Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
So I’ve spent what? 6 or 7 years - on and off - working on this first (second, but for all purposes first) novel, which has evolved and all this shit and I am really really close to finishing it.
And one of the major plot points (in the past/flashbacky part of the book) revolves around, I do not mind telling you, how my protagonists put on Bridge to Terabithia as a play, and that choice is quite critical in that it is YA where there is a death and it is just that - out of a girl and a boy who are deep friends, the girl dies, dead, is not brought back to life, dead dead dead and it is about the best description of the death of a friend in YA that I know of. And BtT has themes I exploit and play with visibly and have you know, in my 80,000 words that are already plotted out and written and blah blah blah.
And I thought it was a good choice in being a relatively well known book without being you know, Harry Potter. It’s like they both like - Edith Wharton’s Age of Mirth or something, a book people may have had contact with but isn’t massive. (Despite the BtT TV movie.)
So this morning someone who knows I love the book points me at this gem. That’s right, a blockbuster coming to you next year.
I am seriously not sure how to get past this. I feel like my novel was just killed by the universe. I seriously would like to have vapours and take to my bed for a year. My only hope is that this movie does terribly and no one ever sees it. (At least as I see it in this moment.)
P.S. Don’t procrastinate.
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One Response to “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”
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Okay, maybe I’m missing the point (I do that sometimes) but from the outside I don’t see why the movie is really a bad thing for marketing your book. If the movie’s a success there are going to be a ton of people all of a sudden running out to buy BtT and then looking for other books that touch on the story. If the movie’s a failure there will still be a spike in sales of BtT as folks who read it as a kid go out and buy a copy for themselves and/or their kids to remind themselves what the original is like.
But the thing is, having a BtT movie will elevate that story and put it back into the general consciousness. Which I think would make it MORE likely that your novel will be marketable. People will see the BtT tie-in and it will give them a comfortable jumping-off place to enter YOUR story.
Yeah, okay, maybe I’m missing something. Still, with the information I’ve got (minimal, I grant) it seems like the movie will bolster your book, not destroy it.