The past couple of weeks I've been working 4.5 jobs and my head has been spinning; this week is marginally less hectic, thank goodness. So what I really need right now is to check in with my superstar authors here in the Café and find out: What are your WINS for the past week? Triumphs! Tales of Success! Share your glories with me! YOU ARE MIGHTY! <3

Hi folks, I'm happy to announce that my debut novel Dear Haider is scheduled for publication on June 1, 2024, by Baraka Books! https://www.barakabooks.com/catalogue/dear-haider/ It's one of those stories that came to me fully formed in a flash, as I was recovering from a severe mental health crisis. I was at the time in school, but had a break between undergrad and grad school, and wrote most of the first draft in that two month period. I wasn't fully satisfied with my draft however, and due to the demands of grad school, left the manuscript alone for almost 5 years. Then, a close friend of mine, who works as a medical copywriter, generously offered to edit my manuscript with me. It was the pandemic, so we went on Zoom every Sunday and worked on 2-3 chapters for a few hours at a time, for a period of four months. I will be forever indebted to her. Then, I think I did things quite backwards. Instead of trying agents and big publishers first, which I didn't have confidence to shoot for, I submitted to two small presses. One of them, whose founder happened to be my parents' friend and neighbour, immediately made an offer. And the rest is history. I'm happy to share more about my writing/publishing journey, so if you're interested, let me know and feel free to ask questions!

I'd love to get to know you and your current work-in-progress! What's your current writing project, and what are your main struggles right now with that project? Struggles could be creative, could be life-related, could be body, mind, heart, soul — anything that's keeping you from making your envisioned progress.

I'd love to hear what your wins this week have been! Anything at all: what's been really positive for you and has helped you keep going?

I have lately had the desire to write about my trip visiting my family's homeland of Ecuador... but I've never tackled that story before except when people ask me about it. I keep on telling myself that I just need to get it out--sound and voice doesn't matter in this draft--but I'm cringing so much that my motivation is waning. How do y'all get the VERY FIRST first draft out? How do you psych yourselves out of the idea of needing it to be a particular way in order to be motivated to write it? I know I should just keep my head down and continue... but another part of me is questioning how on earth can I do that when (1) my memory of these events, people, and emotions are vague and (2) it's hard to clarify & dwell on these vague memories? It's not a story based on trauma which is something I'm also not used to doing in craft... it's rather one about finding home, family, and joy in another place. This also adds to my worries that I''m blaspheming my heritage if I don't get it right on the first try...