So, I’m just coming down from the week of the Writer’s Conference. It was fantastic. Really tired but I know the direction I’m going in with my next book The Seaheart. I had started to blog it and was going to write it during Nano/November last year like I did Heart of Clouds but I was thrown off track.
I’m writing heterosexual coming of age tales that are age-appropriate — so my main character Teenie was 13 in Heart of Clouds. By the end of the book she had held hands and had a first crush on a boy.
In The Seaheart, Teenie’s parents will be going through a divorce and Teenie is living on Catalina Island. She will be meeting Lancer — who is a sailor and she is 14 this year.
I want to show bullying in family systems in the novel — in one of Teenie and Lancer’s friends. Also Teenie will be learning about art from the eccentric painter Patsy Greenbriar who lives in the mysterious Victorian house.
Making notes today — pretty tired after the exhausting week, but I feel really good about what I learned there this time. I bought a fab book on writing from my teacher Lisa — this one:
Can’t wait to delve into the ideas we worked on in class in terms of POV. My favorite thing at the Conference was Simon Van Booy and his lecture on writing. He was so gentle and soft-spoken — exquisite to listen to.
Literary fiction writers are far and few between I think. He’s one and I’m one, and my editor is one.
He was discussing how he found his voice. I think that I found mine when I wrote Heart of Clouds. It’s very sacred to me and what did in the book is for healing in terms of the deeper interventions inside the text.
Anyway, need sleep today — exhausted!
A start on The Seaheart characters is here.
I think I will upload it into Scribd.com as I go —
xxoo!
Adrienne
VALENTINE BONNAIRE - WRITER 