Monday Cup Of Links #33 - Well-Built Vegetarians, Giant YA Advances, Indian Graphic Novels
My novel is morphing into YA and now my characters are all between 15 and 19.
Happy Monday!
India House is chugging along, and I’m actually writing the exciting parts of the story, where there’s real conflict and confusion. So far, I’d only been writing things that felt like scene-setting. I like writing things that feel like first chapters, that exhibit lots of potential, but don’t have much action going on, and I’d been in that comfort zone all this while. Now I’m writing scenes where our boys (and lady) clash with the bad guys, and it’s scary, like diving off a diving board instead of stepping in from the side of the pool.
I’m also trying a different kind of goal-setting, where I increase my word count everyday (including a jump on weekends) instead of trying to do the same amount everyday. So far, so good. I’m hoping to have 50k words done by the end of this month. Let’s see how that goes.
With all that that’s been going on, I’m distracted and feeling quite headless, which in turn impacts productivity. While being kind to myself is nice and important, I don’t know if that really helps me get back on track. Once I lose momentum, I find it difficult to regain it, and that has been and continues to be my challenge.
Onto our links!
ICYMI: The latest extract from India House, where we meet the second lead in our novel, VVS Aiyer. I’ve been waiting to write more about him because he’s an interesting and exciting character who does things that are fun to write about, like uncover spies and threaten them with a gun. Reading his biography reminded me of several of my great-uncles who were probably born 30 years after him, but had their lives changed with the fight for freedom and partition, and the resulting poverty. They were chilled out old men who made bad jokes, by when I was born, but they would tell me stories of all the heroic things they had done, like escape a violent mob on a stolen horse. Or hide entire families during Partition. Or get lathi-charged by cops on horses. They also went to distant ends of the British empire in search of jobs and an income, some as far as Tanzania and Uganda. And they were all built like tanks and didn’t let poverty, disease, and meager rations come in the way of strength.
This Website Will Self Destruct…. If you stop posting to it. If no one posts a message on this website for more than 24 hours, it destroys itself. With Internet magic, it’s been up for a month and a half. The messages are incredibly fun to read. Keep it going!
#PublishingPaidMe. A hashtag where people are sharing how much they got in terms of advances from publishing their books traditionally with publishing houses, so we can see racial and other disparities in who gets what advance. It has been incredibly eye opening. For instance, Young Adult books have incredibly large advances. Maybe I just need to make India House into BaalIndia House where all the characters are teenagers.
Some that stood out to me, and others on my writing group:Roxane Gay started off slow, and now regularly gets 6-figure advances.
John Scalzi started off slow, but slowly built up to $3.4 million for a 13-book deal.
This YA writer got a $900k advance for her debut trilogy. Which didn’t earn out, due to which her future advances got smaller. BUT if i got $900k for my debut, I’d just do whatever the fuck I want after that.
Indusverse is an Indian graphic novel publishing house. I’m pretty excited about this. Back in the day, I loved reading the adventures of Bipin in Tinkle, which was about an Indian reporter who went around the world getting involved in (what seemed to be) dark mysteries and kicked ass. I wanted more of that, and I tried coming up with my own such character, though that didn’t go anywhere. This has a distinctly different vibe, that’s more in line with contemporary graphic novels, and I’m interested to see where they will go. (Thanks to subscriber Nimit Rajdev for the link).
GIF of the week: Bioluminescent algae in a Southern California beach. The sand and the water glow blue! In the night!