Tags
A Passport In Time Mystery, A Whirled Peas Cafe Mystery, blue moon beer, Chi-Town Pizza, Deadly As Nature, E.B. Pike, Esther Bradley-DeTally, Gail Baugniet, Gerry Wilson, Honolulu, Kasie Whitener, Laurie Hanan, Lei Crime Series, Life On Clemson Road, Louise Golden Mystery Series, Nancy's Pizza, Pepper Bibeau, Pepper Bibeau Mystery Series, Sorrygnat, The Syringa Gulch Survey, The Writerly Life, This Is A Life Moment, Toby Neal, Veronica Roth, Wordsmith Studio, World Citizen, Writerlious
Thankful Thursdays
Thursdays have been the most difficult day for me to pin down. They are evolving. Trial and error. Mostly error. Or at least missing the mark. But this blogging adventure is about experimentation. That is just one reason your participation and feedback are so important to me. I am thankful, indeed, grateful for your acts of co-creation that make this blog possible.
Workman’s Lunch
When Gail Baugniet called claiming that she owed me lunch, her treat and my pick, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. For that I am thankful.
I had just finished reading Gail’s latest release: Deadly As Nature, book two of her Pepper Bibeau series when I spotted a Groupon for Chi-Town Pizza. The first Pepper Bibeau is set in Chi-Town as in Chicago, Illinois in the late 1960′s, a time and place I remember well. Pepper grew up with Hawaii (in her case, Hawaiian) roots a well as Midwestern. The only thing more fitting would have been to go out for a piece of pie, à la mode à la Pepper.
Vegetarian Stuffed Pizza with 2 Drafts of Blue Moon
The serendipity of finding what looked like classic Chicago stuffed pizza à la Nancy’s and the play on Chi-Towns (Chi-cago, IL and Chi-natown, HI) was too good to pass by as was the $15 price tag for one whole pie with two drafts of Blue Moon beer. The ingredients were organic and locally sourced. Not quite Chicago-style of my childhood memory, more cheese and an overabundance of toppings. Toppings? or is it stuffings? in a stuffed pizza? In our case, it would have been more cheese, more onions, more mushrooms and of course, more Peppers.
Sisters In Crime
We settled into a pair of comfy sofas and proceeded to talk all things Sisters In Crime Hawaii Chapter, in preparation for next week’s Noon TweetChat and Wednesday night meeting. For those of you on O’ahu, please join us Wednesday, September 19th at 6p at Makiki Community Library. Whether or not you are in the Islands, join us for our Noon TweetChat (6p EDT). #SinCHI
Over the past six months, I have been blessed to be involved with some of the most amazingly talented and generous writers. When Gail “tagged” me for The Next Big Thing, I needed to take a few beats to before I jumped right in. I’m unsure of its genesis, but I know the lineage to which I belong. Toby Neal, author of the Lei Crime Series, had given it to Laurie Hanan, author of the Louise Golden Series, who in turn gave it to Gail Baugniet, author of the Pepper Bibeau Series. Inspirational! All three of these writers are members of Sisters In Crime/ Hawaii Chapter. All three have published the second book in their respective series this summer.
And like the best things passed down, each had left it slightly altered by their interpretation and imprint on The Next Big Thing (TNBT). Toby had christened it. Gail, is not one to color inside the lines. She made it a series of posts instead of one. She also linked it to her proposed August 28th release date of Deadly As Nature. My decision is to follow Gail’s lead with the reserved right to add some improvisational steps down the line. Instead of posting each week, I intend to post one Thursday a month in anticipation of my own release date. Following Gail’s form, I am naming five blogging authors in each post. I am also inviting all of you to share your own WIP progress in the comments section.
I keep telling folks that the best thing about this blog is the contents of the comments. True, that?! You are my co-creators, after all. And don’t think I am not grateful for it.
My First Five Authors in the Making
My first challenge is to pick authors who are active bloggers and who are currently wrestling with a WIP (Work In Progress). For my own amusement as well as yours, I intend to have each of my sets of five thematically linked.
- Gerry Wilson: The Writerly Life
- E.B. Pike: Writerlious
- Kasie Whitener: Life On Clemson Road
- Veronica Roth: This Is A Life Moment
- Esther Bradley-DeTally: Sorrygnat, World Citizen
And what traits do these five writers share?
These five authors are some of the most regular visitors to my blog leaving wonderfully thoughtful comments in their wake. I also know them through our work in a writers’ consortium known as Wordsmith Studio.
So please, stop by their sites. But do yourself a favor by leaving a comment or two as you visit. These are folks that you surely would want to know better.
Question #1: What is the working title of your book?
The Syringa Gulch Survey:
A Passport In Time Mystery
Factoid: I began this story 14 years ago. About the time Gail nominated me for The Next Big Thing, I realized that it was not only the first book in the PIT (Passport In Time) Mystery Series, but it was also the prequel to my Whirled Peas Cafe Mystery Series. Here’s an interview that I did with Gail earlier this summer:In The SinC/Hawaii Spotlight
Full set of 10 questions for The Next Big Thing Interview
- What is the working title of your book?
- Where did the idea come from for the book?
- What genre does your book fall under?
- Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
- What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
- Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
- How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
- What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
- Who or What inspired you to write this book?
- What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Great stuff, Lori and thanks for the mention! The support and friendship we’ve built has truly been one of the greatest blessings of this new writer’s life. Looking forward to Thursdays and learning more about your WIP.
Fourteen years is a long time. My own WIP, A Moment When the World is Silent, began about 22 years ago. It’s amazing how characters can grow and change and be our constant companions over so long a period.
I have some long time incubators in my stacks. I was really glad to find out that some two of my series had characters in common in this first book. Who knew? I didn’t until last month.
And yes, the folks who are in my neighborhood right now are in many ways responsible for my being able to bring these works to completion.
Thank you for being a part of that.
Lara, I can only echo Kasie! Thanks for the mention (great company, by the way!). Getting to know you here and being part of our Wordsmith community has given my writing life a kick in the pants. All the support, seriously yet joyfully given and often with a smiley face, has been invaluable. What a great idea for a continuing post. I just might follow suit, if that’s permissible. Thanks much!
Thanks part of the fun of this. The rules are not as hard and fast as with some badges/awards. The other thing I appreciated about this was that it puts the focus on the WIP where IMHO our focus should be.
Toby gave it it’s name. Gail decided that she needed to deal with one question for each of her posts. At least that is my understanding.
I decided for my time frame that I would update the progress and answer a question at least one Thursday a month. But you can change it to fit your pace and needs.
Okay, so it IS intended to be passed along? I love the idea but wasn’t sure whether I needed to pass it on or not! Thanks again!
I believe the original version was to answer all 10 questions and then name 5 authors with WIPs. But it has morphed since then, so feel free to morph it and tweak it to suit your own process. And don’t forget to list the name of your current WIP. It’s about helping each other attain our goals.
Hey, what a lot of fun! Thanks for thinking of me Lori. I’m so excited to read a little of The Syringa Gulch Survey; hope you share some bits soon. It’s always so daunting to share a work in progress, isn’t it? The risk of rejection and criticism is difficult to overcome…for me at least. But The Ten Mile Project is shaping up nicely…been at it for several years…and Sophie Storm is also writing itself. (Although I’ve stopped sharing much on the web site since I found excerpts and art “borrowed” without credit in various on-line places.) How does one deal with that anyway? The free verse and art is so hard won some days that it’s deflating to see it lifted and copied from Sophie Storm. I have a friend who makes lovely jewellery. She recently found out that someone is buying her pieces and re-selling them on their site at an inflated price. Some people…eh? Anyway, thank you so much for the link and I’ll try to get on it soon.
Joe Konrath has a piece about piracy…no doubt many pieces, but I had one in mind particularly. I will see if I can dig it up. His view is that if they think enough to steal it, you must be doing something right. But yes, it is aggravating.
Welcome back to the Western Hemisphere. I’m sure you are still recovering from the time zone differences.
As to WIP, you will see more of it behind the scenes in Wordsmith Studio than published in part on the Wild Wild Web. That’s one of the real benefits of the new site.
Encouraging post! We have to keep holding each other up to do the Next Big Thing.
That’s what I liked about this particular award. Some of the others felt like distractions to my main goals. I will be completing those as well, but wanted to make sure that my participation was timed to be best for the overall goals of my different communities of writers and bloggers.
My health has been diving this week. One of the reasons I’m not blogging as much as I used to and switching to focus on the WIP which will be rewritten over and over again before it ships.
It isn’t that my writing is bad, but uneven these days. Another excuse to get going on those bigger projects.
That and fans wondering about what is happening to characters that they’ve come to care about.
Total wow, a wordsmith is out of words – thanks and gratitude
That was my sentiment exactly, Esther. Thanks and gratitude for the encouragement and critical eyes of the community of writers that have descended into my world in the last six months.
Thank you for being a part of that.
Are we supposed to do something with this, a pass it on type of thing; i am in between books right now, but have the core of novel on my desk, twisted away in sorrow, because of my neglect of same.
The nice thing about this one is that it works…or at least the version that has been passed down to me…to the benefit and the rhythm of the writer.
Gail answered a question a week because she was at the tail end of her project. Others have answered all 10 questions at once and didn’t feel the need to tie it into the finishing of the WIP. For my purposes, I plan to write and ship one blog post answering one question at minimum once a month until I ship my WIP. So that means that I have to produce my rewrites and revisions, send it for editing, reviews, etc within the next 10 months for me to make MY goals.
Play with it the way that serves your work.
Fourteen years for a WIP? (And 22 years for Kasie?) Wow, that’s some dedication. Thanks for sharing this post, and letting me know a little more about your current story. I’m so excited to hear about what others are writing.
I was so jazzed to find the The Syringa Gulch Survey in my journals/portfolio shipment that arrived this summer. There is plenty of material older than 14 years in there. The fact that it popped out and started speaking to me in a strong voice and that it supplanted a work (Whirled Peas Mysteries) that was hitting a fog bank and that about two weeks ago I realized that I had to write this story first for the fog banked one to go any further…well, then now that’s a writer’s process, itsn’t it?
That’s an amazing discovery. It’s so interesting how the writer’s mind works. It just goes to show: never throw anything away.
I give and throw away lots…just never my writing if I can help it. Next Monday is a bit of homage to some of my teachers who knew me and influenced me long before I ever had them in class. I still have some notes from the 1960′s with their handwriting on them!
Lara, I love this post and the conversation you got going. I’ve been so grateful for our fab Wordsmith Studio group — you guys were one of the main things I missed when I was offline in July and August. It’s funny how long “14 years” sounds for time spent on a book — and yet they live with you, don’t they. The WIP I’m working on now (Wake) started as an idea in 2006 that I didn’t write until 2009, then only really began writing in earnest maybe a year or two ago — but it was writing itself all that time. I can understand, for you, how getting the prequel written would clear the fog. It’s hard to focus on one project when another begins speaking to you. Great post!
I seem to be having lots of puzzle pieces that I thought were unrelated all of a sudden fall into place. This weekend I took some other older bits and realized they belonged to other works in the series. I now have three novels and two different short story collections, I’m shuffling my previously written material into. Surprising that they fit so well and finally make sense in the larger arc of a series. So I’m stoked. And I wouldn’t have been able to do this I’m quite sure without the support and encouragement of the Wordsmith Studio folks and my local SinC chapter.
Lara, I wanted to mention my WIP here: Spirit Lamp has been in the works for at least five years. Re-reading the questions, I believe they’ll be helpful in wrapping this baby up! A great idea to space the questions out over a period of time. Thanks again for including me (and Spirit Lamp) on this journey!
I look forward to reading all of our WIPs in print! Thanks for sharing, Gerry.
My brain was lagging a bit when I posted this piece last Thursday. I’ll make it clearer in future posts what my version of the rules are. Feel free to bend them as your project needs.
Lara, What a fun idea! I’ve been working on my WIP for 2 1/2 years, and I thought that was a long time! Thanks to you and Kasie for letting me know I’m not way off base! The title of my WIP is “Redefined”- it’s my first manuscript, and it’s a good thing I love my characters and story so much, because I’ve been spending a lot of time with them! It’s taking longer because I’m learning as I go, but I love the process, and that’s what matters, right? Thanks for the site suggestions. I’m really trying harder to engage with this group- everyone is so helpful. Thanks for sharing.
There is no way any of my writing projects would be progressing as they are now without the help and encouragement of Wordsmith Studio as well as my local Sisters in Crime Chapter.
We are all (or nearly all) self-professed introverts which makes these communities all the more special.
Thank you for stopping in and sharing your WIP working title. I hope to hear more details of it as The Next Big Thing continues.
I will do my best to get back here each Thursday! What fun!
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