Amazon Ebook: http://tinyurl.com/TheMasonListKindle
Amazon Print: http://tinyurl.com/TheMasonListAmazonPrint
Barnes&Noble Ebook: http://tinyurl.com/TheMasonListB-N
iBooks: Coming Soon
Kobo: http://tinyurl.com/TheMasonList-Kobo
Smashwords: http://tinyurl.com/TheMasonList-Smashwords
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
In honor of it being NANO Month…
This is the first book I’ve ever read that made me feel like I was in a Tim Burton movie. The words visually jumped from the pages. It was mysterious and mystical as well as captivating and unique. This story had me from page one to the end. It jumped around, weaving a love story, wrapped in this strange world of the midnight circus as two magicians (Celia and Marco) compete in a battle of life and death in the beautiful Le Cirque des Reves.
The Night Circus has been optioned for a movie and I can only imagine Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan, bringing it to life. After all, it does have an air to it that would go nicely with The Prestige.
Reason for being On the Rack
In honor of National Novel Writing Month (NANO), The Night Circus is added as one of my ultimate favorites and one that has been a great influence.
Erin Morgenstern wrote the first draft during NANO. It was later revised and reworked over the next couple of years. This is something that I find very encouraging. NANO is awesome program that helps challenge someone to write a novel. However, most writers can’t compose a complete, publish ready, novel is thirty days (unless you are Colleen Hoover). So I view it as a tool to lay down a very intensive, 50,000 word outline that can grow into something remarkable like The Night Circus .
So get out your red scarf and spend the next few days of the polar vortex reading The Night Circus and also visit the NANO website if you are interested in learning more about the program.
The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough
Flashback Friday from the Vault….
The Thornbirds crosses into many genres. However, the book is by far my favorite “epic” novel. The term “epic” means several different things when it comes to romantic fiction. For me, “epic” involves the journey of the main character through many years and often decades; the beautiful and tragic, and the love and heartache that encompasses their lives.
This epic story, set in the beautiful Australian Outback, follows Meggie Cleary from the age of four until her children are grown. The third person point of view includes Meggie and often switches to those around her and then eventually on to that of her daughter Justine and son Dane.
The novel was quite controversial when it first hit the book stores. A love story that crosses so many different forbidden elements with the age gap of Meggie and Ralph all the way to his religious affiliation. Yes, that’s right. Ralph de Briccassart is a Catholic priest. Their story is one of many complex levels that twists right into your gut leaving the notion that epic love is epic pain. Hence, the thornbird.
Reason for being on the Rack:
I have owned the paperback of this novel since high school. Publication date is 1977, the same year that I was born. This copy has made approximately seven moves. In all these years, I have read the book at least ten or more times. The back cover is gone and the final page is almost torn in half. This book is either well read or I store my books in terrible places. Maybe a little of both.
Why do I love The Thornbirds?
I think the poetic quote at the beginning sums it up very nicely. It’s the meaning behind the title. The meaning behind the “epic” story. In some ways, The Thornbirds is my Anna Karenina.
The Thornbirds is available on Amazon in the friendly Kindle format that includes the back page unlike my well used copy.
Yes, that’s right. My wonderful editor Anna has sent her final edits. No more passive verbs! Aka my nasty little habit. This is also a transition for me since I have been writing away on my second novel, Red Dirt Claws. Emma hat off. Alex hat on. In other words, a drastic channel change from comedy to drama.
In Red Dirt Claws, I’m leaving Emma standing in her yellow bikini in front of Wyatt flirting her way right to his heart. –Channel Change — To The Mason List where Alex begins her story with a mental breakdown in the opening scene.
Here’s what’s left in the process of getting The Mason List published. The final edit is the next step. I basically have two copies of the book right now. One copy from my editor with all the grammatical, spelling and sentence structure clean-ups. I have another copy that I have edited with story line and scene clean-ups. I will be taking my final copy and merging pieces into the editor’s final copy.
For me, this is the most tedious part of writing a novel. Line by line. Word by word comparison of the two copies. This story is approximately 137,000 words which is roughly 550 novel pages. In Microsoft Word, my copy is 461 pages.
The picture below shows the side-by-side comparison. The story begins at 8:15 pm. Yes, that means what you think it means for my friends who know of my LOST obsession. I slipped that little bread crumb into The Mason List.
I do most of my writing in Microsoft Word. I also use WriteWay Pro. The program is really good with organizing chapters and exporting out in manuscript form. I spent the final six months of writing The Mason List in WriteWay Pro. As each chapter comes to a close, I will be feeding the pieces back into that program.
Once I get a better grasp on the final pass through the novel, I should be able to schedule a release date. I am very excited to introduce the world to The Mason List!
SD Hendrickson 