Kīpuka is here!

Aloha all,

This week was the official launch of Kipuka: Finding Refuge in Times of Change, a special collection I helped to edit with Brenda Kwon, Meredith Enos, and Misty Sanico. We started on the issue in 2019, and it rose out of a need to reflect on and consider life in contemporary Hawaiʻi and the various challenges facing the communities here, and this question, “If nothing is static and everything changes, in what can we anchor?” 

It features an amazing collection of authors and artists. You can learn more and order the book here. Safari users, you may want to try Firefox or mobile.

To help promote the issue, Misty and I went on HPR. You can listen to the interview here.

Also check out the recording of the official launch at the Hawaiʻi Book and Music Festival:

PhDispatches: Writing Exercise #2 from 613

This semester I started the PhD in Creative Writing program at UH. It’s been eight years since I graduated with my MA, so I’m taking it slow (i.e., 1-2 classes at a time). This semester, I’m taking ENG 613, a fiction workshop, which is themed around the senses. Every week, we’ve had a different writing exercise related to a specific sense. Some of these I’ve turned into larger stories or will be using for other projects. However, a number of the exercises I don’t imagine using for anything but the class, so what do I do with them? I post them here of course.

Here’s the Week 2 prompt: tour the HOMA or a museum online. Choose a piece to write about. In part one, purely describe it, objectively. In part two, make the description come alive through metaphors, personal connections, vivid verbs. 

Here’s what I wrote:

Hite, Tommy. Not in Service, 2020. Why are you Painting? A Virtual Exhibition, Honolulu 

Museum of Art, https://honolulumuseum.org/collection_exhibits/current-exhibitions/why-are-you-painting/tommy-hite/

Hawaiʻi-based artist Tommy Hite’s “Not in Service” depicts a city bus, emblazoned with a thin rainbow stripe that widens toward the top, turning right at a four-way intersection into a large picture frame. The picture frame fronts a closed street that is blocked off by traffic barricades and safety tape. From a distance, the 44” x 44” oil on canvas work is vivid and detailed in its depiction of urban Honolulu, crisp lines and sharp colors drawing you in toward the bus at the center, where upon closer inspection, Hite’s impasto strokes create a striking scene of contemporary life in the city, both pedestrian and wonderous. 

In Hawaiʻi-based artist Tommy Hite’s “Not in Service,” escape from the sprawl of urban Honolulu is a myth akin to a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow appearing in the humid afternoon heat. At a four-way intersection that could be any crossing in the city’s 68.4 square miles save for a hotel in the background looming like a sacred monolith, you are drawn to a rainbow emblazoned across the side of a bus, a technicolor swath reminiscent of those that decorated 80’s VHS tapes and now welcome tourists and residents alike like dyed orchid lei sold en masse at ABC stores and your local Longs Drugs. It turns right toward a street lined with boarded up windows, but instead of crossing an uneven blockade of folding traffic barriers and flaccid safety tape, it slips into a tarnished gold-gilded frame. You want to follow but the road is closed. The bus’s windows are dark. The doors are shut. The painting’s title is displayed where the bus’s route is typically scrolling. Not that it matters. From where you are, beyond the frame, it’s just the same palm trees and telephone wires, but like a child you still wonder.   

Routines

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about daily practice. Since I started writing, I’ve never followed the advice of writing every day or set a goal of x words a day. In terms of my process, I’ve always worked slowly, letting the ideas/story/character/conflicts proof in between writing and editing (To keep my focus and bring me back into the flow, I write and edit at the same time, reading aloud and making edits every time I return to the story). So, it may be days or weeks in between writing sessions. There’s plenty of “writing” going on during those breaks, but it’s all notes, outlines, and post-its.

However, the pandemic changed my perspective on this. Although to some degree I’ve always worked from home, having my partner also working from home and a more open schedule resulted in me leaning more on routines to maintain my mental health. I started going to sleep and waking up at the same time and creating a schedule for my day (with set times for teaching, grading, eating, and self care). I also made time for sunshine and exercise and began regularly mediating and keeping a gratitude journal. I also started to create more of a routine around writing.

Last year, this was more relaxed. After being solicited to submit for a themed publication, I began to think about new projects and new stories, writing like I did when I was working on my novel, completing a story (that’s gone through multiple drafts, edits, readings, and revisions) in about a month or two as opposed to six months or longer. This summer, after completing a draft manuscript of my short story collection, I started to brainstorm ideas for a new project and finally decided to try writing 400 words a day.

I mainly did this to see what what would happen and also to force me to sit down and write. True story: I prefer short stories (long-form) over novels. For me, it’s about control and concision. I also like the weight placed on the structure and elements. My novel actually began as a series of episodes that functioned as individual stories as well as a complete narrative. This changed over time and through the editing process prior to publication. Thanks to this experience, I’ve gained a better understanding of novel writing. I still treat my chapters the same way, as individual arcs working to advance the character, conflict, and events within the chapter (so as individual stories) as well as important moments in the larger narrative arc of the story, however the latter’s importance is just clearer to me, which makes the planning and execution much, much smoother.

So, what happened? It went better than I thought and I was able to produce much more than I thought I would be able to. But as expected, as time went on, my motivation started to diminish and life began to complicate this particular routine. Sometimes when the former happens, I ask myself, is it the project? Perhaps the idea just doesn’t have the potential I thought it did or works better in another form or as part of something else. This wasn’t the case. After reflecting, I realized that for my process, x amount of words a day can work, but what’s more important is that I’m working on something writing related every day. For me, this is more practical and realistic. It’s also more conducive to the way my mind works and processes.

For example, yesterday, I spent time with my partner, worked on my blog, and did some self-care activities. I didn’t write anything new, but I did final edits (hopefully) on a story I recently completed, did some preliminary research for the next chapter, and outlined story goals for that chapter (what the chapter would accomplish in regard to conflict, character, and narrative).

Today, I will outline the chapter and maybe write the first paragraphs (or at least the first line). Tomorrow, I’ll see where those paragraphs or that first line takes me. This is my new routine, and hopefully by the end of the summer, I’ll have the first third of my manuscript. If not, that’s cool too.

Thanks for reading.

p.s. what’s your writing process/routine like?

Updates

Honestly, I’m pretty terrible at blogging (as evidenced by this blog). I don’t like to write about myself and the self-promotion aspect of being a writer in the age of social media always makes me feel weary in a variety of ways, especially as it encourages some kind of imagined competition.

So yeah, I try not to indulge in that. It makes me self-conscious, more than I already am.

Still, as I made this website to be a hub of sorts, I wanted to provide some updates.

In terms of new publications, I have largely stepped back from submitting to compile a collection of short stories which I recently completed. It’s 14 stories now (around 35,000 words), about half of them new, the rest were written over the last ten years. Some were written while I was working on my novel while others were imagined during that time frame and/or written after. Because of this, the collection covers similar themes of addiction, family, and grief but these stories also cover gentrification, family history, identity, climate change, PTSD, houselessness, and militarization. Overall, I hope it captures a sense of what it’s like to live in Hawaiʻi today. So far, I’ve queried some agents and publishers and it’s being considered. Here’s to hoping.

Other than that, I did have a reprint published. It’s one of my favorites and was inspired by a Civil Beat article on sea-level rise. In this story, Waikīkī and much of the island is underwater, and the main character finds himself navigating the canals searching for his daughter. I love this story so much, I decided to use the premise to begin a larger work-in-progress, what may end up being another novel. I’ve got three chapters so far. We’ll see.

You can check out “Search the Waters” in NonBinary #23.

In addition, I co-edited a special issue of Bamboo Ridge. It’s an exciting issue and will be out in the fall (check out that author list). I don’t want to spoil it, but you can check out the cover below. You can pre-order it at Bamboo Ridge.

That’s all for now.

If you want more updates, random thoughts, and other nonsense, follow me @D_CarreiraChing.

Thanks for reading.

New fiction in Vice-Versa

Excited and honored to share this piece that was recently published in the latest issue of Vice-Versa Journal. It’s a story of family, the houseless crisis, and Waikīkī underwater. It’s also my first attempt at climate fiction. I hope you enjoy it.

https://www.hawaii.edu/vice-versa/

New Stuffs

I’m slowly starting to write new stuff again and send it out. I’ve received a number of rejections, which is unfortunate. But thankfully, they’ve all been rather positive, with many editors providing feedback and encouraging me to let them know when I decide to submit again. And thus, I continue to submit, submit, submit (which is probably the most important part of the process other than the writing and revising, of course).

Some good news: I’ve got an excerpt from the manuscript I’m working on published in the new issue of Bamboo Ridge, which you can pick up here.

Also, Hawaii Pacific Review just published a flash fiction piece I wrote, which you can check out here.

As with much of my writing, both look at social issues in Hawaii. The first, the societal pressures facing teenagers and adolescents; and the second, the homeless sweeps, high cost of living in Hawaiʻi, and abandoned cars.

More soon,

D.

My reading at the award ceremony for the Elliot Cades award for Literature

I’ve uploaded my reading from this year’s award ceremony for the Elliot Cades award for Literature. Thank you to the Hawaiʻi Literary Arts Council for this honor. As a local writer, it means everything. Thank you to Danielle Lanakila Carreira Ching, my family, friends, fellow writers, colleagues, and teachers who helped to inspire and guide me with your love, support, and knowledge, and to Eric Chock, Darrell Lum, and Bamboo Ridge for giving my manuscript the chance.

Special shoutout to the amazingly talented Tyler Mcmahon for winning for established author, and Patrice Wilson and Michael Little for receiving the Loretta D. Petrie Award for outstanding service to Hawaiʻi’s Literary community.

Check out my reading below:

BETWEEN SKY and SEA reviewed in Sunday’s Honolulu Star Advertiser

Aloha everyone,

First of all, thank you to those that have visited my site and supported my work since I launched it last year and since I started writing a little over six years ago, especially everyone who picked up my novel over the last eight months.

I have been waiting with baited breath for reviews to come in, and it’s been so wonderful to personally hear from people who have experienced the story of the Teixeiras and their struggle in the wake of tragedy, addiction, and the complications of growing up local. As previously posted, last month I was excited and grateful to find out that BETWEEN SKY AND SEA had made Honolulu Magazine’s list of “must have” summer reads, and just this past Sunday I found out that my novel was reviewed in Sunday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser. If you don’t have access to the paper, I have attached a photo of the review below.

For me, more than the review itself, it’s the knowledge that the story is out there and breathing.  When it came to BETWEEN, this was an important part of why I wrote it, giving these characters and this story life.

If you have a reaction to share, please don’t hesitate to leave it below or message me directly at d.constructediting@gmail.com.

If you haven’t picked up BETWEEN SKY AND SEA yet, you can do so via my publisher (best price) here: http://www.bambooridge.com/storeitem.aspx?pid=110. It’s also available via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Between-Sky-Sea-Familys-Struggle/dp/0910043930 and SPD: http://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9780910043939/between-sky-and-sea-a-familys-struggle.aspx.

Thank you all again.

More soon,

D.

My top three rules when it comes to writing

#1. Put the time and the effort in.

If my writing makes it out into the world, I want to be able to stand by it. It is a reflection of my dedication to the craft, to the subject matter, and to the story. I want to be proud of it, so it’s important that I: take the time to think about the elements of the narrative and how those elements contribute to the message that I want to put out there; brainstorm and plan; and do my research. It’s also important to me that I make the time to shape the story into what I want it to be and to discover what the story is. Sometimes those two things aren’t exactly the same, which leads me to my second rule…

#2. Trust the story

Before I sit down to write, I often have a preconceived idea about the story. Unfortunately, sometimes I’ll be five pages into writing it and suddenly I don’t know what’s going on, what I’m going to write next, or the story isn’t moving in the right direction. When I have those road blocks, I like to take a break, print out what I’ve already written, and read it like I would if I were in a workshop setting or if I were a stranger. I ask myself a lot of things while I’m doing this, but the main question that I’m trying to answer is “what is the piece trying to say or what’s the point?” In these instances, what I find is that the story is not the same as when I started to write it. It could be a simple fix like changing a bit of dialogue or revising a scene, but it could also be something bigger like the conflict isn’t what I thought it was or the character’s actions don’t match up with their motivations. I could go back and try to force what I want to write onto what I’ve written, but that never works out for me. Instead, I like to go back to my notes, reread my draft again, and then think about what I’m actually trying to say. It can be tedious, it can be time intensive, but it can also be rewarding, which is why I sometimes need to remind myself to…

#3. Enjoy the process

One of my favorite parts of writing is the revising and editing stages of the writing process. The actual writing of the first draft is great, but it’s a short-lived excitement. Writing is like sculpture or wood working (for me anyway). That first draft is the point where I’ve got the material to where it’s starting to resemble what I want it to be, but it’s only through the revising and editing stages that I actually get to shape the story into the final product. And it’s during those long hours and those late nights that I discover so much about a story that it really makes me appreciate what I’m writing. In many ways, those stages brings me closer to the story and help me to better understand how it works, which is why I always spend the most time editing and revising a story.

Bonus rule: read your work aloud.

Doing so always helps me to get a feel for the sound and rhythm of the sentences that I’m writing. It helps me to catch awkward sentences, redundancies in word choice or content, and grammatical errors. Plus, it’s good practice for when I read it in front of my wife.

And that’s my experience. Everyone’s different, but hopefully it’s helpful in some way.

If you have your own rules, please feel free to share them below.

More soon,

D.

 

 

D.Construct: Editing Services

deconstruct

verb, de·con·struct, \dē-kən-ˈstrəkt\
1:  to examine (as a work of literature) using the methods of deconstruction
2:  to take apart or examine in order to reveal the basis or composition of often with the intention of exposing biases, flaws, or inconsistencies
3:  to adapt or separate the elements of for use in an ironic or radically new way <uses his masterly tailoring skills to deconstruct the classics — Vogue>
4:  destroy, demolish <nations that are deconstructing themselves — Jim Hoagland>

credit: Merriam-Webster

Over the last seven years, I have done a lot of writing, been fortunate to have some of it published, and learned quite a bit along the way. Of the latter, I have always prided myself on my ability to self-edit and to deconstruct (and subsequently reconstruct) drafts and narratives. Skills I learned from experienced writers and educators but also from my own mistakes, failures, and successes. As a student, as a writer, and as an educator, I know how crucial it can be to have someone with a keen eye look over your work, provide a thorough critique, and offer suggestions for revision and improvement; but it’s not always easy to find another writer to do so, which is why I’ve decided to start D.Construct.

My fee* is small, flat rate, and will cost you about as much as a hardcover book (maybe less).

What you’ll get: I’ll read your piece thoroughly and more than once. I’ll let you know my overall impressions of the narrative elements and of the story as a whole, what I thought worked, what I thought didn’t, and how you could improve the piece. Feedback will be provided in the form of an email in addition to an attached copy of your piece with comments. I will also answer any questions that you have about my comments/feedback. I can also provide advice on sending your work out.

What you won’t get: help with grammar. Feedback on more than one piece (per fee). Help with poetry (I am not a poet). Help with writing other than fiction/non-fiction stories. Feedback on more than one draft (per the fee). Any guarantee that your work will be accepted (no one can guarantee this). This list is not exhaustive. If you are looking for a particular service, ask and I’ll let you know if it’s something that I can provide.

If you any questions or if you’re interested in my editing services, please email me at dconstructediting@gmail.com.

 

 

 

*The fee covers one draft of a fiction/non-fiction story up to 25 double-spaced pages, 12 point font, Times or Courier. The fee is non-negotiable and must be paid prior to receiving feedback. The fee is non-refundable. I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.