FLASHBACK FRIDAY - The Promise of Amazing ULTIMATE NEW JERSEY PLAYLIST

Putting together The Ultimate New Jersey Playlist was a pretty daunting project.    There are so many incredible performers from the Garden State I didn’t know where to begin – but tying their music in with some of the themes and situations in The Promise of Amazing narrowed it down quite a bit.  The following is just a sampling of the amazing musical offerings from my home state!  It’s a mix of classic and modern, punk and soul and everything in between.  Enjoy!!

It’s My Life – Bon Jovi (Sayreville, NJ)

“It’s My Life” is an anthem for when you feel like no one understands you - which is exactly how Wren feels as the book opens. It’s about listening to your inner voice, standing up for who you are and what you believe in.  It’s also a great song to sing at the top of your lungs. Seriously, try it.

Celebration – Kool & the Gang (Jersey City, NJ)

This song reminds me of my job as a catering waitress. It was the first song the band played after cocktail hour and wedding guests always crowded the dance floor.  The Camelot band would definitely have this on their set list!

Teenagers – My Chemical Romance (New Brunswick, NJ)

I imagine “Teenagers” to be the kind of song Grayson loses himself in when he’s down in his basement pounding out his frustration on the drums.  Especially after Wren walks home from the park instead of taking a ride from him.

Maybe Tonight – Nicole Atkins (Neptune, NJ)

“Maybe Tonight” is an upbeat, wistful song about yearning to meet a mysterious someone again. This is the perfect mood music as Wren pages through her brother’s yearbook to stalk…um…piece together information…on Grayson.  Wren knows Grayson might not be the best person to get involved with, but she can’t help but be fascinated by him. 

Close to You - The Early November (Hammonton, NJ)

Grayson’s attempts to charm Wren keep failing to bring them together yet he’s determined to keep trying.  This song captures Grayson’s struggle to get beyond his past so he and Wren can be together.

One Way or Another – Blondie (Hawthorne, NJ)

The perfect song for Andy’s party - where everyone seems to have a hidden agenda.  Bonus:  Blondie drummer Clem Burke is from Bayonne, NJ!

Summer Wind – Frank Sinatra (Hoboken, NJ)

A classic.  This is the song that’s playing when Grayson tucks a flower behind Wren’s ear and she decides to take matters into her own hands.

Because The Night – Patti Smith (Woodbury, NJ)

Sexiest. Song. Ever.   

Wren and Gray in Guinevere’s cottage.  Need I say more?

Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You – Frankie Valli (South Orange, NJ)

Ah, young love.  You know when you can’t get enough of each other?  And you know how it can’t be that intense for that long, but it’s so great while it lasts?  Yes, that. 

Only a Memory – The Smithereens (Carteret/Scotch Plains, NJ)

Grayson’s past finally catches up to him. That hopeless feeling when you know it’s your fault and all you can do is watch as everything slips through your fingers.  Author confession: The Smithereens are one of my favorite Jersey bands.

Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen (Freehold, NJ)

How could I have a NJ list and not include this song?  This song epitomizes the restlessness of being stuck in a small town that “…rips the bones from your back…” It’s Luke going to Princeton, and what he means when he tells Grayson he’s “getting outta here for good”.   

Having a Party – Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (Ocean Grove, NJ)

I loved the role Wren’s family and her friends, Jazz and Maddie played in the book, and this song conveys the joyfulness at the end of the novel, when Wren is together with all the people she loves most in the world and everything is fine – even if it’s just for a night. That feeling when you don’t want the night to end!!

Bonus Song:

Sherry Darlin’ – Bruce Springsteen (Freehold, NJ)

Because one dose of Springsteen is never enough in NJ! Little bit of TPofA trivia:  I named Wren’s school Sacred Heart because of a line in this song - “To all the girls down at Sacred Heart.” Yep, really.

Want to win a signed paperback of THE PROMISE OF AMAZING? Enter Goodreads Giveaway here!! Now through August 16th!!  

The Siren Song of Bad Boys (and a Goodreads Giveaway!)

Confession:  I love bad boys.  When I was ten years old, a mom and her two teenage sons moved into the second floor apartment of the house next door. The boys were too old to hang out with the kids on the block, so we never really got to know them, only saw them coming and going.

The brothers had epic yelling matches that would sometimes end up turning physical on their front lawn.  There were also riffs between mother and sons, which would inevitably end up with one of boys barreling out of the house, cursing. The younger of the two brothers had unruly brown hair, wore a leather jacket and walked with what I can only describe as a determined swagger whenever he left the house.

I was smitten.

I don’t know why.  Maybe because he was so different from my parochial school, peanut-butter-and-jelly life.  Maybe I wondered what it was that troubled him so much. Maybe I just liked the way he looked. Whatever the reason, any time I could steal a glance at this striking, jean clad, teenage creature as he sauntered up the street…I would.  Where was he going?  Who did he hang out with?  Why did he fight so much?   

One night his mom fell asleep with a cigarette in her hand, igniting the bed.  The gossip in the neighborhood was that she’d been drunk at the time.  They left the burnt, powder blue mattress by the curb on garbage day.  Shortly after, they moved out.  My ten-year-old heart still wonders from time to time what became of him.

I got another dose of bad boys in Freshman Lit when we read S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, which is pretty much a bad-boy-a-palooza.  Oh, and the movie.  Matt Dillon as Dallas Winston?  Hot.  A police record a mile long. Loyal to his friends.  And that pout?  When Cherry said “I could fall in love with him” – Yep, I totally understood.

So it may come as a surprise to some readers that I don’t think of Grayson Barrett as a bad boy.  I mean, he is, sort of – but I don’t like to pigeonhole him like that. When I was workshopping The Promise of Amazing with my critique group, I remember some of the first critiques kept mentioning ‘bad boy’ Grayson. And all I could think was “Don’t label him.”  A hurt boy.  A misguided boy.  A boy who doesn’t think before he acts sometimes, but not all bad.

I adore Grayson.  He’s unlike any character I’ve ever written.  He’s a colossal jerk at times, but he knows it.  More than once, it felt like I was writing myself into a corner with his actions but it was always fun figuring a way out.  What I love most about Grayson is his humanness - his love for his father, his desire to be a better person, his ability to go after and fight for what he wants and the fact he wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to Wren.  Those attributes don’t sound bad to me at all.

Why are we so quick to judge someone?  The truth is all of us have the capacity to be both good and bad. That bad boy neighbor of mine?  I suspect he really wasn’t that bad. The burnt mattress at the curb must have humiliated him, maybe his family as well.  What if when he left his house he was heading to the library or a movie and not to the bay to drink with his friends as I had suspected?  And even if he had been drinking at the bay…does it make him a bad person?  

No.  It makes him human.

The allure of a bad boy is undeniable.  Bad boys are flawed, sure.  That alone makes them interesting, different.  Bad boys live out loud and who doesn’t want to do that, at least some of the time?  What better place than in the safety of a fictional word can you get a dose of bad boy, without it really disrupting your life?  If someone can be so…bad…isn’t there a chance that at the heart of it, there is some good?  That what it comes down to is that they are passionate about life, even if at times that passion is misdirected?  

These are the reasons why I think the bad boy trope continues to be popular, but most of all?

When a bad boy smiles…oh, hot damn, there’s nothing like it.

Want to win a signed paperback of THE PROMISE OF AMAZING?  Here's the link to the Goodreads giveaway!!

#TBT: Fly, Be Free

*originally published on The Paper Wait, August 21, 2013

As I sit here on this rainy morning pondering what words of wisdom I'm going to lay on you, my lovely Paper Wait readers, I realize no matter what I say, I will most likely fall spectacularly short. Confession: at the moment I'm feeling a bit empty, maybe even melancholy.

This past weekend, my son went off to college for the first time.  And oh...so many feels.

I know this is a great thing.  An important transition. A LIFE moment. And I'm proud and thrilled for him.  I'm also sad. I hardly feel old enough to have a son in college - seriously, weren't we just filling up his Pokedex?  I miss him - the telltale grinding of the garage door opening as he loped in from school or the rustling sound as he rifled through the fridge or of his laughter ringing through the house.  Sometimes he'd walk in, completely zoned out in some podcast he was listening to and disappear until dinner and other times he would burst through the door, plant a purposely sloppy kiss on my cheek and ask how the writing was going.  His presence in our home was palpable.

So, too, is his absence.

Oddly, this LIFE transition coincides with one of my own writing milestones.  I just sent back first pass pages for THE PROMISE OF AMAZING.  First pass is one step closer to being completely finished.  It's proofing the typeset pages with a critical eye and making it perfect.  You would think at this point I'd be so over Wren and Grayson I couldn't deal with them again.  And part of me does feel that way.

The other part of me wants to make sure they are leaving the house with emergency money and clean underwear. (The Post-its represent places I'm changing things!)

As hard as it is to do it, for both my firstborn and my first book, letting go is an inevitable part of life.  It's not necessarily a bad thing; gut-wrenching, maybe, but it also opens up a door for new energies to come in.  My son will meet friends who will appreciate his uniqueness and his lovely, lovely laugh.  My characters will go out into the world and hopefully find readers who are captivated by them as much as I am.  Are either of those things guaranteed?

That's what makes letting go so exciting and terrifying.  But, if you listen long enough, there's something else in that silence after goodbye - the whispers of new characters.  New places. New and ever-evolving relationships.

It's time.

How do you cope with letting go?

A Holiday Mix

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas have always held a special place in my heart.  I’m not really sure why – it’s certainly stressful, with end of semester tests, holiday shopping, overindulging and family obligations. I’ve always tried to look at the brighter side of things, and while the stressors I mentioned get to me too, I remember to pause a moment and really experience all of the things I love.  The smell of a wood fire, the glow of Christmas lights, chocolate chip cookies, even the fact that Starbucks has special holiday to-go cups  - it all makes me smile. 

The Promise of Amazing, which takes place during these weeks,  is very much a love letter to a certain time in my life – when the only things I had to stress about were how cold it was going to be at the Thanksgiving football game and if I would have a special someone to kiss under the mistletoe.   It may seem shallow, trivial even, but the underlying thrum of all of that, was the desire to be fully present in the moment.   The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas seem to heighten that feeling for me, everything takes on more significance with the holidays as a backdrop:  food tastes better, songs have deeper meaning, you miss people more, you love people more.

In honor of my favorite time of the year, I put together The Promise of Amazing Holiday Mix playlist.  The songs included represent both Wren and Grayson and what might have been playing during that final Christmas party at The Camelot. (and okay, some are just my favorites)  So dear reader, may you and your family have an AMAZING holiday season, with all the things that make it special for you! Hope you enjoy!! 

 xoxoxo  Robin