Procrastinating with Character Pics

For the first time in a few years, November rolls around right as I'm poised to start work on a new project. Which means, I can attempt NaNoWriMo this year.* Huzzah! (Anyone else out there doing NaNo? When they add the writing-buddy-gadget, add me over there! I'm Ellen G.)

This year, I'm going to try a horror. It will probably turn out more thriller-y than horror-esque, because somehow all my genre attempts have a vein of thriller in them. But I'll try to amp up the creepitude in this book!

My short pitch?

16-year-old narcoleptic Melika Hale wakes up in a field beneath Mt. Rainier, covered in blood, with no memory of the past hour. She soon learns that her classmate Hope Li has been murdered. What nobody knows is that Hope was Melika's first kiss.

Desperate to find the killer, Melika drives the local police crazy with her theories. Meanwhile, her usual sleeplessness-induced hallucinations are getting worse. When Melika dreams a warning from a superstitious former neighbor telling her that the gods have chosen Melika as the pawn in their next reenactment, her search for a culprit takes her into the shelves of folklore.

The more Melika learns about the ancient legends of the Pacific Northwest, and those of her parents' native Hawaii, the more she starts to wonder if the answer lies closer to home. After all, the gods often hurt the ones they loved...

So, I have the pitch, I wrote a practice scene (which I won't count in my 50k, don't worry) to get a hang of Mel's voice, and I speed-plotted the book last week. What's a girl to do as she waits for November 1 to roll around now?

Browse for character photos, of course! I know you all want to see these. What's that? You have a debilitating allergy to other people's random character photos? Your cat texted to say his head's stuck in a cowboy boot and you have to go rescue him now?

I understand! But for those of you who might be bored like me... Or who want to stick around and ogle the hot male model I found for the love-interest... Here's my cast!

Melika Hale (narcoleptic, bisexual, aspiring modern dancer, Pacific Islander by nature and Seattleite by nurture):


(model: mary jenel)

Paige Driver (Melika's best friend, lead actress in the play, homecoming queen, class president, has a lot of acquaintances, but few close, real friends):


(model: PhoenixKRose)

Hope Li (our murder victim, salutatorian, classic pianist, very private, withdrawn, just accepted to Stanford):


(model: Xyooj Linda)

Alexander Chu (Hope's boyfriend, second-string quarterback, generous, but very competitive):



Morrigan (not her real name, total stranger who shows up at the funeral):

(model: Stacey Willow)

Aaaand I saved the bribery for last.

Logan Collins (Paige's boyfriend, lead actor in this year's musical, nice guy, kind of a partier):


(model: Andre Barcelo)

P.S. - if any of you have read this far, a) I owe you giveaways soon and b) question: does "Tears in the Ash" sound too emo for a horror title? I want to play around with the whole volcanic glass metaphor, but... sigh!

* If you haven't heard of it, that's National Novel-Writing Month. To win, you have to write 50k words (a novel) in the month of November.