Hey Readers– How’s it going?
Things have been pretty busy on my end (got sick, changing jobs, life…). The YA Buccaneer’s Fall Writing Bootcamp started last week and, since I’m behind, this will be one mega update post! I’m aiming to update y’all weekly from here on out.
It’s very fitting that it’s fall and this is the YAB fall writing bootcamp as my story is set during the fall. (haha, can I say fall anymore times?)
This picture is from my inspirational Pinterest board. Anyone want to take a guess what city my MS is set in?
Yep! You got it. Boston <333
I started writing this story last year (I think), while I was a student at Wellesley College. Fall is what I love best about New England, and since I now live in Boston (& it’s fall!!) I couldn’t resist setting the story here.
Alright. So that’s setting. What’s next… ah, right, story structure. One fun thing about this MS is that it’s third person… I think.
I say I think because I’ve never written third person before. I intended the story to be in first (so there are bits of that in there) but 90% is third because I keep subconsciously switching back. And so I’ve taken it as a sign the story is meant for third.
As for internal conflict (b/c that’s also something the YA Buccaneers asked us to share), Jenna, my main character, has a lot of anxiety as a result of who she is and who she’s lost. She’s constantly faced with fear of attachment and whether or not to let others in. She’s a criminal mastermind so her “detachment” from people has served her pretty well, but her next job is really going to test that.
Last but not least, my goals:
*Drumroll, please*
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To get 20,000 words of this MS complete!
I’ve been on and off working on it for longer than I’ve worked on the first draft of any project. I have a few thousand words, I know where the story is going, and I’m in love with the characters. It’s time to commit and let the words flow.
And now I bet you’re wondering what the story’s about?
Well… here ya go:
Working Title: The Egyptian Job
Working Blurb: On a sunny day, at the end of last summer, Jenna Banks, Boston’s youngest & most cunning criminal mastermind quit the “family business” for good. Some say she disappeared for good without a trace, like her notorious thief of a father. Others say she’s plotting the greatest comeback ever seen. But only sixteen-year-old Jenna knows the truth, she panicked and broke her number one rule.
But when Quinn, her hacker best friend (or rather, the closest thing to a best friend) is double-crossed by The Backstabber (a con artist who uses other criminals to do his dirty deeds), it’ll be up to Jenna to save to her. To do so, she’ll not have to go back into the “family business” but she’ll have to form a team the criminal underground has never seen to stop the Backstabber at his game once and for all. There’s just one problem, every con job needs a grifter and to pull this one off she’ll need to recruit the best one she knows: the boy who caused her to break her number one rule (the one she adopted after her father vanished years ago)… never get emotionally attached.
If Jenna and her ragtag team of teen criminals (who only ever work alone) pull this off not only will they go down in criminal history but Jenna might just begin to unravel the mystery behind her father’s timely disappearance and make the first group friends she’s ever had.
Think Leverage meets The Heist Society.
That’s all folks! Enjoy the day 
-Patrice