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I cannot stand repetition.
Well, that’s a rather vague and slightly pessimistic way to start this newsletter. Let’s try this again.
Ugh, no. Repeating will only make it even more annoying to me. Besides, rephrasing the sentence will not make it any less true.
That prefix, though…it just itches at me. Rephrasing. Retrying. Repeating. Re. Re. Re.
Repetition, I find, is the surest way for someone to spiral into insanity. In fact, it’s probably the primary way to do it. It reminds me a lot of a scene in Fate Breaker, which I only just finished a couple weeks ago.
“Do you know the definition of insanity, Domacridhan?” […]
Taristan clutched a sword like an afterthought. He looped it lazily between them, the arcing blade his only smile. “It’s doing the same thing over and over again,” Taristan offered, still leaning. “And somehow still expecting a different outcome.”
— Fate Breaker by Victoria Aveyard
“Oh, please,” you might be thinking, probably rolling your eyes at my melodramatic ruminations. “Your draft revisions can’t be that bad, Maya.”
Well, isn’t that an adorable thought.
I kid. Revisions can’t be going badly if I’ve been avoiding them like the plague!
Funnily enough, though, I wasn’t even thinking about Starbound at that moment (joke’s on me, I clearly just did). It was more about an interaction I had recently.
Just over a week ago, I finished my final exams (which is part of the reason why this newsletter is so late), and as is tradition amongst my friend group, we congregate at the coffee machine in the Engineering Building.
Every single engineering student I have met at university is addicted to that coffee machine, even if they don’t necessarily drink coffee. I, for instance, like the machine’s hot chocolate. It’s a bit funny, honestly, considering how simplistic the design of that thing is. Every time I use it a little voice inside me whispers that I could code a better one in less than an hour, because this one has such a terrible interface. It wouldn’t even tell you if it’s out of order, for example, it would just snap up your money greedily and sarcastically offer you an empty cup.
Literally all it would take is a default case in the switch statement, I swear.
But for all its flaws, the coffee machine is still so significant to us. If we were in a book, I’d use it as a focal point in the story, a way to bring different narratives together at this unlikely crossroads.
Actually, a faulty machine as a focal point is very fitting for engineering majors, now that I think about it. Maybe I’ll file that away for later.
Now, because this machine is so popular, I tend to stumble across a bunch of my other friends there while I’m waiting for my chocolatey cup of goodness. On this particular day, I’d just finished my Linear Circuits final, and upon happenstance an old friend came over to greet me.
He seemed pretty glum, which wasn’t all that uncommon considering it was finals week. All students get into a different mindset during that time. “How are you?” is automatically replaced with “How are your finals?” and “How many hours did you sleep?”. It almost always feels like we’re checking on each other’s sanity, in a way, just to make sure the others are still holding on. As though by asking these simple questions, we’re keeping each other afloat.
Or maybe I’m just being melodramatic again. But there’s a warmth that fills me when my friends comfort me if I feel I messed up royally on an exam, or when I do the same for them, or when we praise each other, claiming that we were cooking in that exam even when we might feel that we didn’t really. The knowledge that someone else always has faith in your abilities even when you don’t is easily one of the most wonderful feelings in the world.
So I asked my friend how his finals were going so far, and he told me that he’d just failed his Calculus exam.
“Couldn’t have been that bad,” I said, completely prepared to start hyping him up, before I remembered exactly which professor teaches Calc. Because she is the only professor who teaches Calculus I.
The course material is easy, sure, but that professor is infamous. You want to become an engineer? You’ve got to get through her first. Each semester she’s known to walk into her class, take a nice long look at the class, smile, and start off with her iconic phrase.
“Eighty-five percent of you will fail my course.”
Yep. Just like the movies. I’m not even kidding.
And she’s statistically correct, for the record. I was lucky enough to skip the course because I had taken the equivalent AP in high school, but my friends were not so fortunate. Worse, most of them had to repeat the exact same course with her, contributing to her ludicrous fail rate. And boy, the stories I hear.
“Don’t bother,” he’d told me, noticing my hesitation. “I definitely failed.”
“So, what are you going to do?” I asked him tentatively, because this professor’s also known to be the primary reason that people drop out of engineering. I asked the Dean once, and he told me it’s almost always the math courses that make students reach their breaking point.
I mean, come on, numerically speaking, from a class of a hundred students, only fifteen people pass Calculus I. And this is a first semester course.
“I’m going to repeat it in summer,” he said, punching in his order into the coffee machine as I nursed my fresh hot chocolate.
“Really?” I asked, slightly incredulous. “You’re going to take the course again with her?” The chocolate in my mouth turned bitter at the thought. Imagine doing all that material again. I’d lose my mind.
But he just shrugged. “Obviously. What other choice do I have?”
I don’t know why it surprised me so much. If I were in the same situation, I’d repeat the course too. I wouldn’t give up that easily, and anyone who’s genuinely passionate about the major definitely wouldn’t either.
But maybe it’s the sheer certainty of his decision as he just walked out of his final exam, maybe it was the complete lack of hesitation, maybe it was the surety that he would simply do it all again and that it would be different this time…maybe that’s what got to me.
Imagine spending four long months laboring through a course, only to start over from scratch two weeks later. Imagine walking into that class, knowing you’ve been there before, knowing that your friends have moved on to the next course while you’re back here again with new strangers, and the professor who failed you and refused your grade appeal just welcomes you back with a knowing glint in their eye. Round two.
It’s unthinkable to me. Weirdly, though I know I’d make the exact same decision in a heartbeat, the thought is still insane in my head. I just cannot stand repetition.
Because what if it happens again? What if everything plays out the exact same way? What if it feels like a waste of time and I spend sleepless nights in frustration because the only way out is through? What if I waste my time again? What if I never make it through?
I can imagine the code for such a scenario. Just a simple two lines.
while (Course_Passed == False)
{ Repeat Course; }And that can go on to infinity if the condition remains false. The concept is simple in theory. But the difference between coding it and living it is that one’s a machine and the other’s a mere human. There is no emotion in the machine. There is no shame, frustration, or impatience. There is no hesitation, no fear that this might actually go on forever, that it might be futile, that maybe the only way out isn’t through, maybe it’s time to go back through that tunnel and pick another path. Maybe you were wrong, and it isn’t really as simple as two lines of code. Our time on this earth is so limited, so fleeting, that you constantly fear that you’re squandering it on something that you clearly weren’t built for.
Life, in short, is not a do-while loop. It’s not as simple as two lines of code.
It’s so easy to say you’ll go again. But actually picking yourself off the ground, wiping the blood from your face, and putting your fists up again, and again, and again, all for the minuscule chance that you’ll get it right this time, that your odds will be better, that you’ll finally pull it off.
To me? That’s insanity. And maybe that’s what makes it all so human. My friends once told me about an old classmate who, just before he submitted his final paper, looked up at the professor, grinned, and said, “See you next semester, Professor.”
And you might think, “Maybe that guy just doesn’t really care about his academics, which is why the failure didn’t faze him,” and you might be right. But even then, his confidence in the fact that he’ll just go again? I think that it’s yet another testament to humankind’s resilience. We want to succeed so badly that we’ll do just about anything to prove that we can.
And maybe we can’t, in the end. Maybe we really weren’t built for it, and all that precious time was wasted. But there’s so much power in that adamant will. No matter how many times you fall, you’ll get back up. Because that’s what being human is all about. Trial and error.
And, sure, there’s all those hours and days that you’ll never get back, but a lesson has been learned nonetheless. Maybe no time is ever truly wasted, just like how no love is ever truly wasted, because both of those things mean that we’re alive.
Or maybe it’s getting close to midnight and I’m getting a little too philosophical.
But it’s things like these that I try to remind myself of as I boot up my laptop to do more query editing or plot revisions or agent hunting or whatever personal hell I’ve chosen to work on for the day. No time is ever wasted. Even if my best efforts get me nowhere. Even if failure hits me like an eight-wheeler, and I’m left there lying on the ground wondering if maybe, just maybe, publishing isn’t for me.
But it isn’t in our nature to quit. We’ve only survived this long because the human species doesn’t give up, no matter how hopeless it all may seem. We fail and try again, fail and try again, and again, and again. And when we’re pushed down…Well, someday, we’ll get back up again. It doesn’t have to be today or tomorrow, just someday.
These days, more than ever, I have to remind myself of that. Repetition may not be something I’ll ever like going through, but someday I’ll learn to accept it. I’ll just give it time, knowing that it wasn’t spent in vain.
Well, we’ve already established that I haven’t been working on Starbound revisions. But I’m promising myself that I’ll amend that this month.
April was still a month full of ideas, though! My writing style is a bit difficult to explain, as everyone has different writing methods, but I always tend to write full scenes in my head before I actually open the doc. I’d have the opening lines, the characters’ movements, some of their thoughts, even snatches of dialogue, and I’d mess with it all in my head, letting it marinate as I go about my day. Then when I’m done playing with the idea, I sit down and write it.
Lately I’ve been too busy to do the actual sit-down-and-write-it part, and I’m still jumping between projects with my ideas marinating in different sections in my head, but I did write a good bunch when you add them all up! It’s a total of about 10,000 words, which, for an aspiring author, isn’t much, but it’s not like I have any deadlines to hit, for once. Writing finally feels fun again, and I’m getting excited by all my new ideas.
It’s so funny to me when many people assume I only write sci-fi, but I do suppose it’s valid, considering how much time I spend talking primarily about Starbound. I don’t talk about my other projects much because I need to sell Starbound first, and it wouldn’t do to promote books I’m not even close to finishing. But I do love all my side projects nonetheless, and I can’t wait to share them.
One of the books I’m focusing on is fantasy, and let me tell you, after ages of writing Starbound, it is so refreshing to be able to worldbuild without having to think up scientific explanations for everything. I can just say, “it’s magic!” and leave it at that. I adore fantasy.
All I’ll share for now is that this fantasy project is nearly as old as Starbound. I got the idea for Starbound when I was about thirteen. I tried working on it for a bit, realized that writing a whole space opera is a ginormous step up from the fanfiction I used to write, and decided it was a bit too difficult for my writing level just then. Then I came up with this fantasy idea, and I took a break from Starbound. When I finally went back to Starbound months later, something clicked, and I stuck with it for the next three or four years. You guys already know the rest, I presume.
And now I’m back to this fantasy project, which has the acronym SS. I’ve nicknamed it Project Screenshot due to the acronym, and the sheer lack of relevance that screenshotting has to the story is simply hysterical to me. If you remember my Instagram reel where I mentioned finding an old project where a kingdom was based off Palestine, then this is the exact same book. I plan on renaming some things because good God, ‘Paledine’ is so tacky, but I’m still keeping a lot of the fundamental elements (pirates and Levantine worldbuilding!) and adding a bunch of new ones (mercenaries and corruption arcs!). It’s nice, honestly, having yet another book to share with my thirteen year old self.
Will I curse her uncanny ability for plot holes when they take me ages to fix? Absolutely. Will I wish for a time machine just so I can go back and shake her until I can hear her singular brain cell knocking around in her head? Definitely. But will that stop me? Not at all.
I’m still in the process of reworking old scenes, and they’re a bit too fresh for me to share just yet, but I found a couple of golden parts from the old draft I dug up. I tend to give younger me a bad rep when it comes to her writing (or anything really), but she really wasn’t too bad of a writer. Here’s an old scene I liked:
It was warm inside, almost uncomfortably so. The air was musty in the warehouse, and it smelled suspiciously like tobacco. Aura sighed as she followed the light trail of smoke into one of the offices tucked into a corner. It was an effort not to cover her nose as she walked into the slightly ajar door. Tobacco brought back bad memories.
Thump. A dagger whizzed past Aura and buried itself into the wall beside her, just a few inches away from her ear. She raised an eyebrow at the man sitting at the desk, his boots propped up upon it. “You missed.”
Caelum hummed, the smoke swirling out of his cigarette like delicate dancers. “Perhaps a few millimeters off center,” he mused. “But I do believe I hit the bull’s-eye.” When she turned to inspect the wall, she found a target painted onto it and, indeed, the dagger had landed in the center.
— Project SS, Maya Al-Khzaee
I cannot wait to rewrite that scene. Maybe if we’re lucky, I’ll have it done by the next newsletter, and we’ll get to see how my style’s improved in the past four years.
I mentioned last newsletter that I was working on the second book of Starbound, and I still am! It’s a little hard to write because of the new character tensions (it makes my heart squeeze to see them all so upset, despite knowing I’m the one who did that to them) but the exposition is finally clicking together, which is perfect. I should probably try making an outline, especially because there’s so many things I need to keep track of while writing this book, but I never did have the patience to do it. Like I said, I don’t write things down until it’s done marinating in my head, and by the time it’s marinated, I’d feel ready to write the whole scene anyway. So boo to outlines.
Don’t try this at home, kids. Use outlines, they’re efficient. Marinating is for tomato sauce, not books.
Finally, my last writing update is that my Creative Writing course is over, which makes me a lot sadder than I expected. My professor’s the first experienced author whom I’ve ever shown my work to, and it’s so gratifying when I see just how enthusiastic he is about my writing. It’s like I said earlier, there is almost nothing better than having someone else believe in your abilities even when you don’t. And as a creative, you tend to need that support no matter how confident you are in your creations.
Plus, he made me realize just how much I like writing short stories. I think I’ll start writing a new short story every month, for practice. Who knows, maybe I’ll post a couple of them on my website (I say, well aware that I’m still not done revamping said website, but oh well. It’ll be done at some point. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday).
Books:
I’ve already briefly talked about these in the last newsletter, but I hadn’t finished them at the time, so let’s go over them a bit more.
Fate Breaker by Victoria Aveyard (5 Stars)
This was the third and final book in a high fantasy trilogy, and I was so scared that the final battle would either be rushed or prolonged, because that was the case with so many other fantasy series I’ve read. But let me just say, Victoria Aveyard did not disappoint. And that’s saying something, because a series finale is incredibly tough to write. But her plot twists? Phenomenal as always. I’m so happy that I actually predicted some this time because I almost never do when it comes to Victoria’s books. Still, it was executed perfectly all in all.
I could also go on about the character dynamics and how obsessed I am with the main characters in the story (considering how large and varied the cast is, that’s another amazing point to pull off) but I fear we’ll be here all day if I do. Just read the Realm Breaker series. So worth it.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (5 Stars)
Everyone was so confused by my reaction when I finally finished this book, and that’s so amusing to me. I just felt so relieved that it was over.
Honestly, everything mentioned in this book needed to be said. It discussed the dangers of romanticizing and being too obsessed with a certain aesthetic, as well as the fact that we tend to believe beautiful things are always good things too, when in reality it’s often the opposite. There was even a scene that touched upon discrimination against Palestinians and Arabs, which surprised me. Too often I’ve seen people attribute Donna Tartt’s books as racist, when if anything, it seemed to be the exact opposite (to be fair, I haven’t read The Goldfinch, but I find it difficult to believe that it would be very different).
To sum it up in a nutshell, it’s a really good book. There is nothing I can say about it that thousands have not already said as well.
Does that mean I love this book and will reread it over and over again for years to come? Nope! Absolutely not. Once was enough, in my opinion.
I can’t imagine ever loving the book. I despise all the main cast, which I’m sure was intentional on the author’s part. They were all terrible people who had me shuddering in disgust the entire book. Francis wasn’t as bad as the rest, I suppose, but I didn’t like him much either.
So it really does alarm me when people talk about Henry like he’s boyfriend material, or when I see debates about who was the hottest person in the main cast. It’s ironic, in a way, that people are romanticizing the book when that’s exactly what the book was trying to warn against. Just like how in the Hunger Games, kids were dying every year but the Capitol only really cared about the romance. Then you open social media and 70% of the time when you see the Hunger Games mentioned it’s usually about the love triangle.
It really makes you wonder how the authors must feel about it. Do they feel frustrated that so many people missed the point entirely, or do they laugh at the sheer irony? I’ll probably spend the rest of my life wondering.
Either way, The Secret History is a must read, and I would recommend it. But be careful of how you interpret things. There’s a lot of poetic irony that is easy to miss.
Current Reads:
Lots of ARCs and beta reading for me this month! I’m absolutely honored that all these talented writers entrusted me with their books prior to release, because these are genuinely some of my most anticipated books, so let’s briefly go over them.
Astericus by Anisa Daniel-Oniko (@anisathescribe)
I will read anything Anisa writes. This is a fact.
Now, Astericus is a YA Stellarpunk Fantasy that I have been waiting for ages to get my hands on, and I’m so lucky that I get to beta read it. What I love about it the most is that the world is inspired by West-African culture with a futuristic touch, and I just adore sci-fi fantasies (who’s surprised?). Not to mention the unique magic system (Stella Vim? Harnessing your powers via celestial objects? Literally so cool). The main character, Ev, is also the perfect mix of badass and relatable, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Knowing Anisa, she’s going to hit me with plot twists that will ruin me entirely. Yay!
And the best part is, Astericus is set to come out sometime this year!
The Wasteland Arsonists by Eve (@sunsoffline)
Oh, my God. I’m not even halfway through and I already know that this is going to be one of my top five Writergram projects. This is a steampunk fantasy book where cities float on patches of trash in a dystopian version of our world. The more wasteful you are with your trash, the richer you become.
Everything about this book has me obsessed, and it’s so hard to wrench myself away anytime I pick it up to read. The writing style and worldbuilding and commentary and characters and everything is just so incredibly polished, and I could genuinely live in this book forever.
The Deadliest Wish ARC by Pavla Leitgebova (@blairverse)
There are few things I love more than a twist on a well-loved trope. In this book, Akim Anslav, the Tsar, is destined to be killed by a Chosen One when Akim turns twenty two. But Akim is done waiting for people to hunt him down and murder him, so he sets out to kill them first.
In other words, this book is from the perspective of the villain.
There’s so much to take in while reading The Deadliest Wish, yet it’s all written in a way that’s easy to understand and pick up on as you read. I have a feeling the ending is going to break me, so stay tuned for that.
And the book is coming out tomorrow! Go congratulate the author right now <3
The Nature of Darkness ARC by A.M. Crafton (@a.m.craftonwrites)
It is so hard, so hard, to find a good YA space opera, and I have been waiting to read this one since what feels like forever. I’ve only just started, but judging by the snippets the author’s already teased, it’s going to be such a wild ride and I know it. I mean, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, crime lords, and galaxy-wide worldbuilding? Of course I signed up for this ARC without hesitation.
Just you wait till next newsletter, I know I’m about to make this book my whole personality.
The Nature of Darkness is set to come out June 10th this year, so go follow the author for updates!
Movies and Shows:
Embarrassingly, I can’t recall a single movie or show I’ve watched in the past month and a half. I’m really bad at watching shows and the cinema’s been failing me when it comes to movies.
Actually, I went and watched the new Ghostbusters movie yesterday and while I wasn’t expecting anything groundbreaking, it was pretty alright. The random jokes kept making me laugh which was a pleasant plus! But I just really missed the cinema, honestly.
That being said, I’m in desperate need of movie recommendations, so drop ‘em please!
Music:
New subcategory! Here are my top ten songs from last month in no specific order:
HIND’S HALL by Macklemore
make it better by Lana Lubany
Migraine by BoyWithUke
Thief by Imagine Dragons
Careful What You Wish For by Jack Harris
BLAME IT ON THE KIDS by AViVa
Afraid by The Neighborhood
Backtrack by Emei
The Tradition by Halsey
OK Overture by AJR
Macklemore’s track and Lana Lubany’s song are both about Palestine, by the way, with the former artist using the song’s proceeds to donate to UNRWA and the latter artist being Palestinian herself, so I strongly suggest giving them both a couple listens.
It’s a little funny to me how different those two songs are, now that I think about it. There’s an analogy in the juxtaposition that I could possibly fish out, but let’s keep that for next time.
Alas, once again, we have reached the end of this newsletter. I always tend to underestimate how long these take me to write, purely because there’s so much to talk about.
Now, I know I said in my April newsletter that I wasn’t expecting many big jumps during April, but I did end up achieving a couple of things! For example, I coded a Space Invaders game entirely from scratch without including any external libraries whatsoever. It sounds easy when you think about it, but it took three full days for it to build and execute properly.
In truth, it’s the little things that took quite a bit of time to figure out. How to make the invaders all move downwards periodically, for instance, or how to strictly have the invaders show up in purple and the player in green. Coding is a lot like writing, in a way. The hard work lies in the little things.
But it worked! And the project got my group some very rare praise from our professor, so there’s something I’m very proud of.
I’m also technically done my first year of university! I’ve decided to take an extra summer semester so that I can stay ahead, and that starts tomorrow, but it’s the principle of the thing. I’m no longer a freshie!
Summer semesters, I’m told, are pretty difficult and heavy, and I made the intellectual decision of taking two lab courses that start at 8 AM, so I suppose one hope for next time is that I survive the month. Bearing that in mind, if you don’t receive another email from me, then you’ll know why.
I kid. I do believe that May and June will be pretty rigorous, but that’s nothing new (*intense flashbacks to my APs and IGCSEs era*). But it’s always better to be hard at work rather than hardly working, right?
As always, I hope you enjoyed this month’s newsletter! I know many people have external exams in May, so I hope those are going well! Enjoy the rest of your May!
Until next time,
Maya <3