The Next Big Thing: Questions and answers about my Work in Progres

Some of you may already know about the The Next Big Thing. The idea is to interview yourself about your current or next book, mention the person who tagged you, and tag up to five more friends. I’m grateful to Garry Powell author of the wonderful Stoning The Devil for tagging me. His blog post which is at  http://garrycraigpowell.com/wordpress/?p=398  is already up. What is your working title of your book (or story)?The working title of my work in progress is Replay, although I don’t know if that will be the “real” title once it’s done.Where did the idea come from for the book?My last novel Into This World, was about sisters and family secrets. I don’t have any sisters, so maybe that’s why I’m fascinated by them, and wanted to write about them more. I knew I wanted to write about sisters and set the novel in Chattanooga (where I live), but after I read Chekhov’s play Three Sisters, I was inspired to use that structure as the framework.What genre does your book fall under?Literary fiction.Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?I honestly don’t know, I don’t think about those things. Is that something a lot of writers do? I do remember some readers suggesting actors for my first novel, The Life Plan, which, as a comic and very straightforward plot-driven novel, would lend itself more to a commercial film I guess. I can’t even remember who they suggested for that novel, and that’s been the last I’ve thought of it regarding my books. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?Three sisters, haunted by their parents’ deaths, must come to terms with what they’ve given up to pursue their dreams, which ultimately disappoint them.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?I hope that someone will publish the book (I don’t plan on self-publishing). I will probably try to get an agent this time (I didn’t try very hard in the past). Right now I’m just focusing on writing a good novel.How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?I started seriously working on this novel right before Into This World was published in May 2012. I’ve worked on it off and on this year, taking time off to write some short stories. I plan on completing the first draft by the end of April and have a second draft completed by the end of summer.What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?That’s a great question, and one I’m unprepared to answer. Besides Three Sisters (which is a play), Jane Austen’s Persuasion has also influenced the plot. I’m integrating photography and music into the work, and WG Sebald has been a big inspiration for how I’d like to use photography in this book.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?Besides the literary inspirations mentioned above, Chattanooga was an inspiration. My other work almost deals exclusively with the allure and alienation of living abroad (especially in Asia). In Into This World, I did research to accurately write about South Korea during the late 1970s. I’m fascinated by Chattanooga’s history as a way to write about the legacy of the South. The Trail of Tears started at Chattanooga, a lot of Civil War battles were fought here, and we had the first Coca-Cola bottling plant. I also love this city, and want to share it with others.What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?The novel will take place from 1999, an age of comparative American innocence, and will end in 2011, when tornados devastated the area. More importantly, I received a MakeWork arts grant, which has enabled me to pursue the multi-media aspects of the novel by learning photography and researching the local Americana music scene. I believe the novel would work well as a hypertext and I’m hoping the print edition will include a CD of local Americana music as well as photography, old and new.The readers I have tagged who will be blogging next week areChad Prevost at http://chadprevost.com
Victoria Barrett at http://theprettybird.wordpress.com
Adnan Mahmutovic at http://undermidnightsun.wordpress.com