Today I have fellow Curiosity Quills author, Aja Hannah, dropping in. I've asked her the most wonderful question ever--the same one I always ask. What part of you is in your main character.
Take it away, Aja!
~The first editor who ever read my novel had thick glasses and she towered above me in a splattered-colored chair at the Maryland Writers Conference. I was still painfully shy in those days and I could not keep my eyes on her pink face. Instead, I would repeatedly glance over the open room, searching the other tables and the abundance of professionally dressed people. As if I were waiting for one of them to say, “Is that kid really here? What a waste of time.”
One author at a table adjacent to us was furiously scribbling down everything their editor was saying—I’d forgotten a notepad and a pen—while another author stuck his hand out on his query and pointed, arguing with his chosen agent.
The editor pulled out my papers from a black folder and told me I had submitted too many. “The standard is to double-space the work,” she said.
I probably apologized. Hopefully. But honestly, I can’t remember and I don’t think it mattered to her because all I remember is her talking a lot after that and very fast because I was late and we only had a few minutes.
She pulled the first page out and said something to the effect of: “I can tell you’re using your own voice. Your main character is a lot like you.”
My immediate response was to backtrack. “Attie is more violent than I am.”
The editor grinned at me. “It’s a good thing to have such a distinct voice.”
I don’t know why it bothered me to hear that Attie was like me. I have an affinity for “A” names but aside from that I never meant to make her someone like me.
Still, I’d have to say Attie is not too far from the rough-and-tumble kid I was in high school.
We both hated our hair.
We both wore more modest clothes—more modest than Kate anyway.
We both had a rather blunt way of putting things.
But it goes deeper than that. I kept to myself a lot and had only a few close friends. While I never got in trouble with teachers, peers and adults told me that I looked “intimidating” by the way I walked down the hallways and never seemed to smile.
Trust has never come easy to me, and—while I’m no Zarconian—I kept some serious secrets from even my closest friends.
I am proud to say that that’s no longer the case. I’ve grown a little more open and a little less shy since the start of Zarconian Island. And, as I complete the sequel, I hope readers will see that Attie has too.
One author at a table adjacent to us was furiously scribbling down everything their editor was saying—I’d forgotten a notepad and a pen—while another author stuck his hand out on his query and pointed, arguing with his chosen agent.
The editor pulled out my papers from a black folder and told me I had submitted too many. “The standard is to double-space the work,” she said.
I probably apologized. Hopefully. But honestly, I can’t remember and I don’t think it mattered to her because all I remember is her talking a lot after that and very fast because I was late and we only had a few minutes.
She pulled the first page out and said something to the effect of: “I can tell you’re using your own voice. Your main character is a lot like you.”
My immediate response was to backtrack. “Attie is more violent than I am.”
The editor grinned at me. “It’s a good thing to have such a distinct voice.”
I don’t know why it bothered me to hear that Attie was like me. I have an affinity for “A” names but aside from that I never meant to make her someone like me.
Still, I’d have to say Attie is not too far from the rough-and-tumble kid I was in high school.
We both hated our hair.
We both wore more modest clothes—more modest than Kate anyway.
We both had a rather blunt way of putting things.
But it goes deeper than that. I kept to myself a lot and had only a few close friends. While I never got in trouble with teachers, peers and adults told me that I looked “intimidating” by the way I walked down the hallways and never seemed to smile.
Trust has never come easy to me, and—while I’m no Zarconian—I kept some serious secrets from even my closest friends.
I am proud to say that that’s no longer the case. I’ve grown a little more open and a little less shy since the start of Zarconian Island. And, as I complete the sequel, I hope readers will see that Attie has too.
My stomach knotted tighter, winding so hard it hurt.
Kate watched me, rubbing a piece of her hair between two fingers.
I bit my tongue, trying to work the words out.
"The boat …we're going under.”
Possessing powers that are feared and shunned, eighteen-year-old Alexandra “Attie” Hotep is no virgin to attacks. Her ancestors, the Zarconians-- mixed-blood inhabitants of Atlantis--were rumored to be the English fairies who kidnapped children, the Caribbean sirens that sunk ships, and the dream-like apparitions who broke into psyches. By the 1850s, they were hunted to near-extinction, leaving the existence of Atlantis and Zarconians little more than myth.
When a class trip turns deadly, Attie and her friends become stranded on an uncharted tropical island in the middle of the Pacific, and Attie finds herself targeted once more. With a jungle full of extinct and prowling animals, she struggles to find a compromise between keeping her friends safe and keeping her family's secret.
Enter Doug Hutchinson—the school’s soccer star, and a handsome boy with his own secrets. But Attie and Doug soon realize the animals aren't the only threat. There is a traitor amidst the group, one that plans to turn all Zarconians into permanent myths. And Attie is next on the list.
You can find her book on Amazon!
