What genre is it anyway?- classifying “Calypso”

Life was so much easier when I only wrote YA romantasy fiction- which is basically high school age fiction with fantastical elements driving the plot of the story.

Now… I’m at a bit of a loss. I’d be off querying multiple agents at once if I had any idea what kind of story this is. I didn’t exactly give that a lot of thought when I was writing it and that process started over a decade ago.
Of course there is the option of just calling it a work of literary fiction and casting a massive net. But that could substantially decrease my chances of it going anywhere. So I’d rather create even more work for myself by trying to narrow things down.

First off- I know a few genres it is not.
It’s not:

*Sci-fi or fantasy (although you could argue that some elements of the story are so unrealistic- such as how the business and the acts are financed and the notion of women voluntarily prostituting themselves)
*Young adult or children’s fiction- with the average age of the main characters being mid 20s
*Erotica (sex scenes and prostitution notwithstanding, there’s not nearly enough of that content where it would fit in. I may have written the thing but I'm still not someone comfortable talking about that context with strangers, let alone people I know)
*Historical (since it’s present day, probably set around 2012)

Which leaves me with, in all likelihood, women’s fiction since the majority of the main characters are women,
My issue with this is that most women’s fiction tends to be fluffy fiction you find in hallmark movies or as drug store paperbacks. None of which this story is- it’s not super dramatic or suspenseful but it’s not what you’d call “cozy”.
It may be comforting for women who’ve gone through hardship to read about others who found a way to work through it… for the most part. With any sort of trauma, there’s no such thing as an easy recovery. It’s not a straight line. It has ups and downs and you’ll have your fair share of good and bad days. The key is striking that balance, acknowledging/understanding why you feel the way you do and riding out the storm until it passes.

Because a lot of my brainstorming for this involved music and a lot of inspiration came from those songs, in a perfect world, this would be a musical like Chicago or a TV series like Glee.
Or an HBO series but with limited language, sex and nudity. I’d give an example but I haven’t seen a lot of series on HBO or those movie channels because they overdo it with these things. I realize that’s what sells these series but the last thing I want is something I put a lot of work into being something I’m not comfortable watching because it goes too far in that direction.
There is a way to do these things tastefully without overdoing it. I may be alone in this mindset but I wouldn’t have written it if I didn’t think it was possible.
And as far as the musical aspect goes, I’ll have to reread to be sure but I’m pretty sure the various venues in the story are the only places songs come into play. It’s not as if someone is walking home from work and spontaneously breaking into song… although there may be one or two exceptions… I’ll have to double check.
And in terms of language, I think the F word is only used maybe 3-5 times. Amber says “shit” a couple times and Alejandro could almost have “dios mio” as a catch phrase because he says it twice. But just because I gave him an accent doesn’t mean I want to turn him into a stereotype. After watching one or two series recently where no one can go on a tirade without yelling the f word multiple times, I know I definitely don’t want to do that. Cursing, just like sex and nudity, has to be used strategically for maximum impact. Otherwise you just become numb and you barely notice it’s there

When I do my writing, in addition to putting myself in my characters’ shoes in order to channel how they’d feel in certain circumstances, I often view the story as a movie in my head. But with this particular story, it’s hard not to imagine a visual representation of it.
Which is why it’s so tempting for me to do what geniuses like Prince and Charlie Chaplin did- they wrote and directed everything themselves to have complete creative control over their vision. (Of all his filmography, Prince only did this with graffiti bridge. It wasn’t received well for multiple reasons but he was satisfied enough with the end result that my point still holds true).
And yeah, this would just be another way of me delaying the inevitable or whatever— but times like this, I do seriously consider writing a screenplay version of how I’d want this story to go. And maybe while doing it, I figure out if it was better suited as a tv limited series or a series of movies. Or hell, a stage musical for Broadway if I’m crazy enough to attempt it.

But as it is with a lot of my creative pursuits, it’s fun to imagine but it tends to be a huge pain when it comes to putting in the work to do it. The fact it took me so long to write this story from start to finish- regardless of the fact I never gave myself a hard deadline- is proof of that.

One other thing I'm sure I'll do at some point also- recording myself doing the dialogue from this just so I have a record of how I hear all the characters sounding like in my head when I write their lines.

A Character's Genealogy: Introduction

I have family members who are super interested in researching the genealogy of our relatives. My sister will sometimes watch "Who Do You Think You Are?" where celebrities track down the roots of their families and find all kinds of interesting revelations. My dad- he's a bit of a skeptic, believing these shows are staged for dramatic effect, companies like Ancestry.com are scams, and logically, you can only trace back your genalogy so far until it's guesswork.

What are my thoughts?
It's kinda interesting, I guess. I'm not super obsessed with my family's history and I'd seen some of these shows (in the event they feature a celebrity I'm particularly interested in).

The funniest part is that I fell into this for one of my characters over a random reason: 
Jonas lives with his guardian and I started brainstorming a way to explain how he had no living relatives to live with after his parents died in a tragic car accident.
Then I started scribbling ideas from what little I remember from Social Studies, bits of my family's history and "It's a Wonderful LIfe" and I wound up with some fun ideas. Although I may have reached a point where I may have to do research to fill in the blanks, should I wish to make proper short stories out of them. 

It's also been fun recently re-reading over my old notes and finding stuff I forgot I'd written.
I remembered the business with "Mr. Potter" and "Mr. Bailey" but little else beyond Jonas's parents meeting in college and Peter facilliating their relationship- hence the godfather/guardianship role he has later on. 

So this is what I'm thinking: 

I'll work over the the next few weeks typing up what I have in my notebook and sharing what I have so far in a series of posts. Then maybe at the end I'll add a question section. Things I'm not sure about from certain time periods, what I could potentially build on and so forth. 
And if that means I'll have to do more research the next time I go to a library, so be it.

Another thing I'll probably have to do is give the people in this family tree names or at least codenames. Because not all of them have that and I can only go so far with monikers like grandfather, brother, and so on. 

Discussion: why is it hard for some writers to share/talk about their work?

In the spirit of a lot of self-reflection I’d been doing so far this year, this will ultimately circle back to my own hang ups about this. Why, historically, I tend not to share a lot of my work with friends and family?
But first, a little context and what helped bring this train of thought to the station.

Recently, I read Hemingway’s nonfiction book “A Moveable Feast,” which covered his years in Paris with the notable creative collective from the 1920s.
First of all, great read. Id totally recommend it- just get used to all those long sentences because that’s his whole shtick.
But aside from the anecdotes involving Gertrude stein, Ezra pound and Scott Fitzgerald, I found some really interesting writing advice to copy down for future reference. Stuff like “start with one true sentence and then do another” and “don’t leave the writing desk if the well is empty” advice you’ve probably seen somewhere on Facebook.

The one part that inspired this post- there was a moment I remember where someone at a cafe wanted to talk to him about his writing and he didn’t want to.
Rather than page through the ebook on my iPad to find the exact passage, I went to Google and the AI found a few analyses on this topic.
One answer was that he wanted the reader to find their own interpretation and he didn’t want to get in the way of that. But the main impression I get is that he wrote it and was therefore finished so there was no need to revisit what he’d already experienced. I’ve seen similar things in my years learning about Prince’s career and creative process. Some artists just prefer to let interpretation do its thing because once they’ve expressed the thought, it’s not solely theirs anymore. It's up to the listener to decide.
That’s the one thing I wish Prince did more in his interviews- talking about the music and where it comes from because his work fascinates me. (I know a stronger word than "fascinates" exists; I just can't think of it in the current moment).

The one exception to this is when he has an absolute message he wants to communicate.

For example, his Musicology album. Going as far to say it’s about paying homage to his  musical influences growing up and his goal to bring families of all ages to that tour to hopefully inspire the next generation to pick an instrument to hone their craft.

For the second part- the reluctance of writers to share their work- the main example that comes to mind is also Hemingway-adjacent. The movie “Midnight in Paris” where Owen Wilson plays a former “Hollywood hack” who wants to publish his first novel. While he’s told multiple people what it’s about, he’s less inclined to let people read it. At least until he finds himself transported to the 1920s. Then we learn that his hesitance is about WHO he’ll let read his book opposed to the act of sharing itself. The pushback also has to do with pressure from his loved ones. His fiancée will say whenever the subject comes up “he’s working on a book but he won’t let anyone read it.” Or constantly suggesting people he should let read it and they’re friends of hers he’s not close with and… putting it mildly, he doesn’t respect. But he does respect the opinions of the Paris collective enough that he asks Hemingway to read it, who refuses (“you don’t want to hear an opinion from another writer” and he just seeing writing as another competition). But he suggests him to Gertrude Stein who gladly does it and offers valuable feedback and insight (on more than just the writing itself).
Then there’s super creatives like Prince who don't share everything he wrote. Either because they’re unfinished ideas or the timing isn’t right for the subject matter or he’s lost interest altogether.


That just leaves me- and in 20 or so years I’d been writing fiction, I’m falling on both of these fronts. And because it’s me, someone who never makes anything simple for themselves or others, there isn’t just one reason for this.

For part 1, not talking about my writing…
A) I got good at writing to compensate for the fact I’m not good with explaining myself verbally. So yes... I can agree with the sentiment I’d rather let my words do the talking for me. Which runs into a brick wall because I also tend not to share my work. (More on that later).

B) this is something I should probably worry about a lot less but it’s only human… I worry that my message will get lost in translation because I’m not good at explaining myself. I’d hate to go through a whole spiel and find I’d wasted my time because the other person/people didn't understand the message

C) this has been a thing my whole life… both at school and among family… things I have interest and passion about were either dismissed for being trivial, something silly other people wouldn’t take seriously and therefore won’t take me seriously or I’m just teased for liking something that people don’t feel the same way about. It’s the same reason I kinda hate getting pigeonholed. I don’t want to be known for one single thing in case I either lose interest or just don’t want to feel like I have to talk about it all the time.
Which is silly. Because a lot of the time I love being known for being a Prince fan or being remembered for that one thing I wrote in high school (I have a yearbook comment on this specifically).
Because I loathe ridicule and teasing (even if it's meant to be playful), I consume a lot of media from my interests when nobody is around. Then again, considering I have family members who will watch the same series multiple times or the same internet clips every few months, maybe I can afford to be a little less self conscious about this. You could also chalk this all up to me taking things a little too personally and maybe I need a better sense of humor.

As for the not sharing… it’s obviously fear motivated. No sugar-coating that. But it’s not fear about not being good enough, but again fear of my intentions being misunderstood. Or if the subject matter is something that might come as a surprise to the people who know me best I’m afraid it’ll affect their opinion of me and lead to awkward future conversations. 

That whole thing about "Midnight in Paris" where Rachel McAdams puts pressure on Owen Wilson to have her friends read his book... that's somewhat relatable as well. But considering how long I've been stuck at "I have something finished but can't find anyone to publish it so I'm not actively pursuing that route," that's something else I should probably work on.

Thanks to the internet and anonymity I have shared a lot of my thoughts and scribbles online but I don’t always share the links on social media for people I actually know to find them. Yet I have no qualms with throwing these things out into the void for people to randomly come across.
I’m also starting to reach the point now where that’s not good enough anymore and it hasn't been helpful to my writing "career" or me in general. If I’m getting any feedback at all, it’s spam or it’s unhelpful. I’m all for constructive criticism but not plain criticism questioning my authority or the authority of the person I’m writing about. Another classic example of I’ll fight tooth and nail to stand up for someone I care about, but I don’t do that enough for myself.

Given the choice between the two, yes, I’d rather receive feedback from people I know than random trolls on the internet… so I should work on sharing more.
The flip side of that- those moments I’ve been admonished for oversharing. It’s such a struggle finding that balance so it’s just easier to stay quiet and not share anything than deal with the embarrassment of being confronted about it. When the point posting about it is so I feel better because it’s out there and I don’t have to think about it anymore.

Not sure when I'll get around to doing this, but I had the idea recently of trying to reach to other writers, particularly some female writers I'd read books from recently to see if they can help steer me in the right direction for my last project. I need to review it again and maybe get it professionally edited and I might do the self-publishing route on Amazon because I have no idea how to query or market it... like I said, I overcomplicate things and it's not something I can fit into a single genre. But if I get more feedback, maybe I'll have a better idea of what direction to take if I decide to pursue the traditional publishing route. 

I can say or think whatever about myself, but one narrative I REALLY want to work on changing.: I don’t want to be that person who’s always writing but never does anything with it. Maybe it’s just another imaginary nagging voice in my head but part of me is a bit concerned some people already have this perception of me.

Naming characters in fiction- intentional or coincidental?

I’m sure all writers have their own methodology when it comes to this particular part of the creative process. They can either pay homage to someone they know or their name means something in another language, which in turn says something about the character themselves or what to expect from their story arc.

For me, 9 times out of 10- I have zero intention behind the names I pick. I just start writing and a name comes to mind that feels good enough to keep.
Phil Collins had been asked in interviews about who Sussido is and his answer was along the lines of “it was a filler word just to complete the phrase until finding something better and nothing came along”.
Sometimes I’ve done the same thing… I start thinking of a character and use a placeholder name until it sticks.

The most recent thing I wrote happens to be one of those rare times I chose the names with intention.
Except for Natalia, all the names of the sirens connected back in some way to something else.
My favorite name of all the ones I picked for the story hands down is Alejandro. Maybe in my top 10 Lady Gaga songs but now it makes me think of a character who went through a lot of changes in the creative process, from a potential villain to an unspoken hero.

The funniest part of this whole process to me— I randomly pick a name because it sounds good and I sort of realize after the fact I might have subconsciously picked it up from somewhere else in pop culture…
One of which i discovered recently and honestly have no explanation for, haha.

My original romantasy story that I wrote in high school- I chose two names intentionally because they reference two of my favorite characters at that time.
Jonas was the main character in The Giver. But I didn’t come up with the name right away. I had someone with dark hair and pale blue eyes- the eyes were inspired by my high school crush at the time. And since the character in the book had those things in common, it felt like a natural fit. Personality wise, both are studious and have to carry a burden on their shoulders but the similarities end there.
Mai, the gossip queen who later becomes a close friend- Mai Valentine from Yu-Gi-Oh! will always come to mind when I write about her. I’ve played around with other names to erase that connection but I don’t know if I ever will.
Nina, Jonas’s future love interest- like with Natalia afterwards, just a name I’ve always liked.

Then there’s their other friends.
Corey and Eric vie to be Mai’s boyfriend and this comes between their friendship… I don’t think I was watching boy meets world at the time but I might have picked those names up from seeing commercials. Their personalities couldn’t be any more different.

Recently I realized with Mai’s friend group- I have Rachel Monica and Bonnie… I might have been watching Friends at the time but I swear I didn’t do it intentionally. This hit me last week and I was like “I can’t believe I did that”… again don’t know if I’ll change the names going forward or not. Their personalities are starting to come together but so far they have nothing in common with Rachel green or Monica geller.
Bonnie is another name I’ve always liked- I have a cousin with that name but I don’t know for sure if I’d met her or not. I also named my second rabbit Bonnie and I had her for 7 years.
(Peter, Jonas’s guardian- another name I’ve liked forever but also I named my first rabbit Peter after the Beatrix potter character… nothing but coincidence there)


So you can kinda see how my mind works… just a series of happy coincidences, but as is the case with all the trivia shows I watch, I can sometimes draw knowledge from the most random places. I'll remember where I got it from a lot of the time, but how I retained it... that'll remain one of life's great mysteries, haha

Facing my Fears: Resurrecting "Jonas"

Not sure if this is something I'll post eventually or that I'm just writing for myself, but I'm writing it to get it out of my head... and hopefully I can figure out what to do moving forward.

I'd been toying around with redoing this project again for a while, but it's been really difficult finding the motivation to start it. 
I'd written in previous posts some of my ideas of what to add, subtract and otherwise experiment with... but it's finding the time and energy to do it. 

I'd been cagey in general about writing fiction since I'd finished my previous project. I spent the past several years working on it from start to finish. I've lived with those characters in my head for such a long time and with some of what they went through, it was hard taking on that emotional load. Things I'd never personally experienced but I put myself in the shoes of those who might have. 

So that's played a lot into things. But I think my greatest fear is the same as it's always been: rejection. 

It's all part of this industry. Some of the greater success stories in the writing community had been rejected dozens, if not hundreds of times. I think I have maybe a dozen rejection emails, most of which said they're not interested. Nothing specific that could really help me in the long run. To cap that all off, I was submitting to agents at a time when NOTHING was going right for me. If I got any job interviews at all, there was no follow-up. All but maybe 3 of the dozen of so positions completely ghosted me.
Thankfully things are a lot better than they were back then and I work for a company where I feel valued and I'm lucky enough they've let me continue to work from home even with everything essentially back to normal from whatever the hell this decade has been. 

I spent a few years after the rejection emails trying to edit and fix things, but I stalled out by maybe chapter 4... nothing ever came after that. I got distracted with actual work and the million other little interests I've sunk my time into. 
Now I'm at that point where I really need to start putting words down on my laptop and seeing what happens. I'd been so caught up in my head, thinking over what might work and ultimately deciding some things aren't going to work or just don't feel right.

So this is my message to myself: start experimenting. Write things down. If it doesn't go anywhere, then there's always other options. If it doesn't feel right, I can try a few other angles.
I have a Word.doc for another project where I'd done a similar thing, but for different reasons. Me experimenting with difficulties a character could go through and how the scene around them plays out...

This could be a similar thing and I could use different headings and so on to help organize things. 
I feel like this is already becoming this year's theme and it's only day 7 (going on 8 at this point)... I need to carve out a time slot, give myself 10 minutes and just do the thing. In fact, I'll set up that Word document right now.