Steampunk & Young Adult – HOT Topics Today!
The Steampunk sub-genre and Young Adult books are HOT on the shelves these days. I've been saving this news for when we were further along…and some of you who are close to my husband and I already know…but at the RT Convention in Chicago this past April, I pitched a Young Adult Steampunk series to both Melissa Frain of Tor Books (our dream publisher) and fabulous literary agent Eric Ruben. They both wanted to see a synopsis and the first three chapters of the first book in the series. Needless to say, DeWayne and I were just ecstatic…and still are!! However, we were also really nervous because I pitched a series we hadn't even begun writing.
Well, that's not true. I actually wrote what is now book 2 of the series way back in high school. The story was called Dragon's Claw and I've had the premise of the series idea up on my web site for quite some time. However, pitching the story to both Mr. Ruben and Ms. Frain and them showing interest put a blow torch under my tushie, so DeWayne and I really had to get cracking on the flushing the entire series out. For the record, I do NOT recommend pitching a story, let alone a series, until it's been written. LOTS of pressure and LOTS of work crammed into a short period of time.
The Keystone Chronicles – 9 Books
Though the publisher usually has control over titles, we've named the series The Keystone Chronicles and Book 1 is Havencrest: The Awakening. DeWayne and I are writing this together and we'll be using a combination of our real names for the pen name C.G. Henderson (C = Charles, G = Gina, and Henderson is our last name). For those of you who don't know, my husband's buy xanax us pharmacy full name is Charles DeWayne, but we all call him DeWayne. It's a southern thang.
Though we've been under a lot of pressure, it's been a LOT of fun and the good news is DeWayne and I just finished outlining the entire series as of last night. I'm now crafting the synopsis for all nine books. I've already done the 3-page synopsis for the first book and I've written just under 5,000 words of the first novel in the series. Holy cow, have we created a detailed world! Every story in the series is different, even though each young person in the story is tasked with unlocking a magical stone. We have mystery, suspense, action, adventure, puzzles to solve, bad guys to conquer and all within the diverse world we call Evanterra – a planet about the size of Mars
with seven continents of various cultures. Steampunk gadgets, airships, technology and atmosphere will season all the books, but this is a mixture of some high fantasy as well. Dragons, unicorns, faeries, elves, wizards and centaurs are crawling out of hibernation after 3,000 years and these young people with their own magical creatures will be the key to saving their planet. Whew!
Almost Ready to Deliver
The deadline to have a synopsis for the series, a synopsis for the 1st book and the 1st three chapters of the 1st book is due at the end of the month. Yes, that means no later than tomorrow! I'd better get crackin'! I will keep you posted as to what Eric says and whether or not we'll seduce his representation for our series. Wish us luck!! In the meantime, I will dream of bidding wars, movies made, merchandising gone wild and popularity that surpasses Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games! I can dream, right?
That's my two pence…
Arial
a.k.a. C.G. Henderson 😉
