My Next Big Thing (Blog Hop Post)

What is the working title of your book or project?

Stumbling Through the Dark, a memoir of my final year with my husband as we faced his death from leukemia

 

Where did the idea come from?  When he was first diagnosed, I thought of writing a cheerful book called Leukemia Wife on how to help your husband cope with cancer.  As he got sicker and sicker, my focus changed to documenting our final days together.

 

What genre does it fall under?  Memoir

 

Who would you choose to play your characters in a movie?  Oh, George Clooney for the husband, of course.

 

What is a one-sentence synopsis of your manuscript?  Stumbling Through the Dark is the story of an interfaith couple facing the greatest spiritual challenge and of a woman who lost her husband but eventually found herself.

 

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?  I have just signed a contract with a publisher whom I contacted directly.

 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript.  I wrote it in about 3 months and unfortunately didn’t back it up.  I had about half in hard copy when my computer crashed, taking the manuscript with it.  I figured if I could rewrite one sentence, I could rewrite the whole thing, so I did.  All in all, with revisions and more revisions, it probably took close to a year.

What other books or stories would you compare this story to within the genre?  Probably Joyce Carol Oates story on her widowhood. 

 

Who or what inspired you to write the book?  I’d been writing romance for quite some time and my husband’s illness changed my focus.  My last romance came out the year after he died.  Since his death, I’ve worked mainly on creative non-fiction.  Recently I co-edited On Our Own:  Widowhood for Smarties, which came out in October.

 

What else about the book might pique readers’ interest?

Basically I believe this is a love story, a story of hope.  And one very important character is a possum…but that’s near the end.

 

Thanks to Nancy Hinchliff  for inviting me to join this blog hop.  Find out about Nancy's Next Big Thing at www.amemorabletimeofmylife.blogspot.com

Rossandra White will be posting at at www.rossandrawhite.com about her next big thing. 

Please check out both of their posts.