The lovely and hardworking authoress KD Sarge tagged me for a blog hop, so here it is. You answer ten questions about your work in progress (WIP) and tag five other writers. So here’s a sneak peek at one of my novels….
1. What is the working title of your book?
The Derelict.
2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
This is one of those rare novels for which I can point to the exact origin. In an article on Tor.com a few years ago, Chris Greenland discussed concepts for a future Star Trek series. He threw out the idea of a dystopian universe where the Trek era constituted a lost Golden Age, thought to be no more than a legend and a possible inspiration for our intrepid heroes. I ran with the idea, transplanted it into an original (i.e., non-Trek) universe, and off I went.
3. What genre does your book fall under?
It’s YA science fiction — specifically, YA dystopian in space.
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
This one is stumping me. I don’t generally have a good idea of what my characters look like, and I’m not up on teenaged actors. I do know that of my four young protagonists, one is brown, one is Hispanic, one is Italian, and one is Chinese — insofar as such terms have any meaning in a post-Earth ‘verse!
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
In a dystopian universe, a runaway girl with a stolen spaceship and a crew of misfits must face down her former owner and all that she stands for.
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’ll be querying agents with it, even though my short fiction is published through an indie press. Like many authors these days, I’m playing both sides.
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
That’s another tricky question. I wrote 50,000 words in one month during NaNo 2011, then shelved it for most of 2012 to focus on buying a house and other life stuff. Right now it’s 57,000 words long, and it should be finished in another 5,000 words or so.
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Most of what I write and read is adult SF/F, so I’m not as well versed in YA as I need to be to sell this. I will say that it was influenced by Firefly.
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
When I read the idea described in #2, what gripped me about it was the idea of a dark, hardscrabble universe where the ideals of the Federation had long been lost…and what happened when they were rediscovered. I wanted to tell the story of a cynical group of people who gradually found their way to a brighter future, and who were innocent or foolhardy enough to believe in the impossible.
10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
My little band of misfits spends a lot of time trying to get their spaceship running and keep it running, despite holes in the hull, missing parts, and so on. It’s hard to escape the bad guys when your ride might break down at any minute and leave you breathing vacuum.
Also, it’s hard to get your crew working together when they consist of an autistic engineer, a female bounty hunter, and a clueless rich kid, and you’re not sure which of them to trust….
Okay, enough about my WIP. I’m passing on the torch, and the torchbearers are:
Siri Paulson's Blog 
Thanks for the tag, Siri! Any book that’s influenced by Star Trek and Firefly has got to be good.
😉
Ok so now I’m gonna have to come up with a one sentence summary… FUN!!!
Liv, thanks for the vote of confidence!
Ellen, that’s a surprisingly useful exercise! I now do it before I even start writing…which is not to say it can’t change later on.
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