Wednesday, August 30, 2006

The Ghost Dance

Over the past few years I've been working on a book called The Ghost Dance. It's just called an unpublished manuscript in the book world by an unknown writer. It's a paranormal story about a young half Native girl's enlightenment of her ancestors' history, including the Massacre at Wounded Knee, Dec. 29, 1890. It also explores the theme of "Injustice." The injustice of how the Native people were treated during that time period preceding the massacre as well as the injustice of over 20 7th Cavalry members that earned the Congressional Medals of Honor for their bravery... during a massacre.
I did about a year's research on the 1850s to 1890s, and delved fairly deep into the Native world, learning as much as I could, to apply to the characters and the central plot and themes of the story. The first influence was reading "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown. It tells the history of what really happened to the different tribes of Indians from the height of their culture to the basic destruction of their way of life within 50 - 60 years.
The story follows Mara Gordon, a spoiled 16 year old and her discovery of not only her heritage, but the injustices. Through a series of dreams, she begins to see descendents of the MOH winners getting murdered by a painted Native warrior. Only these aren't dreams, they are really happening, and Mara sees through the eyes of the murderer. Ready to buy the book yet?
The final touches and polish have recently been completed, so I've sent off the manuscript (query and sample chapters, actually) to a few publishers and I'm looking forward to hearing from them. It's a tough road, but I'm in for the long haul (add any other over used analogies here). Wish me luck!

2 Comments:

At 2:35 PM , Blogger David said...

I do wish you luck. It sounds like a great book. Writing is bloody hard, getting published even harder, but I think you will get there.

 
At 11:05 PM , Blogger Kelly Clemmer said...

Thanks, David for the words of encouragement. I take them to heart, especially from someone such as yourself.

 

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