Be Inspired

I’ve been tagged by the wonderful Rowanwolf (check out her novel answers on her blog) in a new Blog Hop, which originated on Vicki Orians blog. The idea is to share our inspiration and hopefully inspire others! A great opportunity for us writer people to blog about our writing inspiration!

1. Answer the ten questions
2. Tag five other writers, link to them in your post so we can hop over and see their answers too.

The Questions:

1. What is the name of your book:
My current work in progress will be a fair time in edits…so I’m choosing to write about my last finished work called ‘Beneath the Rainbow’.

2. Where did the idea for your book come from?
I was walking past the children’s swings in our local park, thinking how much I loved the swings when I was a little girl and the first line came to me: ‘Freya was seven years old when she got hit by the car, it was a 4×4 with a bull bar.’ I couldn’t shake the line and a heartbreaking premise was born…

3. In what genre would you classify your book?
When I wrote it I had no thought of genre, age range or how to pitch it…only after it was finished did these questions come about. That caused problems…I would class it as an older children’s book, but many adults have enjoyed it too. The main protagonist is seven as mentioned in the first sentence and you can’t get away from that! I discovered that publishers would want a main character as close to the age of the children reading it…so seven was young and would older children relate? You’ll have to read it to decide what range it fits!

4. If you had to pick actors to play your characters in a movie rendition, who would you choose?  
This is the hardest question…most of my characters (in all my writing) are gleaned from a mixture of my imagination and from characteristics attributed to my eclectic children, relatives and aquaintences. I find it hard to relate them to actors…though I will risk sounding really pretentious and admit my dream actor for frail Old Thomas would be Sir Ian McKellan. Freya would be an unknown, but have the presence of a young Dakota Fanning.
My own inspiration for Freya was my daughter who was just over seven when I wrote the book:

5. Give us a one sentence synopsis of your book:

‘In death, Freya knows she needs to move on, but is caught within her mother’s grief and the discovery of terminally ill Old Thomas…on earth her family discover a list of her wishes and determine to fulfil both hers and Thomas’s dreams.’

6. Is your book already published/represented?
I decided to self-publish and the book is available on Kindle at Amazon. I love this book, but I know my writing grows stronger and with advice have decided this is my practise book…with the issues surrounding genre and age range, I decided to leave it as it is and concentrate on other writing for more traditional publishing.

7. How long did it take to write your book?
I began in March 2009 and finished the first draft in October 2009, I then suffered a serious bout of depression and shelved the book, going back to it in 2011. About a year all in all.

8. What other books within your genre would you compare it to? Or, readers of which books would enjoy yours? 
If you like emotional, lyrical stories and don’t mind weeping a bit…you should like this!

9. Which authors inspired you to write this book?
That’s easy…I read ‘Loser’ by Jerry Spinelli and adored it, and I love beautiful stories with a lot of heart and emotion. Aside from this book, I am inspired by the fantasy writing of JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Garth Nix…

10. Tell us anything that might pique our interest in your book.

My blurb reads:

“It’s those silly dreams that keep us alive.”

Dreams define us, shape us and realise our potential…they make us who we are.

Freya won’t let death stand in her way.

When she dies Freya knows she needs to move on, but is caught within her mother’s grief and the discovery of a terminally ill old man. Finding she can affect the lives of those beyond her heaven she fights to reach her mother and wants to help old Thomas realise his final dream.

Meanwhile, her family finds her own list of goals and soon discovers that Old Thomas has a burning desire to ride a motorbike.

Freya intends to create a rainbow, the last item on her list, to reach her mother, but her pale arcs won’t achieve closure. She perseveres for scarlet like remembrance poppies then searches for sunset orange and sunflower yellow.  She recreates green like her willow and blue like daddy’s t-shirt.  Finally conjuring indigo, the shade of deepening night and lastly violet to match Purple Ted…

Beneath these colours will Freya reach her mother, wait for Old Thomas and be ready to move on?

 

Discover the importance of dreams and fulfilment in Freya’s heart-breaking and uplifting tale of grief, hope, triumph and joy.

These are my tags: (I know there are only supposed to be five, but I couldn’t help myself, so six it is…)
Jo-Anne @jtvancouver
Angela @Angela_Goff
Daniel @surlymuse
Angela @ang_writes
McKenzie @Love_Kenzie_
Cameron @CameronLawton