If you're a dreamer, a wisher, a liar
A hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean buyer
If you're a pretender come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin
Come in...come in...
~Shel Silverstein

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Next Big Thing...

So Stacy Stokes, over at THINKING TO INKING  tagged me to participate in this blog hop. JOHN KRISSILAS  tagged me the same week. haha. So please check out their sites, cause they are both awesome. Since I had already participated in this once for my current manuscript, I decided to post about my first book.

What is the title of your book? 

Skipping Time.

Where did the idea for the book come from? 

 I had this crazy plan to write a book. I knew it HAD to be paranormal and, for some unknown reason, I liked the concept of someone painting and then being able to use that painting as some sort of portal. From there, came the story of a boy who has a gift/curse of painting pictures that can than be used to time-travel.

What genre does your book fall under?

YA light sci-fi romance.

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

Always a fun question.  The main part of Jess would definitely be Steven McQueen, so I hope his schedule is free cause nobody else will cut it.


Cacee has, unfortunately, grown up too much to be in my movie. However, I wrote the book five years ago, and, in my head, Cacee looked a LOT like Rory from Gilmore Girls. So, I'd have to leave it up to the casting director to find someone similar. But, ideal/dream/imaginary casting? Definitely Alexis Bledel when she was younger.



The entire time I wrote Ray, Cacee's father, he was pictured in my head as this guy: 


What is a one sentence synopsis of your book? 

When Jess falls for Cacee he pretends he’s honest as a boy scout—but when they accidentally time-travel he discovers that, in order to survive, he must reveal the criminal past he's been so careful to hide.

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

Agency, I hope!!

 How long did it take to write your first draft? About three months for the first, horrible, insanely long, totally awful draft. Then three years to rewrite that into an actual book. haha 

What other books would you compare your story to in this genre? Honestly? No idea. That may have been part of the problem, but I've never seen anything like Skipping Time. I know I NEED to be able to compare it to something, but it's not happening. haha

Who or what inspired you to write this book?  Basically, I read the Twilight books and went...Hmmmm...so, all you need for a successful book is to write about two people who fall desperately in love but have some reason they can't be together. I can do that! And so, I did.

What else about the book might peak the readers interest? 

Well, even though it is a detriment when speaking to an agent, I'd have to say the fact that it's different from anything else makes it a very cool story to read. You won't find anything else with the same premise. It's this very huge, kinda epic love story--you know--the kind all amateur writers should take on. haha. But, all kidding aside, by the time I was done writing it, I was no longer an amateur. I still love the book and the characters and I truly hope someday it finds a place on a shelf somewhere.

Tagged for next week is Karen Denise at I am Always Write

And anyone of my other readers who would like to take part in the fun!! 

17 comments:

  1. I like the sound of a painting being used as a portal for time travel. Good luck with this and thanks for sharing it with us :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like a really cool premise - love the concept of using a painting to time travel, and there is something about star crossed lovers that never gets old. Are you querying this one yet?

    Also, I love Rory from Gilmore Girls!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, she was adorable,wasn't she? SUCH a pretty girl.

      Delete
  3. I love your premise - a painting as a portal. I'm officially intrigued!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I like the premise as well. And if you can't compare it to anything, I'd think that's a good thing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. It sounds awesome. I don't even read paranormal and I am interested so yeah, you've got a wicked awesome premise! Best of luck with it!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Very cool premise! And I love Steven McQueen - if my book were made into a movie tomorrow, I'd totally want him to play one of the love interests. But I fear he's growing up too fast. :-(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know, right? He needs to slow it down! I started Nexflixing Fampire Diaries and I can't believe how old he got between Season Two and Season Three!

      Delete
  7. This sounds like a fantastic book! Good luck getting it published. (It took me that long, too, to revise my manuscript to where it's ready to be a book!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. haha...Nice to hear I'm not the only one. I'm always reading about these people who turn out books in like three months and I'm like, "why can't I do that???" With Against the Falling Moons, I cut my time in half--but it still took me over a year from start to finish.

      Delete
  8. Your story sounds great. Good luck with that. I liked your "I can do that" attitude. Hope to see you at my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Really glad you guys all like the premise. This book is just sitting on the metaphorical shelf right now, but someday I will go back, revise, and try again! And, clearly it has to be someday soon since I need Steve McQueen for the main part. hmmmm....

    ReplyDelete
  10. What a great premise! I hope it finds a spot too someday because I'd definitely read it :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Painting a picture in order to create a time-travel portal's an awesome idea!

    I definitely think you should take another look at this when the time is right. Even though it was your first baby, and went through all those rewrites, it's worth keeping it in play.

    Are there things about writing that you know now, through your experience, that you can feed back into that first book?

    John

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. And I'll definitely be returning to it. there's no way I could shelf this book forever, it would be like burying a friend. I do feel like I've learned some stuff this year that I could use to make it better. I hope anyway.

      Right now I'm still considering re-writes for the current manuscript, and kind of half-working on the new book. But yeah, I'll go back to Skipping Time eventually.

      Delete
    2. Cool. I'm glad to hear that.

      I've been thinking about this a lot since I've gone back to my MS after Pitch Live, etc. Honestly, each time I finished a draft, I had thought to myself that it was done, complete, that I'd done the best that I could, and that it was as good as it was gonna get (in my hands).

      But every week since then I've learned something new about writing. Whether it's learning how to spot "purple" (which I didn't recognize before), getting new feedback from Betas/CPs, or spending a lot of time reflecting on and workshopping the MS, I realized there's still a lot to improve. I don't want to send out lumps of coal, I want to send out diamonds...

      Remember that short story I had in Quantum Fairy Tales? I'd actually written it 2+ years ago. But I substantially rewrote it, line-by-line, until it became the version you read. Only until last month did I realize the ways in which I could make it better.

      So as long as an MS is still in play, there's nothing wrong with teaching new tricks to an old dog ;)

      PS: Why do I post the best rants on other people's blogs!!! :/

      John

      Delete

I love to hear from everyone! Thanks for the comment. :)