Facts

Some facts about the writing of “One Summer in the Sun”:

I was afraid the novel might sprawl to 100,000 words or more, but it came in at a trim and completely acceptable 88,000. That’s close to the ideal range for a book of its sort, from a commercial standpoint—not that I wrote with that in mind.

The novel ended up with more humor than I expected. It was first envisioned as bitter-sweet and a bit tragic. Oh, there is certainly some of that but there is also a fair amount of joking and banter.

I wasn’t sure until I was halfway through whether it would contain graphic sex. I’d written a couple scenes that at least bordered on it, scenes I could have edited if I chose not to go that way. As it turns out, the novel ended up with lots of sex. It will definitely need to be labeled as ‘adult content’.

“One Summer” is obviously being released under a pen name. That is not because of the sexual content (well, mostly not) but more because I lived through some of the events in its pages. I knew the time and place, and I’d just as soon no one connected me to it!

P.S. My publisher told me the book could be positioned as ‘New Adult.’ That would never have occurred to me. But then, the three protagonists and most of their friends are eighteen, so maybe he has something!