I have completed line edits on my book (woot! woot!) It's getting closer to being ready to pitch to agents, which is both wildly exciting and absolutely terrifying.
I don't want to divulge details of my book, mostly because the world wide web is ripe for plucking someone else's ideas and I don't want mine stolen. So, I'll hoard the details and keep them to myself. But some people have asked what it's about so I thought I would share a little.
Book One is a Young Adult book set in fictional medieval times. (I made up the places instead of using real ones, because that's more fun). It's told from three points of view. R, my lead. Her father, A. And M, the love interest (insert swooning here). Ironically enough, when I first started the story M did not exist, and it was just a story about a girl and her father. Then M showed up out of nowhere and oh my, he's very persistent, and I could not get him to leave. He's wildly loyal and determined like that.
I made a Pinterest board when I first started writing this story because I needed to visualize it. I've found it's helpful to get a strong sense of who my characters are as people. Here are a few things I pinned that helped me visualize R.
Yeah, she's blond. That she looks like me wasn't intentional. I first had her dad's image in mind (and he looked like Keifer Sutherland) and at first she was his biological daughter, so she had blond hair. She's tall which is intentional because Mary mother of Jesus, I cannot stand it that all female leads are tiny. As if the only girl who can save the world and be worth loving is a tiny scrape of a thing. Hogwash. I've been 5'9" since I was 14 and hated that in so many books and movies it's the little girl who is the one who gets rescued. I understand that by being small it makes what some female leads accomplish seem that much more impressive, but glory, for the sake of anyone who is a normal height and size, I cannot stand it. R is tall and not tiny. And people still fight for her. So there you go Hollywood. (rant over)
R is a wounded character, both literally and figuratively. She's lived a pretty horrible childhood and now lives with the man she calls Father. He's not her real dad. He was married to R's mom, but when she left he went searching for his wife, and found his wife's illegitimate daughter instead. She loves her father to pieces. The two of them first bonded over the same woman abandoning them, and now are impossibly close. He is the only person she trusts and the only person she cries in front of. She'd rather die than lose his love.
R loves reading dark and scary stories (how ironic) and going for rides on her horse. She cannot stand seeing someone get hurt, and is so stinkin' honest and genuine you either love her or hate her.
R is feisty, but damaged. Fear lurks underneath her skin and she can't shake it.
R is fierce, but not a warrior. I didn't want a Tris or a Katniss. While those characters are great, they are not everyone. Not all of us will save our faction or district. We don't all use literal weapons to save those we love. But we all are wounded. And we all battle names that were spoken over us and get to decide if they are true or not. That's R.
R has to face some pretty big fears throughout her story. And for some of them, she can't borrow her father's courage to face. She's up against them alone.
I love her to pieces. I love when she went from being an idea in my head to a person on a piece of paper. I loved it even more when she started taking on a life of her own. Sometimes while writing she would say or do something and I would stop typing mid-sentence and think "where the heck did that come from?"
I'm so proud of R and the person she becomes at the end of Book One. Even more proud of her in Book Two, and by Book Three, glory-she's someone I aspire to be.
Stubborn, fiery, sweet, wounded girl that she is; I absolutely adore her.
Stay tuned for more tidbits of my other characters!
