Debut Author Interviews

What's next after your debut novel?

• G. Neri on...What's Next?
• Carrie Jones on...What's Next?
• Melissa Marr on...What's Next?
• Paula Chase on...What's Next?
• Sara Zarr on...What's Next?
• S.A. Harazin on...What's Next?
• Joni Sensel on...What's Next?
• Ruth McNally Barshaw on...What's Next?
• Tiffany Trent on...What's Next?
• Stephanie Hale on...What's Next?
• Kelly Bingham on...What's Next?
• G. Neri on...What's Next?
• Heather Tomlinson on...What's Next?

What’s next after your debut novel?

Already delivered my second book, Chess Rumble, which will come out shortly after my debut project. And I just turned in my third book, which is my first legitimate YA novel called Surf Mules. I hope that makes sense. Now there will be massive rewriting to do, I’m sure. But I am already starting a few new ideas and we’ll see where they take me.

What’s next after your debut novel?

My second book is currently called, PREGGERS. Flux purchased that book recently. It should hit shelves in March 2008. Flux also purchased another book called either TRUE GRIT or THE JOHN WAYNE LETTERS. I actually wrote that book first. Go figure.

I’m working on three other YAs right now (NEED, WHY I DRINK, and HERE) and a bunch of middle grade books.

All are in various stages of development.

It’s actually really fun writing for different age groups and in different styles and I’m finding that some styles are so much harder and take so much longer for me to finish and revise.

Still, it’s all an amazing adventure and I feel really lucky that I get to write things. Really, really lucky.

One of my Vermont College advisors, Kathi Appelt, always said, “Write like your fingers are on fire.”

So, I’m trying to do that.

Another writing mentor, Rita Williams-Garcia, told me that she went through a super productive time 10 years or so ago, and then she dried up when it came to new ideas. That super productive time has kept her going, as she revises and completes and re-invisions.

I am terrified of dry spells. I need plenty of words on paper to keep me going. So I write and write like my fingers are blazing, just like Kathi says.

What’s next after your debut novel?

Next is INK EXCHANGE. It’ll actually be through revisions and to copyedit before WICKED LOVELY is available for sale. I find this part rather odd, in truth. I’ve spent 2006 hopping back and forth between drafting INK & tasks for the release of WL.

Harper bought my third book too, but all that’s set there is that it’s another YA text. I have one idea that I’ve been toying with—and hope to develop as that third contracted work—but there are a couple other ideas that are swimming around my mind too. My editors are being very awesome in letting me not commit to anything just yet.

So 2007 will see the release of Wicked Lovely, revision of Ink Exchange, & drafting of the third text—as well as promo for Wicked Lovely. I think I’m looking to nap a bit in 2008 to catch my breath … well, along with revision of Three and promo for Ink.

What’s next after your debut novel?

Don’t Get It Twisted, a sequel to So Not The Drama will hit shelves December ‘07. Meanwhile, there’s the prospect of more Del Rio Bay Clique novels, but no numbers are set in stone regarding how many will be in the series.

I’m re-writing my upper YA and am thoroughly enjoying it. I love my DRB Clique characters, but it’s so much fun writing other characters, especially since the characters are older and live in a completely different environment.

My hope is that I keep selling DRB Clique novels and establish a foot in the door of upper YA - making for a nice balance of my own personalities - the sweet and the sassy.

What’s next after your debut novel?

I’m writing a second book for Little, Brown, which should be out in mid-2008. The working title is SWEETHEARTS, and it’s about childhood sweethearts reunited in high school. Drama ensues. In the book, I’m exploring the power of shared experience and the obligation we sometimes feel (or may actually have) for people from our past. I have a couple of ideas I’m itching to work on after that! It’s always a challenge to do the difficult work on one’s actual WIP when new ideas are dancing tantalizingly in the wings.

What’s next after your debut novel?

I have a contract for book #2 from Delacorte, but it’s too early in my process to talk about. I am also considering writing a sequel to Blood Brothers from the POV of another character.

What’s next after your debut novel?

My second novel from Holt in 2008 will be The Humming of Numbers, an historical fantasy set in 10th century Ireland. I expect to be doing some copyediting on that this January. In the meantime, my agent (I finally fooled one, apparently, into signing me!) just began shopping a ghost story called Blank Pages and I just turned in revisions on a fantasy called Farwalker that I hope she will also begin shopping. Oh yeah, and I need to start revisions of another ghost story drafted last summer, and I have these notes for something new, and…

The overlap in book writing, editing, and release timeframes is really wacky. Seems like Reality Leak is OLD news in my head, and it’s not even out yet!

What’s next after your debut novel?

What’s next? More books!
Ellie McDoodle was so much fun to write and I have lots more stories to tell. How can I resist?
The first time my editor mentioned more books I was elated. I think I didn’t sleep for a week.
Six months later, the insomnia has worn off, but the thrill hasn’t.

What’s next after your debut novel?

I’ve already turned in the first draft of the second book in the Hallowmere series, titled By Venom’s Sweet Sting. Next is Book 3, Between Golden Jaws, and then I’m slated to write Book 7, Daughter of the Marsh King. (Other writers will fill in for the books in between). And then I return to close off the series with Book 10…

After Hallowmere, I have a couple of other YA ideas swimming around—one I call the Chinatown Death Squad novel…We’ll see how everything pans out!

What’s next after your debut novel?

I am currently writing the sequel to REVENGE OF THE HOMECOMING QUEEN. It’s called, TWISTED SISTERS, and should be released in January 2008. My main character goes to college and gets herself caught up in more mysteries involving her sorority sisters.

I’m about three-fourths of the way through another sorority YA that will hopefully sell! I would also like to write a third Aspen Brooks book, who is the character in my first and second books.

After that, I’ve got a notebook filled with ideas!!

What’s next after your debut novel?

Wow, I have to follow everyone’s exciting answer with the dull and honest: “I have several projects in the works, for all different age groups. I have yet to settle on which one will be my next focus.”

A middle grade novel, an easy reader I am illustrating, a contemporary YA novel, and a collection of short stories of historical fiction. All are calling to me, and I’m giving each my attention until one project settles to the foreground.

But in the short term? What’s next is time with the family, a vacation or two, and lots of reading—I have at least 38 books I can’t wait to get to, thanks to my classmates!

What’s next after your debut novel?

My second book, CHESS RUMBLE, will also be coming out with in a year. It is an odd bird— an illustrated free-verse novella. Can’t really compare it to anything out there, but the design team is having fun with my text, so I am eager to see what it becomes.

And my third book, and first real legitimate novel, SURF MULES, is being read by 5 great editors as we speak and will hopefully find a home in the next month or so. SURF MULES was actually the first to be started of the 3 and has been gestating for a long time. Only with this one do I feel like I can call myself a writer.

So now, what’s really next? Now I get to really explore for the first time in a while and try out different ideas I have. But it’s exciting because I have so many different formats to work with (graphic novel, free-verse, picture book, novel) that I can let the story tell me how it wants to be told. I am playing with a lot of different stories at the moment, so now is when writers can have fun, exploring, researching, seeing what sticks to the wall…

What’s next after your debut novel?

Book #2 for Henry Holt is another retold fairy tale, hopefully! My editor has the manuscript, and while I’m waiting for her comments, I’m working on a contemporary selkie story, set in the Channel Islands off Southern California.