Guessing at Normal
I am a sucker for chick lit that has a rock and roll theme. So much so, that’s exactly what I wrote. While I was writing Beside the Music, I read as many rock and roll memoirs I could get my hands on. Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne, Neil Peart, Steven Tyler, Cyrinda Foxe, and so on. Also, I cannot tell you how many times I watched that movie Rockstar with Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Anniston in it. It’s your classic story about newly found fame, and getting burned while flying too close to the sun.
Guessing at Normal by Gail Ward Oldmsted is one of those books I would have loved to get my hands on while writing my own. It’s another classic flying-too-close-to-the-sun story. But the characters actually get away with it. Jill, her protagonist, is a small town girl who falls for a rock star. But she’s so much more than the wide-eyed girl. Gail Olmsted does a great job of keeping it real. Sure, Jill and James have fame and fortune handed to them. But Jill still manages to keep it real in the sense that she still loves her husband, warts and all. She doesn’t allow herself to get pushed around either, which I loved about Jill’s character—she has strength.
I am at the point where I am starting my next book, and it’s not rock and roll themed. And while I am interested in the story, I kind of feel like I don’t know where to go with it just yet. Beside the Music just flowed right out of me, while this new one I am having to dig a bit more at it to unearth where the plot is going—even though I outlined it all out. And I just know, as was the case with Guessing at Normal, that I’ll totally read someone else’s novel that has their characters going through the same thing as mine, after I’ve finished and released it. Maybe Gail Olmsted will write that one too.
You can check out Guessing at Normal here.
BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.
added on 12.31.15