Nicole Winters's Blog, page 10

Goodreads contest for TT: Full Throttle finished

The contest closed at midnight last night with a total of 777 people from all over the world entering to win a copy of TT: Full Throttle. This is pretty cool considering it’s a motorcycle road racing sports book for teens. Four of the five winners were from the US (TX, AZ, MS, OK) and one from New Zealand! I’m sending off the winners details to my publisher today. I hope you enjoy the book!

18 hours left to win a copy of TT: Full Throttle!

You can enter to win a copy of TT: Full Throttle at goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/56275-tt-full-throttle

Scott has one obsession: to fulfill his late father’s dream of racing in the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy Races, the most dangerous and prestigious motorcycle road race in the world. Far from their home in British Columbia, Canada and still reeling from a recent tragedy, Scott and his roommates-turned-pit crew have only five days during Practice Week to secure a spot in the TT. Scott must qualify with a fast enough time or he doesn’t race. But the pressure of working with a rookie crew on the potentially lethal course puts Scott’s safety and his friendships on the line. As race day draws near he and his friends will have to swallow their pride to help Scott achieve his dream.

 

Books I Adore

I adore these books for many reasons - narrative structure, character’s voice, subject matter, beautiful prose and so on. There’s something in the author’s craft that makes me take note no matter what the genre – YA, adult, short story, nonfiction.

Power Play
by Eric Walters

between the hedges
by Stephen Davison

The Long Walk
by Stephen King

Butter by
Erin Jade Lange

Burning Bright
by Ron Rash

Fat Kid Rules the World
by K.L. Going

20th Century Ghosts
by Joe Hill

The Road
by Cormac McCarthy

The Giver
by Lois Lowry

Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen

Stupid Fast
by Geoff Herbach

Unwind
by Neil Shusterman

My Life in France
by Julia Child
and Alex Prud’Homme

Thirteen Reasons Why
by Jay Asher

The House of the Scorpion
by Nancy Farmer

The Maze Runner
by James Dashner

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition
by Owen Beattie, John Geiger and Margaret Atwood

Down in the Flood
by Luke Whisnant

 

Researching the Isle of Man TT Races for TT: FULL THROTTLE

Before I visited the Isle of Man for the first time in 2010, I made the conscious decision not to over-research the Isle or the Races, including who the top riders were. I knew I was taking a risk by doing this, but I had good reasons which paid off.

I knew that the majority of North American readers had never heard of the Isle of Man, let alone something called the Tourist Trophy Races, (which sounds like a trophy for tourists who are marathon runners). So I came to think of the island and Scott’s race – the Supersport – as additional characters in the story, only they weren’t fictionalized (obviously). I figured the best way for readers to discover the IOM and learn about the IOMTT was for me to discover it as unspoiled as I could for the first time as well.

During my first visit in 2010, I snapped over 2,000 photographs and filled three notebooks, jotting down observations, snippets of conversations, course descriptors and anything else that struck me as interesting, amazing, beautiful, striking, etc., That way upon returning home, I could pull from all the notes which would enable me to recall different settings, specific images, scenes or emotions.

Not knowing the intricate details about the thirty-seven and three quarter mile course or how the two weeks were organized wasn’t a problem either. Everyone, from organizers, privateers, and marshals to pit crew, journalists and podium champs that I met and talked to about my book for teens was happy to discuss the TT Races. No matter how many questions I had about motorcycles, the TT course – how to learn it, how to qualify, what happens when… or what does X mean, or what’s the differences between this as opposed to that, etc., – they indulged me with lots of information. I consider myself lucky to have been able to meet and speak with so many people and their passion for the TT Races.

The same held true with not knowing who the TT riders were, especially when I first arrived during Practice Week. There were many times where I’d finish having a friendly chat with someone only to be asked by a passerby, “Wow, how do you know him/her?” or, “Do you know who that is?” Of course, this prelapsarian state didn’t last for long as practice week came to a close. I began to notice who the press focused their attention on, or I’d overhear snippets of conversations from people in the crowd as they whispered and pointed. This gave me the chance to observe riders under pressure too. A lot of what I saw I channeled into Scott’s character or it inspired various race scenes in the book.

The second year I travelled to the IOM for the TT Races I saw things very differently, but it gave me a chance to work out the finer details in my story. I still had some fun adventures, but now I had become a fan, which gave me a deeper appreciation for the riders and the immense amount of organization that goes into putting together the TT Races.

Every year since then, I’ve tuned into the Races on Manx Radio TT 365 and I hope to return in 2014.

Photographed just outside of Union Mills.

TT: FULL THROTTLE book jacket revealed!

After years of working on this story, it’ll soon be realized in physical form. Still feels unreal.

Structure vs. freewriting: Which is better?

Answer: whatever works for you.

I’m a structuralist. It comes from my days writing screenplays. I like to jot scenes and ideas on 4×5 cards (plot points, pinch points, turning points) and then paste them onto my dining room wall. (I do the freewriting in my head at this stage as opposed to fingers on the keyboard). From there, I like to rework the story by adding scenes, filling in gaps, rounding out character arcs, etc. Then, it’s pretty much butt in chair time, working until the first draft is completed. When I’m at this beginning stage, I make it a rule to only move forward. I try to never reread or rewrite what I’ve written until I reach the end. To me a first draft is just that, a first draft. I affectionately like to call it a dawg’s breakfast because it frees me up mentally to go anywhere with the scenes. There’s no unconscious pressure to perform or to show it to anyone. If I were to stop to rewrite and polish each chapter as I went along, it’d take me ages because I obsess like crazy.

Once the dawg’s breakfast draft is finished, I set it aside for about a month so I can forget about and I pull something else out of the drawer to edit.

That’s just me. I’d love to know what works for you.

-Nicole

Win an advance reader copy of TT: FULL THROTTLE

 

Win an advance reading copy of TT: FULLTHROTTLE at: Goodreads

Why did I decide to write about the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy Races (or IOMTT)?

So, one question people have been asking me about TT: FULL THROTTLE is, why did I write about the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy Races (or IOMTT). I think they’re asking as I don’t look like a motorcycle racing fan, plus why would a Canadian woman be interested in European road racing?

It was fate and a bit of a long story, so here goes.

Back when I was a young pup, I backpacked across Europe doing what backpackers did back then which was to live on $25 a day, see the world and expand the mind. I had travelled everywhere that summer from Holland, France, and East and West Germany (I still have my piece of the wall I broke off myself), to Luxemburg, Austria and Switzerland. Then I did a 180 and spent a good chunk of time in England and Northern & Southern Ireland. (Sorry, Scotland and Wales, I’ll get there one day, I promise!).

But I digress.

So I come home and a few months later I’m watching this film called Waking Ned Devine at my local repertory theater (if you haven’t seen it, go see it). The images of lush green rolling pastures and the sea was love at first sight. Where the heck was this filmed, I thought – although an Irish film it wasn’t the Irish landscape. I knew I MUST visit this place. So, I stay until the end credits (there was no IMBD in those days) to get my answer: The Isle of Man.

The Isle of what? That’s weird. Weird.

But I digress.

So roughly 10 years pass and I’d fallen in love with screenwriting. To see if it was something I really wanted to do, I teamed up with a very talented writer, Stephen Geigen-Miller to try our hand at a feature film. It was called Muppets: Mission Impossible – it’s awesome, Kermit is a spy for the CIA. Not too much long after that, we landed a Manager.

Now, Canada’s film industry is not as simple as the US. Quite often to get a film made there are co-productions, basically you partner up with another country (or several of them) to help foot the bill for your project.

Our Manager was looking to a) try his hand at becoming a producer and b) co-produce a film to shoot, where? Why the Isle of Man, of course. (It’s a good tax break.)

So Stephen and I end up writing a $50 million dollar film, we even received two rounds of development funding from the Harold Greenberg Fund to help the puppy grow, but it all fell apart (that’s another story) and soon the Pirates of the Caribbean hit the big screens and that was that.

But I digress.

So I started researching and reading about the Isle of Man and discovered they had a road race called The Tourist Trophy. I’d always wanted to write a sports story (Rudy is one of my favourite sports films) so to write a story with the same kind of heart as Rudy really resonated with me. What attracted me to the IOMTT Races was that it wasn’t your typical sports trope, you know, man vs. man (like Rocky), or team A vs. team B. The TT Races is all about man (or woman) vs. him/herself. There’s no external protagonist which I like because most of us aren’t walking around battling an arch enemy (like Sherlock and Moriarty), plus I have no desire to write those kinds of stories, they don’t resonate with me.

But I digress, sort of.

After a while Stephen and I had had enough of Filmland. So we closed shop on screenwriting and I switched writing forms – from script to prose, which is not as easy as it sounds, at least it wasn’t for me. In film you strip away the story to its basics as someone else fills in the set dressing, wardrobe, lighting, actors, etc. In prose, you obviously have to do it all. I remember people reading my first draft of a screen play I’d rewritten in prose. They said, good plot, awesome dialogue, but I can’t picture where I am, and I don’t know what anything or anyone looks like. Like I said, it was a bit of a struggle at first.

But I digress.

So after a few years of learning my craft and writing a draft of TT: Full Throttle (formerly known as: Driving Ambition, In on the Outside, and Everything to Race For – the title changed constantly), I was ready to actually VISIT the Isle of Man for research. So, in 2010, I boarded a plane from Toronto to Heathrow, took the bus to Gatwick, then flew to the place I had wanted to visit since I first saw Waking Ned Devine 21 years earlier. The next day, I was a TT volunteer marshal, standing by the side of the road, wearing a bright orange bib and waving the yellow flag.

I don’t digress, but that’s another story.

-Nicole

 

First blog post

INT. THEATRE STAGE – DAY

The stage is empty except for closed heavy red curtains and a microphone on a stand. NICOLE WINTERS, AUTHOR, appears from stage left. On her way to the microphone, she tries glancing out at the audience, but squints against the blinding lights. She stops in front of the mic, clears her throat and then taps it, twice.

NICOLE

Hello? Is this thing on?

SCREECHING audio feedback. Nicole flinches, her back pressing against the curtain. Now out of the bright spotlight, she can see into the audience. The theatre is completely empty.

…

So, there you have it, my anxiety daydream about starting a blog. Now that’s out there, the only thing to do is to feel the fear and do it anyway.

This blog will be about writing: my past experiences as a writer and the process (comparing screenwriting with YA/NA), my journey as a YA author, some of the adventures I had on the Isle of Man researching TT: FULL THROTTLE, at the Isle of Man TT Races (or IOMTT), current projects I’m working on and those story ideas battling in my head (Battle Royale style, thanks) to be written next.

Follow along if you want to know what kind of trouble I’m getting up to next, or what kind of things are knocking around in my noggin. It might just be a surprise to me too – ha!

- Nicole