Fact #1: I got the idea to write this story from a friend of mine named Sahara Blank. The great thing about Sahara is that she is ALWAYS fun to talk to and she's always been a hilarious gal to be around. But one day, as we were waiting for a bus, she was telling me about her day and that she got to meet a vampire. I asked her if she was serious and she told me she was. She recounted, in full, the conversation she had with Omar and I couldn't help but chime in. "Omar, the Vampire?" I asked disbelievingly. "Oh, yeah," she assured me, and we must've laughed SO hard... She told him, "Well I'm a werewolf!" and he got a little defensive. But she continued on with her joke saying, "Yeah 'cause sometimes I don't shave in the morning and I get SUPER hairy..."
He didn't think it was funny.
But on the bus ride home, I couldn't stop thinking about how serious he was about being this vampire person. I was really impressed and a little terrified and I couldn't help but thinking how weird their entire conversation was... And thus, PLANET WEIRD was born. Titles and characters tend to come first and then the rest comes in later.
Fact #2: I never wanted Omar to be the star, though. I wanted to expose him for the phony he had to be. So I kept thinking of ways to have an interesting premise, but keep his character in there. The line, "The kids are weird, too," came to me immediately and then I realized "Oh snap! This is a book about aliens on Earth!" So I had to find a hero, but she ended up being a heroine when a girl named Drew walked into my Journalism class. I couldn't believe how perfect the name was. Drew. That was my heroine! I started writing almost immediately.
Fact #3: The first line has always been, "Planet Jr. High is weird; there're no ifs, ands, or buts about it."
Fact #4: The word "weird" is in the first line of every chapter. And a message is currently hidden in my book for my readers, but I won't go into detail about that just in case things change. The message, though, hints to the characters involved in the next installment. I'm more excited about the second book than this one sometimes.
Fact #5: The plot of this story was figured out shortly after I plotted the second story. The title to this story was figured out immediately, but the second book is still unnamed. This is one of the easiest books I've ever written because I enjoy the world so much, but it was one of the hardest to get right plot-wise. But I'm grateful for it because now I know how to do three things: show when needed, tell when needed, and create plots that focus both internally AND externally.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for! Click here to see a short scene from PW Ch. 1: Earthbound.
And that's it for me today! Although PW is NOT the story I'll be writing for my WriMo, I'm going to continue to work on it and I hope to be done with it soon.
Oh, and one more treat for you guys! The song below is one that I listened to a lot while writing and editing PW. If you read the query, you'll probably understand the connection.
Love you guys!
BAI!!!
Deserae <3
Those facts are really cool and I just read the short scene. It's amazing! (So is Come Back Home!) ♥
ReplyDeleteLove always
Sonal xo