{Tour} Love Songs & Other Lies by Jessica Pennington (Author Interview + a Giveaway!)

***INTERVIEW***

Hi, Jessica! Thanks for taking the time to talk with us today. We’re excited for our readers to get to know you and Love Songs & Other Lies a little better, so let’s get started!

I feel like all of my favorite scenes are massive spoilers, so I’ll keep it vague yet intriguing. One of my very favorite scenes includes a swoony kiss, the beach after midnight, and a mock sobriety test. I love writing kissing scenes, and Cam & Vee’s are some of my very favorites, because the two of them have such an awesome connection that goes way past insta-love or even insta-attraction. All of the scenes with Vee and Cam are my favorites!

I spend a lot more time writing than eating formal dinners, so I turned my dining room into my office. It has a big picture window, and some of the best light in the house, and I just couldn’t waste it on the one or two big dinners we might host each year. So I have a little corner space that has my (red) desk that I love, and all of my bulletin boards, and my little inspirational trinkets, like my “She believed she could so she did” sign, and my first editorial letter, and the note from my agent that she sent with my first check as an author. I am a total hoarder when it comes to things related to my publishing journey. I have every note, every conference badge, even a banner I convinced my publisher to let me have (because they are the best) and my book cover was on it! My actual writing day varies, because I’m a stay at home mom to a 2.5 year old. So some days I write during naptime, and some days when I have a sitter in the morning, I go to a local café or the library, and settle in for a few hours of writing. I used to always write on my laptop, but during the drafting of my second book, When Summer Ends, I was really struggling to focus, and my husband bought me an old school AlphaSmart word processor. No internet, no editing capabilities; so now when I draft I take that with me and I can literally sit anywhere. Currently I just finished copyedits for book 2, so once Love Songs & Other Lies is safely out in the world, I’ll start drafting book 3!

I didn’t want it to end either! I was actually really sad when this book was completely finished. I was so absorbed into this world and these characters, I was a bit shell-shocked when I had to move on, and I can totally understand why people write series! Cam & Vee’s story came together in a really slow, organic way. I didn’t sit down with a story idea or concept, I wrote the very first scene on a whim, after hearing a song on the radio. It was a really amazing break-up song, and I wanted to re-create that song—the feeling of the song—in a scene. So the break up scene was the very first thing I wrote. I had no idea who the characters were, but as I went back to the beginning, I started to slowly piece together what brought them to that place.

So at first Vee had a lot of my characteristics, because she was such a blank slate. But as I figured out who she was, almost all of that was stripped away, and I really love who she became. Vee is so much cooler and stronger than I ever was in high school, and she has a resilience that I love. And Cam is the kind of guy I wish I had known in high school. The setting is really what has the most in common with real life for me. The THEN chapters are set in a small Michigan beach town, and that’s based on the town I grew up in (with some creative liberties taken) and I had friends in a high school band, so that’s where that aspect and setting came from. The actual plot and characters aren’t based on real life, but there are a ton of tiny little things tucked into the story that are personal to me.

I love so much music this totally changes by my mood, but one of my all-time favorites is Heart Full of Love/Head Full of Doubt by the Avett Brothers. And this line is the reason why: “There was a dream, and one day I could see it; like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it. . . Decide what to be and go be it.” I’m a huge believer in dream-chasing, and in making what you love also what you do for a living.

In the spirit of stepping out of her comfort zone, I’d love to see Vee dressed up by Lola from Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins. I think she’d come up with something really fabulous and fun for Vee!

Thanks so much for stopping by, Jessica! This was a ton of fun!