My Next Big Project: The Move to Seattle

One week ago today, I finished the first draft of The Grief Book. It's in my agent's hands now and I know there will be revisions to come before it is shopped to publishers, but then it will be time for my next project, and that will not be writing-related.

If you've been following my blog, Facebook, or Twitter, you know that I've been visiting and dreaming about moving to Seattle for a long time. Nine years this month actually. In July of this year, my husband and I are finally taking the plunge. It's beyond exciting! It's totally fucking terrifying! And being A Writer Person Who Must Document Everything, I feel the compulsion to document it. I'm doing this for me, but also because as I've worked to make this dream become a reality, I've had so many questions and worries and I'm so thankful for the advice I've gotten and the internet resources I've found (like this awesome blog), that I hoped my documentation might be useful to others looking to make their way to their dream city--or heart city, as I call Seattle--especially those dealing with any of the crazy circumstances that we are, which I will get into later on in this entry and in future entries.

I call this oft-neglected blog 'o mine Life, Words, and Rock 'n' Roll. Most of my posts are about the words--my writing process, projects, and woes, as well as author interviews. I've done series of posts on the rock 'n' roll (Music Tuesdays and Women Who Rock Wednesdays). And occasionally I get personal and do the life stuff. Over the next couple of months (if all goes as planned, I do tend to take on too many projects), my Seattle Bound series of blog posts will really bring you into my life. I hope it's vaguely interesting to my readers. I considered posting this solely on Tumblr (and if you are a Tumblr user, my new all-about-moving Tumblr is http://seattleboundwritergrl.tumblr.com/), but since that would mean this blog remaining quite neglected, I've decided to cross-post. The Tumblr will probably have additional Seattle-y things on it if you are interested (and if I do a better job than I have with my Muses tumblr and my Bartending tumblr ).

Anyway, I will start by answering the question that I get the most when I tell people that I was dreaming of/am now planning to move to Seattle. Why? This is almost always followed up with some sort of comment about the rain, either that I must like it or that the question-asker could not stand it.

The short answer is, "Seattle is the city of my heart. I've loved cities--New Orleans and Los Angeles, for example--but I've never gone some place and thought, I belong here until my first visit to Seattle."

This answer usually gets funny looks from people who've either never thought too hard about feeling like they "fit" where they live or loving a place like a person. If I don't think like someone will get it, I often just give them the more simplified "because I love it." But now I will elaborate the way I have been to my husband, my best friends, and my family for too many years.

As a writer, I think about place a lot. I worked very hard to develop the fictional place of Carlisle, Wisconsin in my first book, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, and capture the Oak Park, Illinois that I grew up in in my second book, Ballads of Suburbia. I love stories with a deep connection to their environment--my all-time favorite YA book Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block for example. The way Weetzie's Los Angeles is painted in those opening pages.... *sigh* When I read that book in high school, I was jealous of Weetize for many reasons--she had great style, an amazing makeshift family, a freakin' lamp with a genie in it, and above all else, she loved the place where she lived. It was a part of her. It was her heart.

I'd never felt like that. My family moved from St. Louis, Missouri to Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, when I was eight. My younger brother had a strong attachment to our original hometown and would go back there for college and law school. I liked St. Louis, but I didn't feel particularly connected to it. I hated Oak Park. I'd never felt so out of place in my life. Being bullied in grade school and junior high didn't particularly help, but even when I found my own group of friends in high school, I still ached to get out. I graduated high school a semester early and moved to Madison, Wisconsin. That was my almost-heart city. I will always have a special love for it because it was the place I found freedom and started to find myself. I was more attached to it than any place I lived, but I still didn't feel  that Weetzie-L.A.-level of connection. Also, before I could really find myself there, I started to lose myself. I was in an unhealthy relationship, drinking heavily, I'd dropped out of college and was going nowhere fast. So, at 21, I went home to Oak Park, to live with my mom and get back on my feet while enrolling at Columbia College Chicago. I ended up getting both my Bachelor's and Master's degrees at Columbia and because of that and other reasons that I detail in this Rookie essay about my relationship with the suburbs, stuck around and bought a house in another Chicago suburb, Forest Park in 2004, when I was 24.

I didn't want to stay in Chicago. I've never been particularly fond of it. But my school was here. My family was here. And I'd resigned myself to thinking it was my place even though I didn't have the feelings for it that Weetzie had for L.A. That was a fictional story, after all. Maybe those kind of feelings didn't exist in real life. And then, six weeks before I closed on my house in Forest Park, I went to Seattle.

The reason for my first trip to Seattle was equal parts dorky and incredibly personal. Music is a huge part of my life, probably about the same size as writing since it is what inspires me most. And my biggest inspiration of all was Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. I discovered them in junior high, while being bullied, while feeling like a freak who didn't deserve a voice. But then there was Kurt, also a freak and an outcast, and in the early 90s, his was one of the loudest voices in the world. Nirvana's music helped me break out of my shell and become an artist. I was fourteen years old when Kurt Cobain killed himself. It was totally devastating because I related to and admired him so much. In some ways, it marked the end of my innocence. After Kurt Cobain's death, I discovered drugs and sex and sex with the wrong people. I was depressed. I was abused. It was an ugly, ugly time.

But I still loved his music and I loved talking to other people who loved his music. I met two girls online, one from Denver and one from St. Louis, who loved the music the way I did, who in April of 2004, ten years after Kurt's death wanted to pay their respects like I did. When Kurt died, I planted myself in front of my TV and watch peopled gather in the Seattle Center and the small park next to his house in Seattle. I wanted to be there. I seriously considered running away, but I didn't. Taking the trip ten years later seemed like a fitting tribute as well as a way to give myself closure. I was 24, about to buy a house. I wanted to say goodbye to that fucked-up teenage girl I'd been in the years right after Kurt died.

Though I was a Nirvana geek and a music geek in general who loved a lot of the Seattle area bands (I did almost go to Evergreen State in Olympia because of my connection to the Riot Grrrl movement), I didn't see Seattle as some sort of Mecca like some of my friends in high school and in the online music community did. It was just a place. I was going there to honor the man who'd been a huge artistic influence on me, to have closure with my teenage self, and mainly because it was spring break, and as a college kid hanging out with my internet friends in a hostel seemed like a fun way to spend it. I did do and enjoy all of those things. I even documented the tribute/closure thing in this essay on Fresh Yarn. But something else happened, too. Something I had not expected at all. And it happened in the course of an hour.

I got off the plane, met up with my friends and we went outside to find the bus that would take us downtown to our hostel. The smell of the air was so fresh and clean. Rain, the woods, the green, green earth even though I though I was standing outside of an airport on a sunny day. Then, once on the bus, my friends talked and I just stared. All that green. All those trees. The mountains in the distance. The water and this:

I could feel it in my heart before we even reached downtown: I was home. The home I'd stopped believing I'd find. My version of Weetzie's pink-smog-drenched, glittery Los Angeles was this cloudy, gray and green-green-green paradise. I felt even more sure of it as I walked from 3rd and University to First and Union, down an insane set of steps to our hostel, and from there to what would become my first and final destination on each of the ten trips I've taken to Seattle since 2004:

I spent ten days wandering the streets with my friends. We stayed downtown, but also went to Capitol Hill, Belltown, Queen Anne, the U-District and of course Madrona, since Viretta Park was an essential part of the tribute portion of the trip. We only rented a car to drive around outside of the city, but in Seattle itself, we walked and took the bus everywhere. I was more aware of my surroundings than I'd ever been, wanting to take all of it in. It only rained on one day, which I knew was rare for April, but I already had plans to go back and experience more of the city, preferably on gray and drizzly days because as I tell all the people who ask me my feelings on rain, "I like it. I always have, except for crazy, scary thunderstorms and tornadoes. And I much, much prefer cold and rainy to snow in the winter."

I cried in the airport bathroom when I had to leave, but I went home to Chicago. I closed on that house in Forest Park because I thought I had to. My boyfriend was there and he'd made it clear that he'd never leave the Midwest. I was still in grad school. And maybe, maybe it was fluke. Maybe it was just a vacation I'd really needed and really enjoyed.

But I missed Seattle like a person. I started watching a certain soapy hospital drama just for the stock footage of the Space Needle, for a peek at Puget Sound. I planned my next trip with my Denver friend, who understood my feelings for the city. We went back again in April, experiencing more proper rain and gray that time, exploring more neighborhoods and places: Fremont and Gasworks Park, Alki Beach and West Seattle, Magnuson Park to the Northeast. We got drenched. We got cranky after losing sleep at our much shittier hostel. But I was still in love. It made sense in a lot of ways, why I fit there. When I talked to my Madison friends who'd been, they said it's like a bigger Madison. The people are laid back, and even though I've heard people talk about the "Seattle Freeze," my friend and I never had trouble making new friends--chatting with random people on the bus, being invited to a concert on the street. And, the food! For most folks it's the seafood, but as a vegan whose been stuck primarily in the Midwest, it was paradise. Pizza Pi in the U-District with vegan pizza; Bamboo Garden in Queen Anne with its fake meat everything; Plum Bistro in Capitol Hill with its exquisite yet affordable gourmet cuisine; Highline also in Capitol Hill, which not only had vegan bar food, but homemade infusions of vodka that this experienced bartender adored; Cafe Flora in Madison Valley for brunch, Georgetown Liquor Company with its sandwiches with sci-fi inspired names that made my geeky heart sing. I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting, but that is just my list of must-eats every time I'm there.

I've visited every year since 2004. In 2005 and 2011, I even went twice. I've been in the spring and the fall. I've gone for New Year's to experience those gray, frozen winter days, and in July and August so I could take the water taxi to Alki Beach and take a swim in the saltwater Colman Pool. I've basked in the sun in Golden Gardens Park and hiked through Discovery Park in the rain. I add a new neighborhood or place to explore every time I travel--Georgetown, Ballard, the Washington Park Arboretum, and the Japanese Garden. I spend as much time as I can by the water. I'm a Cancer girl, so having water on three sides makes me happier than I can express.

Every time I came home to Chicago, it seemed gray, and not pretty rainy gray, just dreary and most definitely flat. Every winter seemed to be colder, snowier. There were too many of those awful thunderstorms that scare the crap out of me. I was more and more miserable, more and more uninspired.

In addition to writing books and essays and teaching writing, I bartend. That's my main source of income here, though it wasn't supposed to be. That was supposed to be a temporary job until I found my niche creatively and found more artistic and fulfilling work--the kind of work that seems more plentiful in a such a creative and literary city like Seattle.

The idea of moving all the way across the country without knowing exactly what I would do there--the logistics alone of a cross-country move with two cats and a husband, out of a house I've lived in with too much stuff for too many years, have always held me back. I've spent years kicking myself for not taking the leap when I was 24, when it was still acceptable to take such daring leaps because you have time to fix it if you fuck up. But I can't kick myself, staying in Chicago at 24 meant finishing my MFA. It meant getting out of the unhealthy relationship I was in and meeting and ultimately marrying my real life partner. Fortunately because he is my true partner, because he gives me strength and feeds my dreams and is willing to take risks and adventures with me, he has agreed that it's time to take the leap, to go to the city of my heart and make our home there.

The plan as of now is to depart on July 2nd, to drive across the country in our Honda Accord with two cats in the back. I'm still terrified of the logistics, still terrified that I'm risking everything--our savings, our careers--for this dream. But I'm also excited about the adventure, the new challenges we will face. I know this post, explaining the why, which I probably still didn't do fully, was long, and I thank you for bearing with me. I don't expect all of the how posts, the specifics of those challenges, those fears that come with moving across the country will be nearly as long as this. But, to talk about where I'm headed, I had to explain where I was coming from. 

The Songs of The Grief Book

At three in the morning yesterday... err, today, I sent off a draft of my latest YA novel to my agent. We'll call it The Grief Book for now since that is how I operate--no real titles, just vague descriptions--when talking about book that are not yet published in public. It's a contemporary YA about girl who's lost her older brother, and while not really coping with that, ends up in an emotionally abusive relationship. I've been working on it since August. I've been completely immersed in getting it finished for the past couple weeks. It's been practically all I thought about, so I almost don't know what to do with myself now. I'm still just living it, in my head, and especially, as usual through music.

For a long time I couldn't write while listening to music. I would create playlists of songs that reminded me of the story that I would listen when do everything but writing to keep me inspired, but while I was typing, especially drafting, my office remained silent. That started to change last year with the (abandoned for now, but being rethought) Modern Myth YA, and when I started working on The Grief Book, I realized I needed a certain sound and I needed it on repeat while working. Those bands have shifted and changed from the beginning to the end (because you do get sick of listening to the same thing day in and day out, no matter how much you love it) and my playlist for this book is a couple of scattered songs mixed with full albums and sometimes entire catalogs of certain bands. There's over a hundred songs on it.... and I still think I listened to it at least twice yesterday.

Anyway since that music still feels like MY SOUL right now because this book is still MY SOUL, I thought I'd share some of it via this YouTube playlist. 

It's pretty much in the order that I discovered that I needed the songs/bands as my muse. The two Hole songs have been with me since I started this project and so has the Dinosaur Jr. song. They were the first band I was inspired to listen to over and over again while writing. Green Mind, Where You Been, and Without a Sound are all on the playlist in full.

I added Farewell Continental to my list of inspirations pretty early on, too, and "New Tile Floor" especially speaks to the story/characters. The Wheels are a local band whose whole EP is on my playlist, but "Front Porch" is the song I listen to most.  I have a character named Riley and one named Justin and the songs with their names in suit them or their story arc in a way. The first Sunny Day Real Estate album is on the playlist mostly in full, but "In Circles," is totally a theme song. "Reach for the Sky" and "Blackbird" both figure into the story directly. "Try" could be a theme song for my main character, Meredith, and "What Sarah Said" pretty much sums up the worst day of her life, and "One Last Time" by Veruca Salt (which I sadly couldn't find a full version of on YouTube) is telling of her relationship. As for "Say Hello to Heaven," well, it is The Grief Book.

In terms of the other bands whose albums appear in full on my personal playlist, when I needed to go beyond Dinosaur Jr., I turned to Hum, a favorite from my high school years, whose music and lyrics work as well as Dinosaur setting the mood for this story. The Soulsavers were my biggest discovery during the writing of this book. My friend Jenny introduced me to them at the end of January and I pretty much listened to their albums "Broken" and "It's Not How Far You Fall, It's How You Land" on repeat for the past two months while shaping the last part of the book. When I needed a break from that, and was craving a female voice, I realized Mazzy Star was perfect.

So there it is, the new book in songs.

And now to take a week or two off while my agent reads it. Well, now to TRY to take a week off from it mentally.

What Haunted Me at 17--a celebration of Nova Ren Suma's new book, 17 & Gone

Nova Ren Suma’s new novel, 17 & Gone, comes out this week on March 21, and to mark the release of this story about a 17-year-old girl haunted by the missing, she’s asked some authors she knows to join her in answering this question… What haunted YOU at 17? To see all the authors taking part, be sure to visit her blog distraction99.com.

I've raved about Nova's first YA novel, Imaginary Girls, all over the internet (including in this review on Rookie) and I am eagerly awaiting my copy of 17 & Gone, so I was thrilled when she asked me to take part in this event.

Okay... what haunted ME at 17?

Well, that's actually quite a list. See, this is me at 17:

And I would look even more haunted a few weeks after this photo was taken when I dyed my bleached hair jet-black to match the lipstick and eyeliner that I'm wearing there.

17 was the year I started listening to Joy Division, Nick Cave, Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Bauhaus and The Smiths a lot more than the grunge, riot grrrl, and punk bands I'd been listening to. Disintegration by the Cure had taken the place of In Utero by Nirvana as my favorite album. (Not that Kurt Cobain's lyrics didn't still haunt me and so did his suicide which had been haunting me since 14.) My favorite movie was City of Lost Children, a French film about a mad scientist, who kidnaps children and steals their dreams.

I felt like my dreams had been stolen.

I had a lot of nightmares.

Two were recurring. In one, I ran an obstacle course supervised by anthropomorphic cartoon animals--pigs, cows, bears, like something out of a Richard Scarry picture book. Except they were evil. The pig stands out in particular. He wore mirrored shades like the stereotypical asshole cop. (Oh, pig... cop... Yeah, I guess my nightmarish subconscious had a sense of humor at least...) He yelled at me as I tried to go through the obstacles, my limbs too heavy like they always are in dreams when you have to move quickly. At least in my dreams. That cartoon pig berated me, laughed when I fell. I would never make it through. I would never reclaim my stolen dreams.

The second nightmare was about Him. In it, he chased me through an old house. It was even harder to run from him than it was to do that obstacle course. Like slogging through quicksand. So he always caught me. Caught me and stabbed a big needle into the bare flesh of my thigh. The place where I carved his initial when I went to the bathroom one day during study hall. I carved it and then I X'd it out. With a razor blade. Lots of blood. I felt like I was going to faint, but instead I put pressure on it until it clotted and then I went  back to class.

Yes, He haunted me most at 17. At 16, too. And 15, when I met him. The boy who stole my dreams. The boy who'd turned me angry, then sad, then both. The boy I loved, then hated, but still loved... Memories of his long eyelashes haunted me. His smell. The mixture of unwashed hair, cigarettes, and a deodorant that I couldn't identify by brand, but sometimes even now, more than fifteen years later, I'll catch a whiff in a crowded room of someone wearing it, or someone whose scents combine like his did. My heart will race. I'll panic. I'll feel sick.

He didn't always make me feel that way though and that's part of what haunted me at 17. That I still liked to wear his pajamas. That I could remember exactly how he looked during that weekend he stayed in our guest room because he'd been kicked out of his house. His black hair against my old E.T. sheets.

But the rain--the rain I'd always loved--it haunted me at 17 because it reminded me of the day that haunted me most of all. April 11, 1995. I still remember the exact date almost 18 years later. The day I told him, No. And then he ignored me, tormented me in the subtle, emotionally abusive ways he'd perfected. My friend convinced him to go into a room and talk to me. He only wanted one word, though. Yes. I gave it, and he didn't even notice the tears in my eyes.

Then, in the weeks that followed, there were lunch "dates" in that dirty bathroom by the baseball diamonds at Ridgeland Commons. It had a brown door. A grate in the floor that would imprint on my knee when he told me to get on them, acting like this was sexy, adventurous. With my back to him, I could cry.

That bathroom, which smelled of piss and him and me, that haunted me a lot at 17. Before I left town, I wrote his name in blood on the brown door. And the R-word, even though I wasn't sure I was actually allowed to use it because technically, I'd said yes. Without realizing it, I'd given a blanket Yes that very first time.

That first time was pretty. It was us stripped and sweet. It was Urge Overkill's "Bottle of Fur"  on the stereo. Saturation was the album. The album that haunted me so bad at 17; that haunts me still. I've never really been able to listen to it again.

Loving Him haunted me. I shouldn't have. I shouldn't still miss the good times, I thought at 17.

Hating Him haunted me. The anger it took over my life, so all-consuming that it cost me friends.

My scars haunted me. My nightmares. My stolen dreams. My blood. Almost every thought in my head haunted me at 17, but the thing that haunted me the most was that I had no idea who I was anymore. No idea where I was going. Everything had been consumed by the love/hate/sad/angry/nightmare/stolen dream.

The only thing that didn't haunt me were the words, though. The words the poured out of me into black-and-white composition books, on to the keys of the typewriter I'd decided I wanted more than a computer, into my short stories, into my 'zines. The words were ugly sometimes. They reflected everything that haunted me.

But, somehow, they set me free.

GCC Presents: Jessica Brody!

One of my lovely gals from the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit has a new book out that sounds amazing. So I wanted to say a big CONGRATS to Jessica Brody on the release of UNREMEMBERED and tell you all about it, so you can check it out!

About UNREMEMBERED:


The only thing worse than forgetting her past...is remembering it.

When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find a single survivor; which is why the sixteen-year-old girl discovered floating amid the wreckage—alive—is making headlines across the globe. She has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories…period. As she struggles to piece together her forgotten past and discover who she really is, every clue raises more questions. Her only hope is a strangely alluring boy who claims to know her. Who claims they were in love. But can she really trust him? And will he be able to protect her from the people who have been making her forget?

Set in a world where science knows no boundaries and memories are manipulated UNREMEMBERED by Jessica Brody is the first novel in a compelling, romantic, and suspenseful new sci-fi trilogy for teens.

About the author:

JESSICA BRODY knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer. She started self “publishing” her own books when she was seven years old, binding the pages together with cardboard, wallpaper samples and electrical tape. She is the author of 52 Reasons to Hate My Father, My Life Undecided, The Karma Club, and now, Unremembered. Her books have been translated and published in over 15 countries. She currently splits her time between California and Colorado. www.jessicabrody.com

The Interview:

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

JESSICA: A few years ago, I read a newspaper article about a teen girl who was the sole survivor of a plane crash. I was instantly fascinated by the story. Namely because they had no idea why she survived when no else did. I started brainstorming reasons as to why she was so lucky. One particular reason (a rather intricate, science-fiction-inspired one) stuck in my mind and refused to leave. It continued to grow and blossom until I had an idea for an entire trilogy. A trilogy that starts with a mysterious plane crash and a single survivor.

Q: The main character of my first book, I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE, is the kind of girl I wanted to be (a rock star!), the MC of my second book has a lot more in common with teenage me. Is your main character someone you wish you could be, someone a lot like you, or your total opposite? How so?

JESSICA: Oh, did I have fun creating this main character! Talk about living vicariously through her! Although I wouldn’t want to wake up among the wreckage of a plane crash with no memories of my life, I definitely would love to have some of Seraphina’s abilities. She can speak multiple languages (something I’ve always wanted to do), she can read a full book in under 3 minutes (I’m a slow reader, so this was definitely aspirational) and she’s superhero strong (I have trouble lifting my carry-on suitcase into the overhead bin!) So yeah, Seraphina is kind of an idol to me.


Q: In addition to writing books, I also write for a website for teens called Rookie, which has a regular feature called "Literally The Best Thing Ever," wherein we write about a thing that we think is super mega awesome (even if it is the type of thing that others might call a guilty pleasure, we believe there is nothing guilty about pleasure!) and explain why we think it is literally the best thing ever. It's generally a kind of unexpected thing, for example I wrote one about the soap opera, One Life To Live. I don't expect you to write a whole essay obviously, but can you briefly tell us what either you or your character (or both!) would say is "Literally The Best Thing Ever" and why?

JESSICA: My main character has no memories of anything when the book opens. Not her name, not her past, not even her favorite color. So when her foster mother asks her what her favorite food is so she can cook it for dinner, Seraphina doesn’t know what to tell her. The foster mother decides to cook the ultimate comfort food: A grilled cheese sandwich. And this is essentially the first experience Seraphina has with food. The experience is overwhelming for her. The flavor explodes in her mouth. She is so in love with this grilled cheese sandwich. It is literally the best thing she’s ever tasted!

I chose a grilled cheese sandwich for a reason. I wanted something that felt very “every day” for you and me, but was world-exploding for Sera, so that I could emphasize just how out of touch with modern day life she really is.

Q: What are you working on for us next?

JESSICA:I just finished writing book 2 of the Unremembered Trilogy, which is called UNFORGOTTEN. And I’m gearing up to start working on book 3, which is called UNTITLED. Haha! But seriously, I’m thinking of keeping that title. What do you think?

GCC Presents: Melissa Walker!

This week one of my favorite books by one of my favorite girlfriends from the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit is being released in paperback. (Whew, trying saying that mouthful ten times fast!) I'm talking about SMALL TOWN SINNERS by Melissa Walker.

I seriously cannot tell you how much I adored this book, so if you haven't read it yet, now is the time to pick it up the paperback version with this lovely new zoomed-in cover:

When the hard cover came out, I did a full book lowdown/interview with Melissa which you can find here. In celebration of the paperback release, Melissa has sent me this fun little background tidbit about the book:

Before I write the book, I do little interviews with some characters. That information almost never makes it into the manuscript, but I like having it. Here's a tiny bit from Dean, one of main character Lacey Anne's best friends:

What you love about your town?

I like the way the sun sets. I like the sky at night in the dark, when no one can see me and it’s quiet—no one can even hear me, but I can see a million stars.

What you hate about your town?

The bullies. Is there a place without them?

What do you love about your church?

The messages. I do want things to be the way our pastor says they should be. I wish people actually lived by the rules, but it seems like they just repent one day a week.

Future dreams?

To get out of here.

END

In addition to this, Melissa wanted to let you know that she has A BIG CONTEST going on that you should enter here!

The lowdown on my WIP

A couple weeks ago, my lovely CP Jenny Seay tagged me in a meme wherein you share some info on the novel you are working on. I've been doing my best to stay offline and work on said novel-in-progress, but I'm up early and thought answering a few q's about it might actually get me in the mindset to work on it after a weekend mostly off. Plus, I know I don't blog much anymore and it's been ages since I've had a book out, so I feel I owe you something besides my Rookie pieces.

What is the title of your next book?
Oh hmmm, this is not a good way to start off, but I'm very superstitious about sharing titles until the book is at least done and being shopped. So I have been referring to it publicly as The Contemporary YA... I will give you this, the working title comes from a Hole song....

Where did the idea come for the book?
In 2010, it rained so hard in my area that my basement flooded twice and the floods were exactly one month apart. It was stressful, but in dealing with it, I thought it could have been worse, especially if things of irreplaceable sentimental value had been down there. From there, my writer's imagination spiraled and I thought, what if a teenage girl's older brother had recently died and his room had been in the basement. I've found myself writing about grief a lot lately because I lost a friend in 2008, so this became an outlet for dealing with my own grief in a way. Also, I was in an emotionally abusive relationship in high school and have wanted to write a story that deals with that for a long time, When I got to know Meredith, my main character, I realized that in trying to run from her grief and be "normal," she'd wound up in an unhealthy relationship. Oh and last but not least, since my book is set in place close to where BALLADS is set, I thought it might fun to refer back to that book in some way (I love it when Sarah Dessen and other authors do this!). Meredith attends a grief therapy group and I thought who better to lead that group than a grown-up Cass.

What genre does your book fall under?
Young Adult/Contemporary Fiction

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Oh god, I am horrible at this sort of thing. The only actor I've ever imagined playing any of my characters is that I can see Madeleine Martin from Californication as Emily from IWBYJR. I don't have an actor in mind at ALL for Meredith. She tried very hard to be the normal teenage girl who blends in and she basically does. She's medium height with dirty blonde hair that she prefers to wear in a ponytail and she's thinner than she should be. So if anyone comes to mind, please tell me. It would be nice to have an image of her/start a Pinterest for this book.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Crap, horrible at this, too!!!! Umm....Okay, on the fly back jacket copy is the best I can do...
It's been almost a year since sixteen year-old Meredith Bell lost her older brother, Justin, and she's been trying to convince herself and everyone around her that she's fine. In fact her life couldn't be better, especially since she started dating Bret, a hot guitarist who she's been crushing on since freshman year. But when she discovers a connection between Bret and two people in her grief therapy group and Bret's grows increasingly controlling and overprotective, Meredith's perfect, "normal" world begins to fall apart.


Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
It will be represented by my amazing agent, Adrienne Rosado.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
It's still in progress. Aiming to finish a shitty first draft by the end of February (with the help of the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood Winter Writing Festival!). Came up with the idea in November of 2010 and wrote the first few chapters while I was struggling with my bartender book. Started working on it in earnest in August of 2012.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Um, my own? But I strive to write something as powerful as Holly Cupala, Sara Zarr, and Courtney Summers regularly do.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My own struggles with grief and an emotionally abusive relationship

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

Structurally the book is written alternating present and past tense. We meet Meredith on the day when everything really falls apart and flip back and forth between that and how it all happened. I posted an excerpt from the first past tense section on facebook last week. Here's a chunk from the present tense. This is how the book begins: 

When someone destroys something that really matters to you it’s worse than a punch in the face.

At least I think it might be. He never hit me, but sometimes I wish he had.

Actually I wish he would do it right now.

That’s a sick thing to wish for, isn’t it? But if he took a swing at me—especially here, in the middle of our high school hallway when it’s at max capacity moments before the first bell—it would all be out in the open for everyone to see and I would be able to stop questioning if the things he does are wrong because hitting someone definitely is.

Black-and-blue is black-and-white. It’s not a misunderstanding, a signal I misread, a joke that I didn’t get because I don’t have a sense of humor anymore, or something I’m blowing out of proportion because I’m crazy. No one would be able to say, “Meredith, it’s all in your head.” Not him, not Abby, not even me.

That’s not how he operates, though.

I already have an idea of what is going to happen. When I accidentally glanced across the hall and made eye contact with him, it was like looking in the rearview mirror, seeing a semi-truck hurtling down the hill behind you and visualizing the whole accident before it takes place, but not knowing how to prevent it. I guess I could’ve swerved into oncoming traffic, slamming my locker shut and shoving through the crowd like I thought I was late or something, but my body isn’t cooperating with my brain.

And there you have it. My current project. Now I am off to work on it!

GCC Presents: Lucienne Diver

My Girlfriends Cyber Circuit buddy Lucienne Diver has a new book out, FANGTABULOUS, the latest in her VAMPED series. Here's the lowdown!

About FANGTABULOUS:

Gina Covello and her band of federal fugitives are on the run after taking down a secret (and sinister) government facility. Strapped without cash or credit cards—a fate worse than death for Gina—the rebels must find a place to lay low. They roll into Salem, Massachusetts, the most haunted town in America and the only place they have friends flying under the radar. But within a day, Gina and her gang are embroiled in a murder mystery of the supernatural kind.

Someone—or something—is strangling young women, and it's rumored to be the ghost of Sheriff Corwin, late of the Salem Witch trials.  Is it the ghostly Sheriff or is someone on this side of the veil using the famous story as a cover up? Gina is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, and she needs to do it before a paranormal reporter on the scene exposes them for what they are...fanged federal fugitives.

About the author:

Lucienne Diver writes the humorous, suspenseful Vamped series of young adult vampire novels for Flux Books, including Vamped, Revamped, Fangtastic and the most recent, Fangtabulous.  Her short stories have been included in the Strip-Mauled and Fangs for the Mammaries anthologies edited by Esther Friesner (Baen Books), and her essay on abuse is included in the anthology Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories (HarperTeen).  She also writes the Latter-Day Olympians urban fantasy series for Samhain (Bad Blood, Crazy in the Blood and the forthcoming Rise of the Blood).

The Interview:

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

LUCIENNE: The fact that my publisher made me an offer.  No, seriously!  When I turned in a proposal for the third book in the Vamped series, my publisher came back with an offer for two more.  Two!  Well, I didn’t have any idea in mind yet for the fourth book, but I was so thrilled at the faith they were showing that I went looking for inspiration.  I knew that I wanted to take my characters to Salem, Massachusetts, the most haunted town in America, and my visit to the town was so inspiring that the plot suggested itself.

Q: The main character of my first book, I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE, is the kind of girl I wanted to be (a rock star!), the MC of my second book has a lot more in common with teenage me. Is your main character someone you wish you could be, someone a lot like you, or your total opposite? How so?

LUCIENNE: My heroine is a fanged fashionista very concerned with beautifying herself and the world; she’s about as far from the teenaged me as I can imagine.  I was never the popular girl and I never had her confidence.  Maybe that was why I had so much fun knocking her off her throne—killing her off before the first book even begins only to have her rise from the dead with no way to fix her hair and make-up, her old life gone.  But Gina’s a tough one.  She puts on her big girl panties and deals with it.  I guess I admire her for the strength that she always shows and the new depth to her character that develops as the series goes along.

Q: If there was a soundtrack for your book what are five songs that would be on it and how do they relate the story?

LUCIENNE: “Psycho” by Puddle of Mudd – for obvious reasons
 “Paralyzer” by Finger Eleven - because it’s kind of creepy awesome and suggests possession of a sort, as in Fangtabulous (just check out the “Paralyzer” video!)
“My Immortal” by Evanescence - because really it’s perfect.
“Distance” by Christina Perri – this is how my heroine is toward her white knight
“Slide” by the Goo Goo Dolls – because it involves the choice to run or to commit, and it’s one my characters have to face in Fangtabulous

Q: In addition to writing books, I also write for a website for teens called Rookie, which has a regular feature called "Literally The Best Thing Ever," wherein we write about a thing that we think is super mega awesome (even if it is the type of thing that others might call a guilty pleasure, we believe there is nothing guilty about pleasure!) and explain why we think it is literally the best thing ever. It's generally a kind of unexpected thing, for example I wrote one about the soap opera, One Life To Live. I don't expect you to write a whole essay obviously, but can you briefly tell us what either you or your character (or both!) would say is "Literally The Best Thing Ever" and why?

LUCIENNE: Since we’re on the topic of music, I’d have to say that Christina Perri is “Literally The Best Thing Ever.”  I’ve loved her since I heard “Jar of Hearts” on the show So You Think You Can Dance, which is one of my addictions.  I bought her CD Lovestrong in preparation to see her and Jason Mraz in concert, because I was very familiar with his work, but not as familiar with Christina Perri’s other songs.  It’s quickly become one of my favorite CDs.  Her music is haunting, her minor chords speak to me, and her song “Arms” is practically the story of my courtship with my husband.  In concert, she’s amazing.  So much stage presence, so much heart and soul and pain in her music.  I believe she mentioned that she wrote “Tragedy” when she was seventeen.  I’m blown away by her talent and the feelings expressed in her music.  If as a writer I can learn to express myself half so well I’ll count it a victory.

Q: What are you working on for us next?

LUCIENNE: Once I turn in the third novel in my Latter-Day Olympians urban fantasy series for Samhain and a short story in the same universe, I’m going to go back to work on a novel that’s been calling to me for some time.  It’s quite a bit darker than my tongue-in-cheek Vamped series and is going to be a real challenge for me, but I also think it’s going to be very rewarding in the long run, especially if I can learn anything from Christina Perri and her inspiring songwriting.