The Next Big Thing Project

The Next Big Thing Project is a creative game of tag with the goal of prompting writers to share their current/future writing project. Eileen Dougharty just passed the torch to me so that I can share my BIG idea with you.

1. What is the working title of your book?
Forever Maybe. The story behind the title can be found here.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
In the year after my divorce, I began meeting an array of men and realized that meeting a large quantity of them would be the key to me figuring out what I was seeking. This began “Project 50”, where I challenged myself to meet 50 amazing men in a year (from one birthday to the next). I’m grateful for all of them and everything I learned. And to any woman who says “there just aren’t any single men out there”, I can tell her 50 reasons why she’s wrong.

3. What genre does your book fall under?
Non-fiction. Project. For better or worse, “chic lit”.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Emma Stone because she does awkward well. And Edward Norton circa Fight Club.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Newly single woman dates 50 men in one year and finds something unexpected. Do you see what I did there? Are you on the edge of your seat? An NO, it’s not an STD.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I always planned to self publish but now I’m not in such a rush to get it out. I’d actually like the opportunity to shop it around and get the full rejection experience. And then I’ll have that one moment in time where I call you crying to tell you that someone wants my book and you can’t understand what I’m saying through my uncontrollable happy sobbing and you keep asking, “What’s wrong?!”

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I started a blog in 2008, then devoted 6 months to writing from my year of notes. Still working on it so…the year of the project + 6 months + x.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Coincidentally, I just met Rachel Bertsche who wrote MWF seeking BFF which is about her journey meeting 52 potential best friends in a year. I had the opportunity to tell her about my book and how whenever I talk about it, people inevitably ask me about her book. Jill Howe is now hoping that Rachel will write my foreword. Wouldn’t that just be THE BEST?

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I felt inspired to do something I had never done before- date without the pressure of trying to meet “the one”. Writing about this adventure took the pressure off each encounter and made it fun, the way that dating should be (not in a “you’re all jerks” Taylor Swift kind of way). I am inspired to share what I learned to help single ladies everywhere date fearlessly.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It answers a lot of practical questions about dating while making the journey entertaining. I now know the best question to ask on a first date, what not to do while speed dating and how to meet three men in one night.