Sickly. (a sad Lexi Saturday)

So sorry!

Guest Blogger!!! APRIL LINDNER!!!!!!

Writing about music isn’t easy.  How can mere words convey the excitement of a backbeat, a smoking guitar solo, a throbbing bass rift, or a lead singer throwing his whole body and soul into the high notes?  When I set out to write Catherine, the last thing I meant to do was write about rock music.  For one thing, I’d just been there and done that.

In my first novel, Jane, a retelling of Jane Eyre, my reluctant heroine falls in love with an international rock star on the brink of his big comeback.  In writing that novel, I drew on everything I knew about arena rock, touring, and the lives of celebrity musicians.  As a hardcore fan who sees a lot of live music, I’d done a fair amount of imagining what a rock star’s everyday life would be like, and how a celebrity might find himself falling in love with an ordinary young woman.  In fact, I’d spent most of my teen years, and, quite a few of my adult years too, musing on this very subject. 

When I finished writing Jane, I thought I’d said everything I had to say on the subject of music.  But when I set out to write Catherine, I was a little lost. I knew that if I wanted to update Wuthering Heights, I would need a setting that was dramatic and a little dangerous, one that could be as important to the story as its characters would be.  At first I envisioned a doomed romance set in the remote and unforgiving climes of New Hampshire’s White Mountains.  I thought Catherine could be the daughter of a corrupt local politician, and Heathcliff might be at troublemaker from the wrong side of the tracks.  But my story just didn’t gel. I couldn’t care about it in that intense way a writer needs to about the worlds she’s trying to build and inhabit.

Then one night about three chapters in I happened to be seeing a show at the Stone Pony, a legendary club in Asbury Park, New Jersey.  As I held my little square of the packed floor, straining to see above the heads of the people in front of me, letting the music sweep me along, I felt it again—that old familiar rush I feel when I’m seeing a really good live show.  And I realized that feeling was a lot like the exhilaration I had felt while writing Jane.  I had missed that passion and I wanted it back.

I knew, suddenly, what I had to do to make Catherine come alive—for myself and for readers.  I had to set the story in a world I cared about.  I would make it a different slice of the music world this time—a punk rock nightclub on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.  And Hence, my Heathcliff character, wouldn’t be a star; he’d be a hungry, striving guitarist who might make it some day—or who might not.  As for Catherine, she’d be the daughter of a nightclub owner, a club as big and important as CBGB, one that could make or break the careers of young strivers like Hence.  She’d know better than to fall in love with a musician who might be interested in her more for her father’s sake than her own—but just this once she wouldn’t be able to resist. 

Catherine fell into place that night.  Picking a setting and a scenario that mattered to me made all the difference. As hard as it can be to write about music, to convey its magic with mere words, I seem destined to try over and over again.  Not too surprisingly, music plays a key role in Love, Lucy, my third novel due out in January 2015.  And these days I’m even blogging about rock music.  Here’s a recent post about Jesse Malin, the musician I was seeing that fateful night at the Stone Pony, and whose music kept playing in my head as I wrote Catherine: http://aprillindnerwrites.blogspot.com/2013/10/weve-got-that-pma-night-at-wonder-bar.html

"Fangirl" (a huge fanatic Lexi review)

You Awesome Readers,

OMG. I stayed up past 4 a.m. (with work the next morning) reading this entire book because I literally couldn't put it down and just stop. For some reason, it's 300-whatever pages turned to 600+ on my Nook, but it was just too good to stop once I began. What would this novel be? Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell.

Summary: "Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .

But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?
And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?" (Gracias, Goodreads!)

I have been jitter-ly waiting to write this review, and I can't give this book enough justice to how great it is. But I'm going to try.

So this girl writes. Fanfics. Fiction. And she's introverted a bit, with a twin that's outgoing. So how's she going to survive her Freshman year without her sister by her side??? This can help those who are in the same boat (alone Freshman year, bookworm, fanfiction fan/writer, writer, etc.) It shows that you can make friends in college and do fine if you open yourself up just a tad bit for that possibility. I know I had issues my first year in college. I was scared as hell. I also wrote fanfiction, and was a tiny bit introverted in certain cases, but still would talk to anybody (thank God for my gift of gab). But it was difficult to establish myself when I was so new to this experience, and I chose to be homeschooled for high school, you know? Plus, who was I in this new place, and who did I want to be?

On top of this, I could "see"/imagine the college and town they lived in. The characters were fun and complete. The best part was the way this novel was written. It reads in a very comfortable way, and the book had me laughing out loud all night long, and thinking about what kind of special hell it would have been for our parents if me and Ash were to have been twins... lol. (Lots of Emergency Dance Parties. Lots of noise. Lots of plotting and sarcasm. That's why we're best friends now, lol. We were supposed to be twins, but God decided to just release one of us at a time to different people, until we met in our teens, lol.)

This is such an amazing book overall. I can't tell you guys how great it is with words or fangirl squees or even sorority snaps. I just can't. I have so much energy and excitement as I write all this, just thinking about this book. You should have seen me reading it!

In Conclusion: EVERYBODY, READ THIS BOOK!


Rating:

6/5 laptops

Fun Books To Have Around (Lexi Speaks)

Hey, y'all,


Here are some books that I enjoy filling out and having around for ideas and such...

Hope y'all check these out! They're tons of fun! Of course, coloring books from a dollar store (they usually have Disney even!) plus Crayola crayons can keep you just as entertained, if not more!

Have a great night, y'all!



Sincerely, all my love,

Lexi