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Genre: Historical Fiction
About thecynicalpixieLocation: Atlanta, GA Age:15 Favorite novels: So many...but I really love Anna Karenina, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Ender's Game, Harry Potter, Narnia, The Catcher in the Rye, Jellicoe Road, Diary of a Young Girl, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, Speak, The Joy Luck Club, and many others Favorite writers: Sarah Dessen, J.D. Salinger, Edgar Allan Poe, Meg Cabot, E. Lockhart, Amy Tan, and others Favorite music: indie rock, classical music, jazz, 60s and 70s-era classic rock Non-noveling interests: photography, volleyball, running, singing, movies, anime/manga, and reading |
Joined: September 28, 2009 This Year: Official Participant NaNoWriMo History: NaNoWriMo posts: 91 NaNoWriMo buddies: 3
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Brief Author Bio: -I love NaNoWriMo. Heck, I love writing, period.- I daydream sometimes, procrastinate often, and dream big. Life's just too short to limit yourself, you know? |
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Synopsis: Life on Mars
As a frequent radio listener and an aspiring comic book artist, Katy Whitman is no ordinary girl of her time. At least, that's what you see at first glance. But pull back the layers and you'll see a typical teenager of the sixties: questionable of authority, against Vietnam, and very opinionated. But when it comes to speaking her mind, Katy prefers to be in the dark rather than let her voice be heard. It's easier, and saves a lot of trouble.
But when a series of events shakes Katy's world, starting with Kurt's fourteenth birthday in August 1963 and ending into the early 1966 days of the hippie counterculture, she isn't sure whether to stay quiet anymore, or even if she can still be in control of herself. With old and new friends pulling her left and right and the seemingly perfect Whitman family slowly collapsing, can Katy save herself? Or will she also fall to pieces?
(note: previously was a sci-fi novel, don't ask me why...now it' s an awesome YA historical fiction inspired by Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road.)
Excerpt: Life on Mars
“Hello, folks, this is Jack Berry with your nightly newscast for August 1, 1963…”
The first day of the last month of summer. It was a weird time for Katy, who’d felt like time and space had been frozen these past few weeks. June and July had been about outings to Carvel, trips to Boston to check out the swan boats, and trips to Cape Cod to see the beach. Now she really had to acknowledge that things were coming to an end, and her last year at Bruyer Junior High School would soon begin. That was a very sobering thought.
She turned to her trusty radio, a brown Zippo brand that had been running since Katy was five years old. No matter what, her Zippo would stay true to her, always telling what was up in the news world on entertaining her with a fun radio drama. But now that the rise of television had taken over the nation, the poor little radios were in danger of becoming a rare breed. Katy wouldn’t fall suit, though. She never cared much for television when there was a radio by her side.
People called her silly for still being a radio junkie when there was that fantastic set—brand new, too!—in the living room, waiting for someone to plop down in front of it. But she didn’t care. Call her old-fashioned or what you will, but Katy just didn’t feel that she should allow herself to be sucked in. Not just in terms of television, but about countless other teenybopper fads. The girls could giggle over the latest dreamboat in Tiger Beat, but that would never be Katy. She’d never be swept up in change.
But you all know that she spoke too soon. Because while the nation was moving and shaking through turmoil, Katy would find herself trapped between being the girl she wanted to be and the girl she couldn’t become. If only the words of local radio voice Jack Berry could help her, but they can’t. Her descent is inevitable and probably unfixable.
The sun sets, painting an orange picture of the rocky path that laid ahead for the Whitmans and the world.
