Teaser!

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!

I don’t even know what is happening right now with my book. I believe it has just gone through a round of developmental editing. After I spoke with my book project manager at the beginning of the month he took the notes from our conversation and brought them to the editors to make sure that we were all on the same page. I love that they make it a priority to get the okay from me first before doing anything. Because right now it seems so out of my hands…I don’t even dare open up the final word document I submitted to them in May. I just know I will want to change things, and right now, I can’t. It is completely out of my hands. When Tyler and I spoke (that’s my manager) he wanted to know who my target audience was and what I wanted to tell them with my book. So, I thought I would give ya’ll some of the information I gave Tyler…and then at the end I’ll let you read the teaser I sent them last week!

·         My target audience is young adults, but I hope this story touches more than that. It is written from a young adult’s prospective (Molly) and by a young adult (that’s me!), so it makes sense that young adults would connect to this story the easiest. And yet I focus on issues that every age group struggles with, so if you’re a young mom or if you’re an old woman I hope you can still connect to this story. I know men will be reading this too, and that audience will be tougher for me to reach. They are somewhat foreign to me, so I apologize. J But because my message is so distinctly Christian I like to believe that God will reach every heart he wants to, regardless of age or gender.

·         I want people to see God in a new way when they read this. If they are non-Christians, I hope the message gets them thinking about God. I hope it gets them questioning, and I hope that questioning will lead them to seek answers from people who want to provide them. I hope people email me and ask me about Jesus…that would make my heart so happy. For Christians, I want them to struggle with Molly, who is herself a Christian and falls away. Bad things happen to Molly, and she tries to run away from them…she gets angry and questions God. I want my readers to connect with her, to remember times when they felt the same way and to realize that God is bigger than those bad things, and that it is okay to cry out to him and ask why. In the end, I just want all my readers to see what an awesome, wonderful, mighty, and extremely loving and forgiving God we serve.

·         A sub-goal of mine is to educate people about sexual abuse in dating relationships. Oftentimes when people think about rape, a scary man jumping out behind some pushes and attacking a poor, helpless woman comes to mind. We tend to think that rape is carried out by strangers, when in fact many more rapes are carried out by people the victim knows. Sneaky of me to try and educate people with a story, right? But it’s effective. I hope to entertain and educate. I will be talking to my editors later about possibly including more information about date rape in the back of the book, because young people need to be aware that this happens, and that it happens frequently. (Social worker coming out in me…always striving for prevention)

Earlier when I talked to Tyler he asked me how attached I was to my title, because they might need to change it. While I said I would be okay with it, I’m really not. But because they loved my teaser and I used the name Another Ending in it, I am hoping they leave the title alone. It ties into a line in the book, and it just fits so well with what happens to Molly. I’ll let you read it and decide:

“In one moment Molly Taylor’s world is flipped upside down, and life loses all meaning. When it becomes more than she can take, she runs—from her dark situation, from her family and friends, and from God himself. Fully convinced that God no longer cares for her, she searches for peace away from him, only to run into endings time after time. Another Ending is a story of hope and forgiveness; for while Molly searches for answers away from God, she realizes that only through him can we face darkness. Only through his grace do our endings turn into new beginnings.”

Yup. Took me an HOUR to write that short little teaser. It had to be 100 words or less, and that is beyond hard! Summing up an entire book in 100 words, and not giving away any major plot events, is incredibly hard. But I did it. Let me know what you think, and when I get more information on what the next steps will be I will post again.