My friend and sometimes partner-in-crime KD Sarge tagged me to participate in this blog hop. Basic gist of the exercise is to answer the following questions about your work in progress and then tag five other writers.
1) What is the working title of your book?
It’s The Cry of the Trees. Originally, it was Phoenix Forever, but I had to change it after I rewrote books 1 and 2 and there were no longer any mentions of phoenixes in the trilogy.
2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
This is the third book in a trilogy. I originally started working on the Trilogy 15 years ago (holy landsquid) after I created two characters for a Star Trek RPG that got canceled, because I didn’t want to lose the characters. I felt I put too much work into them. It’s kind of funny to look back now and think of their origin.
3) What genre does your book fall under?
High fantasy. Character-driven high fantasy. Woo!
4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I…don’t honestly know? I’m not someone who tends to use real people as character inspiration, so I don’t tend to look at actors and think, “wow, that’s so-and-so.” It’s especially hard with this project since most of the characters aren’t human.
5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Kind of hard, since this is the third and final book. Probably something like: Will Malana and Danath be able to trust each other enough to do what is needed, when they’re not even sure that it’s the right thing?
Which is kind of crap, honestly, and unnecessarily vague, but I haven’t even written the book yet.
6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I hope to publish the Trilogy traditionally.
7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
This is the first draft. Thus far, it’s been a week.
8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Hmmm. There hasn’t been a lot of high fantasy lately to compare it to. I guess Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris is similar in tone.
9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
When I first set down the original plot for the Trilogy, it really was because I’d spent a lot of time working on the characters and their backstory and didn’t want to lose that work. Many, many years, a genre-change, multiple rewrites of the first two books, many iterations of naming, and a complete overhaul of that backstory anyway later, I like working on the Trilogy because it allows me to put my own twist on my favorite genre, and allows me to spend time with characters that I’ve gotten to know very well over the years.
10) What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Every character in the Trilogy has a very good reason for what they’re doing, good or bad. Everyone thinks they’re working towards the greater good–even the bad guys.
Let’s see…I shall tag: Ian, Anne, Drey, K.A. Levingston, and Sarah. And, of course, Squiders, you’re welcome to play as well. Just shoot me a link in the comments if you do.
