Spilled Coffee Cover

I've been picking away at each item on my To Do—that is, my To Publish list for Spilled Coffee. The cover has been in the works for months now, but I’ve finally settled on all the particulars (not that my perfectionism won’t kick in for some last-minute tweaks).

I like it—it’s kind of quirky and layered, like the story. I have also established my publishing entity: Straw Hill Publishing. Depending on how complicated my life becomes over the next couple moths, I plan to release Spilled Coffee this late spring/early summer. 

Playing Along Nicely

Yvonne Osborne, over at The Organic Writer tagged me for The Next Big Thing blog tour. I really enjoyed reading the concise breakdown of her work in progress, Black River.  Yvonne's prose is layered and lyrical--I can't wait to read the completed novel.  I don't usually do blogfests and tours, but the questions seemed straightforward enough that I could come up with some answers, seeing as I actually have a ‘next big thing’. So here goes:

• What is the working title of your next book? Spilled Coffee

•  Where did the idea come from for this book? I had in mind a snippet of a scene—a man who clumsily bumps the elbow of a woman sitting at a diner counter, spilling her coffee all over her sketchpad. From there, it was a matter of figuring out who each of the characters are and why they were in the diner.

•  What genre does your book fall under? Adult literary fiction, though a large portion has a Young Adult appeal. I guess it's a little Romancey, too.

•  What actors would you choose to play the part of the characters in a movie rendition? That’s really hard—I guess I don’t watch enough television of movies to choose anyone in particular. Any tall, quirky, attractive, dark curlyish-haired guy, and a pretty, petite curly redheaded young lady could audition for the main characters.

•  What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book? Ben Hughes buys back the lake cottage his family lost eighteen years ago, and for the next twenty-four hours, he is committed to reliving that summer when his life blew apart.

• Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I simply can’t resist fulfilling my dream of self-publishing.

•  How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript? I started it back in April of 2010. It sat dormant for nearly a year—I added a few hundred words and it again sat until last winter. I wrote the bulk of 80K words over the course of a couple months—I’ve never been that productive in my life!

•  What other books would you compare this to in your genre? Oh goodness, I haven’t any idea. I guess the best I can say is it’s a coming-of-age story, and there are so many of them out there…

•  Who or what inspired you to write this book? Of course any characters, places, or situations are purely coincidental and the product of my imagination, but my husband may disagree…

•  What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? Although Spilled Coffee delves into family dysfunction, it is against the backdrop of the 1960s and experienced through the eyes of an innocent fourteen-year-old boy. Anyone who grew up during that time period will appreciate the nostalgic snapshots, yet the awkward emotions of adolescence are universal and will strike a chord with many, especially as we so often look back on those years with mixed feelings. 

I'm not sure if providing a snippet is part of the rules, but since my predecessors have done so, here's something:

The odor of rotting pine needles, decaying asphalt shingles, and mold stirs a nondescript memory—a fleeting sense of childhood—of me as a child, the innocent who had not yet gained a broader perspective. That child inserts the key and turns it. The adult, the man who understands that nothing stays the same, pushes the door open.

I'm also supposed to tag a few others--Yvonne already tagged Liza Carens Salerno, but I'm still going to! and I shall also nudge Robynne Rand (aka, Anne Gallagher) and she can fill us in on what she's up to over on her Women's Fiction blog. And finally, Jayne Ferst—A Novice Novelist, who has been working on a novel and I'm dying to find out about it!