Perhaps you saw that my writerly hero Meg Cabot interviewed me on her blog?  Here it is if you missed it. Fingers crossed the authorities don’t come after me for admitting that I stole a book from my 7th grade classroom.  I was young!  I didn’t know what I was doing!

I’d make grand and sappy declarations about how Meg is the coolest (not to mention the funniest and the nicest and the prettiest), but I think you all already know that!

I met her the day before I started writing Band Geek Love!  Very auspicious.

(Though apparently she hates her haircut here, whatevs, she’s still the best.)

Meg is running a really great contest to give away copies of Albatross…check it out here.  To win, you’ll have to write in and explain how you’d help extricate a friend from an unhealthy, hurtful relationship without making your friend mad and driving her (or him) away.  It’s tough to do!  I know because I’ve been there (on both sides of the ugly equation).

I also want to point out this kickass Albatross review and giveaway over on the book review blog Bites.  The whole thing is so thoughtful and awesome, but I think this is my favorite bit because it talks about something other reviews haven’t really mentioned:

There isn’t a prince that saves Tess’s day. Only Tess did that and that just reiterated the overwhelmingly powerful message this book has. No one else can get you out of it except you. You need the strength to do it. You just need to listen to that inner voice of yours.

Yes.  Sometimes, my friends, you just have to be your own damn hero!

I had a great time at the East Lansing Public Library, where I met some girls who are current members of my old high school marching band (they even have the same band director!).  They gave me the highest praise possible about Band Geek Love – “You got it right”.  Thanks, guys!  Good luck with drum major try-outs!

And then I visited Haslett High School, where we had a fun talk about bad relationships and boy drama and throwing off albatrosses.  It was not nearly as traumatizing to hang out in a high school as I thought it would be, though I definitely still have a Pavlovian response to the class-change bells.  Not in the form of drooling, at least, but definitely some panic.

And THEN I had a wonderful reading/signing at Schuler Books.  It involved my favorite question of the weekend.  A woman in the audience asked me what are my favorite themes to write about and I answered “A girl finding her inner-badass”.  Then she asked me if I had found my inner-badass yet, and someone else interjected, “Sure she has…look at her boots!”

Me explaining my Badass Boots.

This was a valuable lesson, as it turns out.  Whenever you are anxious and nervous about something, try wearing Badass Boots.  I swear they’ll make you feel ready to take on the world.  Or at least take on public speaking.  Truth.

Here is a great write-up and interview from the Lansing State Journal wherein I admit to printing out IM conversations in high school because I thought they might be useful material someday.  (They ARE.)

Thanks everyone for a wonderful visit!  And for those who I missed this time around, I promise I’ll be back!

From the Associated Press via the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Calif. high school band girl beats off muggers with marching baton

A 17-year-old high school marching band student beat up two assailants who tried to mug her as she walked to school in this high desert community about 40 miles north of Los Angeles, sheriff’s officials said Tuesday.

The girl punched one of the men in the nose, kicked the other in the groin and beat both with her large baton before she ran away on Friday morning, officials said.

“The moral to this story is don’t mess with the marching band girls, or you just might get what you deserve,” said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Michael Rust.

A couple of people sent me this link and were all “This is TOTALLY Ellie”.  Just substitute a trumpet for the baton, and I think they’re right.

Second, check out this cool mention of Band Geeked Out on Meg Cabot’s blog!

And third, a  little late to the party, but my awesome agent Kate gave away copies of Band Geeked Out to whomever could write the worst query letter.  The contest is over, but you can see the finalists right here and boy howdy they are hilariously bad.  Check it out!

This story isn’t a fairytale story about how wonderful high school is—the characters have legitimate problems, nothing works out according to plan, and some relationships don’t work out. In other words, it’s like real life, and that’s a perfect reason to read it.

I would recommend it to all of my girlfriends, even if they weren’t band geeks. It’s a very realistic depiction of the college search process, parental pressures, and dating issues. I found it very easy to relate to Ellie and the struggles she was going through. Her thoughts, ideas, interactions, and reactions to situations were all very realistic, making her even more likeable and drawing me more into the book.

Now THAT is a happy-making review.  Read the whole thing over here (though beware of a MAJOR spoiler in the last paragraph)!

Also, I’m taking part in Kay Cassidy’s Great Scavenger Hunt, which you can learn about right here.  The questionnaire for Band Geek Love is already up on the site, and Band Geeked Out should be there soon!  (If you’re a teen reader and want to become a “hunter”, you’ll have to ask your librarian to enroll in the program).  It looks like a whole lot of fun and a great excuse to devour a pile of books, plus who can argue with a $50 B&N card?  Happy hunting!

In addition to the fact I just plain adore her books, Meg is also one of my writerly inspirations.  I first met her at a Queen of Babble signing in Chicago exactly three days before I sat down and began to write Band Geek Love, which I am fairly convinced is not a coincidence.  So to hang out with Meg, years later, and be able to tell her in person that she’s part of the reason I’m a writer was just…awesome.  I feel very lucky!

So, that’s probably the most exciting thing that’s happened to me since I last wrote here, but I’ve also been crazy busy with non-hanging-out-with-heroes business. There was the election, of course (WOOT!), and I had a great visit at Edgewood High School in nearby Ellettsville, Indiana, where one reader informed me that I had obviously “scanned her brain” to write Band Geek Love (my response: “Dang, I was hoping you wouldn’t figure it out!”).

I’ve also been doing lots of theater stuff, including getting ready for this big event on Friday which involves me writing a whole play IN ONE NIGHT.  Yeah, I’m not sure what I think I’m doing either.  But I’ve been told that it’s fun!  Like a 12 hour playwriting version of NaNoWriMo, I suppose.  (Except I don’t get to quietly shut it in a drawer for future revision when I’m finished…the play will be performed on Saturday night!)

And soon I’ll be diving headfirst into the final Band Geeked Out revisions, and writing the next book, and and and.  More soon!

This sort of feels like when I was keeping a journal as a kid, and I’d forget to write for a couple of days and then feel guilty, and more time would pass and I’d feel guiltier. And all the stuff that had happened in my life that I would normally file away on a journal page would end up piled in my brain until I couldn’t take it anymore and I’d spend hours writing a big long summary just to get some peace in my head.

Get out of my head, Stuff!

1.) My signing at Schuler Books and visit to Haslett High School up in Michigan went very well. I wasn’t even that nervous because everyone was so nice and reassuring! I just said “I’m very nervous about this” and they all said “Oh, don’t be, it’s going to be fine” and I believed them and it really was fine.

It was so awesome to meet some readers (many of whom were band geeks!) and hear what they thought about the book and how they identified with Ellie and the story. I put faces to the teenagers who I write for, and that was very cool.

Here is a bad camera phone picture proving it happened -

Missing: One snifter of brandy.

2.) My new editor put up a funny post about Band I Mean Banned books…

3.) I was cast in a new set of plays, one of which I wrote!, that will be performed right around the election. I am somewhat of a political junkie (it was my major in college, after all) especially around elections, (YA for Obama!), so to combine three of my favorite hobbies (writing plays, politics and acting) has been a total blast.

I recommend combining favorite hobbies whenever possible, unless your favorite hobbies happen to be sleeping, downhill skiing and archery. Or cooking, knitting and base jumping. Or…well, you get it.

4.) I accidentally ended up in an entire building full of alpacas! They are, seriously, the most adorably unlikely animals this side of a platypus. They are cute and furry and you just want to squeeze them, but alpacas are very suspicious and don’t especially like it when you look at them, let alone touch them. Convincing an alpaca to eat some treats out of my hand was a major victory.

I would like an entire alpaca herd, please. Except I’d spend all my time trying to befriend them and wouldn’t get any writing done.

Alpaca: “Why are you looking at me? Please stop.”

And…well, that’s pretty much it. Busy busy but I shall try and be a better blogger from here on out!

My dad and stepmom stopped in and snapped some pictures of the preparations:

!!!

I’m going to sign books and everyone is going to eat pizza. You should totally come by if you’re in the area!

Back-To-School Pizza Party with Band Geek Love by Josie Bloss
Sunday. September 21. 3 p.m.
Join us in celebrating the release of Band Geek Love, the debut young adult novel by East Lansing native Josie Bloss! This charming, geeky love story stars trumpet section leader Ellie Snow, who thinks she’s got it all figured out until hunky trumpet player Collin Higgins shows up and throws her world upside down.

Schuler Books & Music

2820 Towne Center Blvd.

Lansing, MI 48912

Phone: 517 316 7495

Thanks Abby! Cool blog, too!

I’ve discovered the fun and highly productive habit of telling my own fortune through clicking on “random article” on Wikipedia. Recently, for an important personal question that I was pondering (let’s just pretend that the question was “Should I open this bag of Haribo gummy bears even though it is likely I’ll end up eating the whole thing?”), the article that came back was this one:

Viratanagari was the capital of king Virata of Matsya Kingdom. It was here that the Pandavas spent their 1 year (out of 13 years) of exile. The modern name of this city is Bairat.

Which…didn’t help at all, actually. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have Haribo gummy bears in ancient India.

So I tried again!

The Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) is a large salamander, native to North America, which inhabits large, swiftly flowing streams with rocky bottoms. Vernacular names include “snot otter”, “devil dog”, and “Allegheny alligator”.

Which was slightly more instructive, considering that at least gummy bears and salamanders are animals. Well, one is a candy, but it looks like an animal…a delicious animal (the gummy bear, that is. Please don’t try and snack on a Hellbender.)

Also, “snot otter” might be the most hilarious juxtaposition of words I have ever seen. It is also my new all-purpose insult (“Stop being such a snot otter!”) So that was worth it right there.

But I figured I should give it one more shot, just in case, and got this:

“Hänschen klein“, has been a traditional 19th century German folk song telling of a boy who ventures to the world and returns a man to his family. It is the theme song of Cross of Iron. The title translates to English as “Little Hans”.

Which settled it. Haribo gummy bears ARE from Germany after all.

Clearly that was permission to eat the whole bag, too.

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!

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.