Ask the Author #4!

I thought I would do another ask the author, but this time answering questions that aren’t as much about writing, so you guys can get to know me as a person a little better.

These questions come from my friends Lauren and Zack, who I asked for questions about a year ago and never got around to answering on here until now. :)

Q: What if your favorite TV show?

A: I have a LOT of favorite TV shows, but some of my favorites are Once Upon a Time, King of the Nerds, Heroes, The Amazing Race, America’s Got Talent, and Survivor.

Q: What if your favorite book/author?

A: My favorite author is Khaled Hosseini. I have too many favorite books to even begin to list a few.

Q: What book can you not stand that everyone else likes?

A: THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS SERIES. This has got to be up there with the worst books I have ever read in my life, and I honestly don’t get why the fandom is so large. However, a lot of my close friends don’t like this book as well, so at least I’m not the only one.

Q: What is the worst book you have ever read and why?

A: The worst book I’ve ever read for school is The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway. I really hated this book and the entire thing was about sex and dinking and it was really boring and stupid. (For example: We went to a bar then crossed the street to go to another bar, then I came home and some people came over and we drank some more and when they left I cried about how I can’t have sex). This was what the entire book was like.

The worst book that I’ve read for fun that I can think of off the top of my head right now is The Girl in the Area. I got this book because it said that you would like it if you liked The Hunger Games, but this book was honestly so bad I couldn’t get past the first 40 pages no matter how hard I tried. The plot in general was really stupid, it was formatted in a weird way that really pissed me off, the main character was annoying, it lacked a lot of action (for being described as an action book) and character development, the main character’s decisions seemed random without any explanation, and the violence that was in it was random and out of place.

Q: If you were given a million dollars, what would you do with it?

A: I would first of all put some of it aside so I could pay for college (have to be the boring responsible one). I would also move out and buy or rent an apartment somewhere (assuming I would be in college by then). I would buy a new laptop, get a better camera, and some other stuff so I can make better quality Youtube videos. I would go and buy a huge wall sized bookshelf and buy a whole bunch of books and manga to fill it up with. I would probably just save whatever I had left, if I had anything left.

Q: TV show or movie that you like that no one would expect you to like?

A: The anime series Free. If I were just searching for things to watch, I would have never in a million years decided to watch it, but my friend recommended it, so I watched it and it is now one of my favorite animes.

Q: Favorite board game?

A: Probably Apples to Apples or if we’re talking like actual board games, Life Twists and Turns.

Q: Favorite video game?

A: Toss-up between My Sims Kingdom and Mario Kart 7. Alice the Madness returns is up there as well, although I never played through the whole thing.

Q: Favorite place to shop at?

A: Barnes and Nobel duh? But realistically in terms of clothing, like 90% of my wardrobe is from Aeropostale. I do also love Forever 21 and Hot Topic.

Q: Eye color?

A: dark brown

Q: Age you get mistaken for?

A: Pretty much whatever age I am, which is currently 17.

Q: Last time you cried?

A: Watching the Budweiser Super Bowl commercial with the puppy and the horse. Yes I know, it’s a really stupid thing to cry over, but that commercial was just too cute!

Q: Favorite songs at the moment?

A: Make it Up by Sam Tsui. He is a really awesome lesser known artist. He’s both pretty big on Youtube and I recommend you check him out! Also, Classic by MKTO.

So, this is ask the author for today! I hope you enjoyed reading my answers and now know me as a person better!

~K.M.D.

Young Adult Literature: Manga

I know that most people don’t even consider this real literature, but if you actually took the time and sat down to read a few volumes, you would realize that these books have just as much value as a regular book does. I have just as much if not more respect for manga authors than I do for regular authors. They take the same amount of effort into writing a book series, except they have to take the extra time to actually draw out what’s happening along with keeping the story line engaging and interesting.

Note, just because mangas are “cartoons” or “comics” as most people would call them, they are not all meant to be read by children. They are not your ordinary “picture book” that you can give to your child to keep them quiet. Yes, some of them are aimed towards ten to twelve year olds, but they really should not be read by anyone under that age. A lot of mangas I’ve read deal with very deep topics, whether or not the reader at the time realizes it. They shouldn’t be regarded as “trash” just because they aren’t completely written in words.

I know that most people’s first impression of manga is that it contains lost of women with huge boobs, which is something that I am not going to disagree with, because I know it is there. Yes, some parts of manga do contain an overly sexual representation of women, which I am not going to encourage. However, I am going to focus on the positive side and what value people can obtain from reading manga.

A few of the mangas that I’ve read for example have such a deep meaning to them and people can actually learn valuable lessons from. Young adult books get praised often for providing something of value to the teens that read them, yet manga always gets criticized for not being literature when it can portray a valuable lesson just the same as a book can. Two of my favorite ones that come to mind here are Fullmetal Alchemist and Death Note.

Fullmetal Alchemist is about two brothers who tried to bring back their mother from the dead with alchemy, and in return, one lost his body and the other lost an arm and a leg (literally) in order to save his brother’s soul and put it in a suit of armor. The manga follows the two brothers as they encounter many enemies such as a man named Scar, creatures called homunculi (named after the seven deadly sins), and a corrupt government system. This manga explores many themes such as the bonds between brothers, the line between right and wrong, playing “God”, and also genocide. When reading this manga, I could easily draw similarities from their government system to the Nazi’s and Hitler, which although are very serious topics, are covered with great care and detail. In a way, this is almost a retelling of a post-Holocaust world, but with a dystopian fantasy twist. This manga not only tells an interesting story with many loveable characters, but it also represents valuable life lessons that someone could take away from reading it.

Death Note on the other hand is about a high school boy who finds a notebook dropped by a death god called a “death note”. After reading instructions inside the front cover, he discovers that whoever's name he writes down in the book will die. He first uses it to rid the world of criminals, but begins to lost control over his own mind and becomes engulfed with the idea of creating a perfect world. Just like Fullmetal Alchemist, this manga also follows the themes of right and wrong and playing “God”. Throughout the course of the manga, the reader always questions where to draw the line between good and bad and starts to wonder at what point the main character begins to lose his mind. This manga shows the reader deep topics such as death, crime, and murder and portrays the struggle of good and evil in our world today through these topics. I actually wrote an assignment for one my English classes about how the main character in this series is an example of a Greek tragic hero.

Although both of these manga are aimed at young adult audiences and are not meant to be read by younger children, when read by teen or anyone older, they can teach valuable lessons to whoever reads them. Yes, you have to read them backwards, but that is only a small adjustment when it comes to reading a valuable source of literature.

I know that I have not done either of these mangas justice describing them here because I know how amazing they both are, but nevertheless, they are worth reading not only for entertainment, but also for valuable life lessons.

~K.M.D.

Writer Problem #1: High School Politics

This is a problem that I’m pretty sure not a lot of other people have. I believe that it is something that is unique to me, but I understand that some other people who are in a similar situation that I am in could have this problem as well.

            So, writing high school politics, it shouldn’t be too hard right? Everyone went or goes to high school, so they should be able to base that off of their experience in life right? Wrong. I’m not saying that I dropped out of high school, because I am currently in high school, but I don’t go to a normal high school. I go to a private all girls’ high school.

            This normally on the surface doesn’t seem like it should be such a problem, at least it shouldn’t affect my writing at all. However, after writing The Unusual Isles (which almost all of the characters are high school students) and looking back at their characters, I realized that none of them really seem that realistic, their problems are stereotypical, along with some of their personalities, and I feel some of their qualities are over exaggerated. It’s nice that I’ve noticed it after the book is done and has been edited seven times.

            The environment at a private all girl high school is very different than that of a public school, or even any other co-ed school for that matter. There’s a sense of “sisterhood” and that everyone is a family, pretty much no bullying, there is a lot less drama since there are no boys to argue over, you play your big homecoming game against yourself, and we can get pink shirts for a club without causing uproar. I shouldn’t complain THAT much, but with this however also comes a LOT of people being fake, SUPER tight cliques, and this weird kind of dividing line between those who are really rich, and those who are poor since they spent all their money paying for tuition.

            Because this is the high school environment I grew up in, I realized that I don’t know how realistic high school politics work and I just noticed how my writing has been affected because of it. All of the characters are stereotypical because that is the only thing that I’ve been exposed to through TV shows, movies, and books. I don’t know if any of my characters are realistic enough to be liked by an audience because they seem so stereotypical to any other books about high school teenagers. I realized that my book consists of characters like the blonde stuck up cheerleader, the smart Asian kid, the bullied awkward ginger, a girl with depression and a jock that falls in love with her, and feuding football quarterbacks. When I actually sat back to think about that, the reality of how stereotypical they seems actually hit me for the first time.

            This is a problem I really don’t know how to fix. I’m graduating next year and I’m obviously not going to re-do high school just so I can gain experience for my writing. This is just something that will always be a barrier for me, and it’s just something that I need to learn to get over as a writer. I understand that there is nothing that I can do about it now, but I’m hoping that I’ll learn to get over it as a writer in the future.

            Since the age and maturity of my books seems to change with my own age and maturity when I get older, I also realized that I am going to face a similar problem once I get to college. Yes, I and going from a private all girl high school to a privately owned college where the campus is 70% female. So this means I’m never really going to get that college experience that most people have. I’m not staying in a dorm and I doubt there will be many parties.

            People could find a very easy solution to this problem by telling me “why don’t you write a book about an all girl private high school if that’s what you know in real life?” To this I have a very simple response. Realistically, I have enough of that in real life than I would like to deal with. I don’t need or want to write a book about it.

So, I really want to know if anyone else has this problem or anything similar to it. Leave a comment down below letting me know!

~K.M.D.

Winter Update! (Update #7)

I know, I know, I haven’t posted anything on here in ages, but I figured I should fill you guys in on what’s happening with my book.

So, over winter break, I had my book edited again, this time by the lovely Taren Blankenship who really helped me out with formatting and everything. I was also really nice to hear an opinion on it that wasn’t from my family. She was a great help and I really appreciated her volunteering to edit for me. (If you read this Taren, you’re getting thanked in the acknowledgements!)

After reading it over another two times, I feel like it’s ready for publishing, but there still the smallest bit of doubt in me that doesn’t want to publish it yet.

I really don’t know what it is and I didn’t have this same problem with my last book, probably because I wasn’t as serious about it and wanted to publish it really fast just for that sake of saying that I published a book.

I also really need to publish it because I started writing the sequel but I realized that I can’t get that much into it unless I publish the first one.

I think it might be partly because that I’m afraid what other people will say about it. Considering how much effort and time I put into this book, I’m just afraid that people will hate it and give it bad reviews. I know I’m not the best writer in the world and criticism comes with everything these days, and I’m expecting at least some bad review for it, but I’m still nervous about people hating it.

I’m also not exactly sure about how I should go about advertising it once I’m done with it. I’ll admit that more people know who I am right now than they did when I published my first book, but still, I’m not sure if anyone will really put forth the money to buy it.

After a lot of thought about sending it off to indie publishers and literary agents, I decided that I really don’t want to do that. For me, that’s just really time consuming and it’s just going to lead to more rejection. I also feel that since I wrote the book, I want to advertise for it and I want to get the full profit that might come with it.

So yeah, hopefully The Unusual Isles will be out and ready for purchase by the time I graduate from high school. I realize that I was pushing for Christmas time, but I knew in my mind that that deadline was never going to be met.

So stay tuned and I will definitely update you guys when I publish it!

~K.M.D.