RE-ENTRY

As hard as I've been trying to get to the pages of THE MOONBEAM RIDER, forces have been pulling me away. 

Scheduling has been tough for me lately.

Therefore, I've decided to cancel my holiday plans. I'm not a Thanksgiving or Christmas type of person to begin with (Halloween is my holiday of choice). My family is on the East Coast and, although I love them, the thought of flying back in the cold doesn't exactly excite me. For Thanksgiving, I was going to visit an old college buddy who lives in Vegas. I thought I would get some good writing in at the Hard Rock for three or four days. For Christmas I was going to take a seven day cruise (it would have been my first) down into sunny Mehecco. 

But dammit, I want this book written and I enjoy getting lost in this world I've created. A world that harkens back to the old pulp science fiction magazines and World War II, while remaining firmly planted in a contemporary world which could be tomorrow.

So I'm just going to write through the holidays.

I have become fully invested in the main character NOA ASH and her plight being recently orphaned in a world at war with another world. Which is what happens when you write. The characters start to come alive for you and inhabit your life. Then the only way to purge yourself of these ghostly inhabitants is to get their story out of you. Even though it's a long hard road, there are few joys as great as finishing a novel.

I'm in the middle of the second chapter and around 7,000 words. I'm already planning the book cover and I'm going to hire a voice actress to do an audio recording of the first three chapters, when I have them finished. Since the story is written in the first person of our heroine Noa Ash, I figure this is the best way to introduce her to all of you.

I'll keep you posted.

FIRST ENTRY

Welcome to my first entry into this brand new blog, which will chart the evolution of my new novel as I write and promote it. 

The novel is "THE MOONBEAM RIDER."  It's my third novel and first young adult fiction book, so I'm very excited. I'm just as excited to be sharing my experience with you.

My target audience is teenage girls. Although the tone and storyline for my novel are very different from "THE HUNGER GAMES," I hope to attract that same audience. With the superhero-esque element of the book, I'm also hoping to capture teenage male readers and young adults as well.

The story deals with the alien invasion of earth as seen through the eyes of our main character. It also deals with a long lost metal superhero from World War II and the main character's relationship with it. So, yes, UFOs and robots.

Like "Hunger Games," my protagonist is a teenage girl. Her name is NOA ASH. The story starts out in the first chapter with Noa a few weeks away from her sixteenth birthday. Her parents are killed in an act of violence in the first chapter. Noa turns sixteen in the second chapter while she is remanded to a tough group home for teenage orphans, waiting for a grandmother she has never met to take her in.

Also like the "Hunger Games," this story is told in the first person by my heroine. I want this novel to have an in the moment feel. I also want it to be as if Noa Ash is recounting her adventure as it happens out of her private journal with insight into her emotions, hopes, and fears. So basically, this novel is "THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK" meets "WAR OF THE WORLDS."

Unlike "Hunger Games" however, Noa doesn't start out as a statuesque heroine with a perfect physique. In fact, in the first two chapters, Noa is short and chubby. She grows in physical stature and inner strength through her discovery and subsequent love of surfing in the black waters of the meteorite-covered SHADOW BEACH.

Lastly, Noa Ash is biracial, the product of a Caucasian mother and an African American father. This is very important to me because my publishing imprint which I will be releasing this novel through was created to bring diverse fiction to the multicultural audience that is more a reflection of America today than what is portrayed on TV and in Hollywood movies. 

The other thing I will be doing differently from my previous two novels is that I will be building awareness for this adventure tale as I'm writing it. I've already come up with a number of ideas, which you will be discovering in the upcoming months.

I want to involve the audience in the writing of this book.

So, I hope you tune into my blog from time to time and share the adventure. For me writing a novel is like creating a whole new world, full of wonderful voices. I often learn things about myself from my writing.

And after all, isn't that why we've been put on this earth? To learn.