Belle Whittington - Cicada
• Pub. Date: July 2011
• Publisher: Belle Whittington
• Format: eBook 63758 words (approximate)
• Age Range: Young Adult
For 17-year-old Blair Reynolds and her friends, being the bearer of secrets is getting really old. But it’s something she learns to deal with, because there’s no other option. If the people in her small town ever found out what she and her friends discovered in the woods and hid in the storage room, the whole town would be up in arms…literally. You see, folks here don’t believe in aliens from outer space. Besides, if they ever found out what two of those aliens did to one of their own, well, let’s just say what would follow would be all out war.
As the months unfold, their summer becomes consumed with secrets, puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together, and a fight for their lives that leaves one of them at death’s door.
Mickey: Welcome to the blog, Belle Whittington! Please introduce yourself.
Belle: Hi, Mickey! Thank you so much for featuring me on your lovely blog! I'm so excited to be able to stop by and chat with you and your readers! Hmmm... How shall I introduce myself? Well, I live in a small inconsequential town somewhere north of Houston, Texas. When I'm not working at my day job or doing homework for my college classes at University of Houston, I'm working on the sequels (both of them!) to Cicada.
Mickey: Your novel, Cicada, sounds complex and interesting. How long did it take you to write it?
Belle: Thank you! Cicada really is a complex little novel. The careful reader will pick up on those quiet whispering promises of "more to come" in the sequels. It took me about a year to write Cicada. That probably sounds like a long time, but I wrote it during those off hours when I wasn't working or doing homework! LOL!
Mickey: Have you always wanted to be an author? Did you choose the YA genre or did it seem to choose you?
Belle: Oh, yes. I have always wanted to be an author. Ever since I began learning to read in those early years of elementary school, I could think of nothing else that I'd ever want to do than to make up stories. And I've been daydreaming stories ever since. I think the YA genre chose me. Now, I'll admit as a Literature major that I love all types and genres of literature. But YA is so full of adventure, magic, and possibilities!
Mickey: If you could pick anyone to read the audio book version, who would you pick?
Belle: Probably Amanda Seyfried :-)
Mickey: How many drafts of Cicada did it take to make it complete?
Belle: That's a really good question! I lost count, but I think it was around eight.
Mickey: Tell us about the name of the novel, Cicada. How does it relate to the book (if you can explain with no spoilers)?
Belle: It's a tough one to fully explain without revealing spoilers. But I will say that there are no bug Cicadas creeping around in the story! LOL! However, there is a parallel of sorts involved in the story.
Mickey: How did you go about choosing names for your characters?
Belle: The characters named themselves, actually! My characters always reveal themselves to me if I give them ample time and opportunity. I like to sort of whittle away at my stories, allowing the characters and much of the story to slip out of make believe and onto the page.
Mickey: What actors would you choose to play your characters?
Belle: I love this question! I do have a list of actors that loosely resemble the characters. And bear in mind that I did not base the characters on these actors whatsoever. In fact, the characters reside within my imagination, so it's impossible to find an actor that could fully fit any of the characters.
Drum roll, please! And the actors are.....
Blair: Amanda Seyfried
Andrew: Zac Efron
Everett: Carter Jenkins
David: Kellan Lutz
Natalie: Lucy Hale
Mickey: Any plans for a sequel or other upcoming novels?
Belle: Yes! I'm actually writing both of the sequels to Cicada! The second in the trilogy is "Firefly," and readers will have a lot of their questions answered by the end of that book. I haven't named the third in the series, but it is an action-packed, dark part of the trilogy. But, oh so good! LOL!
Mickey: Do you think you'll write outside of the YA age range and/or paranormal genre?
Belle: I like writing childrens stories, too. So I hope to write a few childrens books someday. :-) And I adore writing poetry. But YA has a special place in my heart. And the paranormal genre is so magical and full of possibilities! :-)
Mickey: What book do you wish you'd written or thought of first?
Belle: Harry Potter!
Mickey: Thanks so much for being here today! Any final thoughts before you go?
Belle: Thank you so very much for allowing me to stop by and visit a while! :-) I hope everyone will stop by my social networking links and follow/like me! I'd love to hear from y'all and what y'all thought about Cicada once y'all have read it! :-)
I have been daydreaming stories for as long as I can remember. My first recollection of wanting to be a writer was when I was in the second grade, and my teacher, Mrs. Rambin, would have us lay our heads on our desks after lunch while she read us stories full of magic and imagination.
Most of my early writings were stories with a twist of science fiction…even my earliest poems. I remember sitting on the dam of a neighbor’s pond around the time I was eleven, writing a story about space travel. In fact, I still have that little handwritten story. It’s still bound in the same yellow notebook that I put it in way back in the sixth grade!
Growing up in Nacogdoches, the oldest town in Texas, afforded me summers full of adventure with my friends. I call on those adventures and memories a great deal for my YA stories. Cicada has a lot of the energy of those childhood adventures spun throughout. One of them is something that actually happened to me when I was thirteen years old. I was on one of my adventures in the woods with my dog, Dusty. We made our way through the woods to a neighboring pasture and crawled through the barbed wire fence. When we got to the top of one of the rolling hills in the grassy field, I realized I was standing in the middle of a giant circle imprinted in the pasture grass. No one had ever told me about crop circles at that time in my life, so I just thought it was an odd occurrence that there was a strange circle in the tall grass. Now that circle is forever memorialized in a YA novel, Cicada!
Nowadays, I work at a day job in higher education and spin my tales during those off hours that I’m not working on assignments for my English classes at University of Houston, where I’m earning my degree in hopes of teaching English at the college level one day.
Giveaway Alert!!
The lovely Belle Whittington is fabulously offering up a Smashwords coupon for a free ebook copy of her new YA paranormal novel CICADA! Use the Rafflecopter form to enter to win! This is an ebook so this giveaway is absolutely international!! Ends 11/6. Questions? Leave a comment here with a way for me to get back to you :o) Thanks so much, and good luck!!!
I recently came upon this book through GoodReads.com and I'm glad to have the opportunity to win it! thanks for the giveaway :)
ReplyDeleteYAY! And I'm wicked excited there are no actual cicadas in the book... I hate them! lol
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