Guest Post – Perfect Pitch by Alex Hayes
On August 7, 2019 by Jaye
Hey, everyone, today we’ve got Alex Hayes to talk about her creative process and her latest book, Perfect Pitch!
Blurb
All Dean wants is to escape…
But he can’t leave his younger brother, Ty, in the care of their alcoholic mother. And when their abusive father shows up, Dean has to get Ty out. Which means joining Shri — his best and only friend — in taking a job out of state and breaking the law by stealing his brother away.
Cadi’s life is almost back together after Dean blew it into a million pieces. She’s come to terms with her life as a shape-shifter — well, almost. She’s still trying to wrap her head around the fact that a vicious enemy is out to destroy the remnants of her people.
As if Cadi doesn’t have enough to deal with, Dean’s about to land on her front doorstep, forcing her to decide whether to let him into her secret world or slam the door in his face.
The Chameleon Effect series, starring shape-shifter teens with extraordinary superpowers, is sure to appeal to Young Adult and New Adult readers who enjoy romance with a paranormal twist.
Links
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45938625-perfect-pitch
Purchase:Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ST4A4o
Guest Post
Creative process
Grapefruit margaritas and the presence of monochromatic cats, with Strunz and Farah playing in the background, is a great way to engage the creative process. Living part time in Mexico offers all these things; my home is an introvert’s paradise, complete with an ivory [white paint, not elephant tusk!] tower.
Sorry, I’m really bad at answering only one question!
Although the above, is all completely true, my creative process starts with an idea, often nebulous, and a main character or two. Usually the hero, though I’ve been told that the villain is a great person to start with.
In the Chameleon Effect, my current series, each novel has begun to unfold on the tail of its predecessor.
As I wrapped up Silken Scales, the first book, I ended up with the main characters, Idris and Cadi, cut off from their home world; a crystal tree cutting needing to be planted; a sight-unseen cabin in the Adirondack Mountains; and a desire to bring secondary characters, Dean and Shri, back into the fold.
That was pretty much it.
As I developed Dean’s character and identified Cadi’s need to tie up a few loose ends from her past, namely Dean and Shri, a basic outline formed in my mind.
Next came the main plot, which revolves around the otherworldly crystal tree and the constant threat of discovery by a dangerous enemy. Phew!
I’m very much a plotter and outliner, not a panster!
After settling on the elements referenced above, I moved on to character and plot arcs and tying them altogether with a theme — which eventually led to an outline, but not immediately.
When I get stuck — which happens fairly often — I turn to my daughter for help. She’s got half my DNA, and I think that really helps. It’s a bit like plotting and bouncing ideas off a half-me. Actually, it’s better because she has all sorts of cool ideas that I would never have come up with on my own. But her brain works similar to mine, and she remembers stuff I’ve told her that I’ve forgotten I ever mentioned.
With Perfect Pitch, once I had gathered all those juicy ideas in one place, I went away to work on something else for a few weeks.
When things had stewed long enough, I paid a revisit to my character, plot and genre templates to make sure all bases were covered.
Comfortable that my baseball metaphors were fully loaded, I switched from Evernote to Numbers and created an outline. This part of the process required a lot of organized thought and was quite exhausting, but once the work was done, it felt amazing, and I was off the hook for a couple of weeks, no home plate references required.
A few weeks of mental marination brought the story to its writing stage.
Once I had a first draft I felt proud of, I sent it off for my wonderful critique partners to read and destroy. They identified my wimpy hooks, weak descriptions, gaping plot holes and dangling prepositions.
When they’d finished killing it softly, I went back to work, grateful for their amazing insight, which it truly is. I don’t always want to hear what they have to say, but I need to hear it, and they are invariably spot on. I love my critiquers!
After a couple of critique and revision cycles, I took a couple of weeks off while my beta readers gave it a look.
Another revision, another rest, a lot of proofreading and then I shipped it off to a professional for final clean-up.
Author Bio
AUTHOR BIO:Alex Hayes wrote her first fiction story when she was twelve. Inspired by her mother’s storytelling, she began work on her first novel, Ice Cracks, at eighteen.
She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. In her twenties, she moved from Marin County, California to Boston, Massachusetts, where she built a career as an IT professional in database engineering. In 2004, she self-published Ice Cracks, which became a semi-finalist in the 2005 IPPY Awards.
Alex splits her time between Grand Junction, Colorado and Guanajuato, Mexico. When she isn’t writing, she’s helping her partner, Lee, renovate a 450 year old hacienda. She is mother to one beautiful daughter and many wonderful cats.
Author links:
https://www.facebook.com/AlexHayesAuthor/
https://twitter.com/AlexHayesAuthor
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18652639.Alex_Hayes
Giveaway
Tour-wide giveaway (INT)
- $25 Amazon gift card + ebook copies of both Silken Scales and Perfect Pitch – books 1 and 2 in Alex’s Chameleon Effect series
- 5x ebook copies of Perfect Pitch
Ends Aug 15th:
Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d04251233184/
2 comments
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Thanks for hosting today, Jaye!
Thanks for being on the tour! 🙂