My
name is Andrew Joyce, and I write books for a living. Larissa has been kind
enough to allow me a little space on her blog to promote my new book, MOLLY
LEE. The
story is a female-driven account of a young naive girl’s journey into an
independent, strong woman and all the trouble she gets into along the way.
Now
you may possibly be asking yourself, What
is a guy doing writing in a woman’s voice? And that’s a good question. I
can only say that I did not start out to write about Molly; she just came to me
one day and asked that I tell her story.
Perhaps
I should start at the beginning.
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 on Amazon twice, and 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, 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
character that we met briefly in the first chapter of REDEMPTION, and then she is not heard from again.
This is the description from MOLLY
LEE:
Molly is about to set off on the adventure of a lifetime . . . of two
lifetimes.
It’s 1861 and the Civil War has just
started. Molly is an eighteen-year-old girl living on her family’s farm in
Virginia when two deserters from the Southern Cause enter her life. One of
them—a twenty-four-year-old Huck Finn—ends up saving her virtue, if not her
life.
Molly is so enamored with Huck, she
wants to run away with him. But Huck has other plans and is gone the next
morning before she awakens. Thus starts a sequence of events that leads Molly
into adventure after adventure; most of them not so nice.
We follow the travails of Molly Lee,
starting when she is eighteen and ending when she is fifty-six. Even then Life
has one more surprise in store for her.
As I had wondered whatever became of
Huck and Tom, I also wondered what Molly did when she found Huck gone.
I know this has been a long-winded set
up, but I felt I had to tell the backstory. Now I can move on and tell you
about Molly.
As
stated earlier, Molly starts out as a naive young girl. Over time she develops
into a strong, independent woman. The change is gradual. Her strengths come
from the adversities she encounters along the road that is her life.
With
each setback, Molly follows that first rule she set against self-pity and
simply moves on to make the best of whatever life throws her way. From working
as a whore to owning a saloon, from going to prison to running a ranch, Molly
plays to win with the cards she’s dealt. But she always keeps her humanity. She
will kill to defend herself, and she has no problem killing to protect the weak
and preyed upon. However, when a band of Indians (for instance) have been run
off their land and have nowhere else to go, Molly allows them to live on her
ranch, and in time they become extended family.
This
is from a review on Amazon:
“A young female in nineteenth-century
rural America would have needed courage, fortitude, and firm resolve to thrive
in the best of circumstances. Molly Lee possesses all of these, along with an
iron will and an inherent ability to read people accurately and respond
accordingly.”
I
reckon that about sums up Molly.
I
would like to say that I wrote MOLLY LEE in one sitting and
everything in it is my pure genius.
But that would be a lie. I have three editors (two women and one guy). They
kept me honest with regard to Molly. When I made her a little too hard, they
would point out that she had to be softer or show more emotion in a particular
scene.
I
set out to write a book where every chapter ended with a cliffhanger. I wanted
the reader to be forced to turn to the next chapter. And I pretty much
accomplished that, but I also wrote a few chapters where Molly and my readers
could catch their collective breath.
One
last thing: Everything in MOLLY LEE is historically correct from the
languages of the Indians to the descriptions of the way people dressed, spoke,
and lived. I spend as much time on research as I do writing my stories.
Sometimes more.
It
looks as though I’ve used up my allotted word count (self-imposed), so I reckon
I’ll ride off into the sunset and rustle up a little vodka and cranberry juice
(with extra lime).
It’s
been a pleasure,
Andrew
Joyce
Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.
Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.
