothing against specifying whether you're the former or the latter; this is just me, defining myself as both, 50% planner and 50% pantser.

What about you? How do you write?

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