to pearl jam with love - THE BOOK

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It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I am a PEARL JAM nut!

Well, I was approached a couple months ago by a Lori Tone who is creating a book called to pearl jam with love and she was hoping I would submit something for her review since she read that my novel, IN TOO DEEP that's coming out in June, was inspired by Pearl Jam's song DEEP.

I checked with my publisher to make sure I wasn't going against anything in my contract and they said GO FOR IT!

It was a labor of love to try to explain how personal this band is to me. I didn't want it to read like my 12 year old fan letters to Leif Garrett. I wanted with all my heart for Eddie, Stone, Jeff, Matt and Mike to really be moved by my experiences with them and how they brought me to where I am now. I know it sounds cliche but it's the truth. If it weren't for their inspiration I would never have written IN TOO DEEP.

to pearl jam with love is going to be FREAKING AMAZING!

I want to introduce you to the amazing woman behind this incredible Brain Child.

Here is a small blurb about Lori Tone:

My name is Lori Tone and I am a (10c) card-carrying Pearl Jam addict...and fan since 1991. I am also a professional, published Canadian writer, editor, photographer, and communications professional ... amongst other ambitions. My dedication to seeing this project to print and presented to the band (and fans!) is absolute. I am very lucky to have the support of my family and friends, as well as MANY of you, the Pearl Jam faithfull. I won't change direction and I won't change my mind.

About the book:

  to pearl jam with love is a unique collection of stories, love letters, thank-yous and artistic tributes to a band who has touched countless people around the world for more than two decades.

It is about the sharing of moving and inspirational stories and memories, each unique, but at the same time connected to the band and their music.

to pearl jam with love are the words and images that make these stories come alive. Stories from everyday fans, fellow musicians, collaborators, and those who have experienced first hand the generosity that seems to flow unending from this band.

Along with the captivating words, the book is about artwork, photos and other stunning tributes to the band by both the amateur and professional.

It is our chance, new fan or old, famous or not, to have our Pearl Jam story heard, our thanks given and to make sure the world knows just how amazing this band and these individuals truly are.

So,  if you have had an unforgettable Pearl Jam experience or have always thought, "If I ever met the band I would thank them for..." then you need to contact Lori through the book's website.
(Yes, I made that whole sentence a link....it got your attention, didn't it?)

I am thrilled to be a part of this project and would love to be a fly on the wall as Eddie, Stone, Jeff, Matt and Mike sit down with a case of wine and read through all the stories of lives they have changed. It isn't an unknown fact what talent they have but it has been said by everyone who meets them that they are amazing humans and some of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

Lori's efforts in putting this book together will not go unappreciated by the band. This is our time, as fans, to give back and it's an amazing feeling to know this specific group of men will undoubtedly cherish to pearl jam with love.

I couldn't be more excited!

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus... WAIT!

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As you all know - I am a FREAK when it comes music but even more of a FREAK when it comes to lead singers. It's no secret.

There's no need to warn my husband, he knows. He expects me to zone out once we get to concerts and live shows...he also knows he's my FAVORITE guy on the planet so there's no jealousy involved.

Weeeelllll, there is this one band...he gets a little angsty about. But that's because I smooched the lead singer in a private backstage moment at the end of one of their shows (I was in college). Yeah, he gets a little hung up on that one. So, I won't mention WHAT band that was...could start a riot.

ANYWAY, I digress...

Because I am always listening to music and finding new bands, I can't figure out how I have missed RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS for all this time? They are totally my kind of band!

One of my awesome Twitter friends who happens to also be an amazing book blogger shared a song with me that she thought could be the TITLE SONG on a SOUNDTRACK should IN TOO DEEP ever be made into a movie. (breathe, breathe)

I wanted to share that song with you because she couldn't have hit closer to the bullseye on this one.
@BooksOverBoys introduced me to RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS and their song FACEDOWN. I am floored. I can picture Jake standing toe-to-toe with Noah, saying,

Do you feel like a man when you push her around?

Do you feel better now as she falls to the ground?

 

 

I can also picture Jake holding Gracie by the shoulders as she cries, saying,

 

 

Hey, girl, you know you drive me crazy
one look puts the rhythm in my hand.
Still I'll never understand why you hang around
I see what's going down.

 

WOW! Just WOW!



So, on that note (ha ha, you like that pun? *insert dorky grin here*) I wanted to share these guys and their amazing song with you.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so thrilled to introduce you to RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS singing FACEDOWN! (You probably already know them, but don't tell me...let me keep thinking I introduced them to you :D)

Enjoy!
(and if you have any songs you think would be perfect if IN TOO DEEP would ever be on the big screen, let me know and I will feature your choice, too)

Gracie Jordan's State of Love and Trust...and Pearl Jam

*
It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I love PEARL JAM ...but not in a screaming, never wash my hand again if it shook Eddie's, creepy stalker kind of way. NOT AT ALL. Don't get me wrong, the announcement of US dates for their 2013 tour sent a wave of goose bumps through me that didn't stop for an hour. And if I had the chance to meet Eddie Vedder I would have butterflies the size of elephants but not for the reasons you think.

Yes, he's famous, but I could care less about that. Yes, he's always been beautiful to look at but that's just a bonus as far as I am concerned. I am in awe of the beauty of his passion for the lyrics he writes, the raw nature of how he bears his soul for every performace, the heart he puts into everything he touches from the research he does on the towns they play to his environmental activism to the benefit concerts at The Bridge School, a school for children with severe speech and physical impairments.

Sure, Gracie would love to meet Eddie Vedder, too, but for EXACTLY the same reasons I do...
I would like to personally thank him for how much his music has touched my soul and healed scars from my past. I would like to tell him that the passion he exudes when he writes and performs is beyond gorgeous. And you better believe this man will have a spot in the "Acknowledgements" in my book, IN TOO DEEP... which was born on a very rough day for me as I lay in my bed and cried listening to Pearl Jam's DEEP, realizing I was "in too deep."

I saw Pearl Jam for the first time in November of 1991 when they came with The Smashing Pumpkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers to Rec Hall at Penn State. This was less than a year after the band that was Mother Love Bone added Eddie as their singer and became Pearl Jam. So, I have been listening to their lyrics and collecting their albums (I have 109 of their songs on my iPod right now) pretty much since the beginning.

And, that concert at Penn State was just months before I sat in Park Place apartment #305 just off campus and watched them perform on MTV Unplugged - back when MTV really was all about MUSIC and music was about so much more than suggestive words and crazy wardrobes.

This song, STATE OF LOVE AND TRUST, is currently on repeat as I write Gracie's emotions while she tries to convince herself that her state of love an trust has been broken down to pretext.

Enter MTV unplugged from March 1992:

Just watch him...he FEELS every word he sings. THIS is AUTHENTIC art!
Completely AUTHENTIC!

Now, try to call me a "crazy Pearl Jam fan!"
It goes much deeper than that.

Thank you, Eddie.

...through Author-Colored glasses...

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**

 

Well, of course I know that glasses cannot be author-colored. Not sure what that color is, I've never seen it in the CRAYOLA mega pack. But you all know the old "...through rose colored glasses" phrase. Basically this means if you put those glasses on, you will see things in a new way...like you have a secret that only the rose-colored glasses people know.

Well, if you look at it that way...there ARE Author-Colored glasses! And they are really funky like the ones above. I would totally wear those, wouldn't you? My teenagers wouldn't be seen with me, that's for sure, but I think they're awesome. May have to get myself a pair for my next Author Photo Shoot.

Anyway, my point...

I have noticed since writing a full novel and having started the content edits as per my editor, I am starting to see my novel like a giant equation...and I HATE MATH. But, it's similar in that, while editing, if you change a specific detail in Chapter 12, you may need to go back to Chapter 2 and add a hint, then ahead to Chapter 8 to switch something around so that the detail in Chapter 12 makes logical sense. See, equation!

Now, while I wait for line edits, I read...other people's books. I am noticing that I am picking up on things earlier than I would had I not used this Author Equation multiple times in the last couple months. And it's not that the authors I have read are blatantly obvious - they're really not. Those funky glasses really work!

In any book, there are details you are supposed to simply pick up and carry with you through the story... and then later the author throws you a curve ball and you have a big "AHA" moment when that little detail comes flying back like the missing piece of a puzzle. And you have the "why didn't I see that?" reaction. It's fun when that happens!

Now that I read through my Author-Colored glasses, I NOTICE those little details and SOMETIMES I piece something together a little sooner than I'd like...those "AHA" moments we readers love so much can be "aha" moments through my new glasses.

But...
More importantly, I am seeing many different versions of that equation through the eyes of other authors and that excites me. In some instances I am still thrown by the outcome but can quickly piece it all together and follow the climax back to its origin... it's a little like looking over your friend's shoulder during the math test.

Though, we authors don't call it cheating...we call it INSPIRATION! My writing will improve by checking out the creative equations in the books I read.

And I have come to LOVE my Author-Colored glasses!

 

Why do you write?

When someone asks me this question there is immediately a tornado of thoughts and images that swirl around in my mind. I can see images of scenes I have read from my own list of favorite books...scenes that I am still in love with and could almost recite verbatim. I can reach out and touch the character I've created in my  mind as I console a broken heart or help her up after she's been knocked down.

I feel the tragedies I write.

If they stay inside me, they will eat me alive. If I keep them in, I would be cheating someone out of living that story as they turn the pages of one of my novels. Sometimes living someone else's story for a moment can bring enlightenment to your own life that  you wouldn't have gathered anywhere else.

I wasn't an avid reader until I was an adult. I was a gifted student and did well in school and I am sad to say, I got by with Cliff's Notes and movies. Maybe no one challenged me as much as they should have. I hated reading when someone ELSE was choosing what I would bury my nose in. So, I read the mini-version, watched the movie, wrote the paper or took the test and then filed it away in "things I will never need to revisit."

I have always been a storyteller. I have lived my whole life with people begging me to "tell that story again!" And with each re-telling, I add more and more glitz and glam...which is why no one ever gets tired of hearing that same story...it's not always exactly the same. I love to hold people's attention while at the same time I don't enjoy being the center of attention. My stories allow me to entertain while drawing attention to something other than myself. The attention goes to the characters within the stories I am telling.

When I write, things I've lived through, longed for, loved and hated make their way into my books. Call it cheap therapy, but sometimes when I hand my own experiences to the characters in my books I can translate them in a way I could not if I was simply looking at them from my own point of view. Looking at the same heartache and pain through someone else's eyes brings a world of different insights and I love that.

In addition to that, I can change the outcome as I see fit. In my latest novel that's making its rounds, IN TOO DEEP, there is a scene that I would give my left arm to go back in time and have play out in real life. Since I have not yet discovered time travel, I watched it play out moment by moment as I wrote it and now I can revisit it over and over and over as many times as I want to see that fist meet that jaw!

So, why do I write?
I write for the same reason people do drugs...it fills a void in my soul!

So, peace out writer peeps! It's time for me to go fill a void!

 

My Revision Plan...

I have multiple WIPs at any given moment - it's the curse of an uber creative person.

When I used to revise, it was an overwhelming task because I would change something which would mean something prior to that part in the story would need changed as well...then I would spend an hour trying to find that one specific part I was looking for.

Now I draw myself a map, chapter by chapter. I make a long list or sometimes a grid and as I revise and rewrite I fill in the list or grid with details that are in specific chapters.

Example:
Chapter 1
• skips school, p 5
• finds note from boy, p 12
• remembers dream, p 16
• tells off teacher, p 18
• backstory abt step dad, p 21

As I revise each chapter, I keep a detailed list. This way, when I need to change something about her relationship with her step dad I know that, in order to change backstory to make it match, I need to go to p. 21.

Now, of course, you can't have EVERYTHING on the list but hopefully you will jot down enough of the big details that it will still be helpful in going back to find earlier parts.

I also keep notes in the margin of upcoming parts I will need to adjust based on something I rewrite in earlier chapters.

I hope this inspires you to create your own revision solution. Be sure to share your secret to keeping everything straight in the comments below.

Happy revisions!
Peace.


 

Back to the YA while the Picture Book submissions simmer...

I just finished Gayle Forman's if i stay and my brain switched back from finishing up the last of the picture book tweaks to working on my favorite child. I enjoy writing picture books, it's the art of it that fascinates me...the painting pictures with words. Keeping a 4 year old's attention with my quirky jump roping squirrel, Benny, is brilliant bliss. But YA is living and breathing inside of me at all times!

I walked away from this latest manuscript almost a month ago...it just needed to gel. I wanted to be able to READ it like a teen would, not like the writer who already knows what is going to happen.

I really connected with Forman's interview in the back of the book when she talks about how a "total stranger popped into [her] consciousness." That is exactly how I met M, my character. I sat down to take my mind off of the days stresses and I started to type...a sort of stream of consciousness. That's when I wrote this:

"His eyes were pale, pained and hopeless. His Manson t-shirt was torn down the center and stitched back together with dozens of safety pins. Was this the state of his soul? Held together by something sharp and painful? His eyebrow twitched, he spit at my feet and turned and walked away. This was the boy I loved."

That's when you know...Gayle Forman will agree.
You just "KNOW!"

I'm off for a husband's-night-to-take-care-of-the-kids writing conference of my own. Just me, my iPod, my memories from my 1st job, the high school art room filled with students I will never forget and my laptop. It's like meeting an old friend for coffee...I can't wait to "hear" what happens next!

How my former students are inspiring this novel

When I taught 9-12th grade, art was important but I was also sensitive to what the needs of the students were on an emotional level. Yes, the needed a grade, but when they needed a mental health day they knew they could use my art period to regroup.

I will never forget the day a 10th grade boy, the star football player, came in flushed with bloody knuckles. He respectfully sat in his seat breathless and agitated as the other students filed in. I know he was expecting me to draw attention to him, tell him to get over it and get to work. Instead, I got the class started and quietly walked over and told him he could take a walk to the bathroom, clean himself up and gather his thoughts - as long as there was no more "trouble" involved. When he came back with no incident and thanked me with a look and nod of his head when he left with the bell, I knew I had made the right call.

Later that year I got an early morning call alerting me to an impromptu crisis meeting before school. The popular football player had hung himself in his basement the night before... my heart broke. R.I.P. Jeremy

THESE ARE THE KIDS WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO TOUCH! There are too many stories like this!

You would think after years of editors telling me that my ideas were too big for picture books I would have considered writing a novel. Now, I DID consider it but I worried I would get "writer's ADD" and not finish it.

I had no idea I would be as passionate for the characters in my head as I was for my high school students. I was/am quite attached to my picture book characters but their existence is mere minutes. A novel character comes with a past, lives the present and aspires to what the future brings.

Back to work...my characters are waiting!

Peace.

I've been a busy bee...and it's been HEAVEN!

You have to admit...finding something you love to do and calling it your job is H E A V E N!

Now, technically writing for children isn't my "job" because I haven't connected with just the right agent and editor...but all in due time...all in due time. But I do write for moms, so in a '6 degrees of Kevin Bacon' sort of way, I am writing for kids...through their moms! ha!

People ask me how I don't get discouraged by working for over 4 years and not having anything between the covers of a kids book to stake my claim.

Well, last night I pulled out some of my very first manuscripts as I was in search for stories to rejuvenate. That was an eye-opener!! I hadn't realized how far I had come in these past 4 years. And I have those rejections to thank for that learning curve! That's exactly why I am not discouraged!

I have also had some AMAZING authors and illustrators as my counsel over these past few years. There is nothing comparable to the world of a writer when it comes to the generosity of strangers. When you read someone's book over and over, you don't feel like THEY are strangers but they don't know you from Adam...and yet, when I shyly asked for help or an opinion, they pulled out all the stops and lengthy conversations and some good friendships formed!

It is awesome to have talents like Peter H. Reynolds, Verla Kay, Margot Finke, Elizabeth O. Dulemba, Laurie Halse Anderson and Jane Yolen in my back packet. Some I have spoken to once or twice and a few I can honestly call, "friend."

I am in HEAVEN! My hope is that one day, children will be inspired by my words and images on a page. And I believe Hope is in Heaven!

Peace.

These are a few of my FAVORITE THINGS...

So many things play into WHAT I write and what I DRAW... inspiration is everywhere! If I wrote in my notebook EVERY time a story line, character or new concept idea came to mind, I would NEVER get off my office chair! (Not that that would be a bad thing!)

I try to jot down everything that I like enough to spend a lot of time on...sometimes it is in a journal/notebook/sketchbook, sometimes it's in the driveway in sidewalk chalk. Sometimes it's on slips of paper or napkins that I stuff in my purse and then tape into my journal/notebook/sketchbook.

I had a writer professor who would say, "One could NEVER write every story that came to mind...no one lives that long!" This struck me as it made me realize how "in tune" we need to be with our creative side. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING can become a story...but only the author can select JUST THE RIGHT ONE and make that story her own!

So, no more procrastinating! I have 500 words to cut out of my newest manuscript and a book dummy to create! Back to the drawing board...LITERALLY!

While I write - you can peek at what keeps my muse happy...


Painted baby fingers.


Slinkies.

Grumpy toddlers.

Simple nature.

My Sunday morning (BreakAway 56) tweens.

Funny PRANK cakes I have made.

My student's projects.

Heavenly Amish-made desserts.

My countryside surroundings.

And, of course, sidewalk chalk!

Peace.