For me, it’s always about time.
I used to feel very out-of-sorts and uncomfortable if I went for any period of time without writing. I’ve learned to understand that writing is the way I process and manage experiences and emotions.
It feels like I can breathe better when I know I am getting close to leaving a mark someplace that memorializes something about the human condition.
On that point, I’ve come to see that even when I’m not working, as in putting pen to paper, I’m still making progress.
How I Visualize and Travel to a Scene
Having a lack of time totally really derails all of your writing goals!
I guess what I’ve realized is that the writing goals take a backseat to whatever else is going on in life. It also takes a backseat to art, which often feeds off of ambition or desire, but doesn’t care about them.
I usually meditate for a bit before writing, to loosen the stream of consciousness. I am a lawyer, so I do a lot of writing and reading that is very analytical and logical, so I find I have to find a way to disengage that part of the brain before I can start drafting. Meditation is a good way to do that.
I have a preference for a kind of meditation where I lie down and block out stimulus, so I can visualize and “travel” to the scene. It transports me to the time and place I am trying to capture.
Why Writing On Your Phone Can Be Helpful
Biggest physical challenge of being a writer: Not getting enough sleep!
I’ve had to learn to be more flexible. I used to need a desk and a quiet place alone to work. But in my last job, I had to travel a lot, and so I wrote a lot of Karma of the Sun on business trips (to 40 different states, which might be a record!).
I also have young children, which takes up a lot of my energy. Out of necessity, I learned to write on the go, whenever I can, the only equipment being my cell phone.
The strange thing is that I think it actually helped me quite a bit. I felt like I was getting the writing in, and the informality of writing on the phone could feel less intimidating than when you’re staring at a big, blank screen in front of a keyboard.
I still mainly write on the computer, but the phone has been a new tool that I never expected to utilize during the actual drafting of a manuscript.
My Best Book Marketing Technique
Best book marketing technique: Genuine enthusiasm for the book, perhaps?
This was the book I would have wanted to read (Karma of the Sun). It is about the end of the world told from a Tibetan perspective. It taps into real Buddhist scripture that parallels other world cultures, which is fascinating to me. And it is about a boy, just starting off in life, who already has to face the end, or at least that’s what he’s told.
It is an interesting, thrilling story, but it also asks some important questions: What does a universally-accepted belief in the end of the world say about our faith in humanity? How do you reconcile a belief in the power of personal action when clearly having to pay the karmic price of others’ bad acts?
I love talking about it and I’m excited to hear others’ thoughts.
I’ve Had to Learn to Write on the Go
Life does get busy. But that provides for good writing fodder, at the end of the day.
I would often wish that I could go and lock myself away, but do that too long, and you lose the connection to the material you write about.
Also, I’m somehow more productive when I’m running lean; the yearning-to-write-but-not-being-able-to is torture, but the buildup of creative energy has at times done wonders. It’s a constant state of yearning.
From a practical standpoint, what’s worked for me is learning to be patient but also treating writing on par with other things that are essential, like eating or sleeping or exercise! My family and friends know that writing is something that I need to do as part of my nature, and their acceptance of that is helpful.
I have had to become more flexible and to learn to write on the go. Unfortunately, the cost of finding time also means giving up some things; for example, I don’t get to watch as many movies or shows or read as much as I did in the past.
How My Acting Background Helped Me As a Writer
I think that [my work as a child actor] has played a big influence [in my writing life].
One thing is, you get a sense of dialogue from reading a lot of scripts and plays, a sense of beats in language.
But the biggest thing is the approach of a method actor. To me, the narrative voice of the author is a character in the book, which means that the author is kind of an actor. It is not his or her natural voice you are reading. It is a voice born of that part.
Even the setting is a character, and to write it well, I think you have to find that emotional embodiment of it. I think of it as “method writing.” And to me it makes sense: a book that takes place in post-apocalyptic Tibet should sound very different than a book taking place in New York City in the go-go days of Wall Street, even if it’s the same author.
So in that sense, the acting background helps me “get into [narrative] character” before I start writing. Finally, being able to act out a character’s actions and having an awareness of the audience’s POV that comes with acting experience is helpful in writing description.
Advice for a Young Writer: Just Do It!
Just do it! Don’t ask for permission or run your ideas by anyone, but just get your hands in the work.
If you keep coming back to it, day after day, then you know you have something there.
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Brandon Ying Kit Boey writes speculative fiction and poetry. His work has been described as literary and atmospheric, often drawing from Asian cosmology and fantasy.
The son of an oil engineer, he grew up moving frequently, never staying in the same place for more than three years. Themes of time and space, and the malleability of both, feature prominently as he has described the attempt always “to build a bridge” that can seemingly never be, over an expanse that might otherwise never be crossed.
His poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies, and he is also a writer of plays and short stories. Karma of the Sun is his first novel. When not at work on his next book, he can be found wandering the backyard woods in his home of Maine or the shelves of his library.
For more information on Brandon and his work, see his website or follow him on Instagram and Twitter.
Karma of the Sun: Six suns, six blasts in the sky; a seventh one, and the earth will die. In the isolation of the Himalayas, the snows still fall, but they are tinged with the ash of a nuclear winter; the winds still blow, but they are haunted by the never-ending wail of ghosts. The seventh and final blast is coming.
Karma has grown up in the shadow of his father, who disappeared after setting off promising to find salvation for his people but never returned. Shunned by his village, he jumps at the opportunity to redeem his father’s name and carry on his legacy—to search for the one remaining Mountain in a decimated range, which no one has ever seen, and the mystical Stone within it. If found, the Stone could offer his people a chance to change their bleak future, and avert the consequences of the seventh sun.
His trek across the beautiful, stark, and increasingly unstable wilderness draws the attention of dangerous figures who seek to use him for their own purposes—a warlord intent on growing his power, a nun on a pilgrimage to save the world, a despot linked to his father’s disappearance, and a shadowy beast bent on revenge. Meanwhile, the earth draws ever closer toward its end—along with the chance of ever seeing his father again.
Imbued with the lyricism and philosophical leanings of The Fifth Season and as compelling as Station Eleven or Cloud Atlas, KARMA OF THE SUN challenges the assumption of the Western city as the last bastion of civilization, and brings forth new answers to old questions—about life after death, about the weight of sins of previous generations, about personal responsibility in the face of overwhelming odds.
Available at CamCat Books, Amazon, and wherever books are sold.