Editor's Note:
This is Andrew's
second visit to my blog. The first time was just about a year ago, but that
post was hijacked by his dog, Danny. After reading today's post, maybe you'd
like to take a look-see at Danny's post from last year. Here's a link.
Andrew's book, Resolution,
will be on sale June 7 through June 9 on Amazon only. The normal price of $3.99 will drop to $0.99. Now, let's hear from Andrew
My name is Andrew
Joyce, and I write books for a living. Dave has been kind enough to allow me a
little space on his blog to promote my new book, RESOLUTION: Huck Finn’s Greatest Adventure, so I thought I’d tell
you how it came about. It all started way back in 2011 . . .
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 in its category on Amazon—twice.
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 about a sequel, 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 minor character
that we met briefly in the first chapter of REDEMPTION,
and then she is not heard from again.
So I started to think about what ever happened to her. After a bit of time—and
100,000 words—we find out what did happen to Molly. It is an adventure tale where Huck Finn weaves through the
periphery of a story driven by a feisty female lead. Molly Lee was my second book, which achieved #2 status on Amazon.
Now I was finished with Huck Finn for good. Now I
could go back to my first novel and resume the editing process.
But not quite.
It was then that Huck and Molly ganged up on me and demanded
that I resolve their lives once and for all. It seems that I had left them
hanging, so to speak. Hence, RESOLUTION:
Huck Finn’s Greatest Adventure. Here is the blurb
from the back cover of the book:
It
is 1896 in the Yukon Territory, Canada. The largest gold strike in the annals
of human history has just been made; however, word of the discovery will not
reach the outside world for another year.
By
happenstance, a fifty-nine-year-old Huck Finn and his lady friend, Molly Lee,
are on hand, but they are not interested in gold. They have come to that neck
of the woods seeking adventure.
Someone
should have warned them, “Be careful what you wish for.”
When
disaster strikes, they volunteer to save the day by making an arduous six
hundred mile journey by dog sled in the depths of a Yukon winter. They race
against time, nature, and man. With the temperature hovering around seventy
degrees below zero, they must fight every day if they are to live to see the
next.
On
the frozen trail, they are put upon by murderers, hungry wolves, and hostile
Indians, but those adversaries have nothing over the weather. At seventy below,
your spit freezes a foot from your face. Your cheeks burn—your skin turns
purple and black as it dies from the cold. You are in constant danger of losing
fingers and toes to frostbite.
It
is into this world that Huck and Molly race.
They
cannot stop. They cannot turn back. They can only go on. Lives hang in the
balance—including theirs.
The three books are stand-alones and are not part of a
series. They can be read in any order. RESOLUTION
is available as an eBook and in print. Both versions are available on Amazon.
There you have it. Now, if you nice people will just
go out and buy RESOLUTION, perhaps Huck and Molly will leave me alone long
enough so that I can get some editing done on my first novel.
Thanks for having me over, Dave. It’s been a real
pleasure.
