Well the book is out finally! In the last few weeks I’ve been going back and fourth between anxiety and excitement about it’s release. But when I announced it yesterday via Facebook there seemed to be a lot of excitement about it so hopefully I’ll come through and do better on this one than I did on the first.
Echoes was a great project, one that really shaped the way I ended up as a writer, the things I wrote about, the things I found were getting closer to my heart, but I have to admit after putting out Make It Out Alive, I can see how much I’ve evolved as a person and a writer. Claire and Key and the rest are back obviously but as it does in teenagers a lot of things have changed for them.
What I found to be the most interesting this time around was I obviously had an idea for what I wanted it to be about. A young native kid trying to make it through his adolescence into his own life, what I didn’t expect was that I’d come to know my characters so well that that’s really I could have for an outline. By the point I started really working on MIOA I knew my characters so well that the story practically wrote itself. I’d say well I want this scene in here, but sometimes when I got going my instinct for how I knew my characters would react to something blew it out of the water. The scene I had wanted to write just wasn’t plausible with the way the characters had reacted to whatever circumstance they were in. The whole ending was changed based on that issue alone.
I remember feeling a lot of relief when I finished Make It Out Alive. I can’t tell you all way because it’ll ruin the ending but I definitely feel like it was the right way to close out that part in Alden’s Hollow.
I’d like to say I’m officially done with Alden’s Hollow, but for some time now I’ve wanted to write a book surrounding Sam post Claire and Aiden’ Graduation. So there’s always a possibility that you’ll see this crew again.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m not sure what I’m doing next. I’m sorry to report that I’m still in that limbo phase (which is my most hated phase of the whole writing process) I still have a few stories I’m mulling around in my head but the truth is a character hasn’t caught my attention yet. That’s how Echoes and Make It Out Alive came to be. Claire Weston and Key Loonsfoot were characters I loved who’s stories needed to be told. I have a ton of character names (That people often confuse as future children’s names) stored in my phone but nothings jumping out on me. But if it does you people will be the first to know.
Take care for now party people. I’ll be back soon.
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