UK Television Here I Come

Three Lakes in Kanab, Utah 

     I had a great time last week doing a two and a half hour interview with Paul O’Connor from World Media Rights. He’s doing a television series in the UK called “Myth Busters.” This episode was about the many tales of Montezuma’s treasure being hidden in Kanab, a tiny town in southern Utah.

     I’ve written several short stories (fictional of course) about Montezuma’s treasure and Kanab—two of my favorite things. :)

     Paul found my stories on Amazon, emailed me about Kanab, and from there we had several great conversations about the area. In the end, I met up with Paul and his filming crew in Kanab where I enjoyed an afternoon talking with him about the Freddie Crystal story and the Three Lakes mystery (see the picture.)

     He said the series should air in 2014 on the channel Yesterday in the UK as well as other places. He’d let me know. I'll keep you posted. 

Spaces is Out and Teen Author Boot Camp is Over

Whew. March was quite a month. My first big news is that SPACES is for sale both as an ebook and paperback! The next big news is that Teen Author Boot Camp at UVU in Orem is done for twelve more months.

Now I get to start writing again. Seems like I've almost forgotten how.

If you didn't catch Teen Author Boot Camp, the on-demand videos of the classes will be coming out soon. You can find them at www.teenauthorbootcamp.com and click on Livestream.

And now, without further ado, is my book trailer for SPACES. Enjoy!

Upcoming Release of SPACES

Call it an excuse, but with getting my second Young Adult novel published and getting ready for Teen Author Boot Camp 2013, my blog has suffered. :(

However, I'm so excited to present the cover of my soon-to-be-released sequel to CYCLES . . .

SPACES!

Many thanks to everyone who helped make this a possible.

Also, if you haven't already, go check out www.teenauthorbootcamp.com to see the line up of Drill Sergeants in the annual, wonderful, totally fun Teen Author Boot Camp in Orem, Utah. I'll tell you this much, keynoting with be Newbery Honor winner Shannon Hale.

If you have a teen but don't live close to Utah, don't worry. This year the conference is going to be broadcast live via the internet on March 16, 2013, starting at 9 a.m.  (MST) I'll post more on that later.

Writers of the Purple Sage

In a few weeks, I'm heading to Southern Utah to present at a writing conference in Kanab, Utah called Writers of the Purple Sage. It's a strange name for a conference, so I thought I'd share a little history about it.

Riders of the Purple Sage (note the change from "Writers" to "Riders") is author Zane Grey's best-known novel, originally published in 1912. Most critics agree that it played a significant role in shaping the formula of the popular Western genre.

The novel tells tells the story of Jane Withersteen and her battle to overcome her persecution by members of her polygamous Mormon church, a leader of which, Elder Tull, wants to marry her. Withersteen is supported by Jim Lassiter, the famous gunman and killer of Mormons.

As you can imagine, when Riders of the Purple Sage was first published, residents in Southern Utah weren't very impressed with the book since it was rather critical of the Mormons. Now, 100 years later, the same area is doing a writers conference in memory of the once-hated book. Fascinating how time can change perspectives.

I’m presenting at the conference with members of my awesome writers groups, Writers Cubed. If you’re near the area you should check it out. The day-long event is a steal of a deal costing only $15 and supported by the Utah Humanities Council and Kanab’s CEBA (Center for Education, Business, and the Arts.)

Is There a Genre In Between MG and YA?

I think so.

Honestly, am I the only person who sees a huge difference between Diary of a Wimpy Kid and say Speak by Laurie Anderson? Okay, maybe not the best examples. However, the rule I've always heard is that middle grade books are for kids 9 to 12 and young adult is for those 12 and up.

Here's the thing. I find the interests of 9 year olds very different from that of 12 year olds, especially in girls. To continue that line of thought, 13 year olds are very different than 17 year olds.

I think we're missing a genre. A Tween genre. Something that goes from 11 to 14. I've heard some refer to this age group as "low-end" young adult. Personally, I don't like that description because it makes it sound like it's the quality of the book in question, not the age of its protagonist.

I write books with protagonists who are usually 14 and 15, and  I classify them in the young adult genre. However, when people read them they say I should market them as middle grade books, and they're probably right.

So what should I call them? Upper middle grade? Low-end Young Adult?

Suggestions anyone?

Sneak Peak Into New Writers Cubed Website

Writers Cubed (my writing group) is redoing the website. The above is a taste of what we've got planned. I can't wait!

Make Lemonade by Writing About Life’s Lemons

Bumps in the road. Who doesn’t have them? And for some people, they’re more like large boulders.

A few years ago, one such bump appeared in my path. In 2008 I was diagnosed with having Simple Partial Seizures. These kinds of seizures typically don’t affect motor skills, but they can affect all of your five senses (hence their other name: sensory seizures.) Mine created an odd mesh of symptoms, the most disconcerting of which was MASSIVE déjà vu where time slowed to a crawl and everything around me faded in and out. It was like I had lived that moment a thousand times before in a different life.

The diagnosis left me feeling pretty low. It meant I had to be on some pretty serious medication. It also meant the memory loss I had been experiencing probably wouldn’t come back. And it meant if I had another seizure I could lose my driver’s license. What is a mother with four kids supposed to do without a driver’s license?

Needless to say, I was stressed. I went to bed one night thinking about my recent trip to the neurologist. In my sleep, I had a vivid dream where there was a girl who had frightening feelings of having already experienced things before but in another lifetime. It wasn’t like reincarnation—the same soul come back to earth to live as someone or something else. Instead, it was like her life just kept repeating itself and she had moments where these “other-life” memories were intensely strong.

I woke up and knew I was going to write a book. A novel. Fiction! For me, that was something I never thought I could do. You see, I had been a freelance writer for twenty years, ever since graduating in journalism from college, but I had always told myself that fiction was way out of my league.

Writing the book CYCLES was therapy for me. Sure, the story is fake. Sure, things that happen in the book aren’t real, but in a weird way it helped me come to terms with my own “bump” and move on. Better yet, I learned I LOVED writing fiction. Twenty years of being afraid of writing a novel were gone.

I’m not alone in using fiction writing to work through hard things. A friend of mine lost her husband at the age of 26 in a flying accident. Simply tragic. It took her a year, but she finally wrote a short story about . . . you guessed it: someone losing their spouse and having to get over their fear of losing someone else. The story is called The Second Storm. It was hard for her to do, but it made a dent in the grief she was working through,

So, give it a try. Go ahead and make some lemonade with your writing. It’s certainly better than sucking on a sour lemon!

CYCLES is a top five finalist of the 2012 Kindle Book Review Best Indie Book. The grand finalist will be announced on October 1, 2012.