Devon Cooper: Bad Day

A bit of business today before we get things started. I wrote a guest blog for Shelly at her blog The Life of A Novice Writer, on the topic of researching for a book. Drop by and check it out.

And today I've got a guest blogger here. Devon Cooper has released her book Bad Day in the ebook format, with paperback to follow. You can find it here through her Amazon author's page. I've read the book, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll be reviewing it here in the coming days, but for now, I'll leave it to Devon to introduce herself and tell you a few things about it. Take it away, Devon!

Thank you, William, for having me over to your blog today. I really appreciate you doing this for me. Beth Muscat over at Bent River Books (http://www.bentriverbooks.wordpress.com/) and her friends, including you, William, have been especially helpful in getting my name out there.

Hey folks. My name is Devon Cooper, and I'm a newbie to the Indie Author world. My debut novel is called, "Bad Day" and I'm quite proud of my first writing accomplishment.

Writing a book has been something that I've wanted to do for a while, but nothing I wrote seemed good enough. I started writing a paranormal romance type book that had werewolves, angels and demons in it, because that seemed to be all the rage, but it just didn't work out.

Then I wrote this piece about a woman who was trying to get herself and her family ready for the day. If a woman has a family that requires her to seemingly do everything for them, while leaving little time for herself to get ready, well, you can almost feel the stress she might be under. But, as with the above story, it never went anywhere.

However, I didn't throw out those two unworkable stories. I kept them in the hopes that one day I could get back to them or use them in some other story. And, that's what I did.

Bad Day takes place over one day, which is not the way I had intended on writing it. However, as I continued to write, it kind of wrote itself that way. As each character goes through his or her own personal turmoil, I added bits and pieces from the unworkable paranormal story into this, creating memories for the characters. I was able to use three different parts from this story to create memories for three of my characters.

I also incorporated some of my own memories into the story for my characters. Of course, I embellished them, or changed the context, but still, some of those are mine own.

The beginning of the book (after the equally stressful prologue) features Angie, a driven hard-working woman who is to make a presentation for a spot on the Board of Directors of the company she works for. Of course, the comedy starts with her trying to get herself ready in the morning after waking up late. Her day doesn't get any better when she gets to work. She still has to make it to the top of the high rise.

Add in more characters that are having similarily stressful days, and you have the makings of a comedy.

Frank is a construction worker, who is working at the top of the same high rise building with his boss, Sam. But, to get to the top, Frank has to get into the one thing that he fears the most. An elevator.

Of course, it doesn't help when Frank forgets his drill in his truck and has to go back down to get it. He must face his fear head on. Then, to make matters worse, the elevator gets stuck on its way back up, trapping him in there.

When the fire alarm goes off, Sam can't trust that the elevators will be working properly. He opts for the stairs, but with his old high school knee injury, his trip down the stairs proves to be a long one. To make matters worse, he has no way of knowing where Frank is, and he left his cell phone in his truck, so he can't even call his wife Joanne to let her know that he's ok.

When Joanne, a teacher, finds out that the high rise building has had a bomb threat called into it, she leaves her classroom to go find Sam. When the police check their list to see if he exited the building, his name isn't on any of their lists. Seriously, I don't think their days could get any worse...or can it?

Some of the memories are funny, and some of them are sad, but the memories of the characters help build the stressfulness of how they feel throughout the book. And, what's a romantic comedy without a little romance...just a little.

This was one book I felt was good enough to make my debut novel. Set in multiple first person point of view, it's an easy read, and one that I hope you will all enjoy.

Thank you again, William, for allowing me to come here and talk about Bad Day which is currently available in ebook format (paperback coming soon) at Amazon.