Blogger Book Fair: Meet Kate Lutter

Today is the opening day of the Blogger Book Fair! It's a celebration of books, authors and readers, with contests,m giveaways and lots of fun ways to discover new authors.

Today, I'd like to introduce you to Kate Lutter, author of Wild Point Island.

.¸¸•.¸¸.•´¯`• (¯`•♥•´¯)•´¯`•.¸¸.•.¸¸.

Hi. My name is Kate Lutter, and I’m super excited to be a part of Blogger Book Fair 2013 and to showcase my debut novel Wild Point Island, and a fabulous Give-away:

Give-Away during Blogger Book Fair on July 22-26, 2013

To be eligible to win a $25.00 Amazon gift card--

Go to www.katelutter.com. 

Scroll down the right hand column. 

Send me a comment.  Include NAME, EMAIL, SUBJECT: BOOK FAIR GIVE-AWAY, and COMMENT: NAME of FAVORITE FILM OR CURRENT SERIES.

I write a blog called Black and White (how the fictional world impacts the real world and your comment will be part of a survey I’m currently conducting.)

          I never would have published Wild Point Island if I hadn’t broken a few rules along the way.   

 I was never one for breaking the rules.  I was the kid in school who always did her homework.  Who always arrived on time for school. Who took notes.  Studied for tests.  I was that kind of person.

          When I became a writer, I still followed the rules.  Why wouldn’t I? I believed that rules prevent chaos, make the world a better place.  One of the most important rules was—never pitch a book that you’re writing to an editor until you’re finished writing it.  NEVER.

          But after writing four novels and not selling them, I grew suspicious that the ideas I was writing about were not marketable. And then one day . . . last year . . . I did the unthinkable.

          I was at a writing conference and I signed up for an appointment with a top New York editor of a publishing house I respected even though I was only 100 pages into writing my current novel.

          Now this isn’t a good idea on many levels, but I convinced myself that I needed to know whether the idea of the story was marketable. 

          I had the title: Wild Point Island.

          I had the genre: paranormal romance

          And I had the story idea—a love story where two people want to be together but they can’t because it’s physically impossible. 

          Yes, I’ll admit it—I was addicted to True Blood—HBO’s hot drama and was a Sookie and Bill fan.  I loved the idea of Bill (a vampire) falling for Sookie (a half human, half fairy). It was a relationship doomed from the start.  Bittersweet.  And I’d drafted a romance modeled on a similar concept. 

          My hero, a revenant, who was once human, was now a different life form.  He’d returned from the dead.  He was 420 years old and was condemned to live his very long life on Wild Point Island.  My heroine was half human/half revenant.  She lived on the mainland, in North Carolina.    

They were both descendants of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, an original English colony that was settled in 1592, but then disappeared when the mother ship returned to England for supplies. This was my hook, and I wanted to see if it was hook enough to sell a book. 

If the editor were interested, she would request at most a partial—the first three chapters—if she requested anything at all--and that would give me time to finish the book, and then I would know that I had a marketable idea. 

So I marched into my appointment to do a very wrong thing. I pitched the story I hadn’t finished and waited for her reaction.  In a pitch session with an editor at a conference you have ten minutes to sell your story. Some writers crack under the pressure.  They become tongue-tied.  They stare down at their notes, and the words swim before their eyes. 

To my shock and amazement, the editor responded immediately.  She knew all about the Lost Colony of Roanoke.  She’d vacationed down in North Carolina as a child.  She loved the idea.  And then she lowered the boom. The good news. What every writer who pitches wants to hear—She requested the entire manuscript.

She referred, of course, to the story I hadn’t yet finished.

          I smiled and said, “Of course.  No problem.” I was doomed.

          Back home, my husband said, “Just finish it then.”

          Two hundred pages in a month?  I would have to write ten pages a day straight for twenty days which would give me roughly two hundred pages and then, I would need ten days to edit. Already I was sweating.

          The next day I signed up online for Book In A Month.  I set myself a schedule. I grew determined to finish the book. 

          It was ugly and beautiful at the same time, and I learned two things from the experience.  One—I could write incredibly fast when I wanted to.  For the first time in my life, I entered into what writers call “the zone.”  When you write intently everyday for long periods of time, you know your story so well, you do enter into the special world of your story, and it does get easier.  Two—I never broke that rule again. I finished. I edited. And I submitted.

          And it was rejected. 

          It wasn’t until months later when I had a chance to rewrite the story that I was able to sell it. 

          Wild Point Island was published by Crescent Moon Press in 2012.       

It’s now available from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com in print and e book formats.

 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=wild+point+island

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wild-point-island-kate-lutter/1110947513?ean=9781937254254

                  

            You can find me at www.katelutter.com.

As for Wild Point Island, the back cover blurb reads: 

          Banished from Wild Point Island as a child, Ella Pattenson, a half human-half revenant, has managed to hide her true identity as a descendent of the Lost Colony of Roanoke.  Thought to have perished, the settlers survived but were transformed into revenants--immortal beings who live forever as long as they remain on the island.

           Now, Ella must return to the place of her birth to rescue her father from imprisonment and a soon to be unspeakable death.  Her only hope is to trust a seductive revenant who seems to have ties to the corrupt High Council.  Simon Viccars is sexy and like no man she’s ever met. But he’s been trapped on the island for 400 years and is willing to do almost anything for his freedom.

            With the forces of the island conspiring against her, Ella must risk her father, her heart, and her life on love.

            Don’t forget to participate in the survey and become eligible for the Give-Away.