It's Tuesday, November 8, 2016. That means two things.
1. It's election day. However, since I'd rather not risk the comment section becoming a political debate I won't have time to moderate (there's plenty of other spaces online to talk politics) I'll be focusing on thing 2.
2. It's been a week since National Novel Writing Month started. Also known as NaNoWriMo, this is a time of year when people attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. November has always been a busy mom that for me when it comes to school stuff and this year is no different. However, this year I set out to finish writing the first draft of my book and I figured that I would the NaNoWriMo state of mind to get as much finished before December came along with finals and Christmas.
Thinking about writing for my book also made me realize that it's been over six months since I uploaded a poetry video to my YouTube channel. Considering the fact that I started the channel as a place to upload videos of poetry I've written, I'm not sure how I feel about that. I like the fact that I've expanded to BookTube type videos, with some AuthorTube (community that discusses writing the way BookTube discusses reading) stuff mixed in. I like having options.
The problem I've run into isn't writer's block per se. I do have various poetry ideas. I even wrote a lot of them down. The problem is that over the past year or so my poetry has gotten more personal and I've become more afraid to share it on a public forum like YouTube.
I'll confront that fear eventually, but for now I have homework and a NaNoWriMo word count goal.
I've come to the conclusion that starting a new blog right before starting a new semester at school wasn't my best move. It's been almost two months since my last post.
Ironically I've been making videos on YouTube during that time even though one of the reasons i made this blog was so I would be able to post somewhere when I had stuff to say but didn't have time to film and edit a video.
I don't know what else to say, so enjoy this picture of a reading room in the New York Public Library.
[image description: large room with bookshelves along the wall and people sitting at tables. There are windows above the bookshelves. The ceiling has intricate designs carved into them and paintings of cloudy skies. Chandeliers hang from the ceiling.] This picture has nothing to do with what I'm saying but I thought it looked cool.
I posted this to my YouTube channel today and figured I would share it here too. The video will be linked at the end
Question 1: what is the working title of your book?
This book has actually gone through a few different working titles. The first was Poetic Justice. Then I changed it to Renegade Inksound. Then I realized that while "renegade" did mean rebel, it was more of a "Benedict Arnold, traitor" kind of rebel than a "this is unfair, let's do something" rebel, so I changed it again to Inksound's Revolution which is its current working title.
Question two: where did you get the idea for your book?
A few different places. I've playing with the idea of stories about student-run publications since eighth grade. After I joined the literary magazine in high school, I added stories involving literary magazines. I'm also interested in debates over the censorship of books in schools and wanted to incorporate those themes into a book.
Question three: what genre is your book?
Contemporary young adult
Question four: which actors would yo choose for the move adaption of your book?
I don't have any particular actors in mind. However, I will say that I want disabled characters to be played by actors who actually have the disability in question. For example, one of the characters, Diana, is a wheelchair user. I'd like the actress who plays Diana to be an actress who actually uses a wheelchair. From what I've seen of Hollywood lately, if I were to go into a casting meeting and tell them that, their reaction would probably be something along the lines of "who do you think you are? The phantom of the opera?" I will say that if there's a musical theatre adaptation I would be totally ok with Deaf West theatre doing it. I don't know if there's enough deaf and hard-of-hearing characters for that to work, but if they want to portray additional characters as deaf for purposes of the adaption like in Spring Awakening it's totally fine with me.
Question five: give a one sentence summary of your book
After an outdated school policy results in the cancelation of the book club and literary magazine, a group of students from Nelly Bly High School create their own magazine in secret.
Question six: will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I'm not sure yet. I like the idea of being traditionally published and having my book be on the shelves at brick and mortar bookstores, there's aspects of the book that I don't want to lose control over, and in order to be traditionally published I would lose control of that stuff. There's also a question of if publishing houses are looking for the type of story I'm writing.
Question seven: how long did the first draft take?
It's still in progress. My goal is to finish by the end of the year. I started in either December 2014 or January 2015. I don't remember for certain because I started with a general idea but changed how I wanted to play the idea out.
Question eight: what book would you compare it to?
Combine the literary magazine parts of Struck By Lightning by Chris Colfer with the Dumbledore's Army parts of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling.
Question nine: who or what inspired you to write your book?
I've been playing with book ideas since I was in elementary school. With this particular book, I wanted to incorporate the literary magazine stuff because being involved with that particular club was one of my favorite parts of high school. There's more reasons I'm really determined to finish writing and make this book available to the public, but those are more personal.
Question ten: anything else that might pique your reader's interest
I don't know if this would be seen as more of a turn on or a turn off but there are scenes where characters switch languages. Most of the language switching takes place when the protagonist/narrator character is in her German class, but I might also have some characters use Spanish words every so often. If you're interested in seeing characters speak different languages as opposed to all English, all the time you'll probably like it, and you may even learn a few words. If going between languages annoys you, you might not like it as much. And yes, I'll have translations in the footnotes.
That's the end of the tag. It's gonna be interesting to have this much information about the book available on YouTube for anyone to see and ask for updates on, but I'm hoping this will help motivate me to finish the first draft by new year's, like I decided I wanted to this past New Year's Eve.
Hi everyone!
My name is Kaitlin Batik. I'm from Long Island, New York and I'm 19 years old. I’m about to start my third year of college. I enjoy reading, writing, and theatre--both watching shows and performing in them. I'm in the process of writing a book. My goal is to finish the first draft by the end of the year.
I have a YouTube channel where I post poetry videos and videos talking about books. At this point the videos about books are just in terms of books I’ve read, but I also want to add stuff about writing.
That’s also part of the reason I’m starting a blog. I’m still undecided about whether I want to get my book represented by an agent or go the self-publishing route. Regardless, having my name out there and recognizable will more than likely come in handy once the book is available for purchase. Also, there may be times when I want to talk about something but don't have time to film and edit a video.
I'm not sure what else to say, so I’ll list some random facts about myself.
1. The first musical I performed in was Fiddler on the Roof in my freshman year of high school. I played one of many unnamed villagers.
2. I was involved with the literary magazine in all four years of high school. Putting the magazine together involved a lot of hours after school but it was a lot of fun and I met a lot of great people.
3. I’ve traveled by plane to get to Europe, but I’ve never used an airplane to get from one location in the United States to another location in the United States.
4. Pandas (both giant pandas and red pandas)are my favorite land animal. Beluga whales are my favorite sea animal.
5. I know American Sign Language and German. I know how say some phrases in other languages but those are the two languages other than English I know best.
6. The first story I wrote is called “The Baby Who Rode a Motorcycle.” It was inspired by some toys from my dollhouse. I wrote and illustrated it on computer paper.
7. Most of the music I listen to is from Broadway cast recordings (and their German translations). Outside of Broadway, the 5 artists I’ve purchased the most songs from on iTunes (in order from most to least) are The Beatles (including their solo careers), All Time Low, Green Day, Taylor Swift, and Hank Green.
Thanks for reading this! I hope to write another post soon. :)
