SOUTH: A Cast of Diversity

Every novel should have a diverse cast, and not just to make ti believable. After all, the real world isn't all white and black. There are many colours, purple, blue, green, orange, to name a few. And SOUTH is no different. It has a diverse cast of characters of all shapes, sizes, ethnicity, and sexualities -- just like the real world. In fact, SOUTH is a very grounded novel, where the characters are not only relatable, but so are the situations they find themselves in, albeit with a few exceptions. After all, how many people do you know who survived an earthquake? Chances are, not many. (Although surprisingly, I do! But that's another story).

AJ White

One of the two main characters.

Just look at the photos above and below this paragraph. AJ White and Minami Kyuki are the stars of the novel and they couldn't be more different. AJ is American. But she's not just a white girl (no pun intended). She has freckles, and piercings, and even a nice tattoo that she got in defiance to her mom! As for Minami, her face -- and body -- are littered with scars from surviving a devastating earthquake in her home country of Japan. Not to mention, she has rare deep-sea blue eyes that are sure to captivate anyone who dares to take a glance. 

Minami Kyuki 

One of the two main characters.

My point being, not every character has to be perfect. Nor does every character have to be the usual "oh my God I'm an average klutz and a nobody yet somehow the super-hot people are into me and I don't know who to choose and woe is me because I'm really nothing special" kind of person. *cough* kind of like a lot of YA that I've read recently *cough* 

The characters in SOUTH are people you'd meet on the street. People with real stuff going on in their lives. Someone you went to school with. Your best friend. The kid whose really awesome at signing but you wouldn't know it because they're too insecure to show it to anyone. The girl with body issues. The one who's a goofball and is very down to earth. The one struggling with their sexual identity with no one to talk to about it. 

This is why SOUTH will be a must read for anyone, regardless of age. The novel may be a YA, but there is someone out there, maybe even in their late 40's, who is being harassed and still doesn't know who they are. This novel is for that 40 something year old who wants someone to relate too and maybe gain that confidence they need to come out of the closet and confront the harasser. This novel is for the teenager whose life hasn't been the greatest and needs someone to talk to.

This novel is for you and anyone who reads this.  

---

PS: As a disclaimer, I'm very tried and have been suffering from some weird thing that hasn't allowed me to fall asleep normally since like 2009. (I've been to many doctors, but no one knows what it is, or how to fix it. It's hard to describe, hence why I call it "the weird thing"). Anyway, my point is that this post is not like my usual style (if I even have one at this early stage) and may also be all over the place. I wrote it because it was on my mind and I just wanted to share this before I went to bed. I thought I'd share my inner ramblings so that you can see a tiny bit more into the insides of SOUTH and be just as excited to read it as I am about releasing it. 

The Manley Editor of Champions: A Thank You

I have the most amazing editor. Really, I do. 

I started working with Chris (Christine Gordon Manley from Manley Mann Media) back in 2015. This was back when I didn't even have the first draft of my manuscript finished. I had about eleven or so chapters at the time when we started working together. Although I didn't have the whole thing finished, having an editor really gets your creative juices flowing and I finished my first draft in what I consider record time. I mean, nothing motivates you like having an editor. Especially if you want said editor to remember what was going on with your story while you worked on the unfinished bits. 

I admit, I probably should have waited to send in the manuscript when it was fully completed. But that is one of the reasons why Chris is such an amazing editor. And sending her the first few chapters and then getting feedback while still writing the rest did help me eliminate a lot of the plot holes and tighten up my writing. So, I guess it all worked out in the end!

Seriously, though. I was looking at my first (completed) draft that Christ had looked over, and then again, I looked over the second draft, and I'm impressed with how far I've come, how much I've improved. Chris would suggest some edits and I would expand on them, make them my own. My story evolved and sometimes when I read some of the lines from my third draft, I cannot belie I wrote them. No, seriously. It's like someone took over me and wrote them, even though I remember writing them myself. They're the kind of quotes I’d find online and think "damn, that's good. I should save that for inspiration." But I didn't save them off FaceBook or twitter. I thought of them myself and sometimes with the help of Chris. 

This brings me to today. Chris just handed me back my third draft of my novel and again I am blown away by the awesomeness of her work. Chris has a way of telling you the hard truth of what works and what doesn't and doesn't make you feel bad about it. She tells me all the things this wrong, filling up my manuscript with all that glorious red ink. But even though it's criticism, it isn't harsh. It's as though a good friend is saying that hat doesn't go well with your outfit. Okay, so I'm not doing a very good job at explaining it but trust me. It's a pleasure to work with her. 

According to Chris, this may be my final draft, after I finish the edits. And I agree. I'm at a point where I really feel confident about my novel and its message that I'm trying to bring to the world. A message that it's okay to love anyone, regardless of gender. It's okay to struggle in life. It's okay to be different. It's okay to take time to discover yourself and find out who you really are. There are so many messages in this novel of self-discovery that I know other people can relate to, because I was there myself. 

With Chris helping me along the way -- as good editors do -- I know SOUTH will both entertain and help people in all walks of life, regardless of age.

Here's to more laughter and amazing teamwork. Thank you Chris!~ 

 

Mental Health: In Writing and Life

So, if you didn't already know, I've become much more active on my social media lately. I'm also working on this website to bring more awesome content (which will go live soon). And while I've been keeping people in the loop over on FaceBook, Instagram, and Twitter, I realized I haven't yet updated my blog with all the juicy info. 

So as a quick update, my manuscript is with my editor (and I should get to see all those glorious edits sometime this week!) Yet what does one do while their main manuscript is in the hands of their editor? Start writing a novella to SOUTH! It will be called BRIDGE. I plan on writing a sequel to SOUTH, called MIRROR. And while I have the general idea of MIRROR in mind, it still needs a lot to have fleshed out before I can start writing it.

So, for the past few weeks I've been planning out and thought dumping the ideas for BRIDGE. I even started writing BRIDGE, and I gotta say, I'm super stoked about this novella. I also really love this new character I'm introducing, Kaci Miller. This novella will primarily focus on Minami and her new roommate, Kaci, shortly after the events of SOUTH. And yes, AJ will still be there. Although it will be a while before anyone can get to read this novella because SOUTH is still in the works.

As a side note, all names, SOUTH, BRIDGE, and MIRROR, are symbolic as well as literal and they were chosen for a reason.  

Now that we got that quick update out of the way, I want to address something that is important to me, mental health. I cannot stress the importance of mental health enough. If your body is in need of rest, you rest until you feel rested.

I've been feeling very creative for a while now, getting back in the writing grove while juggling a full-time job and a busy social life. But said life had me so busy that I burned out to the point where was staring to feel unwell due to my lack of sleep. And no, nothing is wrong. I’m just literally just living life to the fullest and I keep forgetting my body doesn’t like too much excitement for extended periods of time.

My body was in dire need of a recharge and man I wasn't feeling so good last week. I overworked myself because I didn't want to miss a beat doing ALL the things in Korea. But I drained myself to the point where I was physically not well and mentally drained. I spent a lot of time recovering, mostly chilling and watching YouTube, and while I didn't get anything creative done, my mind rested and in turn, the creative juices came back.

Also important, once you start your road to recovery, take baby steps. Don't jump back in full force or you're going to be right back where you started. I wrote about 500 words Monday and 300 or so yesterday. And today I took the time to jot down plot ideas. Not as much as I usually do, but it felt good all the same and small doses is better than nothing at all and feeling like you got hit by a truck and left with a mentally dazed mind.

I must say, the mental break did me wonders. Now I'm back and feeling much better and my mind is not on auto pilot anymore. I can get back to writing and posting and stuff.

So yeah. Look after yourself. Even if you're living life to the fullest, remember to take a breather so it can all sink in. You'll enjoy life even more that way.

Take care!~

ESL Winter Camp Lesson Plan

So! You're now working as an English teacher in South Korea, having a wonderful time teaching awesome kids. Christmas is near and you've already finished all your lessons for the day. All of a sudden your co-teacher tells you that you need to do a two week lesson plan for the upcoming winter camp and have it done before tomorrow. 

Have you ever been in this situation? If you're teaching in Korea, you may just well have. And if you're like me, you have no idea what you're going to do for the camp.

Well, fear not. I've created this lesson plan (that can also be modified for your summer camp that you're going to have to do) that you can use to hand in to your co-teacher. Note, they may want the lesson plan in a specific format, but you can use this as a base to write it in.

Naturally, you can modify this to fit your studnets age, level and needs. If you have any questions or need clarification on some of the games, feel free to post them in the comments. Also, if you decide to use this, let me know how it worked out in the comment section below! 

 

*****

 

Winter Camp 2018 Schedule
_______________________________________
 

WEEK 1:

Day 1

Theme: You!
Warm up (10 mins):

Intro games:
                        -Two Truths One Lie
                        -Snowball fight (Give each student a piece of recycled paper.
                        *Ask them to write their name and five things about themselves on the paper.                              *Then, split the class into two teams and have them stand facing each other at                             opposite sides of the classroom.
                        *Tell the students to crumple up their paper into a snowball.
                        *When you say go, the snowball fight commences.
                        *When you shout stop, anyone who is holding a snowball must go and find the                             person whose name is on the paper and introduce them to the class using the                             information written inside.
                        *Students continue the snowball fight until everyone has been introduced to the                           class.)

Main Lesson (30mins):
                        -Learn about different ways of introductions (Such as: hi, hey, hello, and maybe slang, like sup and yo).
                        -Introduce the banner activity and explain key words.
                          >Students will receive a piece of paper each day of camp. Every day, the students will draw the theme of the day on the paper. (At the end of the camp, all of the papers will be collected and the teacher will create a banner/quilt using all of the artwork to be put on display).
_______________________________________________________________________________

Day 2

Theme: Winter
Warm up (5 mins):

Musical Chairs:
                        -Play a song relating to the theme and have students play musical chairs. (Ex: There are 10 students in the class yet there are only 9 chairs. Have the students walk around the chairs while the music plays. The moment the song stops, students will have to rush to sit down in a chair. The student who is not in a seat is now out. The game continues until there is only one student left in a chair).

Main Lesson (20mins):
                        -Verb tense and sentence structure
                                    >Use Sesame Street (YouTube) for younger grades and other YouTube videos for older grades to help demonstrate the lesson.
                                    >Teach about Direct Objects (younger students) and Indirect Objects (older students) using winter themed words: gloves, boots, scarf, snow pants.

Follow Up (10 mins):
Draw the banner for the theme of the day. (Favorite thing about winter)
_______________________________________________________________________________

Day 3

Theme: Winter Activities
Warm up (5 mins):

Play “Do You Want to Build A Snowman?” (YouTube) and have the students act along:

Main Lesson (20mins):
                        -Teach about the parts of a snowman (Nose ((carrot /vegetable)), eyes, balls, arms ((twigs)), scarf, gloves, and hat).
                        -Play reinforcement game: Make your own snowman! (Students will build their own snowman other using the materials provided or buy using items in found the classroom. Let them get creative! Best snowman (voted by fellow students) will win a prize!

Follow Up (10 mins):
Draw the banner for the theme of the day. (Students favourite activity).
_______________________________________________________________________________

Day 4

Theme: Winter Related Things
Warm up (5 mins):

Charades:
                        -Students will get a word/sentence and act it out while their classmates try to guess the answer.

Main Lesson (20mins):
                        -Teach about winter related things, such as holidays, weather, and food eaten during winter. Also learn about winter in Canada vs Korea. (10 mins)
                        -Play reinforcement game: Pin the Winter Item! (Younger)
                                    >Various posters of winter related items will be posted around the room. Students will be given item cards and will have to go around the room and place their item on the correct poster.
                        -Play reinforcement game: Hot seat (Older)
                                    >Put the students in teams. Each team will choose one member to be in ‘the hot seat’. The teacher will show a sentence or word on the screen behind the student in the hot seat and their team members will have to describe what they see without saying the word/sentence. The student in the hot seat will have to guess what their teammates are describing to them. They can have many guesses, yet they have to come up with an answer within one minuet or they don’t score a point for their team.

Follow Up (10 mins):
Draw the banner for the theme of the day. (Students favorite winter vacation)
_______________________________________________________________________________

Day 5

Theme: Fun Times
Warm up (5 mins):

Telephone game:
                        -Divide the class into teams. Each team will form a line to the front of the classroom. Teacher will whisper a phrase or word relating to the weeks learning to the student in the back. Each student will then have to whisper to the next student what they thought they heard. The student at the front will then have to write on the board the sentence/word they heard on the board. If the sentence is correct, the team will get a point. If the sentence is close or correctly heard but grammatically wrong in writing, then the team will get half a point. If it’s nowhere near correct, no points are given.
Main Lesson (20mins):
                        -Review the week’s lessons using the Four Corners Game.

Follow Up (10 mins):
Draw the banner for the theme of the day. (What they found fun during the first week)

 ______________________________________________________________________________

 WEEK 2:
 

Day 6

Theme: Music (Most likely winter themed)
Warm up (5 mins):

Musical Chairs with a Twist:
                        -Play a song relating to the theme and have students play musical chairs with a twist. (Ex: *Assign one person to operate the music for the game. Have them start the music and all players begin to dance around the chairs in a clockwise pattern. At the musical director's discretion, stop the music. Everyone must find a chair to sit on. BUT, one person will be missing a seat. That person must find a lap to sit on.

*The first person in the seat, the one on the bottom, gets a point. All others in laps get no points. Remove one chair and repeat. Now there are two left without seats. You can see how this can get funny really quickly.

Main Lesson (20mins):
                        -Intro to music videos (conversation and terminology)
                          >Use a variety of different music video styles from YouTube (Such as Peter Hollens, BTS, Dua Lipa).
 
Follow Up (10 mins):
Draw the banner for the theme of the day. (Student’s favorite K-pop idol or musical instrument)
_______________________________________________________________________________

 Day 7

Theme: Movies
Warm up (5 mins):

Have each student tell the class what kind movies they like.

Main Lesson (35mins):
                        -Introduction to English movie conversation (Terms and their use). Words can include film genres, such as western, sci-fi, holiday, fantasy, and documentary. Use PP presentation.
                        -Movie pt 1 (Most likely Frozen).
_______________________________________________________________________________

Day 8

Theme: Movies pt 2
Warm up (5 mins):

Discuss thoughts on last movie.

Main Lesson (20mins):
                        -Continue movie (most likely Frozen).

Follow Up (10 mins):
Draw the banner for the theme of the day. (Students favourite movie. Activity can be done while watching the movie or after).
_______________________________________________________________________________

 Day 9

Theme: English Activities
Warm up (5 mins):

Play “Let it Go” song and quiz the students.

Main Lesson (20mins):
            -Guess Who
              >Without saying who (or what) the subject is, students will have to try and describe the subject to their team mates while their teammates have to guess the correct answer. (Time limit for guessing: 1min). (10 min game)
            -Battleship
              >Try to know down the other team’s ships using English! (10 min game)

Follow Up (10 mins):
Draw the banner for the theme of the day. (Make their own version of Frozen DVD movie cover OR their favorite game – other from the winter camp or in general).
_______________________________________________________________________________

Day 10

Theme: Final Review
Warm up (5 mins):

Reveal the student’s banners made into a “quilt” (put together by teacher. This will sty up for the remainder of the class. Students can choose to take their drawings home if they wish at the end of class). Discuss which drawings they like and why.

Main Lesson (30mins):
                        -Review the two weeks lessons using the game Jeopardy. 

Follow Up (5 mins):
Reveal the student’s banners made into a “quilt” (put together by teacher). Watch the “Moment’s In Korea” video of the 2017 Winter Camp made by the teacher as a wrap up.

A long overdue update

Well, where do I begin? It's been a little over a year now since my last blog post. A lot has happened since then and I feel the need to address it in this post. Call this post more like a journal of my past year, so to speak.

If you follow me on social media (such as Twitter or Instagram) you may know that I've recently graduated from the University of Prince Edward Island, first class standing, with a BA in Spanish. Before graduation, I was almost finished my third round of edits for my novel. Yet as the end of my final semester came around, I became too busy to finish writing. Then, graduation came. Not much editing was happening there. After graduation, I was busy looking for jobs abroad. I spent a lot of my time working at my part-time job at a Dollarstore, bonding with my family, and the rest, preparing resumés and essay's and all other sorts of documents needed to teach English abroad. Needless to say, I've kind of put the novel on the back burner for a while.

Then in September, I found an amazing recruiting company based in Seoul, South Korea, called Korvia Consulting. They are super amazing, and should you wish to teach in South Korea, I highly recommend you use their free service.

Anyway, I soon landed a job in a Korean public middle school. On October 21st, I moved over to Korea with my wonderful soul-kitty, Sorren. It's been amazing so far. Both my cat and I really enjoy the Korea way of life. (Videos of said life to be found on my YouTube channel. Check out my social media links for it).

Sadly, with the excitement of moving abroad, and then actually living here, I haven't done much editing since my last semester at UPEI. It's been so long that I'm now currently re-reading the whole novel so that I can remember all the cool new changes I've made and so I can also remember where I was heading with the novel. I'm almost back to where I left off. And since I was so close to the end, once I start editing again, it shouldn't be too long before I'm finished this round of edits. I don't think there are too many edits left. This may even be my final round. I'll just have to wait and see what my editor says. (And I'm very lucky to have an editor who understands my adventurous lifestyle). 

So! Now that my update is over, I've decided to use this blog not only for my novel and writing related things, but as a helpful inside to being an ESL teaching in South Korea. While you'll get all the cool videos and picture's elsewhere, I'll go into more details here. Maybe even share lesson plans that worked out amazing for me. And anything I post in regards to ESL, you can feel free to use.

And do, with Christmas next week, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!~

Writer's Block

A friend of mine asked me a question tonight in regard to writing and I thought I'd share my answer. Perhaps it will be useful to future or current authors.

"Hey, if you don't mind me asking, how do you deal with writer's block? Or with difficulty starting or finishing anything creative?"

My response:

I don't mind at all!

Its hard, not gonna lie. Sometimes I'll just re-read everything I wrote in hopes that I'll get inspired to write more. It's especially hard when the page is blank. (Or when the page is blank, and you have so many ideas that you don't know where to start so you just kind of sit there and stare at the screen and get nothing done. Kind of the opposite of writers' block but on the same level).

What helps me, however, is music and planning. Music is my inspiration and I thrive on it to get me in the mood and sometimes it inspires many chapters. But in the end, what got me though writing the first draft (aside from a huge musical influence) was what I called "plotting the plot". I sat down one day and drew out a time line of when things were to happen in SOUTH, from start to finish. I started with when the major stuff should happen, and then added less major scenes (kind of like fillers but they would still be necessary). After I got that written out, it became like a guideline; a map I could follow. When I would write, I could psychically see how far I was getting and in turn that was motivation. I'd be like, "damn, I'm halfway! That's so cool! If I kept going I'd really super far then!" It was an amazing motivator. So that, plus a good song in the background, was how I started, and finished my novel in such a short amount of time while also doing school assignments.

One more thing of advice, just keep writing, or even, just start. You may start with like a random super small sentence. But when you look at the page, you see progress, even if its small. Then the more you write, the more progress you see and the better you'll feel. Sometimes, a small ten-word sentence may end up being a 3000+ word a day writing streak. That's how it was for me, anyway.

Yet my friend still had some concerns:

"I keep starting, looking at what I have so far, hating it, and then restarting. I've written the first part of my novel twice. And it's not very good."

And so, I continued:

But that's the best part! Because it's like a blessing in disguise. I may have written my full novel from August to December, but do you know how long I've technically been working on this story? The idea alone came way back when Minami was first created, which was probably in the early 2000s.

In fact, SOUTH wasn't always called SOUTH. It used to be a super dark story (just about Minami), where everyone got murdered and there was so much death that Minami was even supposed to die in the end. (Could be why it was originally called SILENT TEARS). I've written so many chapters on SILENT TEARS, and even of SOUTH, both with multiple drafts, all which were pretty bad. You can read more about them in an earlier blog post, and click the links to read the stories themselves for a good laugh).

I'm not even saying what I have now is good, though this draft is certainly the best I've written and I haven't even finished editing it. Stories that change is you, the author, finding what truly works and what doesn't. It's probably not going to work the first try, even if you think it's amazing. I sure thought the very first chapter (script form) for SOUTH was the best thing I've ever done. But reading it now? I cringe. And that was only a few years ago. And even though my current round of edits for SOUTH is good now, I'm sure there is always something else that I'll notice later and improve upon.

But the good news is that it does get better and improve and you will produce something great. You have to work for it, but it will happen.

***

To all writers out there, never give up. Finish that story you started, no matter how long or short. Because the sense of accomplishment you'll get just by finishing something you've started writing is the best explainable feeling you can imagine. It doesn't have to be good. As long as you started and saw it through, you'll be heading on the path that will change your life.

The Cadre Chats With: A.M. Molloy (Interview)

Last month I had the pleasure of having my first interview. The University of Prince Edward Island's newspaper, The Cadre, sat down with me for over an hour for a lovely chat in regards to SOUTH.

This lovely article, written by Lorelei Kenny, is the result of my interview.

The Beginning

Welcome to my musings. The blog where I'll be posting snippets of my mind for all to see.

In this first blog post, I've decided to tell a quick tale on how my novel SOUTH came to be.

As we all know, stories can take years to tell and still never be perfect. But it's the imperfection that, oddly enough, makes it perfect to me.

So, a bit of back story before I go any further. SOUTH was originally going to be a comic (and it might very well be someday). The story started many, many years ago, however, it has changed drastically over time.

The original story was called Silent Tears. Here is what it was originally about:

Minami Kyuki’s hearts a battle ground of despair. Faced with more difficulties in her life than the normal teen, Minami copes by living one day at a time. But how long before the tragic events of her past haunts her to her death?

Pretty dark, right? Then in 2010, I changed the story to Shattered. It was still dark but not nearly as much as Silent Tears was. It focused mainly on Minami’s past and eventually leading up to college. I never wrote anything on Shattered, however. I just couldn't figure out how to start it or where it'd go. All good signs that it wasn't a good story to begin with if you ask me.

Then in 2011 I went to Korea for the first time. On the train I saw this one lonely blonde haired white girl in the crowd of Koreans. This random stranger was my inspiration for AJ. This made me want to skip all that back-story stuff and go straight to college years. Somehow this inspired a complete 180 in my story and SOUTH was born.

SOUTH was still originally going to be a comic, with my friend Ryuu doing the artwork. I had originally written two volumes of comic script, but something didn’t feel right. Then one day, while listening to a song, it hit me. I suddenly knew what was missing. I then changed a few small things, which in turn, changed the story a lot. So, I opened up Word and started writing. The words just seemed to flow. Writing it as a novel felt better for this new format.

I started writing the novel version SOUTH around February of 2015. Then I slowly wrote the second chapter a month later. Then I kind of stopped writing for a while. What got me motivated to write again was actually sitting down and writing down and plotting the whole plot on a timeline on paper. To any aspiring authors or hobbies writers, I highly recommend doing this. It's an amazing motivator, especially when you write you can see your progress and it motivates you to keep going. At least, it did so for me. After writing down the plot and seeing the clear path written down so I could write more clearly, the writing poured out of me. 

I started writing again in August of 2015, around the time I got an editor. Nothing motivates you to write like having an editor. Within months, I wrote the entire novel to SOUTH. I finished the first draft on December 27th, 2016. Considering I wrote it while doing my BA in Spanish at the University of Prince Edward Island, I was pretty proud of myself.

And that is the story on how SOUTH came to be. The short version, anyway. I am currently working on my third round of edits, and let me just say, thanks to my editor this version is going to be even more amazing if I do say so myself. I'm still learning as a writing and will constantly improve. I strive off good critiques and even hope that if I made any grammatical mistakes or spelling errors in this post, would you be so kind as to point them out in a polite manner. After all, how can I improve if no one says anything?

That being said, I just want to give some quick advice. Write. Never stop writing. Even if your story sucks -- 'cause let's face it, we all have a sucky story written at some point -- just write it anyway. The feeling of actually completing a story is like non-other. Doesn't matter what kind of writing it is, be it a poem, short story, or novel, just write.