Features, Updates, and Having Friends

Good morning. It's 10 AM here in Malaysia, and it's really hot outside. Guess what I'm doing?

If you said writing, then yes, you're right. I'm onto Chapter Twenty-Five right now, just taking a break because my fingers hurt. I did some crafts making last week and my fingers are chapped from pressing the needle a little too hard. I'm also on the verge of trying out something new. My friend said yesterday that he'd teach my how to play my guitar. I'm excited, but I don't think I'll be playing any pop song anytime soon. It's still too early for all of that. I'm planning to try out Taylor Swift's All Too Well as soon as I get the hang of the chords.

I'd like to sing in the car as I get lost upstate too. :D

So as I'm online, I head over to Figment for my writer's catch up. I like to get in touch with any new people asking for swaps, or just looking at today's features, or even try out a quiz or two. And just before I clicked Sign In, I saw a fellow writer friend's name on the feature at the top of the site. Maryn Wosu is my cover designer, and she was asked to feature four books.

As you can see, she has decided to highlight mine...



And suddenly my face, from puffy eyed, breaks out into a smile. A large one. Because I'm trying to get featured again on the homepage, but I've got nothing so far. The last time I got featured was last year, when my piece Awkward was picked by Figment's editors for the Archetype Practice Flash Fiction Contest. I was so happy, and humbled of course. I mean, not everyone's books get featured. And I'm not saying I'm so good a writer. The first few drafts of BTC was so bad people got confused and ran away. (I had a little tense shake-up; even I ran away.)

Then I got people coming over to my book, saying how much they enjoyed the sweet love story between two friends who drifted away. I saw Dani and Christian as two people in a doomed relationship. I mean, if I was Christian, I'd run away too, because I can't afford to not be trusted. For me, I want people to trust me, to let me try to help them. That's part of me in Christian.

The not trusting part of Dani is also a part of me too. As much as I dislike not being taken seriously, I dislike it when people try to nose into my life, pretending that they're interested in my life when they're not. I've met people who don't care much, and this story is as much a love story as a personal memoir. The love is something that adds to the story, giving Dani something to lose. That's why she ultimately decides to attend the birthday ball, why she lets herself get carried away as she dances with Christian.

Everyone has something they want. Sometimes they get it, and that's the easy part. Sometimes, they have to pretend to be someone else to get it, which makes it so much more complicated. Like Dani when she masquerades as Marianne. She tries to be different from who she is to avoid detection, but in the end, Christian doesn't really care, does he?

Oopsies, I might be giving away the story. :)

I'll be off now. Back to writing!

TLD