Blog Tour: In the Spotlight

 Elizabeth offers a guest post about her book for The BookWhisperer today. Check it out below.

Sometimes I get asked if I am a plotter or a pantser in regards to my writing. A plotter is fairly self-explanatory.  Plotters use some form of an outline to guide their work. A pantser, on the other hand, “flies by the seat of their pants.” These people are in their element when they allow themselves to follow their story with no concrete plan ahead of time.

I suspect that most people are like me in that they often work from a combination of these. All of my books have varied on the way I have written them. For my first published novel, In the Spotlight, I was definitely in pantser mode. I wrote whatever scenes came into my head so I wouldn’t forget even one. The problem with this approach was that I had to spend a lot of time bridging scenes, and fixing timeline issues. The exciting part was not quite knowing where the story was headed, and finding out things as my characters did.Currently I am working on a manuscript that I am attempting to be in plotter mode on. So far, however, I am incomplete pantser mode. No matter how hard I try, I can’t commit an outline to paper. I am far more excited to simply see where the story takes me, although I have a good idea where the story will end up. And so, yet again I find myself as a combination pantser-plotter.

Synopsis of In the Spotlight:

When sixteen year old Hannah Brewster lands the lead in the school musical she hopes it will be the perfect chance to get the attention of her family and her long time crush, Kyle. The only problem is that school super star, Josh Larson, has been cast opposite her, and he seems to like her as more than just a cast mate.
As Hannah and Josh grow closer, things between Hannah and Kyle get complicated. When Hannah realizes that Kyle is not who she thought he was, she also realizes that she just might like Josh as more than just a friend.
Will Hannah and Josh be able to overcome their obstacles and admit their feelings before the musical ends?

Excerpt:
“You really want to know?” I replied.
“I do,” Josh said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, that stupid smirk still
on his face.
“I put down all the girls you talk about because all the girls you talk about are…skanks. And I don’t like you. I could never like you because you are a conceited jerk. And you know what else? I thought that was because you were Mr. Big Man on Campus football star legend of the school, but it’s not. That’s just who you are.”
I stood up so fast my chair slammed against the wall. People from several surrounding tables glanced our way, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out of the cafeteria as fast as possible. As I fled I was acutely aware of all the eyes following me. Somehow I managed to make it to the choir room before collapsing into a chair.
A horrible realization hit me as buckets of ice cold air from the newly installed air conditioning system dumped on me from the vents in the ceiling. I liked Josh. But that was impossible because I clearly disliked Josh. You can’t have it both ways, I argued with myself. And yet, here I was nursing both the biggest grudge and the biggest crush of all time.
Maybe even bigger than the crush I had on Kyle. And how did that fit into all of this? I still had monster feelings for Kyle. Who wouldn’t? We were getting so much closer now that musical rehearsals had started. I mean, why would he offer me private coaching sessions if he didn’t feel something for me? I had a little suspicion though that Kyle might not be the only one with feelings for me. Why would Josh want me to be jealous of all his skanky little conquests unless he liked me, too? And did I want Josh to like me back? Just because he might possibly, potentially like me back, that didn’t mean that anything was going to happen between us. I mean, I certainly wasn’t going to make the first move, and if that little display back in the lunch room had been Josh’s idea of a first move, the two of us would obviously get nowhere fast.
And did I even want Josh to like me? Hadn’t I spent the past three years trying to get Kyle to fall madly, deeply in love with me? Or at least wishing that he would? How on earth could I focus on accomplishing a goal like that when another boy was taking up my time? Seriously, what was wrong with me? I felt like I was turning into Claudia. And speaking of Claudia, what was going on with her and Kyle anyway? One day they seemed to be in the throes of a heated affair, and the next day they could barely stand the sight of each other.

You can find out more at my website: www.lizbotts.com