Hello, Bonjour!

Summer has come and gone. Our trip to Banff was a success. We were not eaten by bears or detained by Canadian park rangers (or vice-versa), although my oranges were confiscated at the border (I had bought them ten minutes earlier at a gas station, RIP). I do miss being greeted with a friendly, “Hello, bonjour!” followed by a gentle reprimand disguised as a compliment.

At some point, I plan on writing a short story about the decidedly unfriendly Australian woman who haunted the Lake Agnes tea house, but that will have to wait.

What I’m Working On:

My agent let me know that she loved the edits I made to the Thief story, which is a huge relief. I’m about to embark on another round of big picture edits because I did such extensive revisions that some of the plot threads still look a little tangled. But we’re one step closer to sending it out to editors! Woohoo!

In the meantime, I’ve got a fun new story idea in the works. I’m not ready to talk about it yet, so let’s call it Secret Project for now. I’m in the fun stage of researching and daydreaming, which I’ll talk about more in the Writing Tip section.

What I’m Reading:

I read a few more upper Middle Grade books in August that weren’t for me. After that, I wandered over to Young Adult and read The Knife of Never Letting Go which was really fantastic in terms of pacing and world-building, although I wish it hadn’t ended on a cliffhanger. The language and violence positioned it squarely in upper Young Adult.

Since I was already on a sci-fi kick, I decided to give The Martian a try. I downloaded it on Audible and let me tell you: I never thought I’d be so arrested by one lonely astronaut’s mathematical calculations. I’m not sure if I’d enjoy reading a physical copy, but the narrator’s wry delivery is perfect. I can’t play it when my kids are around unless I have earbuds in because of the language, but it’s some top-notch storytelling.

Lastly, our book group read Alive for the month of August. Is it weird to say you enjoyed a book like that? Maybe, but I really appreciated the author’s storytelling style and his compassion for those boys and the tough decisions they faced.

Writing Tip:

I’m currently filling a notebook with ideas for my Secret Project. I think of these like balloons: I need to be holding quite a few of them before I can take off. These balloons are character sketches, general vibes, plot twists, comparative titles (“I want this to feel like X novel meets X movie”), bits of dialogue, snippets of a scene, etc.

If you’ve ever watched small children play pretend, they do this part of storytelling very well.

A lot of the entries in my notebook start with the words What If. I let myself explore any number of different paths the story could take. This is a judgment-free zone. As I’m brainstorming, I try to keep two things in mind: what am I excited about writing, and what would delight my readers.

Yesterday, I had to decide my main character’s personality. Tweaking what she loves/hates/fears drastically changes the type of story I’m telling. So, I spent some time pushing the various options out to their natural conclusions. If she struggles with X emotion, then I’d need her to have Y emotional arc through the course of the story. And how would that affect the external/physical arc as well?

I’m not officially outlining yet, that’s the next step. Right now, I’m navigating the sea of possibilities and seeing where I end up.

That’s all for this month!

Cheers,

Christine