Author Archives: Corrie Garrett

Pride and Prejudice and Politics

My next novel is coming soon! My goal is October of 2018, but I’m still learning my way through efficient indie-publishing, so I’m holding that lightly.

What is it about? Well, for those of you who haven’t heard me moaning and hand-wringing my way through this, it is a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice! Unlike my Jane Eyre retelling, this one is straight-up contemporary–no paranormal or alien characters in sight. It’s the very first time I’ve written something like this, so it was definitely a challenge!

Working description: 

In the summer of 2016, in drought-ridden Southern California, Elena Benitez heads home to help her parents handle cabin rentals while her dad recuperates.

When one of the elite guests falls hard for her older sister, Elena is uneasy. Charles seems like a great guy – despite being a Republican state representative – but he’ll never be interested in Elena’s sister when he realizes she’s an undocumented immigrant, a ‘dreamer’ brought to the US as a child by her own undocumented parents.

Elena can’t wait until Charles is gone, along with his opinionated and arrogant friend Darcy. And if Elena’s sisters are right that Darcy is hitting on her, well, that just makes it worse.

In a national election season of unfettered passion and prejudice, Elena has nothing to guide her but her instincts, and she’d sooner believe Trump could win than she could ever fall in love with a man like Darcy.

 

I always mess around with covers for a new book, trying to decide what I want to emphasize. Here are some of my mock-ups. Feel free to let me know what you do or don’t like! img_2744.jpg

Kindle Scout Results

Rise and Fall-ThumbnailUnfortunately my book was not selected for the Kindle Scout program, so you will be getting a notification of that! It’s always a let down to get rejected, but this was still a great experience. My book was short-listed and so I received very helpful feedback from one of Amazon’s editors. They read my whole book and advised me on market expectations, endings, dialogue, and all kinds of things. Thanks so much for helping me get to that level! I will be utilizing the feedback (at least some of it!), and then indie-publishing the novel through Amazon. I will make sure to announce when it is available! (Probably mid-December). Thanks again everybody!

If you’d like to be notified when it is available and/or has a free promotion day, sign up here!

Still Waters Release!

unnamedPhew, time to move on from Kindle Scout to other news! I’m so happy to have my Little Mermaid retelling included in the most recent anthology by C.J. Brightley. If you love J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, and other uplifting fantasy writers, this anthology is for you.

“Noblebright fantasy is fantasy with a thread of hope even in the darkest hour, with characters who strive to do the right thing, even when it costs them everything.

In this exciting collection of noblebright fantasy, fresh new fantasy voices and award-winning authors explore grief and hope, sacrifice and heroism. Rediscover the best aspect of classic fantasy – the noblebright ideals that made heroes heroic, even when the world grew dark around them.”

My fairy-tale adaptation is called “The Ice of Heaven” and was actually inspired by my nine-year-old daughter. She wrote a fun little story about Galileo traveling to one of the moons he discovered and finding life. (She totally has the heart of a historical fantasy writer, if I do say so myself!)

Check out the anthology, you’ll love it. Links for all retailers below:

Amazon B&N/Nook Kobo | iBooksGoogle PlaySmashwords

facebook for stillwaters

 

Word Art: The Rise and Fall of Jane

Fun stuff from my Jane Eyre tumblr campaign. And because pictures are fun!

Kindle Scout link: http://amzn.to/2i8DZlb <- Get the book free if you nominate during October!

crack quotereflectionNature with a capital Nfilters in my mind

Kindle Scout campaign details

Rise and Fall-ThumbnailI’m ten days into my Kindle scout campaign, and several other writers have asked how much information I get as I go along. This may not be every reader’s cup-of-tea, but I thought I’d throw some thoughts up here.

First, if you have a moment, don’t forget to nominate my Jane Eyre romance! 😘 I really appreciate it.

Okay, deets. When you have a campaign going, you get a dashboard that looks like this:

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The “Hours in Hot & Trending” seems to b a key metric, though I’ve heard anecdotally that it’s only one factor the Amazon team looks at. There have certainly been titles who trended a ton and didn’t get selected and vice versa. This dashboard updates once a day, in the morning.

Anyway, I had a big push at the beginning (mainly from friends and family and readers (thanks!) and from the visibility of being new. My page reads have been pretty steady since then, but we’ll see how it goes. So that’s my sneak peek. Good luck to my fellow writers who are planning on giving it a whirl!

Don’t forget to nominate The Rise and Fall of Jane! And let me know in the comments if you’re considering your own campaign!

Thanks

Corrie Garrett

 

The Rise and Fall of Jane

Rise and Fall-ThumbnailHurray! Almost three years after starting a contemporary retelling of Jane Eyre, it is polished and almost published! During the month of October, it will be up on Kindle Scout for readers to sample and nominate.

About the book: Jane Agosto wants to leave her lonely, dysfunctional past behind when she gets a job as a nanny at Miles Hayes’s mansion. It only takes a few encounters with Miles for her to feel drawn to him, but Jane refuses to be THAT nanny, the one who falls for her boss. She’s no Cinderella, and she won’t break her heart on a wealthy player, or raise the hopes of the little girl she cares for. But when attempted murder shakes up the family, Jane’s heart falters. Should she trust Miles, or hit the road?

You can read the first three chapters and nominate here!

What are the difficulties of writing a Jane Eyre re-telling or spin-off?

Well, first of all, it’s been done. It’s been done well. It’s been done with literary and poetic excellence. I’m thinking Wide Sargasso Sea and things of that magnitude. Yikes, right? I’ve also enjoyed several modern re-tellings, plus the innovative YouTube show The Autobiography of Jane Eyre that I loved!

So, I tried to decide what I hadn’t seen in the re-tellings that I wanted:

I wanted more faith. It is an integral part of the original story, but most modern re-tellings gloss right over it. I particularly wanted a Jane who wasn’t sleeping with her boss by the time the big twist comes. For me, without the moral and spiritual conflict, most of Jane’s reaction is lost.

A twist with the “Bertha” character that is not drugs. I get that drug addiction or related mental problems make sense in this retelling, but I wanted to do something else.

A Gothic sense of dread and supernatural. In the original, particularly the end when Jane hears Rochester’s voice over thousands of miles, there is a sense of natural (and divine) wonder. Almost a magical realism, in that Jane just accepts it and the story doesn’t pause to figure out what happened and how.

How did I include those? Well, it was tricky. I don’t want to give away the twists that I did use, but I can say that I fell a little further into the paranormal spectrum than I meant to, and that some mythology is used. There aren’t any shifters or vampires, but there are definitely some mysteries to be uncovered.

Most of all, I wanted it to be a compelling and un-put-downable love story!

Hope you enjoy. Thank you for following along.

Click here to get a sneak peek, and nominate for Amazon’s publication team!

Corrie

Sisters are the best

Bahaha! My older sister and I have a great relationship, but recently I felt like I needed to apologize to her about something. We’re all good now, but we’d been talking a ton about book covers and titles (she was helping my brainstorm for my Jane Eyre retelling), so she sent me this. I love my sisters!stabbed book cover

Elephant in the Room

coverA good friend of mine has her debut novel release today! Elephant in the Room is being published by Dove Christian Publishers. I had the privilege of reading an early copy (after Kristen and I did Nanowrimo together!) and it tackles a really interesting topic.

In the US, our whole society is dealing with the difficulties of obesity and ill-health, but for the Christian there is another dimension. The Bible names the sin of gluttony right along with drunkenness and greed, and this novel gracefully tackles the gluttony issue. Ill-health is not a sin, nor is being over-weight, but our heart attitudes and actions towards food (and other consumption) can be.

With kindness and compassion, this Christian fiction novel follows a pastor and his family as they confront this elephant in the room. Check it out!

I want to learn more about Kristen and the book!

I want to order straight from Dove!

 

How Not to Write a Novel

From personal experience. (Sobs quietly over her smoothie.)

1. Re-start it once a year for three years.

2. Decide to switch main characters more than once.

3. Write it all on your phone and lose a significant chunk when your toddler gets the app open.

4. Get distracted by new shiny ide- squirrel!

5. Have a baby. (Actually this one I recommend. It just delays the writing a TINY bit.)

6. Tell your sister or your best friend the whole idea and lose all motivation.

7. Swing wildly between manic confidence and utter revulsion in what you’ve written.

8. Take three years to write it.

9. Get feedback on early chapters and lose all motivation.

And 10. Blog about writing instead of actually WRITING! 🙂