Fellow writer and Tribemate on Triberr, Justin Bog, tagged me in an innovative writer

meme where we each post ten answers about a work in progress. I’m going to answer based on the work I’m doing for the first novel I ever tried to write and now the third one that will be released.

1. What is the working title of your book?

An Unlikely Goddess

2. Where did the idea come for the book?

This is the classic coming of age story about a young girl growing up in the U.S. as the child of  South Indian immigrant parents. People will no doubt ask how much of the story is autobiographical (an editor already has). The protagionst’s trajectory is more the sum of a series of eexpereinces, real and imagined, mine and those of others.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Literary fiction

4.  Which characters would you choose to play your characters in the movie version?

Hmmm… I love to discover new talent. And this cast would be mostly South Indian so the film may be a great way to highlight some new up and coming actors.

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

Where will Sita find the community she longs for? Within the Hindu culture she grew up in or amongst the Christians she chose for herself?

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

I’ve shopped the manuscript around to several agents over the years it’s been in progress and received the standard “much to be admired but we didn’t love it.” This is one of the many projects that sparked my decision to go into self publishing.

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

I’m not great at keeping up with dates like this because I don’t write down when I start a project but I do know that it was sometime in 2003 that I started. The latest revision is easier to pinpoint since it started in August.

8. What other books would you compare this story with in your genre?

In some ways this is like the female version of The Namesake by Jhumpha Lahiri.

9.  What or who inspired you to write this book?

I wanted to write a book about immigrant life that focused on a younger protagonist and a family that struggled to make good on the American dream since so many of the other stories in this genre feature thirtysomethings in suburbia.

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

The search for happiness is universal so I hope readers recognize themselves in Sita.

 

Now I get to tag five other writers so you check out their work and hopefully they’ll post about their new projects as well.

1. Lynn Boston, author of The Third Eye triology. A rolicking first installment on finding out about past lives and buried treasure.

2. Amelia Curzon, author of the inventive Mungai and the Goa Constrictor, in the vein of an Aesop fable and Pixar feature film.

3. Gale Martin, whose fiesty protagonist will have you rooting for her quest for love in Grace Unexpected.

4. Lynn Thompson will keep you turning pages to see what happens to the sleep walking Montana in the supernatural Montana Dayton series.

5. Take a step back in time with this Dickens inspired tale of changing fortune by Eileen Granfors of Sydney’s Story.

 

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