Normally, as I go throughout the day at various tasks, one of my characters will talk to me, telling me what is going to happen next in my story. But this past weekend my brain was silent. I assumed it was because I was on sensory overload from the amazing Book Group Expo.
What a spectacular party Ann Kent, Susanne Pari and Kathi Kamen Goldmark arranged.I met tons of booklovers. I had a wonderful time doing my Salon (and was thrilled when several people came up and said it was the best Salon they'd been to all weekend.) I met authors I'd only conversed with online, or I'd seen before and hoped I'd run into again, or whose work I loved, but never thought I'd get a chance to say so in person. And I came home with a huge stack of books to read.
So, definitely, I was on overload. I waited for my voices to return. And waited. Then this morning I took a walk. That's when I started thinking, "Maybe I made a wrong turn last week. Maybe there's something wrong with that last chapter."
On the other hand I loved that last chapter. It was funny. It was real. It was full of tension.
Still, if I couldn't hear my characters....
I went home and started cutting. Oh, that was painful. What a great chapter that was. I took out a piece and moved it to the end. (Surely I could use it sometime). I took out a little more. And a little more.
What was interesting--more than the pain of having to remove what I had so carefully constructed--was that with each cut I made on the computer, I made a similar cut in the soundproofing material covering my brain this weekend.
I've got my voices back. Yeah!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
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What People Are Saying About My Half of the Sky
My Half of the Sky was the BookSense Pick for August 2006 as well as a Forbes Book Club Pick.
"McBurney-Lin tells a wonderfully entertaining story with the traditional coming-of-age theme (which is experienced universally)...weaving in the cultural challenges of growing up in China's rapidly changing social system."
Mary Warpeha, co-President of the Minnesota Chapter of US-China Friendship Association
March 2010
"The novel ...includes many of the tales and the folk ways of the people living in the rural areas of South China, still followed provincially. The story takes place in current China, but could relate the dilemma of any young woman in rural China through the ages."
Kitty Trescott, National Board of the Midwest Region of US-China Friendship Association. March 2010
"A lot is expected of a young Chinese girl. My Half of the Sky by Jana McBurney-Lin is the story of Li Hui, a young girl who has just achieved marriageable age. She seeks to make the most of herself, but the expectations all around her make it difficult, as her parents seek to use her as pawn to their advantage, she is faced with what she believes to be true love. She must balance career, romance, and family, all to somehow make everyone happy, a tough endeavor indeed. An engaging and entertaining read from beginning to end, "My Half of the Sky" is a poignant tale of the modern Chinese woman, and recommended for community library collections.
--Midwest Book Review November, 2008
“It is a rare women’s novel that sensitively describes the life of a young educated woman in modern-day China in its full complexity, without resorting to unnecessary sentimentalism. Jana’s deep knowledge of the realities of life in China and Singapore makes the reading extra rewarding. In fact, with every new page the novel gets harder to put down and you find yourself gobbling it up before you know it. Finally, the author has given a voice to the Li Hui in all of us, as we struggle for the golden middle between tradition and the modern momentum of our world.”
Isabella Sluzek
Friends of the Museum Book Review 2008
Singapore
You'll be rooting all the way for Li Hui as she struggles, ahead of the curve, to be her own woman in an emerging, modern China. Jana McBurney-Lin's My half of the Sky is a beautiful, witty, touching debut novel.
Thomas B. Sawyer
Head Writer TV Series "Murder, She Wrote,"
Author - The Sixteenth Man
A complex and mesmerizingly original tale of a young Chinese woman caught between the modern world and the pull of her ancient culture. McBurney-Lin’s intimate portrait of China sparks with insights and is peopled with characters so rich and alive, they seem to breathe on the page. Dazzling and unforgettable.
Caroline Leavitt, Author - Girls in Trouble
"McBurney-Lin tells a wonderfully entertaining story with the traditional coming-of-age theme (which is experienced universally)...weaving in the cultural challenges of growing up in China's rapidly changing social system."
Mary Warpeha, co-President of the Minnesota Chapter of US-China Friendship Association
March 2010
"The novel ...includes many of the tales and the folk ways of the people living in the rural areas of South China, still followed provincially. The story takes place in current China, but could relate the dilemma of any young woman in rural China through the ages."
Kitty Trescott, National Board of the Midwest Region of US-China Friendship Association. March 2010
"A lot is expected of a young Chinese girl. My Half of the Sky by Jana McBurney-Lin is the story of Li Hui, a young girl who has just achieved marriageable age. She seeks to make the most of herself, but the expectations all around her make it difficult, as her parents seek to use her as pawn to their advantage, she is faced with what she believes to be true love. She must balance career, romance, and family, all to somehow make everyone happy, a tough endeavor indeed. An engaging and entertaining read from beginning to end, "My Half of the Sky" is a poignant tale of the modern Chinese woman, and recommended for community library collections.
--Midwest Book Review November, 2008
“It is a rare women’s novel that sensitively describes the life of a young educated woman in modern-day China in its full complexity, without resorting to unnecessary sentimentalism. Jana’s deep knowledge of the realities of life in China and Singapore makes the reading extra rewarding. In fact, with every new page the novel gets harder to put down and you find yourself gobbling it up before you know it. Finally, the author has given a voice to the Li Hui in all of us, as we struggle for the golden middle between tradition and the modern momentum of our world.”
Isabella Sluzek
Friends of the Museum Book Review 2008
Singapore
You'll be rooting all the way for Li Hui as she struggles, ahead of the curve, to be her own woman in an emerging, modern China. Jana McBurney-Lin's My half of the Sky is a beautiful, witty, touching debut novel.
Thomas B. Sawyer
Head Writer TV Series "Murder, She Wrote,"
Author - The Sixteenth Man
A complex and mesmerizingly original tale of a young Chinese woman caught between the modern world and the pull of her ancient culture. McBurney-Lin’s intimate portrait of China sparks with insights and is peopled with characters so rich and alive, they seem to breathe on the page. Dazzling and unforgettable.
Caroline Leavitt, Author - Girls in Trouble
McBurney-Lin's debut novel is a gift. Li Hui is a memorable heroine, a young woman torn between her heart and her culture.Her daunting journey is a trip into China's complicated soul, and a deeply moving exploration of love, honor, duty, and loss." Frank Baldwin, Author - Balling the Jack
My Half of the Sky is a wonderfully-crafted story that was obviously written with a piece of McBurney-Lin's heart. A masterpiece."
Lee Lofland, Author - Howdunit: Police Procedure and Investigation
My Half of the Sky heralds the arrival of a fantastic new storyteller. With artistry and precision, Jana McBurney-Lin's clear-eyed prose takes the reader on a new journey into a past world that speaks to a modern sensibility, a modern world, a modern woman. This is a book to be treasured.
Emily Rapp, Author - The Poster Child
Through vivid descriptions of sights and smells, Jana McBurney-Lin's My Half of the Sky is a haunting, emotional journey of what it means to be an honorable female in modern China. Jill Ferguson, Author - Sometimes Art Can't Save You
5 comments:
Only a writer would be excited that there were voices in her head. I rejoice with you :)
This is sooo interesting! I took my first ever fiction writing class in the spring semester, and Dr. H emphasized that we shouldn't fall in love with our own words so much that we couldn't bear to part with them! It's exciting to hear an author discuss that very thing!
Thanks for stopping by my site.
I'll be back to learn more about you and your writing. :)
What I tell my students is just to write whatever comes to mind--then go back and cut and re-write. And normally I'm okay with dumping my words...it's just I'd spent a week writing and editing and getting it just so, and then had to trash the whole thing. Right away. Perhaps the immediacy of the trashing was what hurt. (I've dumped chapters before, but usually it's several months or years after I've written them.)
Good luck with your writing.:)
Jana--what a great description of what we too easily think of as writer's block. And so glad you were smart enough to recognize what was going on and to get those voices back.
Thanks, Becky. I've never really believed in Writer's Block...I guess because I've been calling it something else.:)
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