SOME YA BOOT KICKING IN THE LONE STAR STATE: WRITING TEXAS

Mall Culture Heaven: French Fry Heaven!

So here’s the story: One day recently, it occurred to authors Tricia (PJ) Hoover, Mari Mancusi, Mary Lindsey and I that we all had new YA novels set in Texas. This is perhaps not surprising since we all live here in the Lone Star State – Mary and I here in Houston and Mari and Tricia in Austin. But the more we brainstormed, the more we realized that we really had a lot to say about not only why we set our stories here as well as the process involved in the specifics of a Lone Star state setting. Thus was born a panel presentation that we’ll be doing all over Texas this fall at a variety of regional library conferences. Sometimes it will be all four of us; sometimes it will be two. But it’s been both fun and eye-opening to look at the various aspects of setting a novel in Texas and what inspired each of us as well as what Texas elements play key roles.

To catch you up to speed: PJ Hoover’s SOLSTICE is a morph of dystopian and mythology, set in a slightly future Austin where global warming has changed a great deal. Plus two hot guys and one girl who is not quite who she thinks she is!  Mari Mancusi’s brand new SCORCHED uses a West Texas setting to begin a story that is best described as Game of Thrones meets Terminator and has—yup—2 hot guys (twins!) and girl and a dragon egg and a potential dragon apocalypse! Mary Lindsey’s SHATTERED SOULS series has—yup!—two hot guys and a girl who can help lost souls. Right here in Galveston. And finally, my SWEET DEAD LIFE series is about a girl whose brother returns from a fatal car accident as her less than angelic guardian angel, setting in motion a vast family mystery with huge global consequences. Also a cute guy who appears in book 1 for the beginning of a love story that will wind its way through the series. Just 1 guy. At least for now. And set – right here in Houston, with a few Austin road trips.

(Plus all our title start with 's'--something I just noticed)

For some stories, setting is an aspect, but it’s not crucial to the story telling. Certain romances, for example. The story is so much about the couple that the setting feels secondary. But imagine Twilight set in Miami? Uh, no. Even something like Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall is deeply intertwined to the specificity of a certain economic class in a certain type of suburban CT high school. At least as I see it.

So setting. For those of you who haven’t thought about setting since your 10^th grade English teacher asked you to draw a map of Maycomb Alabama or whatever, there’s more to it than just a geographic location. Setting is everything: time period, social milieu, climate; time of year; physical and political environment and more. Here’s a quick Writer’s Digest article if you really haven’t thought about it in a while:  http://www.writersdigest.com/tip-of-the-day/discover-the-basic-elements-of-setting-in-a-story

When my Soho Press editor first suggested the basic idea for the TSDL series, I remember being a bit nervous when I sent him an email saying that I would love to write this series but that I envisioned it set in suburban Houston. I figured he would say, ‘uh no,’ or perhaps, ‘hell no’ or perhaps wtf are you thinking, Prebs?’ But instead, he said, YES!

So why Texas? Well first of all, I live here. So the small societal details come easily to me because I live them every day. I mean let’s face it, there is a stunning specificity to the ‘wasteland’ of the northern Houston ‘burbs’ : Breakfast tacos and kolaches and mall culture and Olive Gardens and strip centers and stuff like how here in the more affluent suburb where I live, they’ve built us a town center that looks like a small town’s downtown, with stores built into old brick buildings. Only it’s just a façade. The buildings aren’t old at all, just a few years old, really. So in essence – a FAKE town center that everyone raves about. Stuff like that sticks in your head, you know?

So when my brain went whirring about where I would set a story about a 14 year old girl who’s older brother came back as a guardian angel, I thought WHAT BETTER PLACE than in the middle of giant high school football stadiums and Crocs kiosks and FAKE TOWN CENTERS, and western wear and cowboy boots devoid of actual farm work, and churches so enormous that they have a Starbucks inside (yes really) and a societal culture that often professes to have a pipeline to all the answers about faith and salvation and things of that nature. So, my brain said, what if the stoner dude (formerly a football star but down on his luck  and failing his classes because he’s been supporting the family since his dad disappeared and his mom went all depressed) in one of those ordinary suburban houses actually came back as his sassy sister's guardian angel? Right before Christmas. When the next door neighbors were putting out their lights and lawn angels? And became the most unlikely hero ever? And what if there was a big global mystery that could change life as we know it and its center was the Houston Medical Center? And the newly minted Texas boy angel and his narrator sister were at the epicenter of it all?

You see what I mean? Houston Texas was the PERFECT setting for this novel—for not only the main story but also much of the subtext. In fact, the setting works as a character of sorts. I can’t imagine this novel taking place anywhere else.

So what novels have you read where the setting plays a huge role in the story?

THE A WORD COVER REVEAL: THANK YOU SOHO PRESS!!

So last week I got to show you the gorgeous redone cover for paperback edition of THE SWEET DEAD LIFE, which is coming in February, 2014. I had loved the hard copy cover, but for the pb, my delightful publisher, Soho Press, came up with a new concept that even more fully captures the tone of the novel, of narrator Jenna's sassy, mouthy Texas girl voice as well as hinting at the angels that populate the book. Love! (more in a future post about the series and where it's headed and what people are saying!)

And now today I get to reveal the cover for THE A WORD, which is the sequel to TSDL, and which arrives on May 13, 2014, exactly a year since the TSDL release! I am so thrilled with this cover!!! It is gorgeous and perfect and I owe more huge thanks to publisher Bronwen Hruska and her merry band at Soho Press.

Here it is!!

See what I mean! LOVE!
And you can see here, with the two side by side that, they are really meant to go together on a shelf!

ARCs are coming soon, but for now I can tell you this about where the series is going with THE A WORD: (slight spoiler if you haven't read TSDL, but it does not ruin the central mystery):

Jenna Samuels is about to turn fifteen. It's been almost a year since her stoner brother, Casey, bit the dust. Almost a year since he returned as her guardian angel, along with his "angel boss," Amber Velasco, the hot twenty-something former EMT. Almost a year since Casey and Amber used up their one-time-only angel power of flight to save Jenna from the evil Dr. Renfroe, swooping down to catch her as she tumbled off the balcony at the Houston Galleria. In short, a lot of A-word shenanigans and a mostly happy ending.

Except now Casey's begun to wonder why he's still hanging around—not that he minds protecting Jenna. She's a handful, but there's got to be a bigger picture, right? Something to distract him from his on again/off again, doomed relationship with cheerleader Lanie Phelps, who has no idea her boyfriend is, well, dead. After all, he can't use his angel wings anymore. Neither can Amber. 

Enter Bo Shivers, Amber's "angel boss"—a mysterious A-word guy Jenna and Casey didn't even know existed. Whiskey-guzzling. Handsome in a grizzled way. Unpredictable. Okay, make that crazy. Bo lost his angel wings in an earthly flight a long, long, long time back—and he's been a thorn in Angel Management's side ever since. But Bo knows something is coming. Something big. Something that was worth forfeiting wings for Jenna... something that might just change everything for everyone.

Tell me what you think!!

Fall is Coming so it's Time for a Giveaway!!

Yes, I know it's still August. And I'm in Houston so it's still in the 90's and will stay that way for weeks. But we've had some cooler minutes this summer/month --a few miraculous mornings and evenings where I've been able to sit outside and read or walk the dog without slogging through the humidity. Of course then there have been the days where we come back and the bassett/boxer stands IN her water bowl, then collapses to the kitchen tile clutching her head with her wet paws. I wish I had an equivalent...

Still. Pumpkin ale just showed up on the grocery shelves. And school supplies and fall clothes have been wending their way into stores for a while now. Here where I live, the teachers all went back for inservice this week-- except for the ones who went last week because they've already started school. By this time next week, we'll all be back. And after my long haul in the public classroom, I still feel the pull  of it... It's almost time for high school Friday night football, after all!

I guess I have always love fall because I've set more than one book in that season. DREAMING ANASTASIA takes place in the fall. The sequel to THE SWEET DEAD LIFE, next year's THE A WORD, takes place right before Halloween. There is something about autumn that speaks to me. Something about summer's end and winter's beginning and the promise of spring. A new school year and my birthday and so many other things....

So, how do YOU feel about Fall/Autumn? What's your favorite thing or things? Cause even here in Texas where we are more seasonally challenged, it's still fall in so many ways!

Tell me what you LOVE about fall in the comments and one of you will WIN A SIGNED COPY of THE SWEET DEAD LIFE and a $5 Starbucks gift card!! So you can get a fall beverage once they're on the menu! Can you say Pumpkin Spice?

And come on out this Saturday 8/24 to the Pasadena TX Barnes and Noble at 2 PM where I'll be signing with 2 brilliant authors who are also lovely friends, CC Hunter and Mary Lindsey. Here's the link: http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/4535306

THE SWEET DEAD LIFE Educator's Guide Adventure and other Wednesday Stuff

I've done study guide questions before for my own work. Did these for the DREAMING ANASTASIA series, which my publisher even prettied up for me in the art department, although I I never did see them around again other than on my own web site. It happens. They are good questions, by the way. Some projects, too.

This week I'm working on Educator's Guide questions for the SWEET DEAD LIFE series. There is a certain fascination and yes, awkwardness in analyzing your own writing. Because here's the secret of my writing process: I am telling a story. I spin that story as best as I can through a full draft and then when I read it over, I discover all the subtext and themes and what have you. All the things that clearly weigh on my mind about life and love and faith and courage and redemption and second chances, which somehow tend to be the things I end up writing about. As Stephen King discusses in ON WRITING, I begin with a basic idea-- in this case 'girl's stoner brother comes back after a fatal car accident as her guardian angel and they solve a vast mystery' --and then wind things out from there. Only later do I see what I was really writing about beyond the basics of the plot.

And once I'd written THE A WORD, which is the sequel to Jenna and Casey's story and set to come out next May, 2014, I saw even more. This series that had begun as light and humorous and quirky actually had a serious core to it and that core got more serious as book 2 went on. I want to say it wasn't a surprise, but I think on some level it was. And then I knew I wasn't the only one who saw all this because there was Editor Dan, emailing and saying you know, we here at Soho Press think this book should have a Common Core Educator's Guide. Which was thrilling because I had written a small story that was suddenly larger than I thought and they were good with that. Delighted in fact.

Let me interject here that I know teachers and curriculum folks have varying opinions on the CC and the attached high stakes testing. I know that my home state Texas actually does its own high stakes testing thing. But let me say this: THE SWEET DEAD LIFE guide is as delightfully subversive as the books! It's the kind of guide I would actually have used as a teacher. Because what is good education if not asking the little suckers to THINK and formulate OPINIONS and FORMULATE a rebellious idea or two. Or else what are the teenage years for?

Turns out I'd ending up writing a book about American culture and faith and the sometimes wasteland that is the suburbs in addition to writing a quirky angel book with a Texas twist that's mostly a sibling story although in book 2 is largely about love. Yes! THE A WORD gives Jenna her first love!! I am so excited for you to read!

But back to the guide!

Here's how the first draft of that guide begins right now. It will change a little, but mostly this is it:

Part mystery, part angel book with a Texas twist, Joy Preble’s THE SWEET DEAD LIFE series is at its core a Vonnegut-esque sibling story of love, loss, faith and belief, of what it means to be good and the inherent human failings that cause us to fall from that.

Through the eyes of its young teenage narrator, Jenna Samuels, TSDL presents its readers with an epic battle of good and evil set in the modern wasteland of the Houston suburbs. A fifteen year old girl and her not-so-angelic guardian angel brother find themselves fighting a global conglomerate that has weaponized memory drugs with the real potential of controlling human society. (All against the backdrop of mall culture, fast-food tacos, and Texas high school football.)

Through the suggestions made in this Educator’s Guide, TSDL will challenge students in English and Humanities classrooms to think critically about life and society through darkly humorous and satirical lens.  Those discussions will take them beyond the pages of the novel and will be useful in constructing a Common Core-aligned curriculum. We hope you and your students accept THE SWEET DEAD LIFE’s invitation both to laugh and learn.

That last sentence is important to me since I come to writing through after a long haul in public school classrooms. I believe that we can take learning seriously but still laugh. A lot. And even poke a little fun at our own foibles. Yup. (Hey, I'm a former English teacher. I can use words like foibles.) 

Hope soon to show you the A WORD cover and maybe even the new look for the paperback TSDL cover, which will be out in February! The clever folks at Soho Press have outdone themselves. They really get it, this whole book creating business. I am one lucky girl.