The Next Big Thing

Hi all.  Yvonne at TheOrganic Writer  tagged me for The Next Big Thing.  Yvonne is currently working on Black River, which she calls a crossover between literary, commercial and contemporary NA and if you ask me, it looks amazing.  She asked me to share some details about my newest project.  I’m excited, because even this little exercise helped me to pull it into better focus.  Here are my answers...

What is the title of your current work? 

Working title: Marnie I-don’t-know.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It was my turn to present my work in progress at my local writing group.  They’d just finished reading a draft of my previous novel, so it was time to start something new.  I wanted to touch on a challenging topic, one in which I had to dig down to my own emotional core to address.  Once I gave myself those parameters, I sat down at the computer and started typing. 

What genre does your book fall under?

Adult fiction/Woman’s fiction

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

I’m lacking in pop culture-expertise, so this is hard for me, but when I think of Marnie, I imagine Ashley Judd.  Vinnie is George Clooney, ten years younger. 

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

When Marnie St. Marie sees images of a boy from the nineteenth century in her apple tree, she can’t decide whether she’s going off the deep end, or if her son who’s been missing for years is trying to communicate with her.

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

I’d love for it to be represented by an agency…I'm not sure I have the patience or fortitude to do it any other way.

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

I’m still writing it, and I have a long way to go.

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

Since I’m not even close to being done yet, I’m struggling here, but I’ll go with Anita Shreve, Light on Snow (A girl can dream, can’t she?).

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I had 20K of Marnie complete when I read a book this fall, written by a college classmate of mine (Cascade, by Maryanne O’Hara).  Her book is a fictionalized account of the building of the Quabbin Reservoir in western Massachusetts, a topic that always intrigued me…but she got there so well, and so very…first.  This made me realize I shouldn’t hesitate to go after another idea that’s been churning around my brain for years.  I’ve been captivated by the story of an Irish immigrant ship that hit ledge and sunk off our coast in 1849.  When I began writing about Marnie I thought of including something related to that in her story, but wasn’t sure how well it would tie in with the rest of the tale. 

Cascade gave me the inspiration to scrap about 14K of the manuscript and write about what I wanted to all along.  As expected, it is hard, and it’s making the going slow.  But I don’t want someone beating me out this this time.  Now, if only I could write as well as Maryanne O’Hara.

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

Well, when I get the thing written, there may or may not be supernatural images, and there’s probably going to be some forensic stuff, but in all, it is a book about discovering the strength to survive and embrace life in spite of unbearable misfortune.  

Other participants have posted a snippet...so here's mine...

He sat above the spot where a blizzard had hacked a huge branch from the tree Thomas’s parents had planted when they were first married.  The remaining limb splayed out like a crooked wire and to hold it up, Marnie had fashioned a crutch out of two-by-fours and forced it underneath.  With his back to her, the boy’s feet dangled.  Bare calves reflected below pants that ended mid-shin.  Raising a hand to her heart, she pressed her chest, trying to still the rapid beating.  After ten years, she still dreamed Trevor might return…but this child had blond hair, not dark curls, and he wore cloth cap.  She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he wore leather shoes.

 

Our Festival of Trees

Yvonne Osborne at The Organic Writer is hosting the Festival of Trees for July. I’m all for trees, so I thought I’d try my hand at a post.


Here in New England, it seems that we are always waiting for things. We wait for the first snow and then pray for it to melt. We wait for the weather to warm, for the high pitched bleat of tree frogs in the marsh, for the green fingered daffodils to fork in front of stone walls, for the smell of lilacs. We long for perennials to bloom, tomatoes to ripen, and then temperatures to drop. We hope for plowed roads in winter, for the damp to fade in the spring; for rain to replenish the gardens. We anticipate dry snow for skiing, hot sun for the strawberries, the taste of just-picked blueberries in August. We look forward to the aroma of damp leaves and the first fire we light in the fireplace.

But of all of these things, there is probably nothing more deserving of our expectation than the annual transformation of our trees, the explosions of red, yellow and orange fireworks that blast off through thick woods during autumn’s foliage carnival. This party though, seems to creep up on those of us who live here. Fall seeps in via the patch of burnt-umber on the tree by the market in mid-August, through the crimson poison ivy vine twisting around a pine deep in the woods.

On our highways though, it’s all about awareness. Tour buses stack up, heading to New Hampshire and Vermont, to the mountains where curving roads ribbon through passes splashed with buckets of dye. Prudent New Englanders know better than to attempt a weekend drive to the places these leaf peepers frequent; when possible, we stick to back roads, or travel during the week. Starting in September, local news broadcasts include foliage reports. Websites are dedicated to leaf updates and newspapers print colored diagrams predicting “peak color.” This is how we locals learn where not to go.

As hordes of visitors gaze out our overlooks, snapping up bottles of maple syrup and cracking their first lobsters, we wait, going about our lives, while scarlet filters across the tops of maples and yellows drift through stands of birch and ash. Until one day, when driving down a road, up a hill, or walking past a clutch of trees, we stumble upon a luminious pallet and realize that this is it. This is as good as gets. We take a moment to breathe in a waving patchwork of color, then cross our fingers that we get one more glimpse. After all, the next big wind will eliminate the show.

It happens some years that an unexpected storm hits before we look up, and we miss the illustration. So I’m an advocate of packing a camera for every trip to the grocery store, because you never know. On the way to finish the weekly shopping, it’s just possible to chance upon the perfect tree.