"Without opposition there is no growth."

"Without opposition there is no growth. It is hard to argue with that logic. A state in which we are free from problems or constraints is not happiness. Happiness is transcending all opposition and obstacles and continuing to grow."

This is today's quote from "For Today and Tomorrow Daily Encouragement" by Daisaku Ikeda. A Buddhist friend of mine gave this book to me a few weeks ago along with some other materials. I read from the book each morning and I've begun chanting. I've never been a religious person. This isn't a blog about religion, I promise you, but I just need to explain how I ended up chanting briefly. Feel free to skim over the following and skip to my point, which I've bolded below for your convenience.

My dad was raised Lutheran, was Atheist at the time he had me (now he's converted to Judiasm because his new wife is Jewish...) and my mom was raised Catholic, but due to her marriage stopped practicing, so my brother and I were raised with no religious upbringing except for a brief bout in the Mennonite church because we were friends with a family across the street from us and the dad was a Mennonite pastor. I've never connected with Christianity though. I considered myself Wiccan and practiced Wicca in my late teens/early twenties, but never with much regularity. By my mid-twenties, I basically considered myself Atheist. Then, as you know, three of my friends died all within nine months. Marcel's death in June particularly rocked me. I didn't need "something to believe in" so to speak, but I needed something to ground me, to focus me, to make me feel like I am in control of my own life even though loved ones can be taken from us in an instant and there is nothing that I can do about that; I can't and haven't been able to control when I am able to fall asleep for 16 years now; and I can write a book, pour my whole soul into it, and not control if people will like it or how well it does, etc. I vented about all of this to my friend and she told me about chanting, how it is not about asking some higher power for help, a concept which I have never been able to grasp, but it is about focusing your own energy and inner resources on what you need and want. Plus it forces you to slow down and meditate basically, which I really need. So I've been trying to get into the routine of chanting. Anyway, on to my point.

My point is that it's Monday morning and I really need to believe in the quote at the beginning of the blog. I had a shitty weekend. A really shitty weekend. I believe on Friday I mentioned that my roof was leaking? Well, I spent each day just hoping that Scott's dad's friend would have time to come over and look at it and that it wouldn't rain in the meantime. Stressed beyond belief because if it did leak, it was leaking into my office, which is my sacred space on so many levels. Stressed because I had no idea how much it would cost and I've quit the job with the stable income. Stressed because it has been really slow at the bar all week. Angry for about the thirtieth time at the jerk who owned the house before me and lied about and covered up numerous problems with the house (I may not be religious, but I've always believed in Karma and I hope his is coming...), not to mention all the repairs he did do on the house have turned out to be cheap, such as this roof which was supposed to be good for 10 years, but lo and behold it's been 5 and the flashing (don't ask me what that is, I am just repeating back terms said to me) is coming up or something and it is going to have to be resealed. Anyway so I spent the whole weekend stressed and when I'm stressed my sleep is even worse than usual. The roof didn't get fixed until this morning and while I cannot really complain because Scott's dad and his friend did me a HUGE favor and though I'm still not sure what it's gonna cost me, I know it's gonna cost much less than anyone else would charge, but the thing that sucked was that I got home from work around 2:30 am last night, due to my sleeping issues, I didn't fall asleep until 3:30 or 4. The roof work started at 7. I tried to sleep with ear plugs and a pillow over my head til about 9 with little success and finally got up with a throbbing headache.

I'm telling myself that this is the end of the bad though. I am reciting the quote from the beginning of the blog over and over and telling myself this will be a good week. I will finally adjust to my new routine. I will finally catch up on all the email and interview questions and such and this week I will finally write. I will write through the opposition. When I am stressed I feel the worst about my writing. And dude, after this weekend, I am so done going on Goodreads. The negative shit about the book on there totally overpowers the positive stuff and yesterday in the midst of my stress, I went on there just to approve a friend request, thought oh, I'll see if the requestor said anything about the book and then bam, I find the following one star review from some guy (not the requestor) named Jay, "probably the worst book written in the 21st century. that includes all books yet to be written in the coming 92 years." Wow, thanks for making me cry in the shower, Jay. Seriously, I hope it makes you feel good to be that full of bile and just shit all over someone's hard work like that. I had a mini-breakdown about being totally worthless as a writer. I thought maybe I'm having a hard time focusing and pouring myself into my next two projects because I just suck and I should give up and go back to being an office slave. Then I got a very sweet email from my friend Amber telling me I'm her idol and one from my friend Jenny reminding me never to give up on my dreams and what I love about life. This morning I got a message from a dear named Andrea on myspace, who sent me a link to her review of my book and she obviously totally completely got the book and is the kind of person I cared about connecting with it.

It's still hard to shake that scathing review, but "without opposition there is no growth." I will fight for my happiness. I had to fight to become the person who could write and publish a book to begin with, who could follow her dreams like Emily in IWBYJR as opposed to stagnate because of her pain like Louisa. So I'll keep fighting. And I strive to someday handle bad reviews as well as Brad Meltzer:



And you know why else I want to be like Brad? Because they released a companion soundtrack to his latest book, Book of Lies! I got a press release about the soundtrack a couple weeks ago and had been meaning to blog about how jealous I was that his publisher did this, but I got bogged down. Here is what Meltzer said about why he did a soundtrack to the book:
"Music is manipulative, it helps evoke an emotion. Every time I write a book I write in complete silence but there is always as soundtrack in my head as I write....What you hear [in the soundtrack] is as close as I can give you to what I'm feeling as I'm writing.”

I thought that was pretty cool and basically how I feel about books and music, too. Maybe if I become a bestseller like him one day I can convince my publisher that my book needs a soundtrack! The Book of Lies Soundtrack has a wide range of stuff on it from an REM song to a song composed about the book. And that's what I think would be really cool is to someday write a book and work with a musician friend (like my friend Jenny who records under the name Heilige and writes totally amazing stuff that you can hear on her myspace, the first few songs are covers, but scroll down to the last two "In Pieces" and "Get Rid of Me" which I have been listening to a ton) to create an original soundtrack to it. What do you guys think? Would you be interested in buying soundtracks for books? (If you are, and you are planning to read Book of Lies, you should pick up the soundtrack too to show publishers you like this kind of thing!) Which of your favorite books do you wish had a soundtrack?

Okay, I'm feeling better now, focusing on that quote and listening to Jenny's music. If you had a bad weekend or a rotten Monday, I hope sharing that quote helped you too. Also, if you are in the Chicago area, please come hang with me tonight at Thomas Ford Memorial Library in Western Springs at 7 pm tonight. I'll read and answer questions and talking to interested readers always reinvigorates me!

Randomest Blog Ever: Contest Winners, Weather, Fall TV, Weed, and Cecil Castellucci

So as I mentioned in my last blog, I chose the winners of my "Tour Contest." I'd collected the following signed books on my West Coast Tour:
From L.A.: Alexa Young's Frenemies
From Rock 'n' Read: Kim Culbertson's Songs for a Teenage Nomad
From Monterey: An ARC of Kelly Parra's
From San Francisco: Frank Portman's King Dork
From Seattle: Corrina Wycoff's O Street
And to enter the contest I just asked people to send in a creative photo showing IWBYJR as part of their life or world. I got a bunch of creative entries and spent a couple days mulling over which were the cream of the crop. I finally settled on these as my top 5:

My grand prize winner (who got the signed ARC of Invisible Touch) was Lucile showed me a slice of her life in Florida this summer by placing IWBYJR in front of weather report tracking Hurricane Fay:
And I'm not sure if she knew what a sucker I am for adorable kids and pets, but Breanna put IWBYJR in with her adorable twin girls who are destined to be big readers like their mom:

And since IWBYJR is a music book, I was also a sucker for music related shots. Here's the book at John's band practice:
With George's drums:
And chillin' with Ritsuka and her guitar:
Again, thank you to everyone who entered and congrats to my winners! I'll come up with a new contest soon for you all. I'm brainstorming...

Speaking of storms, yesterday it rained all day, which I mostly enjoyed. I'm a water sign and I love the rain, especially since my garden really needed it. Also the rain came with cooler weather, hoodie weather as I like to call it and hoodie weather is my favorite kind of weather. I'm not one for extremes in temperature. I don't like it too hot or too cold. Fall is my favorite season. So the drop in temperature, the rain, I was fine for it except for two things. Apparently it made people less inclined to go to the bar. Wednesday night was completely dead. Completely. I literally hung out with my best friend for two hours without any real customers. It was cool, but um, not so good for bill-paying. So people, I just gotta remind you, drinking is not just a summer thing. It's fun in all seasons! Please come and visit me. I need the money because the other problem I have with rain is that it does not like to stay outside of my house where it belongs. First it was the flooding basement, then the leaking window and now... Now I wake up this morning glance up at the ceiling above my dresser and see that bubble in the paint that means water underneath. Yep, the roof is leaking. I don't know how bad the damage is yet or how much it's going to cost me, but I haven't had a very nice day because of it. It's hard to concentrate on things when I'm worried about something as huge as this. *Sigh*

Okay changing the subject to something a wee bit lighter to get my mind of the spot on the ceiling a few feet away... 90210. Did anybody watch it? I taped it (yes, taped, I'm lame and have no DVR, but I'm considering getting one) and watched it last night. I was pretty into the original 90210 which came out when I was in 6th grade or so I think. I mean, it wasn't Degrassi, it wasn't My So-Called Life, both of which I love way more, but I do love me some soap operas. It was probably because of 90210 that I fell so easily into the pattern of watching One Life To Live the summer before high school and I've been addicted to that ever since. Yeah, it's totally not punk rock to like these shows, but I really don't care. TV is my escape. It was nice to come home from working back to back shifts (I now work Weds night and Thursday afternoon at the Beacon, which is cool cause it gets it all out of the way, but it's tiring) and watch 90210. Apparently the demographic for the show is older this time around (ie my age, Gen Xers/older Gen Yers) and they did a damn good job roping me in by throwing in some old 90210 cast people (dude, who is the dad of Kelly's kid??? Brandon? Dylan? Steve???) and people related to old 90210 folks (Kelly and David's sister is totally my favorite character and did you notice the reference to Andrea's kid?), which is how I got roped into Degrassi the Next Generation and I thought it was a good touch to give both the teens and the parents plotlines like they did on My So-Called Life. I certainly don't think the show is as deep as a show like My So-Called Life (which sadly I don't think we'll ever have again) or even as the new Degrassi, and there were some things that made go uh really? (Like it sounded like Silver and Naomi got those tattoos in 8th grade. Maybe it's a California thing, but that seemed really young. I knew people getting tattoos at 15 and 16, and that was a pretty impressive feat.) But I'll keep watching the show for now because it's the perfect kind of melodrama that helps me unwind.

Also on my TV docket for fall is Grey's Anatomy (which I adore and don't think is cheesy) and Dirty Sexy Money, which I saw a couple of episodes of last fall and enjoyed. I may check out Gossip Girl, too and Weeds is on my Netflix. I never used to be such a big TV person, but I'm trying to make a conscious effort to spend more time relaxing... Not that it is working out well so far because I still seem sooooooo behind. But maybe I'll finally catch up this weekend? Sigh. We'll see.

Oh and since this is a totally random blog, here's a random thing that happened to me today: A guy on the train offered me pot. I was going downtown for lunch with a Columbia person, totally minding my own business with my iPod on and reading email on my BlackBerry and this guy sits down kitty corner from me and I notice that something about him smells skunky. I figure out exactly what it is when he taps me on the arm and thrusts an extremely tiny jewelry bag of weed at me. Yes, the source of the skunky smell. He asks, "Do you smoke?" And I said no and put my headphones back in, thinking, "Umm even if I did why would I buy such a tiny amount of rank-ass shit off a complete stranger right in public on the train???" Then I also thought, "Do I look like a pot smoker? Is it the pink bangs? Does he know Weeds is on my Netflix?" but then the guy proceeded to try to hawk his stuff to the preppy girl across from him and the dude with the suitcase likely on his way to the airport behind him. Yeah, clearly drugs have just fried his brain.

Okay, I'll try for a more cohesive and meaningful blog soon, but in the meantime, indulge me with your random moments this week or tell me about your cheesy (or totally cooler than mine) TV viewing habits, maybe you'll inspire me to watch even more quality programming (or fun trash!) this fall. Like I have time...

Oh one last thing. I'm probably jumping on this bandwagon late as usual (I am always either far ahead of the trend or sadly way way behind), but Cecil Castellucci is my new writing hero. I finished Beige yesterday and I just wish I'd written that book. If only I could be half as brilliant and cool as she is... I feel like she has really set the bar when it comes to creating real misfit girl characters in YA and I promise you I will write my ass off to try to meet that challenge because what she has done is amazing and that, my friends, is what I want to be when I grow up :) It is my mission to write the best damn real misfit girl characters out there because I was a real misfit girl and proud of it, dammit and I wanted to read about girls like me and my friends. Lake and Katy from Beige are those kinds of girls. Thanks for inspiring me, Cecil!

Women Who Rock Wednesday: Alyse Frank and two other big annnouncements!

So it's Wednesday again-- Women Who Rock Wednesday!-- the day when I spotlight the female artists (meaning anything from musician to writer to designer to basically any creative pursuit you can think of) that rock my world in hopes that they will rock yours, too. I've gotta say this is starting to make Wednesday my favorite day of the week. Today we are expanding the Women Who Rock horizons beyond the usual author or musician feature I do (those are just the main types of women I know, but I will expand horizons whenever possible) and featuring up-and-coming fashion designer Alyse Frank of DeCatoure Clothing! But before we meet Alyse, I have a few quick announcements...

First of all the winner of last week's WWRW giveaway, a signed copy of Rebecca Woolf's fantastic memoir Rockabye is Sally from blogger (http://daybyday-sally.blogspot.com/)! Sally, please send your mailing address to stephanie at stephaniekuehnert dot com so I can pass it on to Rebecca. I know lots of people were clamouring for this book, so I hope those who didn't win will head out to buy it because it is freakin' amazing.

Second, I've chosen the winners of my Tour Contest and emailed them. I'm asking for permission to share their pictures with you and will blog about that when I've heard from them. Thank you to everyone who entered. I had very tough decisions to make!

Third, I have a major, huge, big gig to announce... *Gulp* Click here and look in the top left hand corner under New Shows. You'll see a picture of Irvine Welsh and see that Irvine Welsh is doing an event at the Metro (a.k.a. one of my favorite rock venues in all of Chicago) called Read Against Recession on Sunday September 14th at 6 pm for free. Who is listed under Irvine Welsh and just above Bill Hillman? Stephanie Kuehnert, author of I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone. Yeah. Me. I'm reading at Metro. Gracing the stage that practically every rock star I've ever admired has graced (frex, my favorite concert of all-time Hole, October 21, 1994 took place at Metro). Opening for Irvine freakin' Welsh, author of Trainspotting, one of my biggest heroes. The capacity at Metro is 1100 people. The last time Irvine Welsh did a free reading at Metro, it reached capacity. I think I might vomit right now. I might vomit on stage. I might faint. But hopefully I'll manage to do a decent reading. So you should come. And get there early because of that whole filling to capacity thing...

Okay, shaking that off.... On to our Woman Who Rocks, Alyse Frank, who is pictured here with some of her designs:

Q: Tell us a little bit about how your interest in fashion developed? Have you loved it since you were a little girl? Who inspires you as a fashion designer, ie. certain designers or stylish celebs?

Alyse: Let's see...When I started hand-sewing I was so young that I don't remember the first time I picked up a needle and thread. I remember getting into my Grandma's sewing box and her showing me little tricks, like how to knot something off, etc. My parents enrolled me in my first machine-sewing class when I was 6 or 7, because I had shown so much interest in it, and bought me my first sewing machine when I was 8. Throughout my elementary and middle school years, I took quilting classes, embroidery classes, and in high school more sewing classes, which for me at that time were sort of a joke, learning how to make pajama pants and other simple garments. Betsey Johnson is my biggest inspiration as a designer, the way she is alternative yet appeals to everyone, and has remained so consistent over so many years. Vintage and retro styles of past decades definitely play a huge part as well.

Q: When did you start designing your own clothes? Did you go to school for design or work in the fashion industry at all?

Alyse: I've been designing and remaking clothes as long as I can remember. I have an associate's degree in fashion design from FIDM (The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising) in Los Angeles. I graduated in March of 2007, and worked freelance as a patternmaker/samplemaker for a few months, then later got a job with clothing giant American Apparel as a patternmaker. I worked there for almost a year before moving to Denver.

Q: Tell us about DeCatoure. When did you start your own line and where did you get the name? What is your design focus right now and what kind of stuff would you like to get into in the future?

Alyse: I had always wanted to start my own independant, boutique clothing line. The problem with working and living in Los Angeles is that you have no time for yourself, you're always either sitting in traffic or working your ass off to pay for an overpriced apartment. One of the main reasons my fiance and I moved to Denver was so that I would have the freedom to do that, otherwise I would be a sellout giving away my skills to a huge corporation for a little rent money for the rest of my life. We moved here in April, and that's when it began. As for the name, I wanted to do some sort of play on my name, without it being boring. The dilemma was, I'm getting married in June, and my last name will be changing to the much more interesting DeCavallas, so I decided to go with that. It is a mix between my future last name and "couture", a word for European, high-end fashion. For now, I'd just like to keep doing what I'm doing, I love the shop I sell at. Eventually, when I have the funds to, I would love to open up my own boutique.

Q: What's your favorite piece that you've designed so far? Show us a pic if you can.

My favorite is the Cyndi Lauper remake I made actually out of one of my old shirts and this really cool metallic 80's dress. I'm obsessed with the 1980's, and that was actually the first one I sold, too.

Q: You are also in the band Doll Dumpster. Tell us a little bit about that. What connection do you see between fashion and rock 'n' roll?

Alyse: Yes, I play bass in Doll Dumpster, which is kind of a fusion of punk, rock and grunge. There is absolutely a huge connection between music and fashion, now more than ever, with all the music subcultures or "scenes". Most of the youth today want to be a part of a group associated with a music genre, such as emo, punk, grunge, metal, rockabilly, etc. Even punk, which I do believe is not a trend and will never go out of style because it never was in, has slowly evolved into a fashion statement. Even the trendy girls who want to wear what their favorite pop star does, it's all the same. People have always wanted to be a part of something, and currently it revolves around music.

Q: Now for the two standard questions I always ask my WWRs. I know you are as punk as they come and I partied like a rock star with you in Denver, but have you always been this cool or do you have any musical skeletons in your closet. Be honest, what was the first album you owned and the first concert you went to see (mine was the incredibly punk rock Janet Jackson)?

Alyse: Hmm...the first album is a tough one. As a little girl, I subscribed to one of those music scam things they used to send in the mail. My parents ended up paying for it, but I got like 9 CD's for "free", some of which were Hanson, the Spice Girls, the Grease soundtrack, the Wallflowers(which I still have), and No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom. My first concert was definitely the Spice Girls at the Los Angeles Forum.

Q: One day you will probably reach Gwen Stefani level fame (but even cooler) as musician/designer, but what was the moment in your life so far where you felt most like a rock star? Could be something you've accomplished. Could be a concert you attended. Could be meeting someone famous and having that "I'm Not Worthy!" Wayne's World moment? Could just be a time you felt you got the real rock star treatment.

Alyse: That's a tough one....whenever I sell something it's a great feeling, that someone likes it enough to buy it. And of course, when I play with Doll Dumpster and we get a good reaction there's no denying feeling like a rock star.

I've gotta say, I love Alyse's designs. A friend of mine had this custom dress made for me for my birthday:

As soon as I get some money saved I'm going to have her make some more cool dresses out of my old rock t-shirts. You can contact Alyse through her myspace page to do the same or check out her other custom designs there. You can also enter to win this amazing custom corset that Alyse made and generously donated as a prize for this week!
Definitely a fun piece to add to your back-to-school wardrobe and as usual to be entered all you have to do is leave a comment. Tell us about your favorite fashion designer or trend. Give me advice on how not to puke onstage at the Metro. Comment on whatever you want and I will draw the winner at random next Wednesday when the WWR Weds guest will be my current favorite band Civet whose album Hell Hath No Fury comes out on Tuesday September 9th!

Playing Catch Up

Well my house is all clean now. I just have a couple more things I want to organize (like my closet. Can't tell you how excited I am to begin to weed out all those boring office clothes), but of course I had to completely neglect my email and blog, etc to get all of that done, so I'm completely behind again. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever catch up. Sigh. I'm going to choose winners for my tour contest tomorrow, so that gives you one last chance to enter if you wish.

I wanted to share links to a few more places where I was interviewed with you today since I don't have much time to blog if I want to get some actual novel-writing done (which I do!!!! That is the whole point of this job change, right?). Tomorrow is WWR Weds and I've got a great guest who will be giving out an awesome prize. I promise more interesting blogs from me very soon once I get all organized, but you might have to give me a little hiatus this week though hopefully I'll have something for you Friday or Saturday! In the meantime, fun interviews:

• I talk to Jennifer Lynn Barnes about IWBYJR as a movie.
• E. Lockhart interviewed me about my disreputable history (I tell fun prankster stories) and feminism.
• Paula Chase Hyman asks me important desert island and celebrity stalker questions.
  

Housecleaning & Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Presents: Melissa Walker!

Pardon me for totally sucking at blogging this week. The cold got to me and now I am in a mad house-cleaning phase in an attempt to have my house looking decent for a Labor Day BBQ and also so I'm set to start writing next week with no distractions. I did blog today over at Teen Fiction Cafe (a short one, for once!) about how my mom has grown to be one of my best friends. So go check that out.

Also one last reminder that the tour contest ends on Monday, so please go enter!!!

Today one of my favorite writers is visiting for her Girlfriends Cyber Circuit tour: Melissa Walker! The latest book in her "Violet" series about an unlikely teen fashion model just came out and here is what it's all about:

Is there life off the runway?
VIOLET IN PRIVATE is the third novel in the series by former magazine editor Melissa Walker about Violet— the wallflower who blooms into an international modeling star—until she realizes there may be more to life than the runway…

Everyone knows her as Violet Greenfield, the supposedly cultured and worldly nineteen-year-old with sky-high confidence because she’s done fashion weeks internationally. But the truth is, modeling has done little for Violet’s self-esteem. And now that she’s finally headed to college, she’s terrified that she’ll turn back into that girl who blended into the walls all throughout high school…

Violet’s friends in fashion are only a two-hour train ride away in New York City, and they all think she’s crazy to stop modeling. But her best friend Roger hopes she’ll go back to being the girl next door. Of course, things have been weird between them ever since they kissed—and now he’s got a girlfriend. So the question is: if she’s not “Violet on the Runway” anymore, who exactly is she?

Melissa Walker has created a character that teens as well as adults can embrace and relate to. Readers have followed Violet through her highest highs and lowest lows in the modeling industry, and are eager to see how she fares as a regular teenager in college. This wonderful series is a fresh take on the real voice of one girl in the designer spotlight.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
As a former editor at ELLEgirl and Seventeen magazines, Melissa Walker knows first-hand the ins and outs of the fashion world. She hails from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her at melissacwalker.com, or at myspace.com/melissacwalker.



Now for my usual GCC interview with Melissa!

Q: Please list five songs that would be on the soundtrack to your book and explain how they relate to your story or characters.

Melissa: I'm going to pick five that might be on the series soundtrack--hope that's ok. I like it to span all three books since I think of it as one long story.

a. Ziggy Stardust-David Bowie. This song is bizarre and gorgeous, like the fashion world, I think.

b. Our Song-Taylor Swift. At heart, Violet is a country girl from Carolina, and sometimes her best friends have to remind her of what home means to her. This song celebrates simple pleasures in a really fun way.

c. You're So Vain-Carly Simon. Violet uses this song as the ringtone for her agent, and it's certainly representative of a few of the more intense fashion world types.

d. Please Let Me Get What I Want-The Smiths. Violet is prone to a wallow every now and then, and this song is the king of melancholy as far as I'm concerned (in a good way!).



e. Bizarre Love Triangle-New Order. With her true love dating another girl in Violet in Private, our heroine is certainly caught in one of these.


Q: Name some of your main character's favorite musicians or bands.

Melissa: She loves Rihanna, Pinback, Charlotte Sometimes, Tim McGraw, The Broken West, Kanye West, The Bravery, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Shins, plus all the artists named in songs above.

Q: Who are some of your favorite musicians or bands?

Melissa: Uh, see above. Write what you know, right?

Q: Even though music plays in so heavily into my storytelling, I rarely can actually listen to it while I'm writing. Can you? How does music fit into your writing process?

Melissa: I actually use it when I want to get into a more emotional scene. Music really can affect my mood a LOT, so if I am preparing to write a happy or sad or angsty or tough scene, I'll listen to a song that I know will set the mood. Sometimes I let it play while I'm writing, but if I find myself getting distracted, I shut it off. I can listen to a song like 20 times on repeat. I kind of love doing that, but other people don't appreciate it, so I try to keep that habit for alone times.

Q: While music is my muse, I know other writers find their muse in theater, sports, art, the great outdoors, etc. What is your main muse?

Melissa: I'm a huge fan of passionate people. Whenever I meet someone who really loves something--be it fashion, music, running or physics--I'm completely inspired by their enthusiasm. So I go out a lot, and concentrate on meeting people and finding out about what they love most.

Women Who Rock Wednesday: Rebecca Woolf!

Welcome to Women Who Rock Wednesday! This is my third week of doing this feature where I spotlight the female artists (meaning anything from musician to writer to designer to basically any creative pursuit you can think of) that rock my world in hopes that they will rock yours, too. I've been having a lot of fun hosting WWR Weds and I hope it's been an enjoyable read and hey, the weekly contest ain't half-bad either, huh?

So before we meet this week's WWR, I must announce the winner of last week's WWR, Mandi Perkins' awesome CD Alice in No Man's Land. That lucky person chosen by the random number generator is Lauren from Shooting Stars Magazine! Lauren, send me a message with your address!

This week I'm really excited to introduce you to Rebecca Woolf, author of Rockabye: From Wild to Child. Talk about a WWR, I met Rebecca at Rock 'n' Read! I was so impressed by her reading, her amazing fashion sense, and just how freakin' cool she is that I had to invite her to be on WWR Weds. She's an awesome writer and a generally sweet person and I really wish I lived in L.A. so I could hang out with her once a week if she'd let me. Also, to prove how awesome her book is, I had a bag of books in the "green room" at Rock 'n' Read and hers was the one that someone decided to steal. So without further adieu, let's hear about Rebecca and her must- read book, which you won't have to steal because you can enter to win it today!

Q: I've just started reading your memoir, Rockabye: From Wild to Child, and I've gotta say it's one of the best memoirs I've read in a long time, I was totally engaged from the first chapter, but rather than try to explain the story myself, can you please tell WWRW readers what the book is all about?

Rebecca: Rockabye is a sort of coming of age memoir, about a twenty-three year old no-responsibilities LA girl who finds she is pregnant and upon deciding to keep the baby and marry her boyfriend (of four months) is thrust into a completely different world. It's basically about adapting and rebelling against what it means to be a "mother" these days. It's about transitioning from one life to another without making any sacrifices. And of course, through it all, the struggle to stay sane and happy and married... All of the things that can prove difficult when spontaneously starting a family.

Q: You maintain a blog, Girl's Gone Child, which I'm totally addicted to despite not being a mom myself. Your book was born from your blog (no pun intended, okay, well sorta cause I like puns) can you tell us a little bit about how that happened? Also there seems to be a whole blogging/online community of rock 'n' roll mamas, can you speak to what you enjoy about being a part of that community, how it benefits moms, and list a few of your favorite blogs (mom-oriented or not)?

Rebecca: I put together a proposal for Rockabye based on my blog, Girl's Gone Child which included a first chapter and was lucky enough that my agent was able to make the sale. Lots of great mom/dad blogs out there for sure. I don't read parenting books or subscribe to the vast array of "emperor's new parenting values" so reading the blogs of like-minded parents is where I get my information and advice more or less. I also love reading about all the very different/similar experiences parents have and blogging is candid. Raw. Unpolished. Much like parenting. There are so many awesome parenting blogs. Some of my favorites are Sweet Juniper, Sweet/Salty, Motherhood Uncensored, Mom-101, Amalah, and Bite My Cookie.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your rock 'n' roll lifestyle before becoming a mom and what it is like now. Are you still keeping up with the music you love and how have you maintained your musical identity so to speak? My friend's baby has a Misfits t-shirt and I see a lot more baby stuff geared toward rock 'n' roll moms, have any thoughts on that?

Rebecca: Honestly, I have no idea what's happening in music right now, which sucks to admit but its true. I was very much a huge indie-rock buff back in my day of chasing bands and writing-up music festivals. These days I have my friends to keep me up to speed on what's what. Current bands I'm obsessed with are super girly: Sambassadeur and Santogold makes me want to dance my pants off, especially this song, Lights Out. I'm due to give birth in/around 6 weeks and I'm making a birth mix full of these super lady-rock songs so my babe can enter the world dancing. I had a birth-mix for Archer, too. I think they're pretty awesome. Most hospitals will let you play music during delivery.

Archer has a Slaughter tee-shirt made from an old adult-sized Slaughter shirt that was cut up so it just says "Laughter"... That's pretty cool. I think its awesome that there is more of a selection for parents when it comes to clothes, specifically for boys. Once upon a time it was all dump-trucks and choo-choo-train tee-shirts with teddy bears on them. No thanks.

Q: What are some of your favorite bands? How about Archer, is he into music yet?

Rebecca: I think I already answered this question prematurely but other bands I love are Belle and Sebastian, who I've adored since High School and will follow to the ends of the earth. I love Rilo Kiley, Stars, The Concretes, Rogue Wave, Elvis Perkins, Red House Painters and Mark Kozelek's Sun Kil Moon (his voice makes me cry)... Here's a great example. (I dare you not to listen to this without wanting to sneak away into the night and just.... brood.) I also love The Misfits, David Bowie and The Stones. Always have.

Archer LOVES Coconut Records (Jason Schwartzman). He knows every lyric to every song on "Nighttiming" and will not let me remove the CD from my CD player. It's pretty much all we've listened to in my car for the last six months. He also loves They Might be Giants and Ralph's World.

Q: Besides the baby girl due out this fall, what can we expect next from Rebecca Woolf? Will there be a follow-up to Rockabye or do you have another project you are working on.

Rebecca: I'm working on a new novel that I'm really excited about and a screenplay, which is just wacky fun. I also have a short film being made around Thanksgiving (I wrote the script) and that's something I'm really excited about and a pilot script based on Rockabye that my husband and I are shopping. And the blogs, of course.

Q: Now for the two standard questions I always ask my WWRs. You are an incredibly cool rock 'n' roll girl, one of the chicks I'd see at a concert and wish I had the balls to go up and befriend, but have you always been this cool or do you have any musical skeletons in your closet. Be honest, what was the first album you owned and the first concert you went to see (mine was the incredibly punk rock Janet Jackson)?

Rebecca: The first album I ever owned was Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl" followed by Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" so I HEAR YOU, GIRLFRIEND! I don't even remember my first concert! BUT! The very first concert I ever went to unsupervised with my friends was Buck O' Nine and No Doubt was opening for them. It was before Tragic Kingdom even came out. I think I was 14.

Q: And we know you partied like a rock star pre-Archer and now you are a total rock star of a mom, but what was the moment in your life so far where you felt most like a rock star? Could be something you've accomplished as a writer or a mom. Could be a concert you attended. Could be meeting someone famous and having that "I'm Not Worthy!" Wayne's World moment? Could just be a time you felt you got the real rock star treatment.

Rebecca: Hmmm. Wow. I think, probably the moment my agent called me and told me my book had sold was my rockstariest moment. So many people advised me that if I "had the baby my career would more or less be over" and here I was proving them all wrong. The first book I ever sold was and would always be a book ABOUT my experience as a mother, which means if anything, becoming a parent helped my career. It was such a proud moment for me.

Now that you know how amazingly awesome Rebecca is, I am sure you want to read her book. Rebecca has agreed to give away one signed copy of Rockabye: From Wild to Child to a lucky winner who will be chosen at random next Wednesday from all the comments. So go ahead and leave a comment about anything, maybe talk about what you learned about music from your mom or if you are a mom, what you are teaching your kid about rock 'n' roll. Then be sure to come back next week, see if you won, and check out the interview with up-and-coming fashion designer, Alyse Frank of DeCatoure Clothing!

Gardening

I'm still sick and I can't tell you how freakin' irritated I am by it! Seriously, why couldn't this have happened two weeks ago when I was still at work. I didn't mind taking sick days at work. I mean, they give them to you, why not use them? And besides I'm a firm believer in avoiding spreading germs. Not to mention, work time has always been much less valuable to me than my own time. But now I have actual important stuff I want to get done, dammit! My boyfriend was like, "Well at least it happened during the week that you weren't planning to write" and I'm sure he said that because the last time I got sick it was over Christmas Break (again, hello, why couldn't have happened on work time and not my time!) when I was trying to write, it turned into a huge nervous breakdown because my story was giving me trouble as it is and I don't think well when I have a cold. But the reason I'm not writing this week is because I have a ton of crap to catch up on and I want to catch up on that crap so I can get down to real business as of September 2nd.

Also I'm not very good at sitting still and resting. I did that last night, but I went to bed telling my body to get better so I could garden in the morning. I wanted to garden so badly, I dreamed about gardening. But I woke up still feeling like shit. This is not okay. There is too much to do this week and this was my one day where I wasn't working or waking up late because I worked late the night before. I wanted to be really productive. I took some medicine and when Scott got up he asked how I was feeling. "Still crappy," I told, "But I think I might garden a little anyway."

"It might be good for you to get some fresh air," he agreed. Exactly what I hoped he'd say. When I'm uncertain about stuff I generally run them past the voices of reason, a.k.a Scott or my mom. I'm not so sure my nurse mother would have agreed with this, she might have voted rest over fresh air, but fortunately she worked last night, so she wouldn't be awake for me to call and run it past her. I put on some raggedy clothes and sunscreen dragged my gardening tools, a stool, water and the obligatory box of Kleenex outside.

My garden shows the outside world exactly how chaotic my life has been this summer. It's completely over run by weeds, the vegetables are doing horribly this year, some of the flowers have died. My mom thinks the vegetable issue is because we didn't use this mushroom compost stuff this year and there seem to be some bug issues as we lost one tomato plant to pests. But truth be told, I forget to water it half the time and I've basically neglected it since June. My mom weeded it for me while I was traveling, but other than that.... It's a sad state of affairs.

I know it's doubtful that I'll actually get any peppers this year or more than a few tomatoes or more than that one cucumber I didn't even get a chance to eat, but I want to garden to spend its last few weeks in dignity, so I feel that I absolutely must weed it this week.

I start with my herb garden. It's the garden I've had the longest and it has always been the most cooperative. It's overrun to this year, but not so much by weeds. The mint is always out of control if you don't pay close attention to it and this year for some reason the chives have gone wild. I tug out all of the extra chive plants that have sprouted and the mint tendrils that have stretched their way all the way over to the basil. Somehow the rosemary and the oregano survived beneath all that. That's good I guess. My poppy died. My poppies always die. It's highly frustrating. My zinnias are in a sad state too. And these perennial flowers whose name I always forget needed to be deadheaded so they continue to flower and I didn't do that. I did it now, but I'm not sure they'll bloom again before winter. We planted these random flower seeds near the front and really should have planted them in the back because they are the tallest thing in the garden. I'm irritated by this because it's throwing off my sense of balance. If my mom were here, she'd remind me it was a science experiment. It's always a science experiment. Last year the experiment went well. This year, not so much. I guess we've proven that neglecting your garden is bad.

Even though my nose is running like crazy I'm feeling pretty good after doing the herb garden, so I decide to do the side garden. The side garden is part vegetable garden and part wild prairie plants. As I mentioned the vegetables, not doing too great. The sunflowers in the prairie garden are late to bloom to and not nearly as tall. They may be a different kind of seed, but more likely we threw down too many seeds and they haven't had enough space. Weeding out the thinner, weaker stalks is going to be a main part of my mission in this garden. But before that there is a science project gone terribly awry to deal with.

A lot of times we can't tell if something is a weed or a flower. My mom uses the science experiment logic and says leave it, see if it does anything. There was this one plant I was absolutely convinced was going to be this marigold I planted last year. I know marigolds don't usually come back, but this was a big ass marigold. I thought it might be a super plant. My dad's wife told me at the beginning of the summer that it was a weed, but I did not want to believe her. I gave it until this week to do something. It didn't. It was most definitely a weed and now it had firmly put its roots down and its stem was as thick the trunk of a small tree. I tugged and tugged to no avail, so I settled in and started digging. I started coughing. I knew I was exerting my sick body too much, but had to get that freakin' thing out. I swear that stupid weed was a metaphor for every bad relationship I've ever been in. I know they aren't going to grow into something beautiful, but I try to give them the benefit of the doubt anyway. Then I definitely know they won't be something beautiful, but I let them stick around a while longer because I don't want to deal with extricating them from my life. Once that metaphor got into my head, I destroyed that freakin' weed. I wasn't satisfied when the stem finally broke, I needed the roots out because suddenly it was every ex-friend and ex-boyfriend that I hadn't dealt with properly. Then I accidentally uprooted an actual marigold, so I stopped.

I replanted the legitimate marigold and went to deal with the sunflowers. Coughing and sneezing were in full effect. I know my body wanted me to stop. This was no longer good fresh air, I was pushing too hard, but dammit, I wanted the two side gardens perfect so that later this week, I just have to deal with the weed nightmare that is my front garden (that garden is always a mess no matter how meticulous I am in the summer). I knew I was starting to get too perfectionist and that I'd regret when I had to go to work tomorrow still feeling like shit, but that didn't stop me. What finally did? Well, I was almost finished thinning the sunflowers and I was trying to coax a few of them to stand up straight when what did I see between two stems just inches from my face. SPIDER!!!! I squealed like a little girl, dropped the flowers and rushed out of the garden. "Okay, I get it, I'm going inside!"

So that was my gardening adventure. I think the fresh air did do me good and the spider stopped me from overexerting, but we'll see how I feel tomorrow. One thing, I know for sure. I will never ever neglect my garden like this again. I will find a way to balance my life better this summer. I want my garden to look like this again:

I'm still too ashamed to show you what it looks like now. But I'm off to water it so it doesn't get worse. If you haven't already, you should enter the Women Who Rock Wednesday contest for Manid Perkins' CD because it's your last chance!!!