Wednesday, November 14, 2012

“The Next Big Thing” Blog Hop



I was tagged last week in a blog hop that's sweeping the writer blogsphere called "The Next Big Thing" by the talented Nadia Hasan.

If you're not familiar with how a blog hop works the idea is that you read a post on one blog then continue on to the ones linked to the post. It's a great way to meet new creative folks and you might find a great new blog to follow or an author to check out in the process.


The idea for this particular blog hop is to talk about your new Work In Progress or upcoming project by answering the following ten questions and tagging five other authors to do the same.

*If my upcoming book piques your interest please feel free to leave a comment or question.


Here we go:


What is the title (working title) of your book?

My next work will be a short story titled M4W. (Typeset as >m4w<)


Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea came from a time in my life where I was going through a depression and quite literally looking for love in all the wrong places – one place in particular being Craigslist. It’s funny now that I look back at it but it was pretty sad at the time. During that era though I discovered the dark side of Craigslist.
The sex personals.
I wasn’t a fool. I was aware of the large percentage of scam artists operating on the site with the regular “For Sale” ads, and knew about all the news reports of people getting robbed and assaulted.
People not getting what they bargained for.
Then my mind got to wondering, what would happen if you fell victim to a scam artist in a sex personal ad? What if you replied to one of these and didn’t get what you bargained for? What would they take from you?  
Naturally that scared me so I had to write about it.

What genre does your book fall under?

Horror. I like to say I (mostly) write six different styles of stories.
“The Six S’s”
-(P)sychos
-Slashers
-Superheroes
-Sci-fi
-Sword & Sorcery (sometimes they can be interdependent; sometimes they can be separate styles)
This story would fall under “Slashers”.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

At first I was thinking Andrew Garfield for the male lead but he’s a little too handsome for this kind of role to be honest, and I’d blow most of my budget to get him and the movie would look cheap. Haha!
I would probably go with fresh, undiscovered talent if I was in charge of casting.


What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?


Still working on this but here’s the best I’ve got so far:
In an attempt to recover from a bad breakup Robert Morales, a college dropout living in his mother’s basement arranges to meet with a girl from a Sex Personals ad on Craigslist, but when he finds himself tied to a chair at the mercy of a psychopath he wishes he would have tried a more traditional dating site instead.


Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? What do you think?


The short story will be self-published.


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


The first draft was written during a weekend. (Keep in mind it’s a short story of about five thousand words. Don’t be tricked into thinking I’m a fast writer. I’m no Mary Shelly.)


What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?


I would say there is a little bit of influence from Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter book series in there, I was on the second book when I wrote the first draft. Also my other eternal influences when it comes to this type of story should be fairly obvious when reading it. Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe. As I said it’s a slasher story on the outset, but all my stories have psychological underpinnings.


Who or What inspired you to write this book?


Real life. What ifs. Loneliness. Watching too many episodes of Criminal Minds. News reports. Atreyu and AFI (bands).


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


This story is more graphically violent than any other I’ve written so far. It’s not gratuitous or violent for violence’s sake, but when it’s time to be visceral I’m not pulling any punches. You can’t feel totally in the moment with a story like this if you’re using flowery words and tip-toeing around the pools of blood on the floor. And I need you to be in the moment with this story so you’ll feel as afraid as I felt when I wrote it.


Here are five great fellow authors you should meet. Make sure to check back for their posts too! (To be updated as more answers are posted. Check back to meet more awesome writers)




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