I did not do much at all this weekend and it felt amazing. Since the beginning of May, I have spent every single weekend either out of state or working, and this was my first weekend in weeks that I had nothing going on and it felt great.
Friday night after work, Han and I binge watched season 2 of Star Wars: The Bad Batch. We're in the middle of rewatching all Star Wars media in chronological order, which I make us do about once a year religiously. I'm not sure if that's healthy, but it makes me happy.
I did go out on Saturday night with my husband Han and a couple of his friends, since Han's birthday is Wednesday this week. My brother Spike just recently turned 21 so he came out with us, too, and that was fun.
Sunday, Han and I watched the movies Horrible Bosses and Fist Fight which was fun, but I mostly worked on writing this blog post while we watched those.
Project Updates
Convergence #1
Over the weekend I started what I’m calling My Second First Draft. In my First Draft I have about 40k words (about 150 pages), but I got stuck there a few months ago and haven't added much to it since. Now that I'm revisiting it, I've realized that everything I have needs to be scrapped.
I don't delete first drafts, so it's still hanging out in my "First Draft" folder, but it's almost completely unusable now. It's a little depressing, but at the same time, the whole reason I need to scrap it is because I've found a better direction to take this story. So I'm hopeful and excited to start anew.
Fan Fiction
I have 86k words published my Star Wars fan fiction on Archive of Our Own which is just a fantastic site, by the way. But I have been stuck on Chapter 30 for literally months now. Over the past few weeks, I've found the motivation to write about 200-800 words in it a few days a week, but we're at such an important part and I'm scared of messing it up.
This fan fiction has been challenging for me as a writer in so many ways. I am very much a planner when it comes to my writing, and I have done pretty much the exact opposite with this. I also have had very little to no editing in this, and I've been posting chapters as I go along, which has been very exciting and terrifying. I like that fan fiction is purely creative, writing about characters and settings you love. There's no "I might be able to make money off of this" it's all just for the love of writing.
It helps remind me why I love writing, and that all of my writing should feel this fun.
World Refugee Day
Last Friday was World Refugee Day. I worked 9-5 PM that day, but after work I went with my sister Lottie to the Loganberry Books bookstore because they were hosting an event for the day where 10% of all sales went to AMIS (Americans Making Immigrants Safe). So of course we had to go and buy a few books and sign up for volunteer opportunities.
I bought Sunrise On The Reaping by Suzanne Collins, and Hood Feminism: Notes From The Women That The Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall. I've read all the Hunger Games books, and Hood Feminism has been on my TBR list since 2020, so I was excited to have an excuse to buy those.
Some Great Books for World Refugee Day
Refugee by Alan Gratz
GOODREADS SUMMARY: Josef is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world. Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America. Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe.
All three kids go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge. All will face unimaginable dangers–from drownings to bombings to betrayals. But there is always the hope of tomorrow. And although Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud are separated by continents and decades, shocking connections will tie their stories together in the end.
The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri
GOODREADS SUMMARY: What is it like to be a refugee? It is a question many of us do not give much thought to, and yet there are more than 25 million refugees in the world. To be a refugee is to grapple with your place in society, attempting to reconcile the life you have known with a new, unfamiliar home. All this while bearing the burden of gratitude in your host nation: the expectation that you should be forever thankful for the space you have been allowed.
Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother, and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. In these pages, a couple falls in love over the phone, and women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home. A closeted queer man tries to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum, and a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials.
Nothing here is flattened; nothing is simplistic. Nayeri offers a new understanding of refugee life, confronting dangers from the metaphor of the swarm to the notion of "good" immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western Governments privilege certain dangers over others. With surprising and provocative questions, The Ungrateful Refugee recalibrates the conversation around the refugee experience. Here are the real human stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, and to journey across borders in the hope of starting afresh.
Solito by Javier Zamora
GOODREADS SUMMARY: Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago–"one day, you'll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure."
Javier Zamora's adventure is a 3,000-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a "coyote" hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.
At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents' arms, snuggling in bed between them, and living under the same roof again. He cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that will await him; nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow migrants who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.
A memoir as gripping as it is moving, Solito provides an immediate and intimate account not only of a treacherous and near-impossible journey, but also the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments. Solito is Javier Zamora's story, but it's also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.
I have not had the chance to read any of these books yet, but I've added them all to my TBR list and I've heard great things about them!
Do you have any book recommendations about refugees? How are your artistic projects coming along? Did you do anything fun over the weekend?
It's good to have time off and just do nothing. We need that. Seems like you're making progress on all your writings.
ReplyDeleteFan fiction is a fun genre. It's probably harder to write than it sounds.
ReplyDeleteA weekend of doing not much at all sounds like heaven. I, too, have been too busy of late. @samanthabwriter from
ReplyDeleteBalancing Act