Everywhere, Everywhere

My fourth novel, Everywhere Everywhere, is out now! Some interesting facts for your reading pleasure:

1) This book is roughly based on the very first novel I wrote and never published. I simplified and tweaked the plot, changed the location from Jerome, Arizona to a fictional town in Colorado (both former mining and ghost towns that people claim are haunted), changed my characters' names, etc. 

2) The story was in part inspired by my fascination with the supernatural: spirits and near-death experiences, two topics I've studied extensively for well over a decade. 

3) With every book I write, my writing style changes and evolves and hopefully gets better and better. I'm always pushing to improve myself. In the past couple of years, I've been reading more beautifully written books by Stephanie Kemler, Laini Taylor, Kathe Koja and V E Schwab, among others. I've read several writing craft articles and more poetry. I made a real effort to do the gothic romance genre justice and elevate my writing. I hope I succeeded!

4) Although I sprinkle bits of myself in all my main characters, Charlotte and Lucian are less like me than some of my other characters. (For example, Chloe from Gone Away Girl and Finding Home and September from Pictures are practically my clones, with a few differences. Obviously, they're prettier than me and unlike Chloe, I pride myself in being an honest person.) Charlotte is partially based on a friend who is really pure, innocent and happy and has managed to have a relatively easy life (What would that be like?!) and my brother, who's a filmmaker and watches several movies a week. Lucian is partially inspired by a former best guy friend, who is romantic, passionate, artistic and philosophical. Lucian is also partly inspired by me.

5) I've been an artist longer than I have a writer. I loved drawing since I was old enough to pick up a crayon. So, it was a fun opportunity to paint the cover of my own book. I used pen and watercolor. This is how I imagine my characters to look. Obviously, this is from the Victorian masquerade ball because they're wearing 19th century apparel. Charlotte, who has shorter hair, is wearing a wig. I left the masks off because I wanted the reader to have a chance to see their lovely faces.  

6) I got to explore a lot of firsts with this book. It's my first time writing a man's point of view, first writing in third person (Lucian's chapters), first gothic romance and first historical fiction. 

7) I set the story in the late 1960s rather than modern day because the plot required that Charlotte not have access to modern tools like the internet. If the story took place today, finding Lucian and looking him up and discovering parts of his history would have been fairly easy. I also chose this era because the 1960's cars and fashions have a certain charm and people enjoyed a slower pace in those times. 

Finding Home

Finding Home, the sequel to Gone Away Girl, is finally here! I had so much fun writing this one. This book is a little different than the others. It has more romance, which was necessary due to the plot, and I pushed myself to include more poetic language, after being inspired by gorgeously written books by Laini Taylor and Stephanie Kemler. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Buy your copy here. 💙

Four fun facts about Finding Home:

1) When I’d written the first few drafts of Gone Away Girl, I hadn’t planned on writing a sequel. Actually, the idea to write one came right before the first book was published. The plot points and new characters came quickly, sort of just falling into my head.

2) This duology was partially inspired by my crush on an art teacher in high school. He was much older and happily married, however, so the relationship was always strictly professional. There will be no soapy student-teacher romance/drama in my memoir, I’m afraid.

3) Benci’s character was partially inspired by a guy I used to know and by a handsome, mysterious Eastern European male model I watched on a reality TV show.

4) Several parts of this book are loosely based on my own life. More so than any other book I’ve written. For example, a few years ago I enjoyed a dreamy vacation in Thailand, where I got to feed and bathe elephants, one of my favorite animals. It was probably the best trip of my life. It was in no way romantic, however, because I went with my sister. 

I have mixed feelings about finishing the duology. I dearly miss Chloe, Damien, Bones, Mel, Benci, Bree and Adeline. They were some of my closest friends—my imaginary friends, haha—the past couple of years. (Actually, I worked on the first book off and on for close to twelve years.) Who knew writers became so ATTACHED to their characters? To be honest, I’m having a difficult time switching gears and working on my next two projects. What are they? you ask. 

For the past nine years I’ve been working on a project about a girl with OCD who loses her best friend to a cruel group of girls who now bully her. It focuses on mental health issues, grief, bullying and has an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers trope. With a hot English boy. Because why not? 

My very first novel was so poorly written, I consider it a practice novel and plan to never let it see the light of day. However, the characters have haunted me over the last fifteen or so years. So lately I’ve been rewriting it, starting from scratch. I’ve streamlined the plot and taken out a few characters and added two plot twists that I’m excited about. It’s sort of a ghost story that takes place in a former ghost town in the 1960s. The main character had fallen in love with a young man she was writing. One day he vanished. He simply stopped writing and she never heard from him again. She road trips across the country to discover what happened to him, hoping to find him and rekindle their romance. She stays in a haunted historic hotel and hopes to avoid running into any ghosts. My first three published novels are all contemporary so this will be something new from me. Actually, as a teenager I devoured horror/mystery/thriller books and only dabbled with reading contemporary until my twenties, when I started reading them regularly.

I also have about fifteen other ideas for future books so only time will tell what I’ll be releasing next! 

For more regular updates on my books and life, follow me on Instagram @juliette_the_writer. If you enjoyed my book, a quick review on Amazon and/or Goodreads —even a sentence or two—helps immensely! Your support means the world to indie writers like me. 💙

My New Book is Finally Here!!!

This book was ten years in the making! It feels surreal that it's finally here! I don't know if I'm more nervous or excited. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope you fall in love with Chloe, Damien, Bones and Mel as much as I have. Also, I'm writing a sequel! I wasn't ready to let my imaginary friends go. I've already finished the first draft. 

After you read Gone Away Girl, feel free to ask me questions. If I get enough of them, I'll do a Q&A post. Also, I just started an Instagram page. Follow me here.

Buy your copy of Gone Away Girl here. Leave a positive review on Amazon and Goodreads and I'll love you forever! 💙

I Love This

PS I'm still revising my second novel and will hopefully be publishing it soon! Why is it taking me so long? you ask. I had a MAJOR creative slump that lasted for about two years. This year is going much better. I've fallen in love with writing again. Soooo, wish me luck!

Amazon Giveaway!

I'm doing an Amazon Giveway. Enter HERE for your chance to win a free print copy of my book, Pictures of You.

I'm on Facebook Now

Follow me HERE.

My Favorite Young Adult Books on Death and Grieving

When you're going through something, there's nothing quite like a song, a movie, a book, something out there that lets you know someone else knows a little (or a lot) about how you're feeling. I can't tell you how many times a good story or a song on the radio was exactly what I needed in a dark chapter of my life. As someone who has suffered from a lot of loss, I love a good book about death and grieving. Listed below are my favorites on the subject.

 I read Say Goodnight Gracie by Julie Reece Deaver as a teenager. I loved it so much, I read it three times. I rarely read a book more than once. This story about a girl who loses her best friend really tugs at your heart.

 One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones: The title of this book drew me to it. A good read about grief and how unfair life can be when you're uprooted from the life you know and have to start over from scratch.

 The beautifully written Willow by Julia Hoban was enthralling, but hard to read. Willow, who feels responsible for her parents' death, turns to cutting to numb the pain.

I also read Tiger Eyes, by Judy Blume, a story of a girl whose father is killed during a hold-up at a convenience store when I was a teen and read it again as an adult. I enjoyed it both times. I also liked the movie. This heart-wrenching tale really resonated with me.

 I really enjoyed Hold Still by Nina LaCour, which is about a girl whose friend commits suicide. The story is memorable and haunting, the writing gorgeous and honest.

I'm shamelessly adding my own book Pictures of You to the list, based loosely on my story of losing my very best friend, mixed with my grandma's story of loss, with dashes of fiction throughout. I can't promise you'll like it, but I secretly love this story and the fictional characters that are roughly based off people I used to know.

What I'm Working On

I was super flattered when a girl sent me an email and told me how much she loved Pictures of You and said she can't wait for my next novel. That inspired this post. Soooooo if you're a sad little monkey and are yearning to know what I'm up to (I know--doubtful): I am currently working on two novels, although I have adrenal fatigue and not only am I super tired all the time, but my brain is mush, which puts a bit of a damper on things, particularly writing. But in case you were wondering, I have finished writing and am now revising a book about a girl who runs away from home and starts a new life, in a new state, lives in a secret, hidden room at her new high school, falls in love with her hot art teacher and dates the school's bad boy.

And book number two: I am about 80 pages into one about a girl who has severe OCD and is bullied at school. She is painfully obsessed with a cute boy on the high school swim team who barely knows she exists and she makes a friend with a weird Australian guy.

I'm hoping I'll have the runaway book available to the public by the end of the year, but I make no promises. In the meantime, read some Sara Zarr (my favorite author) to hold you off.

Me, totally star-struck, meeting my favorite author, Sara Zarr, who is a far superior writer. 

Pictures of You: Author Q&A

Q: Is there more truth (ie inspiration from your own life) in the details or in the story's themes? -Zach, Henderson, NV
A: The story's themes. The details are mainly fictional, but the themes were inspired by many of my own personal emotional journeys. Writing this book was therapeutic for me. Like September, I also lost my very best friend, although not to a car accident, but to a drug addiction (while that friend has not passed away her addiction permanently altered our relationship and it took me ten years to get over it). I did lose a good friend to a car accident. Perhaps my biggest inspiration for the plot was my Grandma Pat's experience. She lost her closest friend in a car accident. She was in the car when the accident took place. She saw graphic details she could never shake from her memory, which haunted her for her entire life. She was a teenager when the accident occurred. She chose to never drive a car again. I was in several car accidents (I only caused one of them) and became fearful of driving for years, myself. Car accidents have always disturbed me. Attacking a difficult theme like that was somewhat liberating. The inspiration for Adrien's story was also somewhat autobiographical. I struggled for many years with crippling depression. While I didn't have to deal with the kind of guilt he did (thankfully!), I relate so much to his suffering. I thought it would be interesting to explore the theme of forgiveness. I had to do a lot of forgiving over the years. I've also had to ask for forgiveness. I've learned forgiveness is a critical key to happiness.

Q: How did you choose the characters' names? -Amanda, Troutdale, OR
A: September, Adrien, Abby and Chris were names I would've given my own children. I thought it would be funny to give Mary, who is the quirkiest character in the book, a typical name. Some families give their kids names that fit into a theme (nature, names that start with J, etc). September's parents are so average and unoriginal they decided to simplify things by naming their kids after the months they were born in.

Q: Where did you get inspiration for September's character? -Kirkham, Provo, UT
A: September is me in disguise. She and I share many of the same personal experiences, interests and character traits. I made a few tweaks to keep it from being too obvious: September is a photographer and I'm a painter (although I dabble in photography). September is actually more resilient than me. I had to make her grieving process move forward quickly for the sake of pacing. If she took a whole ten years to move forward and forgive, the book wouldn't have qualified for the YA category. I don't think a teen wants their protagonist to be 28 at the end of the story. I wanted to keep it relatable for my target audience.

Q: What's with Adrien's head to toe green outfits? -Anonymous
A: I knew a cool boy in high school who one day showed up to school dressed that way, in clashing variations of green. I admired his courage to do something different and ended up trying it myself. I thought it would be a funny trait for Adrien to have. There is no meaning behind it beyond that.

Q: What character do you feel like is most similar to your own personality? Did you base any characters off people you know? -Stephen, Woodland Hills, UT
A: As mentioned above, September was based off of me. I also feel Adrien was somewhat inspired by me and my own demons, combined with what I thought was the ideal guy back in my teen years--moody, troubled, artistic, sensitive and handsome. Chris was inspired by a guy I dated. Abby was a combination of my two closest friends--my childhood best friend, Anne, and my sister, Rachel. Mary represented my goth friends in high school and their (sometimes comical) fascination with death. Most of those friends were quite offbeat and sweet, too. I'm not sure how I came up with John. I confess I used to daydream about dating a hot Native American guy. I thought it would be interesting to make him September's polar opposite. September's family is actually quite different from my own. I'm very close to my family and they are much more interesting and silly and down to earth than September's.

Q: You mention a lot of music in the book. How has/does music influence your life? What would you say to someone struggling with depression or who knows someone with it? What can people do to help their friends/family with depression? -Heather, Bellevue, NE
A: Music has been (and still is) a lifesaver for me. It got me through so many years of grief and depression. I turned to the same bands September did in my teen years. I LOVED '80s stuff, although I was not a teen during that decade. The Smiths/Morrissey was a huge blessing in my life. It was comforting knowing someone out there was more lonely, sad and pathetic than I was. The Cure got me through some dark days. Although I no longer suffer from depression (thanks to God and years of therapy), music, of the past and today, still brings me a great deal of joy and comfort. The depression part is tricky. It is so common these days, yet still so misunderstood. A wise man recently compared depression to cancer. You wouldn't tell someone with cancer to snap out of it. A person simply can't help it--it can take months or even years to overcome the illness, if you are so lucky. The worst things you could say are, "Just be happy." "Smile! It's all in your head." Depression affects one's brain chemistry. It is often genetic. Many times it comes from trauma or loss. Most people cannot climb out of that dark hole alone. Encourage them to get professional help. Be compassionate and nonjudgmental. Share with them the local or National Suicide Prevention Lifeline if necessary. (1-800-273-8255)

Q: What are you working on now? -Anonymous
A: I am working on two projects. I'm putting a final gloss on a novel about a teen runaway who leaves her abusive step-father to start a new life. She finds a long forgotten, hidden room in a high school to live in and hopes to not only survive physically and emotionally, but to thrive. She has a dream of becoming a professional artist and there is, of course, a juicy love triangle. I am also writing a book about a girl who is severely misunderstood and bullied at school. She has a pretty bad case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and happens to be obsessed with a gorgeous and unobtainable boy who sits in front of her in her AP English class. She hesitantly befriends a weird Australian guy--it's hard for her to trust anyone after her dad ditches her and her mom.

Thanks for the questions and interest in my book! If you have any more, please leave them in the comments, along with your name and location. I will happily answer them and add them here or to a later post. And thank you for supporting indie authors!

Meet My Novel

I've wanted to write a novel since I was twelve. I would start writing something, usually three to five handwritten pages, and then think, "This sucks!" and give up. Months later I would try again. I think my record was twenty pages. And then one day, while I was attending college, I read a famous quote by Ernest Hemingway that changed everything: "The first draft of anything is sh*t." I thought, "Wow, really?" It gave me a big dose of courage. It gave me permission to write a WHOLE crappy book--and then I could polish it and shine it and make it pretty later.

About six years ago I wrote my first novel. A whole, 200+ pages of novel. A few months later I wrote a second one. About a year later I wrote a third one. I am now working on a fourth. Reading that quote was a turning point for me.

But it took some time to have the courage to share my books with friends, with family, with literary agents. It took some time before I was ready to release one of my babies to the world. And now I finally have. And I am scared. Really, really scared. But I am also excited. I've wanted this for more than half of my life, after all.

Pictures of You is my first published novel, but the second one I wrote. I know it's not perfect--I'm no Virginia Woolf--but I love it. Writing it was so fun, so therapeutic. I laughed, I cried. I feel like September, Adrien, Chris, Abby and Mary are some of my closest friends. I hope you will like it, too.

Here is the synopsis:

In a moment, September Jones’s life is changed forever. Shortly after high school graduation her best friend, Abby, is killed in a hit-and-run accident. Devastated, September struggles to face each day. She turns to junk food, bad TV and journaling to cope. When September meets handsome, mysterious Adrien, who’s given himself two weeks to write the perfect suicide note, and nice guy Chris, her new coworker who has some troubles of his own, she realizes she’s not the only one dealing with personal demons. Pictures of You reminds us of our human capacity for resilience, forgiveness and hope.

Buy your copy HERE