BOOKS, WRITING, LIFE
I’m as excited to show you the cover of my next novel as… people are about their grinning newborns on holiday cards…
My husband (not a fiction reader) wasn’t drawn in but my beta readers loved the overall concept. What do you think?
The Dohmestics: A novel about six women, living in the same neighborhood, with similar, yet, separate lives. Read an early draft of the excerpt from the intro chapter.
Release date coming soon!
November. The dregs otherwise known as National Novel writing month. Last year I took the opportunity to write a novel fictionalizing my experiences at the women’s college, Peace, the administration of which a few months prior announced it would admit men The book, Saving Peace, was shortlisted for the Kindle Book Review‘s literary fiction prize. 
Over the summer I edited and released two books, rewrote a third, and wrote new chapters for a fourth. I was on a roll. All the while, NaNoWriMo loomed closer and closer. I tried to sweep my decks clear: I put the revision project on hold, cranked out another 10,000 words on the new project, and perfected a draft of my first short documentary film.
Into week two, one emotional crisis, several days of blank screens, and early bed times later, I’m several thousands of words behind. I have managed 6,000 words into this new project, the idea for which I had sometime last year. I booked November 2012 to write this story about a group of women who live in the same neighborhood yet are at odds with each other, despite the veneer of friendship. The twist? They’re all expats. Some of them have housemaids. One of them is pregnant, and no one knows who the father is.
The stuff of drama.
Hopefully tomorrow everything will calibrate itself and I will get back on the horse. Even if it doesn’t, I have an hour set aside to write with our local writers’ group, specifically as a NaNoWriMo write-in.
“You don’t even need to do this,” a good friend, a non-writer, said to me in the clear and encouraging voice of reason, trying to get the overachiever off the ledge. “You’ve already done it once and finished it.”
She made sense. She was right. But she’s never felt the vortex of NaNoWriMo. How the crazy energy of people talking about it, particularly on Twitter, makes you want to roll up your sleeves and be where the rest of the nerdy kids are.
Here’s a taste of this year’s NaNoWriMo, working title, The Dohmestics. And maybe you see why a lot of sleep is not in my immediate future. Did I mention we are hosting Thanksgiving this year?
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Chapter One
Edna tripped over a toy at the foot of the stairs. “Alice!” No one answered, not even Adam who could see her from where he was sitting at the kitchen table. Edna picked up the Barbie shoe, cursing her sister who had insisted in another extravagant Christmas to make up for the months when she was away from her niece.
“Have you seen Alice?”
Adam shook his head in the negative, eyes trained on the computer screen. From the way he was hunched over, she was certain he was playing another one of those games that gave her laptop a virus during his last trip home. On the floor in front of the television was more toy carnage: there were dolls in various state of dress and undress strewn around. More gifts.
“If you’re going to live so far away,” Chrissy loved to say, “then when you’re here, I get to do what I want.”
Edna plopped the plastic high heel on the entryway table and opened the front door. There were ten children in the road, boys on bikes, and nannies holding toddlers by the fingers as they took hesitant steps down the bricked street. No sign of either of her daughters.
“Alice,” she called from the front porch. There were several pieces of sidewalk chalk strewn around the front step. Edna picked these up, along with the discarded sandals Alice had left behind.
“She’s at the playground ma’am,” the neighbor’s nanny, Maria said. She was pushing a toddler, Hamad, in a pram, as he did his best to wail and squirm his way out. A few steps later Maria stopped and took a deep breath. Edna kept scanning the street. Anyone would need a few breaths with a screaming two year old boy. When she came back to Maria, the maid hadn’t moved. And Hamad was soothing himself with his thumb.
“Are you okay?”
Maria’s drawn face was her answer. Edna came down the two steps on the porch and led Maria by the arm to one of Alice’s play chairs. The wood was sturdy enough to hold an adult. Out of habit, she put the back of her hand on Maria’s forehead to feel if she had a temperature. No heat there.
“Tired?”
Maria was tight lipped and her skin waxen. A few beads of sweat appeared on her upper lip though October brought the cooler temperatures.
“Would you like some water?”
Maria opened her mouth to answer but stood up suddenly, nearly clipping Edna under the chin. She ran to a nearby bush and began retching. Despite the horrendous sounds, nothing was materializing.
“Maria!”
Edna began approaching the maid, now on her knees, the teal pants of her uniform in the sand. Hamad had fallen asleep, worn himself out from crying. The maid paused, took a few breaths and wiped her hand across her mouth and then her face. Edna bent down next to her.
“Should I call Noof?”
“No.” Maria’s quiet answer had a layer of desperation mirrored by the wrinkles on her forehead. “Please ma’am. I will be alright.” She struggled to her feet, Edna bracing her with an arm, and back to the stroller.
“If I see Alice I will tell her to come home.”
“Thanks,” Edna said. She watched Maria’s retreating back, wondering what Noof was doing at that exact moment. She had a fairly good idea that her Qatari friend was not picking up her children’s playthings or other discards. Or that she had any idea her ill maid was wheeling her toddler around with the risk of infection. Maria was one of the few people Edna trusted to babysit for Alice and Noof was willing to share her services when their family was traveling. The maid was normally so conscientious; the brief incident was very out of character.
Edna was torn between texting Noof, getting dinner ready and walking around the neighborhood to look for her daughter. The sun was setting, casting the adobe colored buildings in a haze. The grumble of her stomach won. She turned back into the house, sandals in one hand and chalk in the other.
We’re back in the studio today with writer Susan Buchanan to get the scoop on her latest release.
The Dating Game is her second novel, and published on 2nd Nov 2012. Sign of the Times, her first novel, was published in March 2012. She will shortly start work on her third novel, due for release Spring 2013. She’s a busy woman and clearly someone to tell us more about the business of writing!
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Life isn’t always easy. Juggling work, friendships and a social life can be hard. Finding the right person can be difficult. There’s no one right way of doing so. Sometimes even with the best engineered plans, Life has something else in store for you.
How much of the book is realistic?
All of the book is realistic, although only a few anecdotes are actually taken from any event I have experienced or any trait of anyone I know personally. There are no characters based on people I know. That said, one of the most cringeworthy events in the book actually happened. I wanted to write chick lit without the fluff, so contemporary fiction which reflected people’s everyday lives and the trials and tribulations that befall them, as well as the happy occasions. I like to think of it as chick lit with extra realism.
What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Editing it. I thought it would be easier than last time, as last time Sign of the Times started out at 300K words and was reduced after ten revisions to 120K. Don’t ask!
Anyway, The Dating Game started as 115K and is now around 110K. I learned a lot from last time. But I also learned a lot about proofing and editing my own work before it went out to the professionals, so that required a lot more revisions. As a writer, you constantly notice parts you would like to change, tiny proofing mistakes etc. It is neverending, but one day you have to decide ‘That’s me done with that,’ and move on. Otherwise you would go mad!
Tell us your latest news.
The Dating Game launched on 2nd November and I will take a few weeks simply marketing it. The launch lasts a week from 2nd-9th Nov. There is a whole series of events, raffles and competitons. You can win a copy of 1 of 55 ebooks and Amazon vouchers. It’s a huge event and took a lot of co-ordinating. Once the dust settles mid-November, I am going to start planning my third novel. All I can tell you about that at the moment is that it features a male protagonist, a few love interests along the way, several life lessons, plus several key decisions for my main character to make which will seriously impact on his life.
For more on this, best to follow the blog, as I willl post regular updates
www.susancbuchanan.blogspot.co.uk
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
First of all, thanks to those who have read Sign of the Times and shown an interest in my writing. I chose rather a bumper task for my first novel, in integrating the lives of 12 main characters, plus their entourages. The feedback I have had from readers boosted me to dust off the three chapters I had written of The Dating Game three years ago. I then wrote the rest, buoyed by my readers’ enthusiasm and their wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful!) reviews.
I also took on board that they loved certain aspects of my writing and I incorporate that into The Dating Game, specifically the section in Barcelona. My third novel will also feature a foreign country, again, because readers told me they particularly enjoyed reading the Italian section of Sign of the Times. They could almost taste the food, see the splendid scenery and ogle the gorgeous men! I love travelling and have been to many countries. My only difficulty was deciding which one to choose.
I have also enjoyed chatting with readers on Twitter and FB and many now leave me comments on my blog, too, which I love. I hope you enjoy The Dating Game and, all going well, I hope to have a third novel to share with you in the Spring.
