I got invited to participate in the Love Notes event on the True Story Book Blog. So I wrote a Valentine’s Day love note from Jay to Mia (Bend), and it was so much fun to revisit with these characters! You can read the love note here. Enjoy! <3
Bend
Bend epilogue!
Confession: I don’t care for epilogues. As a reader, I find that they usually don’t add anything to my enjoyment of the story. As a writer, they make me uncomfortable.
But why? Maybe because in the epilogue, everything keeping the main characters apart has been resolved. Rarely is there any tension or problems left to keep things interesting.
I’m also uncomfortable with sentimentality. It has to feel real to me, or it doesn’t work.
Writing the Bend epilogue was definitely a challenge, but I tried to keep it true to the book in all aspects: making sure the characters are still the same people and showing that they still have challenges ahead of them.
So check it out. Hope you enjoy it!
Mood Music
I wrote most of Bend with music blasting in my ears. A lot of–if not most–authors write with music playing in the background. I prefer to work while listening to music through headphones. It’s the perfect way to shut out the world and focus on the words on the page, drowning out all the voices in my head except the ones that matter to the story I’m trying to tell.
Music also sets the mood. It influences the story, helps me bring my characters to life. Here’s a playlist of the songs that inspired me as I wrote Bend, several of which made their way into the book itself.
• Gray Or Blue by Jaymay (Spotify | YouTube)
• The Scientist by Coldplay (Spotify | YouTube)
• Demons by Imagine Dragons (Spotify | YouTube)
• Hard Sun by Eddie Vedder (Spotify | YouTube)
• Feeling Good by Nina Simone (Spotify | YouTube)
• Ghosts That We Knew by Mumford & Sons (Spotify | YouTube)
• We Are Young by Fun. (Spotify | YouTube)
• Save the Last Dance by The Drifters (Spotify | YouTube)
• Weighty Ghost by Wintersleep (Spotify | YouTube)
• Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash (Spotify | YouTube)
• Ballad Of Fuck All by Malcolm Middleton (Spotify | YouTube)
• Can’t Help Falling In Love by Ingrid Michaelson (Spotify | YouTube)
[button link=”https://t.co/5G4hPlar6i” color=”black” newwindow=”yes”]Click for the whole playlist on Spotify[/button]
