Tag: ya

writing

The Next Big Thing…

Elodie

I´ve been tagged for The Next Big Thing blog hop by several wonderful people with awesome projects:

  • Robin is writing a YA horror novel (with ghosts!)
  • Rachel is writing a YA contemporary some of her readers have compared to an angrier THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE
  • Heather wrote a YA paranormal (that I personally felt had a flair of Christopher Pike´s REMEMBER ME 🙂

My WiP is still a first draft. I´m actually a bit under 35k into it and I haven´t talked about it much on this blog…so here we go:

What is the working title of your book?

So far: GUILTY….it might also change to ANGEL FACE…hmmm not sure.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

When I was a teenager, I had to write a paper in my German class and I think it was on the death penalty. I read a book by Victor Hugo as one of my sources. The one called The Last Day of a Condemned Man. One never knows exactly what happened to the protagonist, or what his crimes are but one of the things that really stayed with me for a long time is how the family of The Condemned Man suffers…and then recently, this particular point came back to me and I wondered how a teenage girl would do with her dad in jail. How her family was targeted when he got arrested. How she dealt with everything but the past is now coming back to haunt her. This idea mixed with the idea of beauty pageants…and the rest is history. Or well about 35k so far 😛

What genre does your book fall under?

YA romantic suspense

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Erin (yes, one can dream, no?)

Malik

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

No. Nope. Not yet. Okay all I have is this and please note this a total draft!

Seventeen-year-old Erin may have found a way to pay her way to Yale: becoming the next Miss Teen America. That is if she can keep the fact she´s the daughter of a serial killer secret. But, when Pulitzer Prize wannabee and forever crush Malik decides to write a story about her and people start being targeted, Erin realizes there may be more at stake than a crown. 

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’d love to find an agent. Someone who will fall head over heels for my book and champion it. I guess time will tell 😀

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I’m still on it.

What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?

Hmm it’s a tough one. It has a bit of a feel of THE RULES FOR DISAPPEARING by Ashley Elston.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Beauty Queen pageants. Kisses. BFFs. Murder. Debate team. Journalism. Grandparents.  And more…

You´re all tagged! If you want to do it that is 😀 

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Superpowers and kryptonite…

Elodie

YA Highway is a great place. I usually look around, read some posts and comments, just dipping my toe in the water but today I decided to dive right into it for “Road Trip Wednesday”.  Road Trip Wednesday is a “Blog Carnival,” where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. The question this week made me smile and reflect.

 Are you ready to find out what my writing superpowers are? How about my kryptonite?

Interesting take – superpowers…My MC has some she is not aware of, some other characters in
my WIP may not have superpowers per se but their their true nature with their qualities and their issues is a power on its own.

What about me as a writer?

My kryptonite(s) (yeah I may have several if I am brutally honest with myself):

–   Fear that my English is just not good enough. English is not my mother tongue and sometimes it makes me insecure about the words/expression I may use.

–   Time. I know it´s an elusive concept and my superpowers find a solution to this particular kryptonite but still, I just wish I could sit down hours at a time and just type away. I don´t do that enough.

–   Showing vs telling. Why? Well because right now this is the topic which bothers me, which I am improving day by day but  I know when I will finally be in the revising stage that there WILL indeed be revising to be done on that front 🙂

My superpowers…

–  Dialogues. I can make them flow. The voices are real and they just work. I am grateful for that

–  Plot and subplot. I have several subplots in my WIP but they all serve THE plot. They do not appear to be out of control (yet) and I can still remember little details so that I do not contradict myself between one subplot and the other.

–    Patience – this goes  back to my kryptonite “time”. I know I cannot dedicate more than a certain amount of time to writing per day and that´s ok because my goals are realistic and step by step I am getting there.

–  Love,passion and dedication (they all go into the same superpower pack :-)) I love writing, I simply do (with the ups and the downs)

So what is YOUR kryptonite? And what are your superpowers? Don´t forget to let the other
peeps at YA Highway know!

Photography, writing

Because a picture can be worth a thousand words…

Elodie

By what do you get inspired? It is almost like asking: why are you writing?

Sometimes, it is difficult to grasp where the writing scenes come from…

Sometimes one can recognize in the MC´s habits, way of talking some small characters of a loved one, an acquaintance, of somebody from the past or even of oneself.

Tonight, as I was outside looking at the moon reflecting on the water, I wondered what my main character would feel on an evening like this with everything she has been going through…

Is she thinking of Aleksi, the one who not only gives her butterflies but is no longer as mysterious as she first thought?

Is she pondering the words of Ben? Is she wondering what he meant when he said Aleksi was dangerous? How does he even know him? The guy just arrived…

Or maybe she is actually tired of the stupid drama and just wants to figure out why this entity is coming after her and her loved ones, why she has flashbacks from another time and what the heck happened to Marie and Elijah, those girls who are linked to her over the centuries?

As I type this and look at the moon, I know a scene is unfolding, I feel the pain of my character and I just want to tell her “Sorry you have to go through all of this but remember, you have it in your power to make the right decision…this time around”

And if she did hear me, her reply would be “Can´t you be a tad more specific? I mean come on people…I just cannot guess what you think, you need to spell it out for me. I am tired of this!” and she would storm out.

She does have a little temper of her own…(my husband would say I am projecting :-))