The Next Big Thing

Here's a writer-ly survey; I was tagged by Mina. Squee!
1) What is the working title of your next book?
"The Creators." It's lame, I know, I know; I'll figure it out when it starts to take shape.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?


I YouTube a lot of Craig Ferguson videos at work (he's my faaaaaaavorite of all the late night talk shows) and became particularly fascinated with his interview with Karen Gillan (Amy Pond from Dr. Who). So I began to think, what would it feel like to be interviewed on a late night talk show? I wrote that scene down and it became a very short story/vignette. Then I thought, wouldn't it be cool if this was all happening in her head? Like a hallucination? BAM! Book idea.

3) What genre does your book fall under?
Dystopian S/F, I guess.


4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
The book is super nascent at this point, but I have some pegs in my mind: Techie Agbayani for the trophy wife character; Brendan Gleeson (but really a lawyer at my workplace that looks like him) for the doctor; I'm thinking a Yul Servo-type for the ex-activist, but he has to be able to pull off credibly playing a medical researcher; a super depressed and grungey Isabel Oli -- like, playing totally against type -- for the lead girl. There are many other characters and I can picture them in my head very clearly but I don't exactly have actors in mind for them.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
How does a country's totalitarian regime and its citizens deal with a vicious worldwide plague?

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I don't know yet.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
We're not there yet...

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I was definitely inspired by books like 1984 and Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man while I was writing this. And by The Hunger Games too!

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
After I started with the talk show scene it just started flowing out. It was like a switch in my brain that had been off for a long time was switched on again. It's a rediscovery of the love for writing. Now I just have to hold on to it so I can make progress past the initial excitement.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?
For starters, it's a total departure from my previous chick lit books. It's sort of a return to form with the horror and fantasy stories I used to write back when I was first trying out creative writing. I'm also trying to subvert some preconceived plot points. I'm writing it from my POV and experience, so there are obvious parallels with the Philippines, but the Philippines I know -- no shortcut Brocka-esque hookers-with-a-heart of gold and plucky street urchins and noble urban poor and all those tropes. And I'm also playing with the idea of, what if Big Brother wasn't so bad?

At least, that's the plan. Eeep.