The Next Big Thing Blog Hop celebrates what the writers are working on or what they have coming up next. Welcome to my stop!
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| Photo by the great Melissa Lewis |
I was tagged by a dear friend and National Book Award Winning Author, Kathy Erskine author of Mockingbird and many other wonderful books for teens and adults.
I have two books I’m going to cover — although I’m working on many more — one which is being marketed by my agents at Pippin Properties and the other that began as a NANO project last November thanks to my librarian Sam who inspired me to write like crazy for a month. I’ll do them sequentially …
1. What is the working title of your book
Better Than Chocolate
2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
From an amazingly spunky girl named Heidi who has Cerebral Palsy and is deaf. She is not afraid of anything but a suction machine, loves to cause mischief by knocking things over just to see them crash, and selects the strangest people as friends.
3. What genre does your book come under?
Middle grade contemporary fiction
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I think Sandra Bullock would make a great mom. I'm not sure about the rest.
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Angie admires her sister Lindsey who isn't afraid of anything but a suction machine, while fifth grade Angie is afraid of a new school, eating alone, her crabby neighbor Mr. Davidson, the neighborhood bully, Cockroach Baxter, and most of she is worried that Lindsey will end up in ICU at the hospital again.
6. Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?
Represented by Pippin Properties, Holly Mcghee and Elena Mechlin
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Three weeks. That was years ago. The better question would be how many times have you rewritten this book? Probably almost a hundred times!
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My good friend and author Lynda Taylor suggested I write a book inspired by the real events in Heidi's life.
10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Better than Chocolate takes place in a small town near Hershey Pennsylvania. Angie loves chocolate so Hershey World does come to play a part in this story. Also Angie is a budding young architect and a neighborhood spy with Lindsey and best friend British-wannabe Melissa who calls her mom Mum and reads the British classics, like Sherlock Holmes and Jane Eyre. Angie, Melissa and Linsey converse in sign language and use Lindsey's talking pad. Lindsey loves lights, and Christmas. Here's a picture my friend Lynda Taylor painted of her looking out at her Chirstmas present from Angie--lights.
**And here’s the novel still in progress…
1. What is the working title of your book?
What Annie Told her Granny
2. Where did the idea come from for the book
My great great great grandfather was born in Penally Wales and he left behind a lively journal about his life, stealing a house, getting whipped for skipping school to watch a big schooner arrive from America, living in a workhouse, and hunting and shooting. I was able to travel to Wales and using his journal to track my way to a small town, the estate he worked on, the local church where he was listed at bastard child and visit the workhouse. I thought how fun it would be to have a 14 year old girl from small town Utah (where I was raised), time travel to find her great great great grandfather when he was her age--14.
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| GGG grandfather's church in Penally Wales |
3. What genre does your book come under?
Tween historical fiction
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I have no idea!
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? (I made it two)
14 year old Annie, the oldest child in a family of nine, including three sets of younger twins, is always in trouble, and hates being a girl in a world in her small Utah town where boys get all the breaks. Little does she know when she stumbles off to the Brighamsville Tabernacle in tears, upset because she's been grounded for wearing her GGG Grandfather William Bates' lucky cap and dressing in her brother's clothes that she will soon get her wish.
6. Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?
Pippin Properties
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Still not done, but half of it was done in November! Thank you NANOWRIMO
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Movies? Back to the Future
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My own life. I am the oldest of 9 children, with two sets of twins and a set of triplets as siblings. I grew up babysitting, diaper changing, and folding clothes before the dryer quit the fluff cycle. My brother's chores were to weed the garden and mow the lawn while I had to learn to make whole wheat bread and sew. I just wanted to cut the grass and help tomatoes grow!
10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Annie will encounter pirates, learn how the working class in Great Britain was treated in 1840's and discover that she wishes people knew she really was a girl when she develops a crush on her ggg grandfather, Willie Bates' (age 15) best friend.
Tagging other authors: Karen Fisher-Baird, Maureen Hinds, Nancy Manning, Lynda Taylor.
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