I See Dead People

Or rather, I hear them. And they're not really dead, they're fictional. But whatever, it feels like a form of Sixth Sense...

Point is: I was minding my own business yesterday on a run (more like a walk, interspersed with brief periods of half-hearted jogging--it was, like, ninety degrees), when I suddenly started to hear these two characters speak to me...and I knew I'd found the basis/heart/core of my third book. It's really hard to describe how or why this happens, exactly, but the recognition of these two girls, and their developing story, literally stopped me in my tracks. As in, I stopped running (or, walking) and just stood there, heart pounding, feeling a flood of gratitude and relief. Gratitude because I know this is a story I can write and want to write; relief because no matter how often I write, there is always the fear after completing one story/manuscript that it is the last I will ever produce.

I'm still in the very, very earliest flickering stages of thinking about this project, so I don't want to disclose too much. But I will say that I believe it will incorporate elements of an adult novel I finished and then abandoned while attending the MFA program at NYU, which I am super excited about; and also, that it will be a split narrative POV involving two sisters; and thirdly, that while my first book is about death, and my second book is about love, this book will be about beauty. As my agent said last night, I like to tackle the small stuff. :)

Lastly, I will share the first line:

I was nine years old when I started the fire that almost killed my sister.