Wednesday, September 13, 2017

A Writing Reboot

Last night I went to the kick-off event for Celeste Ng's second novel, Little Fires Everywhere.


If you haven't read her first book, Everything I Never Told You, then you should get on that. Celeste is a Cambridge resident and Porter Square Books is her home store, so she started her book tour there last night with friends and cake and a lot of laughs. I can't wait to start Little Fires Everywhere this weekend after I finish Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke.

Earlier in the day I'd seen that Reese Witherspoon had chosen Little Fires Everywhere for her book club, so obviously I had to ask when I reached the front of the signing line. "How'd you feel when you saw Reese's post this morning?" And Celeste just kind of sat there, like her brain had sputtered to a stop, as you do when Reese Witherspoon deigns to turn her spotlight on you. She'd received an email just before the picture was posted and Celeste couldn't figure out how to respond. It seemed presumptuous to address her as Reese, but Ms. Witherspoon seemed wrong as well. Prediction, Reese will buy the rights to turn Little Fires Everywhere into a movie or miniseries like she did with Big Little Lies.

So I went home and crawled into bed and lay there until well past midnight thinking about a woman in the crowd who'd asked if Celeste purposefully starts her stories in the middle of everything and my brain naturally whizzed off to this place I wasn't expecting - the beginning of this story I've been mulling over for two years now. I started it over a year ago, only got a few pages into it and stopped, putting it to the back of my mind. But last night I realized I was starting it in the wrong place, that I needed to jump further in, and then it suddenly started unspooling, as books do when I'm in that sleepy space, and now I've got a lot of work ahead of me. But I'm happy about it because lately I haven't been all that interested in writing, and that's a weird mental space for me to be in.

It's not YA and it's not related to Kissing Frogs and I'm okay with it. It's something new and exciting. So here we go.

~ Stephanie

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1 comment

  1. I am so excited for you that your wheels are turning with a new book idea! Go get 'em!!

    ReplyDelete

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