"The Next Big Thing"

Have you been tagged yet?

I was tagged twice last week, by two very awesome bloggers and author friends. Libby Heily http://libbyheily.blogspot.com/ And JR Tague http://jrtague.wordpress.com/

Libby talked about her upcoming novel, Tough Girl, that she’s self-publishing. She posted excerpts from in April during the A to Z challenge, and it sounds really interesting.

JR Tague, is a fellow author at Crescent Moon Press, and she discussed the second book in the zombie series she’s working on, starting with Leveling Up, coming in Spring 2013.

The rules for “The Next Big Thing” are simple: answer a few questions about your book and tag more people who write, whose current WIPs you want to hear more about!

What is the working title of your book?

Son of a Mermaid

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea for the book came to me while my middle child and I were walking the dogs on the beach one day. We found a strange stone with a hexagon-shaped hole cut through the center of it, and started making up a story where it came from, the mermaid who might have lost it, and what magical powers the stone might have.

That was four years ago, because he took that stone into fifth grade for show and tell and it got broken. Now he’s a freshman in high school. I’ve been working on the manuscript on and off all this time, but it finally found a home at Crescent Moon Press in June, for a 2013 release.

What genre does your book fall under?

It’s a YA paranormal romance – and when I first started writing it, there were no mermaid books on the shelves in the YA category. Now there are more than a handful already published.

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

Okay, this is hard. I just spent some time trolling through IMBd and have a few ideas…

Shea MacNamara… I had originally envisioned him as Alex Pettifer, but maybe a blond Liam Hemsworth? I'm not sure if they would be too old to pull off 15 - maybe an unknown would be better.

Kae… Hanna Hall. She was the young Jenny way back in Forest Gump, and she’s got those big eyes…

The bad guy, Prince Demyan….this is a tough one – Maybe Jesse Williams, from Grey’s Anatomy, or Shiloh Fernandez, from Red Riding Hood

Shea’s grandfather, King Koios, King of the Atlantic clan of merfolk….I totally see him as Donald Sutherland, but then he always seems to get this kind of role, doesn’t he?

Shea’s mom, Princess Brynn… Elizabeth Banks, with her hair long and curly (not her Effie Trinket look, lol)

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

I’m really bad at elevator pitches, or at saying anything in one sentence or less, lol. But here goes…

Fifteen-year-old Shea MacNamara moves to Cape Cod and discovers there’s more going on below the ocean’s surface than he ever could’ve imagined, including his first kiss with a beautiful mermaid... but if he’s going to save an undersea world from the ambitions of an evil Prince, he’ll need to learn how to swim.

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

The fabulous Crescent Moon Press will be publishing it. (insert happy dance here!)

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

The first draft was pretty quick. But. The manuscript went through several revisions, and went untouched for long stretches where I was working on other things. I took it out in January of this year and did a total rewrite. And then got the contract offer with CMP.

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

When I first started out writing this, there were no other mermaid books on the shelf in the YA genre. Now there are a few choices out there, and it seems to be a growing subset of paranormal YA, with several takes on the mermaid legends.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I love mermaids, and mermaid lore. That day on the beach, my son and I had so much fun making up the story of the stone, and he really wanted me to write the story. He was my beta reader for every revision, up until the last one (his younger sister took over as my reader.) Now he’s very excited to read it when it comes out, and see how “our” story turned out.

What else about your book might pique readers' interests?

I'm going to share what I've written for the blurb...

Shea MacNamara's life just got complicated.

After a freak tornado devastates his Oklahoma farm, the fifteen-year-old orphan is whisked away to Cape Cod. Struggling to make sense of his new surroundings, he’s trying hard to deal with feelings of abandonment… and the emotions stirred by a girl he meets along the shore.

Kae belongs to an undersea world hidden from drylanders. The daughter of royal servants, she knows the planned marriage of her Princess to the foreign King should put an end to the war between the clans. But two things stand in the way of lasting peace: the ambitions of the foreign King’s regent, and rumors of the Princess’s bastard child.

Sparks fly when she meets Shea, but could the cute drylander really be the Son of a Mermaid?

TAG IT UP!

And on to the last step of the game: Here are a few authors whose latest books and/or WIPs I would like to hear more about…

Susan Oloier at http://susanoloier.blogspot.com/

Sky Purington at http://www.skypuringtonwrites.blogspot.com/

Penny Watson at http://www.pennyromance.com/

Elizabeth Mueller at http://elizabethmueller.blogspot.com/

Their questions will be the same as mine:

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?

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