Week 18: The Next Big Thing
I’ve been tagged – blog
tagged – by my very talented writer friend, Lisa Koosis. She answered the same
questions on her own blog post last Wednesday: http://writingonthinice.blogspot.com/
Here are my answers about
my own work-in-progress:
What is the working title of your book?
Voices in the Waves
Where did the idea come from for the book?
A few years back, as my
family and I drove north on highway 684 to upstate New York, I was getting
sleepy (no, I wasn’t the one driving) and watched the trees wiz by at incredible
speeds. Call it my muse, but inspiration struck and it was hard to ignore. A
phrase popped into my head – tree herding.
So I asked my muse, “why would people herd trees?” And she answered
matter-of-factly (in that annoying professor voice), “because the trees have an
inner essence – soulvapor – that is
needed to protect an island and its people against their predators – the ocean-dwelling
Merbeasts.” Then the image of a girl popped into my head, a beautiful,
red-headed girl, who has never been allowed into the ocean. Why? Because once
her body touches the waves, she transforms into a Merbeast. Thus began the epic
journey of Anaïs Willow, seventeen-year-old human-Merbeast
hybrid.
What genre does your book fall under?
Young Adult Epic Fantasy
Which actors would you choose to play your
characters in a movie rendition?
Once I saw the movie, Hanna, I knew immediately, hands down,
that the image of Anaïs in
my head was really Saoirse
Ronan. As I’ve been writing and revising Voices
in the Waves (and summaries of its subsequent two books), it’s this
talented and beautiful actress I’ve pictured in my head. For Anaïs’s love interest, Akron, I picture someone like Ian Somerhalder, except Ian’s very pretty (no offense), so
maybe a bit rougher looking.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Seventeen-year-old Anaïs Willow discovers she’s a descendent
of a human-Merbeast experiment and that she holds a power over water that casts
her as a pawn in a brewing war with the ocean-dwelling Merbeasts. (Woah, that’s
a mouthful. Try saying that in one breath.)
Will your book be self-published or represented
by an agency?
My book is represented by
my agent, Paula Munier of Talcott Notch Literary.
How long did it take you to write the first
draft of your manuscript?
I started the original
story years ago, but the current version and the version I’ve seriously
considered for publication, took me about a year of working nights and weekends.
What other books would you compare this story to
within your genre?
May I compare it to books and movies? My story is similar in scope
and style to Kristin Cahore’s Graceling
and Maria V. Snyder’s Touch of Power,
with a sprinkle of Hanna meets Avatar
meets Waterworld
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
My inspiration for this
book really was nature itself – our conservation of nature, and our abuse of
it. But it’s also a story of a girl who feels different, left out, because she is different and people fear her. I love
the idea of a girl on the outskirts of society who ultimately becomes its potential
savior.
What else about your book might pique the
reader’s interest?
There are several big themes
in my book. One of them is the message – there are consequences to playing God.
The Experimentors of the world I
created have produced a new kind of being – a creature of land and sea. But
their strange experiments have created a being that thinks and feels and has a soul – something they’re unprepared to
deal with or analyze. Most of all, the story is about a girl who’s journey not
only tests her outer strength, but is a testament to her inner one as well. I
really didn’t think about these themes as I wrote the story. It was during revisions
when I realized I had these themes.
Thank you so much for reading about my work!
Tagged for next week (Week 19) are some of my very talented writer friends. Check out their blogs next Wednesday when it's their turn to post answers to these same questions about their own works-in-progress!
Liz Coley lizcoleybooks.blogspot.com
Albert Harris http://www.bond-eye.blogspot.com/
Lee Kelly http://newwritecity.com/
Amy E. Robertson www.amyiswriting.com
Rules:
***Answer these ten questions about your current WIP (Work
In Progress) on your blog
.
***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so
we can hop over and meet them.
Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing:
What is
the working title of your book?
Where did the idea come from for the book?
What genre does your book fall under?
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a
movie rendition?
What is the
one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your
manuscript?
What other books
would you compare this story to within your genre?
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
