Little Willow said nice things about Band Geek Love!
She also interviewed me last week with some of the most fun questions I’d ever hope to be asked. Thanks, Little Willow!
One of the coolest parts about this whole process has been meeting all sorts of people for whom band (even if not marching band) was or still is an incredibly important, formative experience. That’s pretty much the reason I wanted to write Band Geek Love…and there are so many more stories there to be told!
Every once in a while I take a stroll down memory lane and go through some of my old notebooks. The other day I found some fiction I wrote in middle school. The story in which the whole country (except for a very special few, including the resourceful main character who was definitely not at all based on me) is killed off by a plague entitled “Destruction OF A CITY” (…cringe), um, I’ll just not comment on. Except to say I was obviously ahead of my time with the massive natural disaster stories (if only I had incorporated zombies! Or a wizarding school!). And that my mild obsession with such topics has continued to this day.
But overall, I think that if I you told middle school me that I’d be drawn toward writing realistic young adult fiction involving marching band and cute boys, I’d probably have rolled my eyes and maybe kicked you in the shins, because at that point I was clearly convinced that I was headed directly into Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi territory.
Plagues in Chicago necessitating dramatic rescues by helicopter from the top of the Sears Tower! Earthling settlements on desert-like planets with natives who teach the colonists Very Special Lessons about acceptance! (That story actually got me an award in 8th grade). An alternate reality in which the South won the Civil War! Main characters wandering through the woods and into fantastical medieval-ish kingdoms where they are obliged to become chambermaids and also made to save the WORLD!
Sigh.
I found a story-beginning that I’d forgotten about, which is totally surprising considering I wrote it out single-spaced on blue-lined notebook paper in number 2 pencil approximately 14 years ago, probably during pre-algebra. Not surprisingly, it’s a bit wince-worthy, but I did find one section that made me giggle appropriately. This is after our intrepid modern-day heroine is lost in the woods, walks into another dimension, and gets picked up by the kindly armored man who is going to transfer her into indentured servitude at eeevil Lord Alistair’s manor house of eeevil.
“Um, excuse me,” she politely asked the man. “Where are we?”
“Don’t you know, girl? We’re in Salistian, land of knights, kings, queens, dragons, war and HAPPINESS!”
“Oh.”
Heh. I was trying to be funny, at least. And I remember it was often pretty hard to maintain a sense of humor as a middle school girl. Also, sometimes I think I’d give up all the fun parts of being a grown-up for just one liquid ounce of my middle school imagination. Salistian…seriously.
Before I go any further, I would like to thank the following three people without whom there would be no This:
1.) My awesome agent Kate Schafer, who does exciting stuff like move across the country and open her own agency, and also some stuff that is probably not-so exciting, like cheerfully answering my never-ending questions and patiently telling me that yes, I am in fact a Real Writer.
2.) My fellow-band-geek editor Andrew Karre, who just totally gets it. I feel so lucky to be helped through this process by such an excellent guide…
3.) My dripping-with-creativity web guru Adam Schweigert, who makes the most pretty and practical things out of zeros and ones. And who also takes fantastic photographs. And composes lovely music on top of that. Being a person who is mostly only capable of thinking in words, these are all talents that fill me with awe.
Thank you all! I’d be lost.
