The Next Big Thing

Inspiration:
 For the World is Hollow And I have Touched the Sky

Patrice Sarath tagged me to talk about my Next Big Thing. She is the author of the Gordath Wood series (Gordath Wood, Red Gold Bridge, and The Crow God's Girl) and the Jane Austin-inspired The Unexpected Miss Bennet. Her latest WIP is Bandit Girls.

It might be better to call it my FIRST Big Thing as (barring the Mayan Apocalypse), I am hereby publicly committing to writing a novel in 2013. 

10 questions about your Next Big Thing:

1. What is the title of your work in progress?

The Iron Tongue of Midnight (from A Midsummer Night's Dream) is a potential title. For now Inside Out is the working title. 

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

What I have so far has coalesced around a constellation of smaller obsessions ideas that consistently interest me. Influences include: the story of Proserpine and Hades, my misspent youth reading Carl Jung, and, you know, space.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Science Fiction with likely some fantasy and/or slip-streamy elements.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in the movie?

That question is pretty far down the road for me to think about. If this novel did get optioned and the casting were up to me I'd like to put Sean Bean in a role where he expressly does NOT get killed. So, spoiler! When you are reading this novel and encounter a Sean Bean like character, you can proceed confident in the fact that he will definitely not die in some horribly tragic way.

5. What is a brief synopsis of the book?

After a failed mutiny, a generation ship continues on to its unknown destination while the mutineers eke out a tenuous existence on the hull. No one has tried to reenter the sealed ship until our hero (yet to be named) begins to have strange dreams, which she believes comes from one of the sleepers inside.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I look forward to shopping it around to agencies. After that, who knows.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I know I can't write fast enough to draft it in the 30 days of NaNoWriMo. I recently bought The 90-Day Novel by Alan Watt and may use that as a template for my first draft. I am currently researching and world building and will start drafting New Year's Day. With drafting and revisions, I hope to have something presentable by the end of the year.

8. What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?

I can't compare it to other books yet, so instead here are some novels I love:

By way of preliminary research, here's a quick list of novels with generation and/or sleeper ships that I hope to peruse before the end of the year:

• Orphans of the Sky by Heinlein
• The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe
• Across the Universe by Beth Rivas
• Ship of Fools by Richard P. Russo
• The Dream Millennium by James White

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I am fascinated with the borders people create both in the so called "real world" world and within our own hearts and minds. I'm looking forward to combining the deep outside of interstellar space exploration with the deep inside of our human subconscious.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

I'm looking forward to the challenge of writing a dream v. reality story and hope that it will be one of the more interesting aspects of the book.

Here are my picks for the next Next Big Thing - check out their answers!

Marshall Ryan Maresca

Silver Bowen

Cat Rambo