HOW LONG MUST TWINS BE SEPARATED BEFORE THEY FORGET?

HOW LONG MUST TWINS BE SEPARATED BEFORE THEY FORGET?
Two new novels follow the separate lives of twins whose parents thought it possible.

The twins are fraternal, a boy and a girl, with very different personalities. What could be more natural when Mom and Dad divorce than for Mom to keep the girl and for Dad to take the boy? “And never the twain shall meet” is the parents’ decision for the four-year-old brother and sister.
Kyleah’s Tree, by Janet Muirhead Hill, begins when Kyleah is eleven years old. She lives in a foster home because her mother died when she was five, and the grandparents she was sent to live with moved to a retirement home a year later. “We’re sorry, they don’t allow kids,” she was told before someone took her to a family of strangers. Is it any wonder that Kyleah has trust issues and determines not to make close friendships? “If I love them, I lose them,” she believes.
Many hair-raising adventures ensue when she and a thirteen-year-old foster brother run away, trekking from Kansas to Canada in search of families they have lost.
Kendall’s Storm, the companion novel, begins when the boy is ten-years-old going on eleven. His dad takes him from town to town and state to state, leaving each without notice or any time for Kendall to gather up his belongings to take with him. He is the timid twin who fears both his father’s wrath and just about everything else. He longs for his sister and carries a faded photo of the two of them taken just days before their fourth birthday—and their separation.
When Kendall rescues a dog from a hail storm, his loneliness is somewhat abated, his courage begins to grow, but his fateful adventures are far from over. Kendall has learned that when he dares to ask his father questions, he might not get an answer, and that when Dad doesn’t answer, it’s bad news. Two questions he’s learned never to ask are whether or not his sister and mother are alive and, if they are, why can’t he see them?
When Dad decides to settle in southwest Washington on Long Beach Peninsula, Kendall is not happy. He hates the cold dampness and is afraid of the ocean. When he learns that his father’s job is not with the FBI as Kendall liked to believe, but rather a drug dealer, Kendall is devastated and runs away only to be lost in the rain forest. After he’s rescued, Dad is arrested, and Kendall goes to a foster home where he lives with three other boys until a typhoon sweeps the area.
Kendall and Kyleah, twins with different innate traits, travel journeys that have almost no similarity. They live in very different settings, experience different life styles, and are influenced by different kinds of people. The foster homes they each live in are opposite—one kind and responsible, the other abusive and negligent. Yet, they share a bond like no other, a bond formed before birth and strengthened in the first four years of life. Book reading groups will find fodder for lively discussion as they compare and contrast these children’s stories. The comprehensive discussion guides in the back of each book will stimulate thoughtful debates for adult readers as well as for middle-grade students in classroom settings.

Each of these novels is an exciting, stand-alone read and both are now available. A third book will be released next year, completing this trilogy of twins.

For more information about these novels or to schedule an interview or a school visit, please contact the author at 406-685-3545 or e-mail her at author@janetmuirheadhill.com. These books may be purchased for $12.00 each at www.ravenpublishing.net, www.amazon.com, or in many fine stores.

Writing the Ending

I have always maintained that the ending is the hardest part of the book to write. My style of writing is to develop characters I care about and then hand the reins to them, so to speak. Beginnings are usually easy, as I place these characters in the middle of some action with a dilemma to solve. Then I ask them, "What will you do, now?" and the story takes off. I don't outline. I don't plan the end until my characters take me there.

However, in a recent assignment, my Fiction Writing instructor gave the class an interesting assignment, which I just completed. "Write three possible beginnings and three possible endings to the story you are working on." Each of the three was to take a different approach from the types of endings and beginnings outlined in the book, Ficton Writer's Workshop, by Josip Novakovich.

Although I am only about two-thirds to three-fourths of the way through the novel, Kendall and Kyleah (working title), the third book of the twins trilogy, I found this assignment both useful and fun to do—especially the endings. This was a surprise to me. Knowing the possible ways I might end the book gives me a target—a beam of light in the distance I can use to keep my focus. I still don't know which of these three endings, if any of them, I might use. But writing them has energized me and made me want to get on with the journey, over whatever rough roads lie ahead, toward that beam of light.

Titles for young adult novels from Raven Publishing

In my last post, I asked for help in finding a title for my book about a junior high boy assigned to work in a homeless shelter. Several titles were suggested to me. The winner, so far, is "The Body in the Freezer." Yep, you gotta read the book to find out why. Coming soon.

Coming sooner is Kendall's Storm, the companion novel to Kyleah's Tree, which is also being reissued with a study/discussion guide at the end. To complete the trilogy, the third book that brings the twins, Kendall and Kyleah, together is also looking for a permanent title. So far, I've called it "Twins Together," "Reunited," or just "Kendall and Kyleah." Also thinking of dubbing it something like, "The Runaways" as there have been episodes of running away in both books and may be in the third, if it continues as planned. It isn't finished yet.

I began, as I always do by writing a few chapters as my muse (and characters) led me. As ideas came to me, I wrote a rough general outline of what will transpire, but I never know for sure what turns it will take or how it will end. That is up to the characters, who, once developed and put into situations I think up, teach me what they would do, and often create situations of their own. Being true to my characters allows both me and the readers to learn what the character's lives are really like. Readers can relate to characters whose emotions and reactions are authentic. That's what makes "true fiction." Both Kyleah's Tree and Kendall's Storm are available as ebooks on Amazon.com and on Smashwords.com.