The Next Big Thing - For @djkirkby :-)

Denyse kindly tagged me for this and I have failed miserably in being unable to identify more people to tag, who haven't already taken part.  But I'm writing my reponses anyway to entertain her in her hospital bed as she recovers from her op.  'Get strong fast.'  :-) xxx

 

 

What is the working title of your book?

Past the Tipping Point.  What do you think?  Does it tell enough?  Does it intrigue or bore?

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was watching a trailer for the David Attenborough series about Antarctica and the idea that there could be an ancient civilization deep beneath the ice-sheets just popped into my head.  These things do; then I created a mythology for them, which I might right down one day…in my spare time.

 

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

Well I realise that I don’t know the next generations of male actors, and because these are teenagers, it’s tricky.  Cillian Murphy, when he was younger, is a ringer for Gus.  And for Freya, maybe Saiorche Ronan but with green contact lenses!  If a film was made of my story, I’d definitely want to be involved in casting *rushes to draft contract just in case*.
 

 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Oh – now you’re asking!  At the moment it’s: ‘Captive in ancient Albia, deep beneath Antarctica’s ice-sheets, Gus finds first love and the courage to escape with a mission to avert global climate crisis.’  But I think that may be too general.  That was the comment on Rachelle Gardner’s fab website a few weeks back.  I’m working on it.

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

I am hoping to find an agent.  I am at the very scary ‘is my manuscript really read’ pre-submission stage.  It’s not quite!  I’m incredibly fortunate in that Viv Dacosta is critiquing for me at the moment and is being so positive.  And Denyse King was really encouraging about the first page (although I’ve since had to change the first chapter!) For the first time, I feel there may be a ghost of a chance.  *Gets up, throws salt over shoulder, spits and turns round three times.*

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

It took me eight months to complete the first draft but I have now been working on the story for eighteen months.  There have been rewrites!  Much has altered although not in the overall plot.

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

I wonder whether it might be ‘His Dark Materials’ in some ways, but mine is more science fiction and less fantasy, although borderline.  Hmm.  Philip Pullman, however, is a far better writer…at the moment!! (For one thing he never uses two exclamation marks.)


Who or What inspired you to write this book?
No one really.  In fact my children find it slightly embarrassing that their mother spends any available free time, and there isn’t much, writing a story that no one will ever read!  Having ‘Past the Tipping Point’ published is my ambition, but it isn’t my motivation; creating a world and characters and just writing until I get better at it, is my motivation.

 

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

Perhaps that the aforementioned global climate crisis is uncomfortably real and that some of the solutions offered by my handsome young hero, are possible if we move fast. (Well, he does have to be handsome doesn’t he?) Or maybe that Antarctica, Albia, is an incredible setting: … ‘The winter sky is a black tapestry in the morning, embroidered with millions of stars.  The ice shelf which seems to stretch to infinity is glowing grey, with an eerie swathe of watery white moonlight trailing in a path to the mountains which loom shadowy in the east…’