Just like the title suggests I have some exciting things to tell you about. They always say that an idea for a novel, or any kind of story, can be born out of virtually everything and anything, I agree with that. Around the beginning of 2015 I suddenly had this name in my head, this quite different name, and I knew that I wanted to come up with a history for that name, create the person which belongs to it. At first it was only something I was doing in my head for the fun of it, but soon the name grew into something much bigger.
More names joined, more information’s started to appear and suddenly all these characters had lives and histories, childhood memories and goals. Suddenly this name in my mind had turned into an entire story I felt the need to tell and share.
A could of weeks late I had around 35.000 words down, the entire story planned out but I was stuck. It's hard to explain what I mean by that, how one can be stuck despite knowing exactly where you are going and which way you need to take, but I suddenly lost my connection to the story. The April round of Camp NaNoWriMo was coming up and I originally planned to finish the book during that time but suddenly I faced the fact that I couldn't. So I did what I always do, I started a different story to get a break and a step back. A couple of days into Camp NaNoWriMo the spark had returned and well before the end of April the story was complete. The first draft of my fourth book had been born.
I spent the next weeks working on it, re-writing passages that I felt were not quite there yet, edited and revised it until I was happy with the way it was, until I felt that that was it, that was the story I wanted to tell and it was the way I wanted to do it.
Next followed the part that anyone who ever wrote a book with the dream of being published had to go through: querying.
For those who don't know what a query is: a query is a type of e-mail you send out to agents, and publishers, in order of raising their interest and, ultimately, pulling them on your side. The better your query, the better your chances, though of course a good query isn't everything, your story needs to be good, too.
And then the unimaginable happened. A month prior to my birthday I told a friend just how brilliant it would be to get a publishing deal before my 21st birthday thinking that it was something that would never happen, because I didn't think I would be just that lucky. I was wrong. I signed a publishing deal with Limitless Publishing on the day of my 21st birthday.
Now, weeks later, I'm here to tell you guys about it all, have a little chat, story time style. I don't want to tell you too much about the story yet, because the release is still a good two months or more away, but I can tell you that it is a YA contemporary dealing with finding who you really are, overcoming differences, the importance of family and friends, and finding love in times and places you'd least expect it. I know, quite different from what I previously wrote. The title changed two times before the final one has been decided, it changed from two words, to five and finally landed on three: Petty Little Lives.
The title has a lot of meaning when it comes to the story, which is really nice. It might seem simple, maybe even a tiny bit weird, but once you guys will read it you'll understand the meaning behind it.
Lastly, Petty Little Lives is set to be released on August 18th 2015. It doesn't have a cover yet, nor does it have a goodreads page, but I will update you guys on everything that is happening along the way. I am really excited to finally have a book being published by an actual publishing house with professional cover designers, editors, formatters and people who believed that my story is worth being told. I am also really excited, and only a tin bit nervous, when I think of the day you guys will be able to read it. I know I didn't tell you much yet about the story, but it's all coming soon!
Before I will end this post I want to share the name with you which sparked it all, and also the second one which joined in days later: Roxanna Revolution and her cousin Sapphire Hope. I like names that are different, which I'm sure you've noticed by now.
Anyway, that is all for today. I hope you guys are just as excited as I am for Petty Little Lives as I am.
Cheerio!
