The glorious day has arrived, Blog Buddies! This is the Cyber-Launch Book Party for Michelle Moran's debut novel, NEFERTITI, which I was lucky enough to get an ARC of. Remember my review of it? It was the May 16th entry on this blog, if you want to go check it out. NEFERTITI hits the bookshelves this coming Tuesday, July 10th. However, if you participate in the party by leaving a comment for this blog entry, you will have the chance to win a gold-wrapped and autographed copy! The drawing will be held at the end of the party tomorrow night. Here's the important thing: Your comment must have your username which will lead me to info about how to contact you, whether through your blog, an email, or whatever. Otherwise, I can't enter you in the drawing. The other prize is a gold Nefertiti charm!
Now, read the interview. When you're finished, click on 'comments' at the bottom and you will be taken to my party room where the natural laws of time and space do not apply. Watch your step though. The mummies don't get out much, so they're a little rowdy.
I emailed some questions to Michelle and she was kind enough to send these answers back:
1) Can you share the journey you took in creating NEFERTITI? What first
inspired you?
The inspiration to write Nefertiti inadvertently happened while I was on an archaeological dig in Israel. During my sophomore year in college, I found myself sitting in Anthropology 101, and when the professor mentioned that she was looking for volunteers who would like to join a dig in Israel, I was one of the first students to sign up. When I got to Israel, however, all of my archaeological dreams were dashed (probably because they centered around Indiana Jones). There were no fedora wearing men, no cities carved into rock, and certainly no Ark of the Covenant. I was very disappointed. Not only would a fedora have seemed out of place, but I couldn’t even use the tiny brushes I had packed. Apparently, archaeology is more about digging big ditches with pickaxes rather than dusting off artifacts. And it had never occurred to me until then that in order to get to those artifacts, one had to dig deep into the earth. Volunteering on an archaeological dig was hot, it was sweaty, it was incredibly dirty, and when I look back on the experience through the rose-tinged glasses of time, I think, Wow, was it fantastic! Especially when our team discovered an Egyptian scarab that proved the ancient Israelites had once traded with the Egyptians. Looking at that scarab in the dirt, I began to wonder who had owned it, and what had possessed them to undertake the long journey from their homeland to the fledgling country of Israel.
On my flight back to America I stopped in Berlin, and with a newfound appreciation for Egyptology, I visited the museum where Nefertiti’s limestone bust was being housed. The graceful curve of Nefertiti’s neck, her arched brows, and the faintest hint of a smile were captivating to me. Who was this woman with her self-possessed gaze and stunning features? I wanted to know more about Nefertiti’s story, but when I began the research into her life, it proved incredibly difficult. She’d been a woman who’d inspired powerful emotions when she lived over three thousand years ago, and those who had despised her had attempted to erase her name from history. Yet even in the face of such ancient vengeance, some clues remained.
As a young girl Nefertiti had married a Pharaoh who was determined to erase the gods of Egypt and replace them with a sun-god he called Aten. It seemed that Nefertiti’s family allowed her to marry this impetuous king in the hopes that she would tame his wild ambitions. What happened instead, however, was that Nefertiti joined him in building his own capital of Amarna where they ruled together as god and goddess. But the alluring Nefertiti had a sister who seemed to keep her grounded, and in an image of her found in Amarna, the sister is standing off to one side, her arms down while everyone else is enthusiastically praising the royal couple. From this image, and a wealth of other evidence, I tried to recreate the epic life of an Egyptian queen whose husband was to become known as the Heretic King.
Writing the novel took years of research. I wanted to be sure that when I wrote Nefertiti I was extremely accurate, down to the color of the palace tiles and shape of the women’s beads. At the same time, however, I wanted to be careful not to weigh the story down in too much detail. There needed to be the same sense of urgency, danger, and passion as filled Nefertiti’s world.
2) Some of our guests are writers. Can you share your process for
taking a story from rough draft to submission-ready manuscript? What's your
best advice on how they can improve the craft of writing to meet publication
standards?
Nefertiti isn’t my first novel. In fact, it’s not even my second. The process of submitting a manuscript, finding an agent, then reaching publication didn’t happen overnight for me. Actually, it took fifteen years. My first attempt at getting published was in seventh grade, when I was twelve. I had written a full length book that was certainly pathetic but everyone praised it and my father hailed it as the next Great American Novel. My father was very good at ego-boosting. But no one knew how to go about getting published, so I went to my local Barnes and Nobles and asked them how. And instead of laughing, the bookseller took me to the writing section and I purchased the current edition of Writer's Market. From then on, no agent or publishing house was safe. I learned how to write query letters and regaled them all. And some of them sent personal letters back too, probably because I had included my age in the query letter and they either thought a) this kid has potential or b) this is sad and deserves at least a kind note.
Then, after going on an archaeological dig in my second year of college, I changed my genre from literary to historical fiction and found my calling. That summer I wrote a novel called Jezebel, and signed on with a prominent agent. His foreign rights department sold it successfully to Bertelsmann in Germany, and I had my first publishing credit with the company that owns Random House. But my agent in NY had a difficult time selling the novel, and when it was clear that he had done what he could for Jezebel and that there would be no sale in the US, I saw the writing on the wall. I would have to write another book.
So I began my research, and over the next few years I came to a slow and eye-opening realization. No mater how many times or how nicely I wrote, my agent never answered my emails. Even after I had finished the book on the subject that he’d suggested, he never took my phone calls. Did this mean I didn’t have an agent? Had I been dumped because Jezebel hadn’t sold? Did agents do that without telling their clients? Apparently, he did, and apparently, some do. So I took the high road and wrote a letter thanking him for what he had done for me (he did get my foot in the door), and I asked to be released from our contract. I sent the letter by certified mail and promptly never heard from him again.
But publishing isn’t personal, and neither is rejection, so I began sending query letters out the next month, mentioning that my agent and I had recently parted ways and that I was searching for new representation. It was a matter of weeks before I had a new agent, the wonderful Anna Ghosh at Scovil Chichak Galen, and she took on the task of submitting the novel that my precious agent had suggested I write. But my heart hadn’t been in the book. It was set in the 20th century, and my specialty – what I studied in college and what I’ve since become an amateur historian on – is ancient Egypt and the Middle Ages. We had quite a few near misses with the novel, where editors wanted to purchase the book but were told no by the acquisitions committee, since all sales have to be approved by a committee. After Anna sent the novel to all the major houses, I began to panic that I’d be dropped as a client for a second time, and that is when I started Nefertiti, a project I was extremely passionate about. Anna waited for two years while I wrote the book, and eventually she sold the book and its stand-alone sequel for six-figures to Crown. After that, her foreign rights agent Danny Baror (who happened to be the same foreign rights agent who sold Jezebel) sold Nefertiti and The Heretic Queen to more than fifteen countries.
I do believe there is a moral to this story, which is to be persistent and not to be afraid of starting a new project. I have thirteen books that I’ve written, and just because they’re not published doesn’t mean I didn’t learn from them, or that I can’t publish them in the future (although I probably won’t). I think what aspiring writers need to understand is that if something isn’t right for the current market, that doesn’t mean they should simply give up. With each book you’ll get better as a writer, and eventually you will strike gold!
3) What experience do you hope readers will take away from reading
NEFERTITI?
I hope that readers will come away having felt as if they’d spent time in the ancient Egypt of 1350 BC. Nefertiti was the step-mother of Tut, the wife of the Heretic King Akhenaten, and a precursor to Ramesses the Great. She lived during a time of great wealth and power for Egyptian Pharaohs, and I believe that her story is one of the most fascinating ever to have come out of Egypt.
4) Can you tell us a little bit about your next novel? What's the
title? When is it due out?
Currently, I’m finishing the stand-alone sequel to Nefertiti. It will be in bookstores July 2008 and will probably be titled The Heretic Queen. It follows the destiny of Mutny’s daughter, Nefertari, and traces her transformation from a wild palace child to the strikingly beautiful and intelligent queen of Ramesses II.
Very cool, Michelle! Can't wait. (((Kimber hears the mummies chanting, 'Party! Party! Party!' again.))) Gotta go!
LOTTERY is receiving lots of attention and high praise everywhere from BEA to Redbook magazine. So, I'm honored Pat sent an ARC to me, an amatear reviewer. I could NOT speed-read this book and that's saying a lot, because I'm an extremely impatient reader. When a book grabs me by the metaphoric throat, you know I love it!
Released February, 2002
