Hey, all! I hope you had a great few months! I sure have. You've probably noticed all the short stories I've been adding to my Wattpad account. I've also written a few more chapters on Storywars, which is always an exciting journey. One thing I've noticed while writing, is how my style changes depending on the time of day. When I was working on "Mary's Box", a collaborative piece I wrote with my sister Hunter, I wrote certain scenes at differing times. For example, from the beginning to the first page break, I had been writing at night. The succeeding scene where Marietta finds herself at the coffee shop and she sees Lily Beas, had been written in the morning. Finally, the last section was written in the evening. If you read the story, you probably noticed a change of mood and tone between the parts I wrote during the day and those written at night. The day part is less descriptive and more direct. The night sections are slower and include more imagery. It all makes sense, too, if you think about it. I'm more awake during the day and my mind is rushing with millions of ideas. I don't have time to get stuck on one detail. At night, I'm tired and more willing to put effort into the small stuff. Fortunately, with "Mary's Box", the changes in mood and tone actually went nicely with the story, but in longer works like The Keldar Chonicles where I need a more consistent feel, it doesn't work out as well. To balance this all out, I'm definitely going to work on scheduling my time accordingly depending on what type of story I want to create. Thanks so much for reading! See you in December!
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First, let me apologize. I promised I would write quarterly. I'm now changing my blog posts to every three months. You can find more details in my general big update. On the topic of writing, I have several new stories that I'll be sharing with you hopefully soon. One of my upcoming stories focuses around obsessive compulsive disorder which I was recently misdiagnosed with. I haven't written much on mental illness and now that I know I have depression and generalized anxiety disorder, I've been finding stories to be a nice place to focus on the topic. It's a nice start to discovering my own identity. I do have to admit, I am a bit cautious of calling my story #ownvoices. While most of them are, whether through adoptee identity, gender fluidity, ace/aro, etc., I don't feel that I am best person to be representing these marginalizations. I live a fairly privileged life and still struggle with accepting myself. On the other hand, I do want to know when I'm misrepresenting someone and by not identifying with #ownvoices, I believe people will have an easier time giving me constructive criticism. Well, thank you for reading. See you in four months!
So a lot has happened. As you saw by previous update, I'm no longer ultra pro-adoption. This has been a major change for me but has given me the chance to listen to other adoptees' voices who have not been as fortunate with their placements as me. I admire the strength to write about their experiences and persevere in spite of their harsh histories. This year has been pretty good for writing. I have finished planning my next three novels and have written ninety-two pages of a book based on the short-lived "Keldar Chronicles". At the moment, I'm calling it "This Planet's Name is Secret". The story follows a ferf, a derf, and two adopted brothers from India. My sister Hunter may illustrate it if she feels up to the task. My short story writing has improved as can be seen with "Sisters", "Alphabet Sky", and "The Crowd". I've written some more stories towards the end of 2017 that I will be sharing with you all soon. Overall, writing wise, 2017 has been pretty good. Of course room for improvement is always needed, but I've definitely gotten more confident and ready to share. Thanks for reading! See you in March.
So I've been going through a lot lately. I've realized that my whole life has been shaped around the trauma of adoption and starting to come into terms with my adoption, the good and bad parts. I've realized that my sensitivity comes from fear of abandonment and my life here in America might not be better than it would have been in China. It's just different. I want to talk about my short story "A Big, Jumbled Family". The message of this story is family isn't all about biology. I realize now that family is more biology than I realized. Most of the time, interests within a biological family are similar and while experiences sometimes divert them, they may begin in much of the same way. In my adoptive family, we have very different likes. My parents aren't into reading or writing and while they support my hobbies, they don't understand it myself. At the same time, I still believe that biology isn't the only thing that makes a family. Love, loyalty, and sacrifice also play major roles. Anyways, from now in my stories starring adoptees, I probably won't display adoption as positively as I did in "A Big, Jumbled Mess" because the truth is, adoption seriously is a big jumbled mess. See you in December!
If you've read any of my stories, I'm sure you've come across this town more than once. Buchtton is a town I made up for my story Lucia. Since then, I've expanded it to many of my other stories including "Dreamings", "Alphabet Sky", and "Sisters". There are plenty stories that I imagine occurring in Buchtton but didn't find it necessary to write it in the text. When I first got the idea for Lucia, I wanted to place it in a town, preferably in Massachusetts. Originally, the setting was Newton, but I realized I didn't know much about that town and I wanted the town to be by the sea. I remembered how Massachusetts was formerly Massachusetts Bay. I went to Google Translate and searched different translations of the word "bay". That's when I found the German word "bucht". I combined it with the "ton" of Newton and received Buchtton. I really like Buchtton. It's small but very busy. The people there are very diverse and intrigue me all the time. Every time I start a story, I always try to figure out a way to add Buchtton to it. Well, thanks for reading! See you next time!
Lucia (the character, not the novel) wasn't hard to relate to. I blame this ease on the fact her emotions were almost identical to mine. While I definitely didn't have all her likes and dislikes, we were very close to each other in feelings. The character I'm working on now is a Chinese adoptee just like me, but her background is so much different from mine. Lea, what I named the girl, was adopted by a single parent and raised up in Boston as a muslim. There are things I had to research for both these characters and those things related to topics I couldn't relate to. For Lucia, her Italian heritage and for Lea, her religion. Another thing I had to take into account through my research is remembering not all Italians are the same and neither are all muslim girls. I even had to remind myself that Lea's experience as a Chinese adoptee would be different from mine. If there's one thing I learned about creating main characters is having a balance between things you know about and things you don't. If your character ends up being a replica of yourself, why not just make your story nonfiction or state right at the beginning the character is you? Personally, I think it would be kind of cool to read stories about authors in a different world, but often times, at least from my experience, creating a character just like yourself makes it hard to give them troubles. You can start with a rough outline of yourself, but maybe branch off by giving your character different hobbies and likes. Creating a main character that is completely different from yourself is also different. You have less to relate to and a harder time finding the core of the character. While I support writing characters different from ourselves, I also support creating realistic characters. To do this, especially with a character much different from yourself, you have to research. Research and get feedback. I'm excited to continue working on Lea, but also a little nervous. I'm worried I'll get something wrong and accidentally do something offensive. I'm trying hard not to do this by finding sensitivity readers and researching from different angles. Overall, I'm glad for the chance to learn something new and hopeful you'll love Lea, too. See you next time!
It was a really fun story. I got to really think about how fifth graders' minds work and how they're a lot more emotional and sensitive than some stories make them seem. I absolutely loved doing Avani. She is just an adorable, dreamy fifth grader who loves to speak in metaphors. I really hope to see her more in future stories. One of the troubles I had with Lucia was figuring out what should happen next. While I was writing the story, I was constantly changing things in my outline. I took out a lot of things as well. I used to have this scene where Lucia is on the bus to Longgrass and she's talking to Isabelle. Overall, I really enjoyed Lucia and I hope you guys did, too. Thanks for reading!
I'm not going to lie. I love writing on Wattpad. The community is very supportive and active. The website is well organized and designed. There are countless opportunities to share your work and enter contests. I've been a member of many writing websites, most well known for being part of Figment and Writer's cafe. They were all special in their own ways and helpful, but somehow, Wattpad is the one I stuck with in the end. I was very unsure about Wattpad the first time I joined. I thought it was too busy and too loud. I posted comments, critiquing people's stories. There was this beautiful story I read about a girl dying. I posted a comment recommending "that" to be taken out of a sentence. On Figment, a comment like that would have been seen as helpful and other readers may have even agreed. On Wattpad, a person replied saying, "is that the only thing you noticed in that paragraph?" I felt very nervous about posting comments on Wattpad after that. I made sure to keep a balance between constructive criticism and praise. Eventually as I grew accustomed to the community and I realized how valuable people found my constructive criticism. I began commenting more, trying to explain why I thought something was good or needed work. I slipped up a few times, and still do, by only saying "good job" or "this sentence is awesome". I need to remind myself that I need to explain why the author did a good job or why the sentence was awesome. While the majority of Wattpaders are readers, there are plenty of other writers to get inspiration from and to talk to. The clubs are a useful place to talk to other authors as well as readers and really figure out who your audience is. I mostly use the clubs to discuss ideas with my fellow HurdleAProblem administrators and to talk to our followers. Whatever writers use the clubs for, I think the majority of them can agree it's helpful. Finally, Wattpad is just very accessible. You can be sitting in homeroom and easily be able to start writing in the app. I've had very few complications with the writing features and enjoy quickly jotting down my ideas. Overall, Wattpad is a great place to write, and although not for everyone, many authors have found it useful.
Hi, everyone. I just wanted to give a little reminder that Lucia is published on Wattpad, Storywars, and Storybird. I do hope you check this short story out.
I also wanted to give you exciting news. You're going to get four new short stories this Monday the twenty-sixth on Wattpad. I'll post them on Storybird, too, but moderation takes a while. They're going to be fantasy and really explore what it means to play pretend or to dream. I hope you check them out! Hello, viewers! As you can tell, I went through major changes with my website. I'm super excited about the new layout and I hope you all are too. These changes will take time for me to adjust to, so I hope you will be patient. I now have four blogs to update instead of just one, so it'll take time and scheduling will be difficult.
Anyways, onto the topic of writing. For this blog, I will be posting little bits about my writing method and stories about my life related to writing. I probably will be posting once every two to three months, but my posts will be detailed and full of information. Just keep in mind that the tips I share are things that worked for me. They might not work for you, so don't be afraid to completely ignore my advice. These suggestions shared are merely for the purpose of helping writers who are struggling with the process and are willing to try other methods. Overall, I hope you enjoy. See you soon! |
AuthorI'm Darcy Ridge, creating stories that all revolve around family and identity in a myriad of ways. In the past, I have shared multiple stories and published a novella online. You can find me on Wattpad and many other social media websites. They/them [Image Description: black background with the words "Social Justice and Mental Health Resources" in white in the center /end ID]
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