I was tagged by my new author friend Rachel Simon for the Liebster Award. I have to answer her ten questions about my work-in-progress and then tag some more people and give them my own questions. Since THE TRUTH ABOUT TWO-SHOES recently completed it’s agent round for Pitch Wars (more on that at a later date), I’m going to answer these questions about my newest projects…yes…plural. Why? Because I’m a crazy person in love with two different books and am writing them at the same time until one pulls ahead as the one I should focus on. Last night, I started leaning a little more one direction over the other, but it’s still too early to say.

But regardless, here are my to WIPs:  THE LIFE AND DEATH AND LIFE OF CRAIG and THE DAY I KNEW I’D BE MURDERED– both are  young adult contemporary thrillers.

1. Describe your current WIP in 6 words.

CRAIG: Doomsday-prepping foster kids running from druglords (I may have cheated by making drug lords one word. SUE ME!)

THE DAY: Boarding school girl tutors red-flagged sociopath

Read more about both of these here on my author site.

2. Who was the first fictional character you had a crush on?

I’m not sure I had too many of those. Maybe Gordo from Lizzie McGuire? I had a thing for nerds (still do!).

3. What authors would you like to do a panel with and why?

This is a hard one. I’d honestly be so humbled to be on any panel with other authors. I love meeting writers and hearing their process. It doesn’t really matter how successful they are or what they write. But for the sake of being optimistic, I’m going to say my author friends who currently have unpublished works that are close to making their debut (I’ll tag some of those lovely writers at the bottom of this so you can visit their blogs since I’m giving them the award too!).

4. What is your favorite beverage to have when writing?

Really depends on my mood. Currently it’s anything hot (probably because it’s on the verge of snowing every day now) whether it’s green tea, chai tea, mocha lattes, or hot chocolate.

5. What is your favorite beverage to have when revising?

I literally edit with a gallon jug of water next to my desk so I can stay hydrated. If I’m not hydrated, my brain cannot work at all. Like…it cramps. Like a charlie horse for my noggin. Not pretty.

6. If you could describe your main character as a candy, what would it be and why?

For CRAIG, l there are two main characters whose point of views are being shared:

The first is obviously Craig, the 17-year-old foster kid obsessed with doomsday prepping. He’d probably be a jawbreaker because he seriously believes he cannot die. Talk about an invincibility complex.

The second main character is Trust (short for Trustine), a 16-year-old foster kid who puts up with Craig because she doesn’t have many options for friends so she gets in on the doomsday prepping stuff for lack of a better thing to do. She’d probably  be a Ferrero Rocher– hard and prickly on the outside, but smooth and sweet once you get past her hard outer shell.

For THE DAY, the main character is a sophomore named Mia who was dumped at a super isolated boarding school while her parents travel the world on last minute notice. She’s a total word-vomiting empath without a filter, so her candy would probably be….eh… let’s just say old school Fun Dip. Just cuz. Those things always confused me as a kid, but I loved them anyway.

7. Did you ever change a character’s name (in any of your works)? And from what to what?

I did for once! Usually that’s something I never mess with. Once a character tells me his or her name, they’re stuck with it.  Francis Grace in THE TRUTH ABOUT TWO-SHOES was originally named Katie Beth until a coworker’s wife made some very valid points on why I should change it to Francis Grace, but those are unfortunately a secret. Maybe one day…

Oh and last night in THE DAY,  I changed a librarian’s name to Zeborah. You gotta trust me on this one, guys.

8. If you could describe your WIP in a song, what would it be?

I actually just picked a theme song for THE LIFE AND DEATH AND LIFE OF CRAIG the other night, and then added a second song to the playlist to get me started. The husband says the two songs don’t go together, but I don’t care. But here’s the theme song (for right now, at least):

THE DAY, doesn’t have a play list yet, but I’ll let you know when something hits me.
EDIT: No lie. Two seconds after I published this, someone recommended a song and I was like, “Eh. This works maybe.” So just in case:

9. What is your main character’s astrological sign?

I actually hadn’t entirely thought about that yet for either book, though I’m not really into those. But CRAIG opens on Trust’s birthday– though I’m still deciding on what time of year to make it in. So far I’m leaning toward August…so I guess whatever sign is for August people?

10. If you could re-cast your favorite movie for today’s audience, who would play who?

My favorite movie is the classic PRINCESS BRIDE and that thing was sheer perfection. I’d recast with all the original actors (including the ghost of Andre the Giant to play Fezzik) and have them do it all over again.

WHO IS NEXT?

Here some of my lovely author friends who deserve some love and are being tagged for the Blog Hop!

Emily Herring Dunn
Jessica Bloczynski 
E.G. Moore
Kathleen S. Allen
Mary Ann Nicholson 
Margarita Montimore

And for their Liebster Award, here are the 10 questions:

1) How did you come up with your WIP’s title?
2) What motivates you to write?
3) Do you find yourself putting past experiences in your book? Give an example!
4) What is your main character’s biggest obstacle?
5) What is your crutch word that you always have to go back and delete because you use it too many times?
6) Who is your author role model and why?
7) What happens in your favorite scene from your WIP?
8) Please share a favorite line from your manuscript!
9) Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year?
10) What advice do you have for other authors