The last three years have been…interesting. I wrote one book – this time for adults. (Psychological thriller/horror set in Siberia.) It didn’t sell. I rewrote it to be YA…with a boy as main character. My agent suggested it would be better with a girl. I rewrote it again with a girl main character. We tried to sell it…and failed.

I wrote a full-length film with a friend – a rom com. It was our first screenplay, so we knew it was basically just practice, and that’s what it turned out to be. A really fun idea, but not terribly well executed.

I wrote a short film called “Kewpid and Psych-ee” for an upcoming TV series “WHATEVER AFTER” which was selected for and screened at the Marseille Web Fest (among others).

I wrote a middle-grade comedy genie book, which I sent to my agent last year, and which she loved but says needs a bit more work. (She’s right.)

Then I ghost-wrote a upper middle-grade book, which I just finished before Christmas.

In between time, to pay the rent, I translated a book from French to English, taught teen writing workshops in Paris, and did all sorts of other little projects for TV and books, finally taking a 3-day per week job writing TV commercials in English for a big ad agency located a block from  my house. I chose it so I could come home to walk Obi, fix the kids lunch on Wednesdays (1/2 day school in France), and take the occasional lunchtime nap.

I’m telling you all of this to answer your question: Where’s the next book? The answer: it’s coming! I’m not sure what form it will take, but being a writer is not an easy job when you are supporting a family smack dab in the center of Paris. The important thing is that I am still writing. And there is definitely much more to come.

Write Paris

Teen Writing Workshop

Oct 23-27, 2019 (school vacation)

Writing, learning & creativity in some of Paris’s most inspiring locations.

With international bestselling author Amy Plum.

Mornings: Amy’s spacious Bastille apartment. Afternoons: On-location, writing.

Day 1: Creating Credible Characters (The Louvre)

Day 2: World Building (Musée Nissim de Camondo)

Day 3: Spellbinding Settings (Père Lachaise Cemetery)

Day 4: Diverting Dialogues (le Centquatre)

Day 5: The Hero’s Journey (la Cité de l’architecture)

Includes:

• Methodology (where writers find their ideas, how to publish a book, etc.)
• Craft games to build writing skills
• Major building blocks of writing (1 topic per day)
• Confidence-building for creatives
• Give and receive positive and constructive critiques

10:00am – 5:00pm Wednesday through Sunday

500 euros per person, ages 12-18. Tuition includes writing materials and all visits.

Sign up: contact Amy amy@amyplumbooks.com

http://www.amyplumbooks.com/?p=7050

print the flyer: WritingWorkshopOct2019

To answer a few of your questions about DREAMFALL:

Give me 5 reasons I should read DREAMFALL.

• Because it’s about people who have worse insomnia than you! Compared to the seven teens in the book, your sleepless nights are child’s play.
• Because if your brain is going to force you to do an all-nighter, you might as well spend it in a fictional world that will suck you in and not let you go until the last page.
• Because who wants to stay up all night worrying about your own life when you can stay up all night freaking out about someone else’s?
• Because complications with tomorrow’s exam…your job…your boy/girlfriend seem minor when compared to spending the rest of your (probably short) life stuck in someone else’s killer nightmares.
• Because your nightmare about going to school in your underwear seems less traumatic next to a nightmare about being buried alive with three corpses. (Everything’s relative.)

Why did you want to write horror?

I actually tried to write a horror novel as my very first attempt at fiction. But I got halfway into it, and then didn’t know what happened next. So I put it aside and wrote the DIE FOR ME and AFTER THE END series. Once I was ready for my next challenge, I thought I would try horror once again. And this time, the story stuck.

In the DIE FOR ME series, I discovered that I enjoyed  much preferred writing the fight scenes as much as I did the kissing scenes. Chopping someone’s head off with a sword was just as exhilarating as writing a steamy makeout scene. So with DREAMFALL, I decided to embrace my morbid side and go with it. And, boy, did I have fun. At one point, my editor asked if one scene wasn’t TOO gruesome. I begged for it to stay, my argument being, “This is horror – it’s SUPPOSED to be gruesome!” I mean, if you’re writing horror, you might as well go all the way. So it stayed, much to my twisted delight. Funnily enough, the concept for the novel came from an idea I had for a children’s picture book. I’m still scratching my head as to why my agent was horrified when she read the pitch. (Hmm…)

How much research did you have to do for DREAMFALL?

DIE FOR ME was about things I knew: Paris, history, art, love and loss. AFTER THE END also contained things I knew…but on a more personal basis: I grew up in a type of cult-like environment where, like the main character Juneau, brainwashing was an aspect of my childhood. The research for this book was mainly with the locations. For example, once I had written the first draft, I flew to Seattle to do a road trip to Arizona so that I could describe the landscapes.

But DREAMFALL required major research. As the idea for the story evolved, it included more and more science. I was determined to get the facts right so that the fiction I added would be more believable. I read an entire book on the little-known disease called FFI (Fatal Familial Insomnia). I studied sleep cycles, read about sleep research, interviewed two people with narcolepsy, and one person who had gone through electroconvulsive therapy, and asked a doctor friend to read through all the medical sections, so I could be sure those were right.

But, like with my previous two series, there were some aspects of DREAMFALL that I didn’t need to read up on because they came straight from my own life. I know insomnia well. Whenever something horrible happens (like my mother’s death), my brain responds by giving me a good dose of insomnia. It was easy for me to channel the feeling of not being able to sleep.

Which character do you feel closest to in DREAMFALL?

There is no character in my books that I have felt closer to than Cata, one of DREAMFALL’s main characters. When I started the book, I hadn’t planned to model her back story on my own past. But as her personality formed, I found myself dipping into my memory for anecdotes. It made sense: we both suffered PTSD from abusive childhoods.

Cata’s first nightmare in the book comes straight from my 16-year-old brain. I lived in the crazy run-down antebellum mansion she lived in. And my father was the same type of monster hers was.  As her story progressed, I let myself pepper it with actual words and events from my childhood.

However, in DREAMFALL, I let Cata escape. She told someone what was happening to her, and was removed from her family by Child Protective Services. In real life, I stayed and bore the brunt of my father’s mental problems.

In the end, Cata provided a sort of redemption for me. In writing her story, I was able to allow my adolescent self to speak up for the first time.

And lastly…

I wonder if you’ll see an aspect of yourself in any of the characters. Over the course of this duology, I have come to love them. Because they are not who they seem to be. Just like a nightmare…you only truly understand it after it’s over. Although the truth is there, right before your eyes, you have to wake up to realize what was really going on.

You can check DREAMFALL out for yourself here:

IndieBound

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

I have some news for you.

It’s big news.

Very big.

From ComingSoon.net

Amy Plum’s Dreamfall Novel Optioned for TV Series

Notre Dame, April 1 (2 weeks pre-fire) walking home from Shakespeare & Company Teen Book Club.

As the flames continue at Notre Dame, I sit in my apartment just 20 minutes’ walk away, and am truly heart-sick.

The cathedral, along with the Cluny Museum, were what sparked my passion for medieval art. I lived near both when I was 23 and visited them often…first to gawk, then to absorb, then to study. I went on to get my master’s degree in medieval art history. Gothic architecture was a large part of my coursework.

I have spent so much time in the cathedral, on my own, with my kids, and with friends. Most memorably was for Easter Sunday mass, with my late mother around 25 years ago. We were both overwhelmed by the throng of people, the incense, and the grandeur of the building, and had to go sit in the garden outside.

In the last couple of years, it has consistently shown up in my Instagram feed, since I walk by it once a month, on my way to the teen book club I host at Shakespeare and Company, which is directly across the river from it.

Notre Dame is so much more than a church. It’s a symbol, and truly serves as the heart of France. One of my first thoughts was that though the Nazis didn’t succeed in blowing it up (as Hitler had planned), now, 74 years later, it is burning.

Let’s hope that when the flames subside there is enough left to rebuild. What a tragedy.