The Next
BIG Thing!
I’ve been tagged in The
Next Big Thing by fellow author Melanie Robertson King, who is at the Kansas
Book Festival this week launching her debut novel, A Shadow in the Past. I’m
instructed to tell you all about my next book by answering these questions and
then to tag five other authors about their Next Big Thing. So here I go!
What is the working title of your
next book?
It’s called
‘How Do You Voodoo?’
Where did the idea come from for the book?
Like many of
my ideas, this one was sparked off by a real life event. I was on a flight from
the Caribbean a few years ago, which had originated in Haiti. During the flight,
I witnessed a ‘spat’ between two female passengers. One went on to become quite
ill during the flight. Some people clearly thought it was because she’d drank
too much alcohol, but as the meal on board hadn’t been very palatable, I
thought it could have easily been down to the food. But then, my writerly
imagination kicked in, and I thought - what if one had put a voodoo curse on the
other?’
What genre does your book fall under?
Contemporary
women’s romantic fiction with humour.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Scottish
actress Kelly Macdonald would be perfect as Nola, who is the Glasgow born heroine
of the story. Someone like Queen Latifa or Whoopi Goldberg could play the
voodoo ‘mambo’ priestess. As for the hero of the story, well I’ll leave him
totally to your own fabulous imaginations!
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Top model
Nola Nichols thinks being beautiful is a curse, that is, until she is cursed
and her looks begin to fade.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’m not
represented by a traditional publisher anymore but I really don’t like the term
‘self-published’. It implies that an
author is ‘going it alone’ and that certainly doesn’t apply to my kind of
publishing. As an Indie ‘independent’
author, I enjoy every aspect of control over my career but I also I have the
support of a network of enthusiastic, capable and talented people. I’m part of
several writers’ groups, who offer friendship, advice, and both moral and
practical support with the writing as well as the marketing and promotion of my
books. I employ an editor and a cover designer to help me produce a totally polished
and professional end product and I’m continually striving to develop my brand
and adapt to industry changes. So, by the time one of my novels reaches my reader,
it’s very far from being ‘self’ published.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
How Do You Voodoo? is a novella, a special release for
October and Halloween. At 20,000 words it has taken me only four weeks to write
a first draft. I’ll do a few subsequent drafts to polish the story and then it
will be professionally edited before being formatted for the Amazon
Kindle. A total time scale of eight
weeks. During this time the cover will go through several stages of design
until we are happy with the final version. As you can imagine, a complete novel
would take me much longer than this; usually a full year.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I don’t know.
I haven’t read anything similar. I’d be interested in knowing if any of my
readers and reviewers can answer this question?
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
See my
answer to question two - “Where did the idea come from for the book”.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
If you are
looking for spellbinding read on your Kindle this Autumn, you might enjoy my
romantic magical novella How Do You Voodoo? I’m planning a fun launch party on
my blog on Friday 26th October and I will be telling you more about this on
Friday of this week. So stay tuned!
Here are some great authors I’ve
tagged to tell you about their Next Big Thing!
