I have finally done
it! Late last night I uploaded my first young adult Indie publication to
Smashwords. Off Leash is my baby or rebirth in a way. It was an extremely hard
book for me to write and took me over a year to polish and feel comfortable
with to launch. The book was also a semi-finalist in the 2011 Amazon
Breakthrough Novel Contest which had it's own ups and downs. I feel totally
awed that it made it that far. And while two publishers expressed interest one
passed on it and another publishing company folded. Five years ago that would
have broken my heart. Not anymore. One good thing about this movement of Indie
publications for authors is that the stories we feel most compelled to tell are
getting told.Someone once asked me where I got the story idea for Off Leash. It's two-fold. One I will admit I was in a writing rut and looking to move into a new genre so when my eldest son took a dog walking job with a neighbour I used that to start the story. The second aspect was I wanted the book to touch on poverty and more importantly I wanted to write about a little girl suffering with cancer because for me I wanted to write about my good friend, Sissy, who died when she was very young. I never forgot her and I wanted my character in this book to feel that way so I created Jay Walker, who's angry at life and the circumstances beyond his control which force him to make adult-like decisions but who loves his little sister with all his heart.
When I came across a US article on dog fighting I thought why not add that element into the story. Turns out dog fighting really does happen in Nova Scotia so in a way my fiction was based on reality.
You can read an excerpt of Off Leash and pick your ending - the nitty gritty real life ending based on reality or the Hollywood happily-ever after ending. I'm very curious to see which ending sells more.
Thanks so much
Renee Pace
1 comment:
Hi, Renee. Congratulations!
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