GONE FROM THESE WOODS: CHAPTER ONE

The official publication date, August 25, 2009, is only 19 days away! Today I'm going to talk about chapter one. In my original version of chapter one, the final scene was much less clear. My editor suggested that, rather than obscuring the action, which is very shocking, I rewrite and allow the reader to "see" what happens. Doing this required me to actually reenact the scene with a friend, Kathleen McGuire. Then I recruited Eric Pozen, our former police to give me a gun lesson and re enact the scene yet again. It took me quite awhile to get this final scene just right, just as it was extremely hard to "be" an eleven-year-old boy throughout a 40,000 plus word book. I think I did okay. Tell me what you think after you read the book.