Saturday, August 25, 2012

The Next Big Thing, Week 9.

First off, congrats to Illume Eltanin, who wins the free copy of Fissured from last week's contest.  Yay!

This week, we have another contest -- but it's one for me, and I kind of failed.

I'd like to thank A.K. Taylor for tagging me for this week's Next Big Thing.  Her blog is at the link -- please stop by and say hi, and tell her Lynne sent you.

The idea is that authors answer a set of questions about their current work-in-progress, and then tag another group of authors to answer the same set of questions about their works-in-progress the following week.  It's kind of like a chain letter, except with blogs, if that makes any sense.  And, uh, as some of you may know, I'm always the weakest link in the chain; between being out of town for a week and just generally not paying attention, I wasn't able to line up any authors to tag for next week.  So you're just going to have to make do with my answers.  Sorry about that.

Anyway, the good news is that since Fissured is out, I get to talk about the next book in the seriesHere we go:

What is the working title of your book?
Tapped:  Book Three of the Pipe Woman Chronicles.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I needed something to fit between books two and four?  Oh, okay, seriously:  One of the things I set up in Seized was that one of these days, Naomi was going to have to find her father -- and that "one of these days" was probably going to have to be sooner rather than later.  I've talked here before about the medicine wheel I'm using to structure the series.  Seized was the East book -- the beginning.  Fissured is the South book, as it's all about passion.  So Tapped will be the West book, and West is the direction of family, among other things.  So this seems like the perfect time to send her to South Dakota to meet her father.

What genre does your book fall under?
I call it urban fantasy, but I won't argue if you'd rather call it paranormal romance.

What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I'm terrible at these, sorry.  Feel free to suggest your own choices in the comments.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Naomi and Shannon head to North Dakota to find Naomi's father, but with numerous complications -- including the absence of Joseph, the appearance of a spirit wolf, and the shrinking of the largest aquifer in western North America -- their "vacation" turns out to be anything but relaxing.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Indie, baby.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Well, considering I've just started it....  I got the first draft of Seized finished during NaNoWriMo 2011, and the first draft of Fissured took approximately the same amount of time.  So I expect that will be the approximate timetable for Tapped, as well. 

To what other books would you compare this story in your genre?
I'm a fan of Carrie Vaughn's Kitty books and of Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson books, and I just finished reading all of the books in C.E. Murphy's Walker Papers series that have been published so far and liked those, too.  I think Naomi is pretty similar to the main characters in those three series, at least in terms of snark. Each of those series feature shapeshifters, too, of one sort or another.  But I think Joseph is a different kind of hero than the guys in those books; he's more mischievous than brooding or angry.  And my books are shorter.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I decided to start an urban fantasy series for NaNo 2011.  I set the story in Denver, made the main character a lawyer and her boyfriend a jerk, brought in some Native Americans, and started it at the end of the current Mayan calendar, and things took off from there.  Really, you could say I'm tapping into a lot of long-time interests with this series -- Denver, Native American mythology, Neopagan beliefs, and my paralegal training.  (Heh, "tapping into."  I see what I did there.)

What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?
This has been an enormously fun series to write, and I think people will have fun reading it.  (And don't worry -- Joseph will show up in Tapped eventually.  Probably.)

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I'm , and I approve this blog post.  

2 comments:

L.Leander said...

Very interesting Lynne. Enjoyed reading this post. Stopped by via IU

Lynne Cantwell said...

Nice to see you here! :)