I always love it when people post playlists of the music they’re listening to…mostly because I’m too lazy to go out looking for new music ideas myself. But I particularly like playlists with A Purpose, like music to listen to while working out or while falling asleep or, of course and most of all, while writing. Book playlists are so interesting, and looking at what writers were listening to while they built a book always gives me more insight into the story and the writer.
So without further ado, here are the songs that I listened to over and over (and over) again while writing Band Geek Love two (!) years ago. I’d dig up the playlist in iTunes and listen to it again whenever I had to revise or revisit the story and also while I was envisioning the sequel in order to get in the Ellie Snow mood:
Entry Cadence - Michigan Marching Band
Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall
Falling is like this - Ani DiFranco
This Years Love - David Gray
Are You Out There - Dar Williams
So Cruel - U2
The Scientist - Coldplay
Temptation - Michigan Marching Band
Ain’t No Other Man - Christina Aguilera
Hard to Concentrate - Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Shining - Badly Drawn Boy
500 Miles - The Proclaimers
Cadence Series - Michigan Marching Band
Sweetest Thing - U2
Needless to say, I’ll never be able to listen to any of the above songs again without thinking about Band Geek Love!
KLIATT had a very happy-making review of Band Geek Love in the most recent issue:
Ellie is obsessive, high-strung, and sometimes rather horrible. She’s touchy and domineering, and cares too much about what people think about her. Somehow, though, her behavior and attitude come off as refreshingly real and honest. Ellie is indecisive and makes mistakes, just like many teenagers. Her strong personality is nicely offset by Conner’s kindness, and their relationship, with all its twists and turns, is interesting to watch unfold. The unusual setting of marching band, a microcosm of high school not often seen in YA novels, helps this stand out.
It’s been interesting to see reactions to Ellie’s character - some readers have, uh, really not liked her very much. Which, as the writer who created her, is kind of disappointing…I’m not gonna lie. My characters feel like pieces of me and the urge to get defensive on their behalf is strong.
But if I’m being honest with myself, I’m not surprised that people have issues with Ellie. I didn’t write her to be that girl who everyone gets along with, who everyone likes, who is all sweetness and light and good manners. That would be a totally different story…one that doesn’t hold as much interest for me.
I think that a lot of readers, like the reviewer above, understand that. My goal was to make Ellie human, and all the humans I know make mistakes. Some of them are even kind of bitchy and unpleasant and occasionally hard to like. And if Ellie comes across as real and honest, despite her occasional horribleness, then I consider her a success.
Plus, most people grow up eventually. It’s not like Ellie is going to be that way forever.
Check out this great review for Band Geek Love from teensreadtoo.com !
Being a music geek myself, I immediately loved this book. Instead of the popular crowd being the focus, the band geeks get to rule and it’s so much fun. Ellie is a relatable and refreshing main character. She is a control freak, and a band geek, but she also develops a softer girly side. Conner is charming and makes you swoon. Even if you’ve never been in band, this is a fun romantic comedy.
I love the idea of Conner making people swoon, although I’m sure he wouldn’t believe it if you told him (the most charming guys are the ones who don’t even know it, am I right?).
Thanks Sarah Bean the Green Bean Teen Queen !
I also received a message from a reader in which she told me she’s going to lend Band Geek Love out to her non-band friends to help them understand her a little more…I think this is an excellent idea! I fully endorse the use of the book as an instruction manual regarding how to relate to band geeks. We are a complicated and sometimes confusing breed.
Hope you all had happy long weekends! I know I did, especially since I walked (with a slight limp, on account of the fact my foot still sort of ached from my semi-famous tattoo) into my local Barnes & Noble and witnessed the below:
(Note: Not this blurry in real life.)
I couldn’t resist taking a picture and then putting a copy face out. And though I tried to do that as nonchalantly as possible, as if normal people do such things in bookstores everyday, the girl who was browsing next to me started shooting concerned glances in my direction. As I left to go stalk other sections of the store, I heard her whispering to her mom about how some people are so weird.
Girl in Bookstore, I totally agree! And by the way, are you in marching band? Because I have the perfect book for you…
I have a guest blog post over on Story Siren today in which I discuss (and quote!) the specific journal entry that I wrote on the last day of band camp when I was 17 which inspired Band Geek Love. Take a look! The Story Siren is also giving away a copy of Band Geek Love in her monthly contest.
Well, my friends, last night I followed through with my big pub day plans one day late. Please see below (and excuse the bad camera phone quality and lack of pedicure):
No one thought I’d go through with it. Including me. But it barely hurt! For serious!
When I told my mom what I planned on doing to commemorate the occasion of my first book being published, she sighed deeply. “I just don’t understand why it has to involve needles and pain,” she pointed out.
And I explained that I wanted something permanent, something that I’d take with me everywhere to remind me what I’ve accomplished with Band Geek Love and what I hope will happen in the future (I think I’m going to add to it with each book). I mean, I guess I could get a pet monkey and carry him around everywhere to remind me, but I don’t think monkeys are allowed in my apartment building or at my job.
And Mom said “OK, fine, I understand the concept. But why does it have to involve NEEDLES and PAIN?”
I suppose moms never like the idea of their children in pain, even if it’s self-inflicted
Anyway, it wasn’t that bad, Mom! It helped that the tattoo artist was extremely, distractingly cute and also the fact a tattoo that size takes, like, ten minutes tops. It stung a bit, but I just chattered away with my friend, who also got a tattoo (she is a bad ass doctor who is about to go away to learn how to fly planes), and then it was done! It made me happy…I see how it can become addictive.
And I think Ellie would totally approve.
Release day is here! I have heard eyewitness reports of Band Geek Love being seen out in the wild! Yippee!
My awesome agent Kate is celebrating by talking about tales of high school geekiness over on her blog . I don’t have much to contribute because it’s pretty obvious the ways in which I was a geek (see: title of my book) but fellow geeks of many varieties are telling their stories in the comments.
I ended up beginning my celebration in an unexpected way…the somewhat elderly laptop on which I wrote Band Geek Love decided that today was an appropriate day to give up the fight. I congratulated my laptop on the nice symmetry in that decision and hurried out to acquire a new one. And my sparkly new MacBook (definitely a she, as yet unnamed) is so pretty! I took a lot of pictures which I will put up as soon as I figure out how this newfangled thing works.
Other pub day plans have not been accomplished yet but they are In Progress. Assuming I don’t chicken out! Fingers crossed…
Guys, Band Geek Love officially comes out TOMORROW! How did this happen so quickly? I had over a year to prepare for this day and it still feels like it jumped out at me from behind a shrubbery!
I have some sort of cool plans for tomorrow…plans that I am slightly nervous about for various reasons that will soon become clear and that will involve pictures that I will post. And because I just told all of you that, it means I HAVE to go through with the plans because everyone knows that once things are on the internet they cannot be taken back ever.
Anyway, assuming I survive the pub day plans (and no, my dear parents who are reading this, the plans do not involve jumping out of a plane…that’s for the NEXT book), I will be back tomorrow evening with a full report.
Yay, Band Geek Love !!
End/Beginning
Date: Thursday June 26, 2008Posted in: Band Geek Love!, Band Geeked Out!, Real Writer
Band Geek Love is officially coming out next Tuesday, and I’m sort of in a distracted daze about it. I’ve been thinking about how strange and a little sad it is to come to the end of this process (not too sad, since I’m shoulder-deep in the sequel right now!) but my first book represents a lot to me both professionally and personally.
I started writing the book in June of 2006, and since then, my life has changed enormously. Mostly in good ways - I try to view all change as positive - but to the point that where I am now is wildly different from where I was in June ‘06. And through it all, one thing that remained reliably consistent was Band Geek Love . I’ll miss it…the anticipation.
(Thus ends the melancholy.)
Fortunately, I am just at the beginning of the Band Geeked Out process, which is going suspiciously well. And there’s my next book, which is always murmuring in my head like a movie that you have playing in the background while you’re doing other things. I’ve also really been enjoying writing and acting in plays (I adore dialogue, so this works well).
There is always something new and interesting to be immersed in…the end of one chapter is just the beginning of another.
Dudes, Band Geek Love is already shipping from Amazon! This is very exciting (has any step of this process not been exciting? Well…maybe not wrestling with the final rounds of revisions. That was less exciting and more just grimly satisfying. But I’ll take both.) I’m just happy to know that Ellie Snow is out there in the world, messing up trumpet solos and making out with cute guys.
Anyway, if you are inclined, you can order a copy of Band Geek Love and Amazon will send it to you because that’s what they do!
I’ve already been asked to sign a few copies, which has been a strange experience. It was eerily like signing a high school yearbook, and I found myself scribbling in little messages to my mom or my friend or whomever I was signing the book for because just writing my name seemed weird. At least I stopped short of writing in a purple sparkly pen You were a kick ass lab partner! Stay cool! along with my phone number and a request to Call me this summer and we’ll chill! That would have been kind of an odd thing to say to my grandparents.
Band Geek Love got another cool review, this one from Confessions of a Bibliovore . I especially liked this part, since it was something I thought a lot about as I was writing the book:
In a lot of ways, this is a risky book. For one thing, band members are not exactly the most revered creatures in any high school. (Trust me; I went to a school with a nationally honored marching band and they were still considered the ragingest geeks to walk the halls.) Bloss not only brings us intimately into this world, she feels no need to normalize it. This is not a book where the band geek becomes accepted by the popular crowd. It takes place wholly within the world of marching band.
I received another review, but this one isn’t on the internets because it came by phone call from one of my best friends from college, Kelly. She and I met while we were waiting in line to check out our euphoniums for college marching band (both of us were switching to euph from other instruments, her: trombone, me: trumpet, and were kind of nervous about it), and have been close ever since. Since Kelly is a former band geek (high school drum major, no less) who now works as an English and film teacher at a high school in Chicago, her opinion is especially meaningful.
"It was so good! And the descriptions of marching band totally took me back," she said. "I’d get all caught up in the story and be excited about what happens next and then I’d really, ‘wait, Josie wrote this!’ Can I lend it out to some of my students?"
Um, YEAH .
In other news, the sequel, Band Geeked Out , is going really well. My editor recently showed me the cover which got me all excited about a new plot line and I’ve generally been a writing machine for the past week or so. Sometimes inspiration comes from the most unexpected places! I’ll be talking more about the Big New Plot Line as I develop it. I’m hopeful that it might allow me to follow in the footsteps of my personal writerly heroes…and get me banned!
