New Book!

As I wait to learn the fate of In the Shadow of Blackbirds, I've been trying to figure out what my next writing project should be.  I call this "The First Chapter Stage."  Ideas float around in my head, characters start to come alive, first chapters spill out of me, but the urge to move beyond the opening pages often fizzles.  It takes me a while before I fall in love with a new story after I leave a beloved manuscript behind.   

Well... I'm thrilled to announce that passion has finally struck.  I started a new book last week and just reached the third chapter and 3,450 words.  My characters are growing and deepening in my mind, the plot is almost fully formed, and, most importantly, I can't stop thinking about it!! 

I won't divulge too many details at this point.  Let's just say I've been wanting to write a contemporary fairy tale for a long, long while, and I've finally found my story.  Inspired by the woods near my house, I've come up with a young adult bedtime story I can't wait to share.

More info to follow...  If you need me, I'll be writing.

Fighting for a War That Was So Awful, It Caused Grown-Ups to Believe in Fairies

I'm planning to remain somewhat secretive about the plot of In the Shadow of Blackbirds until the book sells, but I'll divulge the setting for the sake of this post: WWI America.

Don't know much about WWI?  You're not alone.  For some reason, that particular war gets buried in our collective history beneath most other major American conflicts.  As you may have read, the last surviving American WWI veteran, Frank Buckles, just passed away. He was troubled that Washington, D.C., has never erected a national memorial for WWI. A website dedicated to his cause, www.wwimemorial.org, states the following:

"...while the later conflicts of the 20th century—World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War—rightfully have national memorials on the National Mall, there is no such memorial to 'the Great War,' even though more Americans gave their lives in World War I than in Korea or Vietnam."

Elsie Wright with a "fairy."

How did I personally become interested in this forgotten war? When I was around twelve years old, I saw a Ripley's Believe It or Not episode about the Cottingley Fairies. In 1917 two English girls, 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her 10-year-old cousin, Frances Griffiths, claimed to have photographed fairies near their home. Grown-ups believed them—including photography experts and Sherlock Holmes's creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—and the girls became famous. The narrator of Ripley's, Jack Palance, explained that the reason adults believed the fairies were real was because WWI was so horrifying. I wondered exactly how atrocious the era had been if grown, educated people were convinced fairies genuinely frolicked in the English countryside.

I later learned about the boom in Spiritualism during the early 1900s, which also came about because of the horrors of WWI. Long story short, I dove deep inside the history and came up with In the Shadow of Blackbirds, a ghostly vision of WWI America, as seen through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old girl.

If you find yourself rooting for Frank Buckles's dream of honoring the thousands of Americans who lost their lives in the war that was so awful, it caused grown-ups to believe in fairies, head to www.wwimemorial.org. If you want to learn more about the Cottingley Fairy photographs, you can visit sites such as www.cottingley.net/fairies.shtml.

And, of course, if you want to keep up-to-date with my adventures of bringing In the Shadow of Blackbirds to a bookstore near you, follow along at this blog, Twitter, Facebook, or my mailing list.

New title

Whoo hoo!!!  My agent loved the revised version of the manuscript, and she even admitted she cried twice at the end.  She suggested three minor fix-ups, and I need to prepare a bio and other such info to help with the submission, but then the novel is heading out to publishers.

She suggested an altered version of the title:

In the Shadow of Blackbirds

The new name certainly adds to the dark tone of the book, plus it's more original than the single-word title (there are a few books already called Blackbird).  I switched the name in the "Books" section of this site, and I like how it looks sitting there in big, bold print.

While the novel embarks upon its journey into the world, I'll be keeping busy with a month of guests and giveaways at Suburban Vampire in February.  We'll be celebrating vampire love over there.  Come over for a visit.

History, sexypants-style

I recently learned about the impending closure of the Broadway show Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. The title suggests the musical is another case of vampires attacking a historical figure, but it's actually a show that attempts to make history—a subject notoriously known for its dullness to most Americans—exciting, sexy, and relatable by portraying the seventh president as a rock star.

I've never seen Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, but I love the concept. Die-hard Jackson buffs probably cringe at the idea of the guy belting out emo rock tunes in "sexypants," but I think the modernized take is a brilliant way to lure the history-hesitant masses into a lesson about the past.

I'm all for public education, but let's face it: high school history textbooks are boring and watered down. So many bizarre and intriguing footnotes to history don't ever get mentioned, and juicy tidbits about historical leaders, rebels, and everyday folk get edited out. My love affair with the past started with novels, classic movies, biographies, historical sites, and Disneyland (yes, Disneyland), but even I HATED memorizing and spitting out dates and names for tests.

I tip my hat to anyone who can create a clever way to bring history to life. It's unfortunate Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson's Broadway run was such a short one (the economy is said to be the culprit), and I hope it finds welcoming off-Broadway homes in the future.

I'm trying my own hand at using a unique way of resurrecting a bygone era in my novel-in-progress, which is another reason why I appreciate the efforts of others. When my agent first chatted with me about Blackbirds, she told me she didn't feel like she was reading historical fiction, which she meant as a compliment. My goal all along has been to tie the story to modern events, and the time period I chose to write about is such a bizarre one that I've found it easy to portray the history as science fiction. We'll see if the final result will go anywhere, but I'm having fun in the process.

Here's to digging up the past with alternative shovels!

How my novel, my websites, and I will be spending our autumn

I received suggestions from another critique partner (thanks, Kim!), and now I'm back to revisions for the rest of the calendar year. I feel like this stage resembles the challenges of assembling a jigsaw puzzle: scenes that I thought belonged in one place turn out fitting better in another, pieces of the story that I didn't even know existed show up, and some characters fit better when I view them another way.

I'll primarily be tackling character adjustments with my edits.  I worked on my ghost over the summer after he wasn't quite working right, and I think I've strengthened him as a character, but other folks now need some tweaking.  However, as daunting as the revision process seems when first starting out, I always find a tremendous sense of satisfaction when everything falls into place.

I've been debating altering my working title (Blackbirds), because it's currently too subtle.  I have another, longer one in mind, although my agent mentioned that sticking to one-word titles seems to be the preference of editors of young adult fiction.  What I think I'll do is increase the significance of blackbirds in the novel to keep my original title as a running candidate and see how I feel once I'm ready to submit.

In addition to hunkering down with revisions, I'm busy interviewing guests over at Suburban Vampire. This week I chatted with novelist Denise Verrico and Vampire Mob creator Joe Wilson. In the coming weeks, I'll be hosting Jasper Kent, Marta Acosta, David Michael Slater, Jonathan Maberry, Janice Gable Bashman, and Sophie Littlefield, the latter of whom shares my literary agent, Barbara Poelle (and Sophie happens to be making her debut in young adult fiction with a novel called Banished in October!).  I'm also hosting several giveaways.  Definitely visit.

Interview of me at Write in the Shadows

Novelist Nicole Hadaway has interviewed me over at Write in the Shadows today.  I've revealed much more than usual about the plot of Blackbirds, plus I've discussed how long I've been writing (hint: the picture here shows me in my first scary Halloween costume at the age of five; everything started falling into place for my current career around then).

A snippet from the interview:

A near-death experience straddles my heroine between the world of the living and the realm of the dead, and she’s able to communicate with the frustrated spirit of an eighteen-year-old friend of the family who’s been told he was killed in battle.

Read more at http://writeintheshadows.com.