Over on Lisa Chellman’s blog, she discusses some current trends she is seeing in book covers, using Band Geek Love as one of her examples (and how awesome do I feel to see my book sandwiched between Maureen Johnson’s Suite Scarlett and Meg Cabot’s Allie Finkle’s Rules for Life: Moving Day ? Um, really awesome.)
My very cool editor, Andrew Karre, discusses how the Band Geek Love cover (which I adore) came into existence in the comments …it’s pretty interesting stuff.
Chaining myself to the computer to work on Band Geeked Out is easier after reading some nice reviews of Band Geek Love.
Calling all band geeks! If you’re a band geek and control freak like I was in high school you are going to love, love, love Band Geek Love by Josie Bloss.
I really, really enjoyed this book. I give mad props to Josie Bloss for writing an atypical story of a girl dating a younger guy. Josie’s unorthodox parents are a huge factor that causes her to be so rigid and focused on being a band geek, and I found that aspect to be very real as well. The story had humor, a realistic portrayal of high school life, and of course, a very sweet romance as well. I really enjoyed all of the characters and was pleased Josie Bloss took the time to focus on the very endearing secondary characters and concluded their respective storylines in a satisfactory way as well. Overall, I give Band Geek Love a resounding two thumbs up and will look forward to what Josie Bloss writes next!
I feel very honored…many thanks to both reviewers.
And now, back to work!
Okay, guys, I was wrong. There was awesomer mail in store for me, and it was two genuine, like what’ll be on the shelves shiny copies of Band Geek Love (plus a lovely flat version of the cover that my editor suggested be framed…which I’m totally going to do).
I opened the package and was afraid to touch the books for a good ten or twenty minutes, convinced that they were actually holograms from the future or perhaps hallucinations born of too many Coke Zeros and yogurt covered pretzels consumed during the sequeling.
But it turns out they are real!
WTF!
There isn’t much that competes with holding one of your attained goals in your hands…it’s been a good week.
It’s an exciting time here in Band Geek Love land, with the release date less than two months away! It just seems to be sneaking up on me…I find myself looking over my shoulder a lot.
The other day I received some very awesome mail. Perhaps the awesomest mail that has ever been addressed to me. I opened it, and the contents looked something like this:
I can haz trumpet?
It’s the first time I’ve held a book that I’ve written in my hands (well, at least since I wrote that story about a spider with identity issues in the third grade and the teacher laminated it and I then went around telling people I was a published author), so I’m somewhat and rather…excited. Did I mention that? The excitement? The exciting excitingness of it all?
Anyway, to celebrate, I’ve put up the first chapter of Band Geek Love on this here website. All sorts of crazy things happen within that first chapter, but perhaps the most important parts are the very last two paragraphs, so I recommend you read all the way until the end in order to properly cringe along with poor Ellie. Well, either cringe along with or cringe at, depending on your sense of humor. I personally tend to think that the experience was good for her.
Hi all!
Sorry I’ve been so absent…I swear I haven’t been lost in a cave this whole time. I actually started a new job (which has been great! And I’m not just saying that because I know all my lovely new co-workers are reading this! I really mean it!) and have been busy wrestling with the sequel to Band Geek Love.
That’s right…there’s going to be a sequel, and it’s going to be called Band Geeked Out. (How proud am I of that title? I can’t really say because you’ll think I’m conceited). I was nervous because I didn’t know much about writing sequels, but fortunately I’ve found plenty of excellent advice on the internets…such as my personal writerly hero Maureen Johnson’s article on Inside a Dog.
Per Maureen’s helpful second suggestion (the first being to remember what you wrote in the earlier book), I’m currently trying to figure out how to introduce a zombie at Winslow High School. Do you think the walking dead could manage a musical instrument and/or a flag? Because I just watched “I Am Legend” the other day, and I’m pretty sure that brand of zombie wouldn’t be a terribly productive addition to a marching band…but maybe one of the more sedate varieties could be a drummer or something (oh, burn!)
