The Next Big Thing

I know, I know.  I said I wasn’t going to blog this month, if at all possible.  I lied?

It was my full intention not to, but I was tagged in a blogging meme by the lovely Stephanie Allen and figure it might be worth a little procrastination to talk about The Recruited, which is currently the only one of my novels in a semi-decent place.

1.  What is the working title of your book?

THE RECRUITED.  That’s basically been the title since I was able to come up with one.  It kind of grew on me.

2.  Where did the idea for the book come from?

This was so long ago I almost don’t remember, but I can say that the characters were the ones who spawned the basic premise.  When I started developing the idea, I had two people.  One was a woman in her early twenties who fought terrorists for her government.  One was a fifteen year old girl who had just killed her boyfriend.  Somehow I got the idea to combine these two women and even out their age.  Eighteen-year-old Naomi, a convicted murderer with a job hunting terrorists for the government, was born that way, and the rest of the plot sort of spun itself from there.

3.  What genre does your book fall under?

YA thriller.

4.  Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I am the last person in the world anyone should ask to select actors/actresses, so I’m going to have to give the cop-out answer and say that I have no idea.

5.  What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Recruited by the government to help fight Renegade terrorists, Naomi must keep her growing friendship with a gang member a secret from her employers–and the Renegades themselves–if both of them are to survive.

6.  Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I would love for it to be represented by an agency, but since I’m querying, that’s fairly obvious.

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

If I remember correctly, I started in September of 2009, did the majority of the project during National Novel Writing Month, and finished right before I went back to school for second semester in January of 2010.  I believe that equals about four months.

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

The Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter is similar, in that they both deal with girls hunting terrorists, even though the character motivations of Carter’s protagonist and Naomi are pretty different.  In terms of the guy and girl coming together from two very different lifestyles, there are definite similarities to Marie Lu’s Legend.  However, I’m not 100% sure that counts because Legend is a dystopian and though THE RECRUITED bears similarities to a dystopian, I really don’t think it quite fits the bill.

9.  Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I’m going to sound like such a paranoid weirdo saying this, but as a huge fan of the TV show Prison Break when it aired, I was fascinated with the idea of characters constantly looking over their shoulders because of some unseen but incredibly ominous threat.  That was very much the feel I tried to create with THE RECRUITED.

10.  What else about your book might pique a reader’s interest?

I say this as someone who is pretty familiar with YA as a genre, but my novel isn’t like anything I’ve seen out there right now.  (Here’s hoping I haven’t committed some massive error claiming that, but from what I’ve seen, it’s fairly true.)  It takes the modern issue of terrorism and spins it in a new, and I hope, terrifying direction.  Plus, the two most major characters like each other despite not trusting each other very much at all.  Who can resist that?  😉

I don’t really have anyone to tag, but if anyone stumbles across this, feel free to give it a shot.