When an author girlfriend asks me to do something, I try to do it. If it were in the real world, say asking if I had any wine or chocolate in my house because they were PMSing, of course I’d share. When it’s online and the girlfriend is Marilyn Brant, (A Summer in Europe), I sign up for a Next Big Thing blog hop. You can read her post here and check out her fab books.
The purpose of the blog hop is to get to know new-to-you authors and see what they’re working on. Since it’s NaNoWriMo, where you are supposed to write 50K in a month, I have been working on a WIP (work in progress) and drumroll, please, it’s not women’s fiction, which is my comfort genre. So, here I go into the dark, scary world of mystery/thrillerville.
Q. What is your working title of your book?
A. AWAY
Q. Where did the idea come from for the book?
A. Believe it or not, from getting a Go RVing mail piece at home, which got me to thinking about all the family trips my family took in the ’80s on two different RVs. One was larger, one was smaller and I don’t even remember which came first. My Papa either traded up or traded down.
Q. What genre does your book fall under?
A. It’s solidly in the mystery/thriller genre, but my heroine is a mom with three kids and is also having relationship problems and family drama on top of the mystery aspect so for me it’s a nice segue into the genre.
Q. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
A. I always want Reese Witherspoon to play the lead role. In any of the books actually. Ben Affleck would make a nice Nate, her husband with a secret of his own.
Q. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A. A woman takes her family on an RV road trip back to Yellowstone National Park on the 20th anniversary of her big sister’s disappearance in hope of finding closure or finding the truth about what happened.
Q. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
A. This will be under a new pen name. I may try the traditional agency route first and then self-publishing is always a back up, but I need to finish it first before I think that far ahead.
Q. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
A. I typically take between 3 and 6 months for a first draft and then half as long for the second draft if I’m working on it every day, which I should be.
Q. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
A. Well, I’d love for it to be compared to Girl Gone, but that’s pretty aspirational.
Q. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
A. I never look for external inspiration to write a book, but I do look for signs and affirmations and most of all, the will and passion to work on a project for that many months. I also have a fantasy series and YA series I really want to get off the ground so right now it’s about planning my schedule to make them work.
Q. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
A. Her five-year-old son swears the ghost of his grandfather (her father) is on the RV with them, but he’s the only one who can see him. She isn’t sure if it’s a fantasy or if he’s really there, but then she sees a ghost in the woods so something is going on.
Thanks for visiting my blog and remember the Sleigh Read tour with Buzz Books is going until Dec. 31st which includes a get one, gift one offer. So you can get my new novel SOMETHING NEW, for example, and then request any other title in the promotion for FREE. Cool.
I’m passing the torch of the blog tour to Dani Stone (Next Left) and Jess Riley (All the Lonely People) so visit their blogs next Wednesday (Dec. 5th) for more goodness and next week I’ll be talking about the holidays and grief and HOPE FLOATS.
Now go create something. Or make more coffee.
readyaimgrow.com 
Malena,
Thank you so much for sharing your WIP — it truly sounds fantastic!! I love the RV roadtrip and the mystery element :). For the first time, I’ve been working on a story that involves a family member’s disappearance, too, and it’s been so interesting playing with a different genre… I hope to hear more about yours soon!
Thanks, Marilyn. Ooh, I can’t wait to hear more about your book, too. Kind of fun switching things up.
I love this idea… it’s one of my dreams to travel around the country in an RV anyway, and the thought that it’s combined with a mystery makes it extra fun (as long as it’s not dangerous, of course)!