My friend and critique partner, Rachel Hert tagged me on her blog for The Next Big Thing. Thanks Rachel! The Next Big Thing is a chance for writers to post a little about their current work in progress, or book. The way it works is I get to answer some questions about my WIP. Then I tag five people who will also answer the questions and so on. This should be fun. If you'd like to be tagged, I've decided that I'll tag the first five people to comment on the blog, so if your interested, leave a comment and I'll add a link to your blog on mine. This should be a good chance to get to know other writers and see what everyone is up to.
Okay, so here are the questions with my answers:
What is the working title of your book?
My book is called Run.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
I've always liked big families with unusual things, like kids all the same gender, multiple sets of twins, names that start with the same letters, or other odd things like number patterns (birth days, years apart.) I know, it's a little weird. Perhaps I should clarify that the beginning of this idea, that a girl who was an only child ends up spending the summer with six male cousins, came when I was still in high school. Since then it morphed into something a little deeper, but the main idea, family, has remained.
What genre does your book fall under?
Young Adult LDS Contemporary Fiction.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Actors? Okay, so secretly some of my characters (in looks mostly) are based on kids I knew in High School. Don't tell my friends . . . That said, how many actors do you know would be in an LDS themed movie? Don't answer that one. I'm going to go do a search for actresses that could play my main character, just for kicks.
After an spending way too much time look at actresses, I've failed. I need a short girl in her teens with wavy hair who can pull off serious and sarcastic.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Really? ONE sentence? I'm starting to hate the word synopsis. Here we go: Sixteen-year-old Morgan knows living at her aunt's will be the definition of crazy, but when family secrets start popping up, beginning with an empty house her parents own, she wonders if her aunt's six boys might not be the craziest part of her summer.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
My book will hopefully be represented by an agency. I'm not ready to face the self-publishing world.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Do we have to count the six or seven years before I started writing seriously? Lets go with four years and leave it at that. *Ducking head*
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Um. Think LDS Young Adult and you'll probably have it.
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
After the initial idea was born, the remainder of the book was inspired by my family and friends. One scene is straight from my memories of watching older cousins play in my granny's laundry chute. Morgan's aunt harbors many of my own aunts' personality traits. A certain scene was inspired by a friend that died when I was in middle school.The rest of the book was inspired by some tough questions I had as a youth about death and about the choice to do one thing when we know we should be doing something else. I've often been concerned about imperfection and Morgan's life is very imperfect. As I wrote the book, I found answers to those questions, almost without meaning too.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Run is about death, but it's also about Morgan, a sixteen-year-old girl who is trying to live up to her parents expectations while still being true to herself. It's about events that happened ten years ago to Morgan's family. It's about her six cousins, the neighbor boys, the cute kid from the track team, and all the chaos that follows.
If you want me to tag you, leave a comment and I'll link to your blog for next Wednesday when you can be a part of The Next Big Thing!
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