Hey, hey! Ready for adventure? Good news, a nonfiction short story and photos I’d submitted for Recreation.gov’s Outdoor Adventure Writing Contest was selected as a Top Ten Finalist (February 2021). If you love meteors and hiking to starry mountaintops, read the full story here (plus, catch a snippet of it below from our trip to Sequoia National Park): https://www.recreation.gov/shareyourstory/story/starry-night-above-the-sequoias/ae6a3d80-2b20-405b-9155-1a9072f8ecd3
Oh COVID, you may have taken away my ability to travel over the past year, but you can’t take away my lush memories of sweet-sticky fruits and scooters whooshing through traffic and elephants waving from the edges of the jungle. The bustling marketplaces, the golden temples, the spicy pad thai—life bursting around the edges.
If it’s not obvious, I miss traveling.
This year has been filled with health scares and economic collapse, but one small consolation has been diving into my latest novel manuscript. It’s about a girl dreaming of adventure, but she’s trapped trying to save her family from ruin. There’s a burst of train portal magic, a mysterious underground crime web, and far too much Filipino singing. Let’s just say it’s been the perfect escape from a tough year. In my novel, my character can’t rise above her circumstances unless she learns how to dream bigger. I firmly believe that’s the power in books—whether you want to call storytelling an escape or entertainment or deep philosophical musing. Books provide a moment to dream beyond your own life.
So, for right now, let’s dream.
I’m beyond thrilled to share that I have been accepted into the 2021 Tin House YA Fiction Workshop! Five days of intensive writing workshops, lectures by incredible YA authors, agent meetings, happy hours, faculty readings, and connecting with fellow writers from around the world. This is exactly what I need. After a rollercoaster covid year, I can’t wait for a chance to focus on my creative life. No more doom-scrolling; no more letting my work life spill into my personal life just because my office is now my dining room table. No more wasted mornings when I could have been writing in the dark hours of dawn. It’s not that I haven’t been writing fiction–I’m chiseling through revisions of my latest novel, hooray!–it’s that I’ve not had enough dedicated time to focus on improving my craft and forging new connections. Author Nova Ren Suma will be leading my workshop sessions, and I couldn’t put down her novel A Room Away from the Wolves. Let me tell you, it gave me chills. It’s a modern gothic tale with runaway girls, messy mothers, and an enigmatic house that won’t let you go. Its lyrical writing is haunting. I’m eager to learn from Nova about writing powerful tension, subtext and mystery in my own novel.
The workshop’s wonderfully diverse faculty also include YA authors: Jennifer De Leon, Mason Deaver, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Yamile Saied Méndez, Mark Oshiro, Ben Philippe, and Ashley Woodfolk. Agent extraordinaires will include: Linda Camacho (Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency), DongWon Song (Howard Morhaim Literary Agency), and Saba Sulaiman (Talcott Notch Literary). I know, dream team, here I come.
*Screenshot photos are from the Tin House YA Workshop page
Also, a big thanks to India Downes-Le Guin (Assistant Workshop Director) for keeping us all so organized in preparation for the work ahead.
The only thing I’m not super excited about: karaoke. I know, I know, I’m half-Filipino, so karaoke should be my jam, right? How many Christmases have I hung out with my aunties and cousins singing “Dancing Queen,” Mariah Carey tunes, and even my dad channeling his inner country boy with “Tequila Sunrise.” Unfortunately, I’m not a singer, and no one should be subjected to that kind of torture. Especially over Zoom. Still, I am looking forward to connection and laughter with fellow writers.
Recently, I was thinking about a insightful quote from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear:
“Creativity is sacred, and it is not sacred. What we make matters enormously, and it doesn’t matter at all. We toil alone, and we are accompanied by spirits. We are terrified, and we are brave. Art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege. Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us. Make space for all these paradoxes to be equally true inside your soul, and I promise—you can make anything. So please calm down now and get back to work, okay? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.”
I’m saying, yes.
What about you?
Stay home, write books! My writing group had grand plans for our retreat this year — cozy cabin in Colorado, writing & laughing & cooking for days, SNOWSHOEING! (I live in beachside California, so you have no idea what snowshoeing means to me). But, with the coronavirus pandemic, we had to scrap plans and get creative. In April, we jumped online and hosted mini-workshops for each other: the craft of writing emotions, world-building, drawings maps, delving into our blindspots in race and culture, plot bunnies. Sure, I would have much rather been cozy and writing in a cabin with my critique partners, but I’m ever grateful to have these hilarious and talented ladies in my writing group.
See, I’m trying to be positive.
Downright sunny.
But, to be honest, it wasn’t quite the same. Every year, I carefully budget and plan and scrounge vacation days to go to at least one writing retreat. Somewhere I can focus on my art, focus on learning craft, and find my “tribe” — which apparently are a bunch of weirdos who dream up imaginary stories and hammer them out on paper. It’s a break from my non-writing-related career and family obligations; it’s a time to dive into writing with reckless abandon and all the seriousness of a birder. It isn’t sitting in front of a laptop screen having yet another Zoom meeting after a long day of Zoom meetings. The MUG Zoom retreat was a makeshift answer in uncertain times.
Don’t get me wrong; I am grateful to be healthy, safe and employed. Truly, this isn’t a complaint. It’s gratitude. Gratitude for the simple in-person connection that we’ve taken for granted in our ever-increasingly digital world. Gratitude for our resilience during these pandemic times when we’re constantly plugged-in and overwhelmed and worried about the future. Gratitude for friends who make me laugh and inspire me to keep writing. Gratitude that one day we’ll meet again, in-person. Oh, watch out, all the stories we’ll tell.
I’m going mad.
New job, new apartment, new manuscript. I’ve hardly had a minute to catch up and reflect. Over the years, my blog has been my mini-museum of life-changing writing retreats and milestones. I finally have enough of a breather to reflect on an incredible writing retreat I attended in March 2018. Holy cow, has it really been three months?
At the Madcap Writing Cross-Culturally Retreat in Nashville, Tennessee, I had the unbelievable opportunity to delve deep into writing with authors Laurie Halse Anderson, Marie Lu, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova, Tessa Gratton, S. Jae-Jones, Sarah Nicole Lemon, and Natalie C. Parker. Stop. Go back, read that lineup again. I couldn’t ask for a more talented, fierce, and diverse set of YA authors to learn from. And the fact was, they were all very open about how they’re still learning how to write respectfully and authentically across cultures. It made for the kind of retreat that broke down walls and opened up windows into new perspectives.
Not only were the faculty stellar, but the cohort of writers came from all over the US from all different backgrounds. It was inspiring to see such a range of perspectives in the mini-mansion tucked away in the Tennessee woods. And we slept in bunk beds. And I ate more grilled cheese than I have in way too long. I don’t want to make this sound like a fairy tale (okay, it was seriously a fairy tale); however, at the same time, we all dug deep into our own uncomfortable truths surrounding race, privilege, sexism, respect, and authenticity. These are generally topics people try to avoid around the dinner table. It was heartening to come together to talk about these issues in our own writing (and in the overall publishing industry) without heated arguments or defensiveness. It was an open conversation. And I learn so so much. I’m still in processing-mode, so I know there will be follow-up posts. But for now:
#madcaprt #yalit #amwriting
Over the past few months, I’ve been drafting a new YA novel titled “Wildfire Girls” about–you guessed it–WILDFIRES and a gang of powerless/powerful girls that start them. And so, when the Santa Barbara mountains burst into apocalyptic flames again this summer, I felt my inspiration following suit. I’ve been furiously drafting, and now I’m closing in on the last few chapters.
My writing has always been grounded in place. My last two manuscripts were set in San Francisco–no big surprise, since the kid version of myself meandered the Mission long before the hipsters grew out their man buns. I love novels that are filled with sharp sensory details, and I find that my strongest writing is so much about place and the crazy cast of characters that find themselves there.
I’m sorry to see acres of dry drought land burning in the Whittier Fire, and firefighters risking their lives to protect our precarious city by the sea. I’m sorry to find the ash of oak trees on the hood of my car, and the evacuation notices that ring out on the radio. BUT, the best I can do is write and keep writing and let the inspiration of this place carry my story forward.
Stay tuned for more posts on my inspiration for WILDFIRE GIRLS…
Twice a year, my writing group (aka the Mugsters) throws our own writing retreat. This year, we chose Seattle because Mike started his MFA program in Washington, and most of my writing group lives in Southern California where we’ve forgotten the feel of rain clouds, and we’re all a little leery about that mysterious liquid falling from the sky.
The four of us rented a quirky house on Airbnb in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle. We chugged Tin Umbrella coffee (aptly titled “Chase Your Dreams” blend), we meandered through a bookstore/brewery/restaurant called Third Place Books (brilliant idea!), we met up with other writing friends in Seattle, and we were ambushed by Tilly cat, the apparent feline homeowner of our little house. We maybe wrote a little. The thing is, our “writing retreat” has always been a way for us to connect beyond our manuscripts and our blinking computer screens. We come together to laugh and commiserate and inspire and fling ideas around like the lucky little tribe we’ve become.
We’re still puzzled by the mysterious liquid falling from the sky, but unfortunately it did not follow us home.
Total submitted: 33 agents
Sources:
– Writing in the Margins Query Contest Winner (6 agent requests) — this contest really helped me polish my query letter… thanks to YA author Justina Ireland!
– #DVpit Twitter Pitch Contest (19 agent requests)
– various other SCBWI resources
Timeline: I submitted to agents in March and April 2016, and then signed with an offer in May 2016!
Full requests : 16 *happy dance followed by sheer panic at waiting for responses*
Offers: 3 (Yes, THREE! This was a hard choice, and in the end I went with the agent that I connected with the most and knew would be an advocate for my work and bring diverse voices to mainstream fiction because #WNDB. Plus, Erin Murphy Literary Agency is a fabulous agency for the Children’s and YA book market!)
Signed: Tricia Lawrence at the Erin Murphy Literary Agency
When you only look at the stats, it makes it seem so slip’n’slide easy. Nope. What these little numbers don’t capture are the times when I’d frantically refresh my inbox only to be crushed by another rejection, or the months of polishing my query and manuscript until even birds would fly through that glass. And all that hope burning in my chest that maybe, just maybe I’ll see my book on a shelf one day. Even with an agent, it’s still not a guarantee that my novel ROMAN & LYNX will find a publisher. But there’s always hope. (Spoiler alert: If you ever end up reading my novel, you’ll see just how much Banksy’s art inspired my ending.)
Wait, you said you found your agent on Twitter?
Oh, right, that part! Yes, indeed.
#DVpit is an amazing pitch contest on Twitter organized by agent Beth Phelan to help promote more diverse voices in fiction (THANKS, @beth_phelan )! Turns out tons of agents, editors and writers all converged on Twitter on April 19th and spread the love. If they favorited your 140-character pitch, then it meant that you could send them your query and a specific number of pages. Yes, you can already do this… but this pitching contest really brought out the agents that are craving YOUR stories and it time-warped my manuscript through the endless slush pile straight to the top. Here was my pitch:
And here was my query:
Dear Agent,
Thank you for favoriting my pitch at #DVpit: “Shadowshaper meets How to Train your Dragon–a boy busting out his inner Banksy & Filipino myths in San Francisco graffiti streets.” I’m seeking representation for my diverse YA fantasy ROMAN & LYNX, complete at 51,000 words.
Roman figures the quickest way to a new reputation are spray cans and a tattered “Becoming a Renegade” checklist tucked into his sneakers. Forget his Filipino-American family’s obsession with blending in with the wallpaper. But when Roman unleashes his inner Banksy, his painting unlocks an exiled dragon-beast named Lynx into San Francisco’s graffiti streets. Paint smokes the wall, and she crashes into his world—obsidian scales, smoke wings, claws splitting through the billboard.
Now, Roman—with the help of a starry-eyed graffiti girl named Skull—must hunt down a snarky dragon with her stomach set on devouring every hipster in San Francisco. Forced to face the Filipino legends of his ancestors, Roman needs to convince his gray-groovy Granny that graffiti might not be so different from the island cave paintings trapped in her lost memories. If he doesn’t gain Lynx’s trust and learn his own legends, the monsters of Filipino folklore will lock them both inside the graffiti walls forever.
Fans of Daniel José Older’s Shadowshaper and the movie How to Train Your Dragon will enjoy this fantasy adventure in San Francisco’s mesmerizing graffiti streets.
ROMAN & LYNX draws on my own experiences growing up in San Francisco with a mixed Filipino-American heritage. My fiction has appeared in 100 Word Story, Dactyl Magazine, DASH, and was second place in the Writer Unboxed Flash Fiction Contest (2012). I’m a member of SCBWI, and I interned at National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where I wrote inspirational blog posts broadcasted to 400,000 aspiring writers around the world. In addition, I won for best YA manuscript at SCBWI’s LA Writer’s Day 2016 for my current work-in-progress titled “Blanca and the Ruins.”
Thank you for supporting diverse voices in literature, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Oh you know you’re just dying to read ROMAN & LYNX one day! And if there are pink wooden ponies and beat-breaking sharks living in the desert, then anything is possible:
😉
When I showed up at the SCBWI LA Writer’s Day 2016 conference, my biggest worry was beating Los Angeles traffic in time to catch a seat and a sip of coffee before the editors, authors, and agents began their talk. I had no idea I’d win an award for my YA work-in-progress titled Blanca and the Ruins! Fortunately, I was decked out in my orange stripy dress (now forever my lucky dress) and cowboy boots when they called me on stage. Of course, they didn’t announce my name first. Instead they led with my story, and all I could think while I was sitting in the audience was–oh my god–I hope that’s mine! Very surreal moment. Thank you SCBWI for this amazing opportunity!
“Sparkling with humor and a strong sense of place, Blanca and the Ruins is the first-place winner about a fiery and passionate young woman living in San Francisco. Blanca is determined not to inherit the family curse of becoming a nurse. She wants to pursue her artistic passion, but when she sneaks out to draw one night in Dolores Park, she crosses paths with a bleeding boy who needs her help. Once he gets hold of her hand neither of them is able to let go, and Blanca’s life takes the turn she has been resisting. Writer Andrea Ellickson leaves us wondering what will end in ruins – Blanca’s future or her dreams?”
Also, I won a copy of The Rattling Wall, an LA based literary journal with gorgeous gruesome cover art by Kristina Collantes. (Did I mention lucky orange dress?) Can’t wait to crack open the pages!
#scbwi
#lawd16
#mswl
Recently, I was writing a synopsis for my novel. I’d been dreading it for weeks. Go ahead, sum up all the complexities of your entire manuscript into an enticing one-pager without digging a grave under that lightning-struck apple tree. But luckily, the blog post “HOW TO WRITE A 1-PAGE SYNOPSIS” by author Susan Dennard saved me. Mental note, read this before you break out the shovel. It’ll keep your hands clean and your mind from imploding. Also, if you’re a fan of Star Wars (and who isn’t a fan of Star Wars), you’ll have a fun sample synopsis to pick apart.
She brings up a good point too–“Sometimes, I even use it before writing a novel to help me get an idea of the general plot I want to follow.” Brilliant! (As you can tell, I’m more of a panster when it comes to plotting, but even I can change my ways.)
Any luck writing your synopsis before writing your novel?
