A little something special for you today! I was approached by an author hopeful to create a guest post. I thought this would be a perfect break from review and covers and workouts! A new voice to read - so I said, "Sure! Let's do this thing!" Today I give you Andrew Joyce, the author of Molly Lee!
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My name is Andrew Joyce,
and I write books for a living. Anita has been kind
enough to allow me a little space on her blog to promote my new book, MOLLY LEE.
The story is a female-driven account of a young naive girl’s journey into an
independent, strong woman and all the trouble she gets into along the way.
Now you may possibly be
asking yourself, What is a guy doing
writing in a woman’s voice? And that’s a good question. I can only say that
I did not start out to write about Molly; she just came to me one day and asked
that I tell her story.
Perhaps I should start
at the beginning.
My first book was a 164,000-word historical novel. And in the publishing
world, anything over 80,000 words for a first-time author is heresy. Or so I
was told time and time again when I approached an agent for representation.
After two years of research and writing, and a year of trying to secure the
services of an agent, I got angry. To be told that my efforts were meaningless
was somewhat demoralizing to say the least. I mean, those rejections were
coming from people who had never even read my book.
“So you want an 80,000-word novel?” I said to no one in particular,
unless you count my dog, because he was the only one around at the time.
Consequently, I decided to show them City
Slickers that I could write an 80,000-word novel!
I had just finished reading Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn for the third
time, and I started thinking about what ever happened to those boys, Tom and
Huck. They must have grown up, but then what? So I sat down at my computer and
banged out REDEMPTION: The Further Adventures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer in two months; then sent out query letters to agents.
Less than a month later, the chairman of one of the biggest agencies in New
York City emailed me that he loved the story. We signed a contract and it was
off to the races, or so I thought. But then the real fun began: the serious
editing. Seven months later, I gave birth to Huck and Tom as adults. And just
for the record, the final word count is 79,914. The book went on to reach #1 status on Amazon twice, and the rest,
as they say, is history.
But not quite.
My agent then wanted me to write a sequel, but I had other plans. I was in
the middle of editing down my first novel (that had been rejected by 1,876,324
agents . . . or so it seemed) from 164,000 words to the present 142,000.
However, he was insistent, so I started to think about it. Now, one thing you
have to understand is that I tied up all the loose ends at the end of REDEMPTION, so there was no way that I
could write a sequel. And that is when Molly asked me to tell her story. Molly was a character that we
met briefly in the first chapter of REDEMPTION,
and then she is not heard from again.
This is the description from MOLLY LEE:
Molly is about to set off on
the adventure of a lifetime . . . of two lifetimes.
It’s
1861 and the Civil War has just started. Molly is an eighteen-year-old girl
living on her family’s farm in Virginia when two deserters from the Southern
Cause enter her life. One of them—a twenty-four-year-old Huck Finn—ends up
saving her virtue, if not her life.
Molly
is so enamored with Huck, she wants to run away with him. But Huck has other
plans and is gone the next morning before she awakens. Thus starts a sequence
of events that leads Molly into adventure after adventure; most of them not so
nice.
We
follow the travails of Molly Lee, starting when she is eighteen and ending when
she is fifty-six. Even then Life has one more surprise in store for her.
As I had wondered whatever became of Huck and Tom, I also wondered what Molly
did when she found Huck gone.
I know this has been a long-winded set up, but I felt I had to tell the
backstory. Now I can move on and tell you about Molly.
As stated earlier, Molly
starts out as a naive young girl. Over time she develops into a strong,
independent woman. The change is gradual. Her strengths come from the
adversities she encounters along the road that is her life.
With each setback,
Molly follows that first rule she set against self-pity and simply moves on to
make the best of whatever life throws her way. From working as a whore to
owning a saloon, from going to prison to running a ranch, Molly plays to win
with the cards she’s dealt. But she always keeps her humanity. She will kill to
defend herself, and she has no problem killing to protect the weak and preyed
upon. However, when a band of Indians (for instance) have been run off their
land and have nowhere else to go, Molly allows them to live on her ranch, and
in time they become extended family.
This is from a review
on Amazon:
“A
young female in nineteenth-century rural America would have needed courage,
fortitude, and firm resolve to thrive in the best of circumstances. Molly Lee
possesses all of these, along with an iron will and an inherent ability to read
people accurately and respond accordingly.”
I reckon that about
sums up Molly.
I would like to say
that I wrote MOLLY LEE in one sitting and everything in it is my pure genius. But that would be a lie.
I have three editors (two women and one guy). They kept me honest with regard
to Molly. When I made her a little too hard, they would point out that she had
to be softer or show more emotion in a particular scene.
I set out to write a
book where every chapter ended with a cliffhanger. I wanted the reader to be
forced to turn to the next chapter. And I pretty much accomplished that, but I also
wrote a few chapters where Molly and my readers could catch their collective
breath.
One last thing:
Everything in MOLLY LEE
is historically correct from the languages of the Indians to the descriptions
of the way people dressed, spoke, and lived. I spend as much time on research
as I do writing my stories. Sometimes more.
It looks as though I’ve
used up my allotted word count (self-imposed), so I reckon I’ll ride off into
the sunset and rustle up a little vodka and cranberry juice (with extra lime).
It’s been a pleasure.
Thank you for having me over.
Andrew
Book Buy Links:
So this isn't exactly a workout update, since I haven't really been working out. I've been resting and relaxing and crusing on a Carnival Cruise ship. This vacation has been being planned out for two years, mostly because it takes that long for us to plan to spend that amount of money on one thing, but also because we were planning this vacation with some friends of ours as well. We had been on a cruise before; four years ago when Justin and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary, and just before Justin made the transition to a Vegan lifestyle. The entire thing was easily a glutton-fest, because food is readily available all the time. Good food, bad food, endless food. Four years ago we took advantage of it every chance we had. Since then we have made many life changes, and the biggest one of those is that not just Justin, but I myself have decided on a Vegan lifestyle. This was probably our biggest concern going into this year's cruise because while there was food in abundance, the food was all very rich and filled with butter, milk, and eggs; that is unless we wanted to eat salad and fruit the entire week.
