The Next Big Thing Blog Tag

The Next Big Thing Blog Tag

Tag, you’re it!  And then, before I could tag anyone else, I was tagged again.  Bloggers and authors, Katie Oliver and Alyce Wilson, asked me to participate in The Next Big Thing blog tag and, as I had never participated in anything like it before, I was eager to see what would happen.  (Be sure to click on these awesome ladies’ names and visit their sites.  It’s well worth the trip.)  As I understand it, all I have to do is tag a few authors myself and answer ten questions about one of my works in progress.  I’m always eager to ramble about my writing, so I jumped right on board.

If you’re one of the authors I tagged, I hope you participate.  I’d hate to be the one that de-hopped the hop.  No one else will want to hop with me again!  At the end of my ten questions are your instructions should you choose to accept this mission and as an added feature I would welcome a chance to post your blog here at The Mess and introduce you to my readers. The offer goes to Katie and Alyce, as well, who allowed me the honor of participating.  I hope everyone says yes and readers, I hope you visit their pages.  These are some of the best writers I know.

So, now that the gauntlet has been laid down, let’s see what questions they have in store for us, shall we?

1.      What is the working title of your book?

The Book Cover

           To be honest, I have several WIPs, because I’m pretty ADD. However, the one that will, hopefully, be out by the end of December is Reaping the Harvest.  It was originally titled, Warrior of the Way, but I decided that was the name of the series, and not the first book.

2.      Where did the idea come from for the book?

           It actually started out as a short story.  I was writing about how this girl dumps her boyfriend and he has to rescue her in front of everyone to prove he’s not the loser she thinks he is.  He has secrets. Magical secrets. Then, as I kept rewriting it, I wanted to add more and more parts and some of what I had written made no sense except for the missing pieces in my head, so I needed to write those down.  Before I knew it my short story had morphed into a novella outline.

           The original idea was to express the fact that we don’t always know what’s going on in another person’s life.  We shouldn’t judge and we should be willing to accept that we won’t always know everything. Oh, and faeries.  I just had to write about faeries.

3.      What genre does your book fall under?

           I’m just going to stick with fantasy.  I’m sure there’s a subgenre for it, since it’s set in our present world, but I’m not a big one for labels.  I write several genres - fantasy, mystery, erotica, and literary.

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

Rhychard Bartlett

           I would ask Ron Perlman to play Rhychard Bartlett.  He’s tall and I enjoyed his character in the Magnificent Seven television series.  He’s a bad ass, but in a nice way.  Although Linda Hunt doesn’t match my mental image of Tryna, I love her Hetty Lange on NCIS:Los Angeles and can see her very easily as the proper faery. Kree is a massive dog, so I’m not sure who would fill that role as Rin Tin Tin is way too small. Halle Berry would be Buttercup, the hooker, and Amy Johnson would play Renny Saunders, Rhychard’s ex-girlfriend. The bad guy, Pastor Adrian Michaels, would be Liam Neeson just because I enjoy his suave nature.

5.      What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

           I can’t talk in just one sentence! Okay, here it goes -

           Rhychard Bartlett’s life was forever altered when he heard a scream - a scream of a dying elf.

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

           For right now, the plan is to publish on Smashwords and tell my family to promote it like crazy.

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

           I wrote the short story about five years ago and that took a week.  It just sat in a drawer for a few years and, on a whim one day, I pulled it back out.  Once I discovered that it was more of a novel, it took about six months, but that included quite a bit of forgetting about it - again - while working on other projects.

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

           I would have to say Terry Brooks’ Running with Demons or Mercedes Lackey’s Bedlam Bard. I love the concept of the magical surrounding us and life being so much more than what the average person thinks it is.

9.      Who or what inspired you to write the book?

           The “What-If” part of my brain.  I love crazy characters.  And music.  I will close my eyes during a song and picture a scene running through my head.  I enjoy looking at situations and going, “Okay, now how can I mess this up?”

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

           Yes, it’s about good versus evil. Yes, the girl dumped the boy and he works to get her back.  Yes, those creatures you find in the folklore or New Age section of your local bookstore are real.  However, Reaping the Harvest is more than a story about all of those and I hope readers take away that life is more than our action; it’s about our motives.  While it’s not a spiritual book, by any means, I hope that besides being entertaining, it also makes people look at life around them a little differently.

Kree, the elfin hound

           Now, if you’re one of the authors I have tagged, keep reading, as you’ll find your instructions for this game of tag.  If you’re not one of the authors, skip the next two paragraphs and visit the links of the other fantastic writers I’ve tagged.  I also want to thank you for taking the time to read The Mess That Is Me and hope you’ll take a moment and leave me a comment or a question.  I hope you keep coming back.

Rules of The Next Big Thing
Use this format for your post.

Include an introduction to your interview post and a link to the person who tagged you for participation.  Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (Work In Progress).  Include some pictures of your characters, etc., if possible.  Tag five other writers/bloggers by sending them an email (I received both of mine through tweets, so that works, as well) and then add your links to the end of your interview post.  Their answers should go up the week after.  For those authors I tagged, their post will need to be up between November 29th-December 2nd.  Your blog post will be labeled The Next Big Thing.  If you are on She Writes, you put the post up there, too.
Now, here are the amazing authors I’m tagging.  Check out their pages.

Stephanie Neighbour ~ http://www.chucklespace.com

Jennifer O'Donnell ~ http://jeninflorida.wordpress.com/

Lydia AsWolf ~ http://www.lydiaaswolf.com/blog

Hannah Warren ~ http://www.hannahwarrenauthor.com

Teresa Cypher ~ http://dreamersloversandstarvoyagers.blogspot.com/

Katie Oliver ~  http://katieoliver.com

Alyce Wilson ~ http://www.ebookmall.com/author/alyce-wilson

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