Hey!

Discuss the book as a whole and brainstorm questions for Stephanie...once she's able to come on and talk with us, I'll make a whole new post for that!

First I'd like to say thank you to Stephanie for coming to talk with us about her book. Some question for her:

Did you outline the whole story and then go back and write it? Or did the story unfold as you were writing?

Did you do any research about bands and how their careers develop, business side, I mean?

Do you have friends in the music industry who have had moderate or mega success? Or friends who are like Michael and just enjoy playing at the corner bar?

Was your mother an influence in this story? What kind of relationship do you have with your parents?

When writing the ending did you consider having Louisa return to Michael and Emily?

Did you grow up in a small town?

Did you write any music to go with the story? If you could have a band score the book, what band would it be?

There was no mention of a divorce between Louisa and Michael and yet Louisa re-married did you consider writing anything in there about a divorce. It seemed to me that a divorce would have had such a huge impact on Michael and really changed the dynamics of his story. I wondered if this was a reason for omitting it.

Did you intend for the reader to like Louisa?

What authors do you enjoy reading? What writers have influenced your writing style?

Hey guys, this is Stephanie. I am just testing to see if it works for me to post. I will start replying to questions tomorrow (already some great ones, thanks gunslingirl!)I was out meeting with an in-person book club tonight and have to get up to work tomorrow, but I will come online after I get home tomorrow night and answer q's so keep em coming. It's awesome to get to talk to you guys, so thanks for having me!
xoxo
Stephanie

Welcome Stephanie! So glad you could come by and answer questions. I forgot to say in my earlier post that my name is Denise. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

Hey Stephanie! Thanks for being willing to come and talk. I really do appreciate it.

Great questions Denise. I figured you'd think of some interesting ones...You always seem too when we read books, and of course we could never have them answered before! LOL


Let's see...I'm trying to think if I have any questions that I haven't already asked before or haven't read the answer too (beyond the ones' Denise wanted to know about...)

OH! I know. You said that Emily and Louisa first manifested in short stories of yours and you decided that they should connect and Louisa is actually Emily's mom. What were these stories originally about? Did they have a lot in common with the book?


I'll try and keep thinking...but that's the one I have now! Don't want to overload you either. haha

Hi Denise and Lauren. Really great questions. Here I go:

Did you outline the whole story and then go back and write it? Or did the story unfold as you were writing?

The story unfolded as I was writing it. I'm not a plotter. I like to follow my characters and be true to them and see what where they go. I didn't really have an idea of the whole arc of the book until I was 3/4 of the way done. I didn't write the chapters in order either. I wrote them as they came to me and then went back and connected them. That is not what I did with my second book, so probably each book will have it's own process. My writing is just really organic like that.

Did you do any research about bands and how their careers develop, business side, I mean?

I've basically been doing research since I was like 11 or 12, lol! I got really, really into music around that time and have had subscriptions to Spin and Rolling Stone and other music mags since then and read tons of biographies. I'm a rock 'n' roll junkie. The reason I wrote this book is because I couldn't be a rock star (no talent in that arena) so I wanted to write a story about them. The story behind this book is that I was really unhappy at how macho rock got in the late 90s/early 00s. The whole Limp Bizket thing made it a boys club again. I was like man, the world needs a female fronted Nirvana (which is my favorite band and has been since I was 12 so I know their career quite well!). So She Laughs is basically like that. Their career is modeled a lot after Nirvana. They come from a small town (though Nirvana's small town didn't have a scene like River's Edge in my book), they move to a big city with scene. They start with an indie label for one album and then they are being courted by a bunch of labels, they sign with one they trust (Nirvana signed with DGC because Sonic Youth was with them, She Laughs signs with their label because Regan's sister has worked with the girl signing them). Then BOOM! Mega success. Seriously, I'm such a nerd, I even researched where Nirvana recorded Nevermind and that is where She Laughs records their album. I don't mention the studio by name, but I know it in my head I also tried to represent the spectrum of bands' careers. Emily's dad as you say below is happy just playing. Marissa's band tries to achieve major success, but realizes they are more comfortable with the indies. Oh, other rock research I did was making sure I had Louisa in the right city at the right time when a scene was breaking. I used Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life as a reference for that.

Do you have friends in the music industry who have had moderate or mega success? Or friends who are like Michael and just enjoy playing at the corner bar?

I've had friends in bands since high school. I have friends in small corner bar type bands and I have friends who are having moderate success. My friend Tom's band Office had a really big buzz last year and I have their article from Spin hanging on my fridge, I'm so proud! Also, this is not a friend's band, but a friend of a friend is in a pretty big punk band who was really uncertain about signing with a major for a long time and I was hanging out with them in LA when they were being courted by labels and went to the head of WB mansion with them and drank Dom Perignon and it was all these crazy punk kids and eventually they threw us out and turned the sprinklers on us. The band still ended up going with them though. It was wild.

Was your mother an influence in this story? What kind of relationship do you have with your parents?

My mom is soooooo totally not Louisa. She is the person who has been there for me always, my biggest cheerleader. I wouldn't have been able to publish a book without her support which is why I dedicated it to her. My dad and I don't have the best relationship. My parents got divorced when I was 17 and between the ages of like 10 and 17 even though my parents were together, my dad was just not really there, he worked a lot, he wasn;t there emotionally. And he remarried really fast too, so it was a really hard relationship. We're only just starting to get close again and I'm 29. So some of that emotion that Emily has toward Louisa in the last chapter, I definitely drew that from some of my feelings.

When writing the ending did you consider having Louisa return to Michael and Emily?

Yes. I actually did write a version where Louisa comes to Michael's porch with a copy of Rolling Stone in her hand. Basically the fantasy that Emily has about Louisa's return. But I realized quickly that it is just that, a fantasy. Louisa is too messed up for that.

Did you grow up in a small town?

I grew up in a suburb that really really felt like a small town sometimes, mentality-wise. I lived in Wisconsin for a few years between high school and coming back to the Chicago area to go to college and that is when I really fell in love with that landscape. I spent a lot of time in small towns when I lived there. My boyfriend at the time was from a small town near where the fictional Carlisle was located, so a lot of it was drawn off of visits there and conversations with him and his mom about what that area was like.

Did you write any music to go with the story? If you could have a band score the book, what band would it be?

I didn't write any music to go with it because I am just not that talented and I'm not sure I could have one band score the book because Emily's songs are so much different than Louisa's. I've described as what you get when you cross the Distillers (Emily) with Tori Amos (Louisa). Maybe the only band that could do it would be The Gits, but sadly their lead singer was killed many years ago. Oh or Patti Smith could probably pull it off. In lieu of a score, I do have a soundtrack for the book and you can see it at www.stephaniekuehnert.com/soundtrack.html

There was no mention of a divorce between Louisa and Michael and yet Louisa re-married did you consider writing anything in there about a divorce. It seemed to me that a divorce would have had such a huge impact on Michael and really changed the dynamics of his story. I wondered if this was a reason for omitting it.

There was no divorce between Louisa and Michael. Louisa's marriage to Finn was technically not legal. She never told Finn about Michael. By this point she thought that Michael divorced her by abandonment. She just didn't list previous marriage on the paperwork, acting like it didn't exist. I actually had a paragraph in the book with her explaining/thinking this, but my editor thought it was too repetitive and not necessary. I thought it all out though cause I would have had that question too as a reader. I actually got the idea for this after reading a little news article about the woman who basically did the same thing (except she fled an abusive husband). Obviously it eventually caught up with her (hence the news report), which it probably would have with Louisa too if it had lasted longer.

Did you intend for the reader to like Louisa?

I don't really write my characters intending for people to feel any sort of way about them. Most people don't like Louisa, but some people can really empathize with her. And those are usually people who have been through very dark things in their lives. I've gotten emails from people like this who say "Oh I want to run away like she did" and I write back and say, but look what it got her. Running away won't help, think about what you can do to change your life. I wrote the character of Louisa for those people more than anyone. Actually, I specifically wrote the character of Louisa for myself and for a former friend. This is really kind of personal stuff, but you guys are a cool little club, so I'll open up. I went through a pretty awful relationship when I was 15. It was not as bad as what Louisa went through and obviously, I didn't kill anyone, but it set me on a dark path for a number of years until I eventually faced my demons. I wrote Louisa as a reminder to myself of what would happen if I didn't face my demons. I say a lot that this book is about what happens when you follow your dreams (Emily) and what happens if you run from, rather than face, your nightmares (Louisa). Also I have a former friend who is a lot like Louisa. She didn't completely abandon her daughter, but she basically has because she's an alcoholic who rarely sees her. She's an alcoholic because of some pretty horrific stuff she went through growing up, but I told her for years that she needed to just deal with this because she'd chosen to have a child. So I kinda wrote the character of Louisa as an illustration to her. Unfortunately I just couldn't be around her anymore (though I am still close to the daughter and the daughter's dad), so who knows if she'll ever read it and get a wake up call. So that's a really long way of saying, I don't expect people to like Louisa. I do expect that some people will really get her though and I hope that she can help them in some way.

What authors do you enjoy reading? What writers have influenced your writing style?
Tons of different stuff from the classics like John Steinbeck and Nathaniel Hawthorne to modern stuff like Irvine Welsh, John McNally, Joe Meno, Louise Erdrich to YA authors with fantastical elements like Francesca Lia Block and Melissa Marr and YA authors who write straight gritty real stuff like Laura Wiess. I'm all over the board. And I think everything I read influences my style in some way. With IWBYJR for example I wanted to capture a small town the way Toni Morrison did in Sula. Bet ya didn't see that coming It's only one of many influences though. I think the biggest influece for IWBYJR was just music, especially the punk rock, grunge, and riot grrrl stuff I grew up listening to.

You said that Emily and Louisa first manifested in short stories of yours and you decided that they should connect and Louisa is actually Emily's mom. What were these stories originally about? Did they have a lot in common with the book?

Emily first surfaced as a jaded college girl who'd given up on music because boys in bands spoiled it for her. Obviously she changed a lot because the college thing is not really Emily. But I only wrote one or two short stories like that, then I wrote Rock Gods and that is when I really figured her out. Louisa made her first appearance in a short story called Fairytale which was basically the story of what Eric does to her. So I know from the get-go that that was the event that changed her. I think originally Fairytale was set in the 90s though and then when I figured out the connection, I switched it to the 60s. Fairytale did appear in a lit magazine, but I cut it from the book early on because it gave too much away too soon, but you can read it here along with some other outtakes: http://stephaniekuehnert.com/outtakes.html

Thanks for the great questions guys. I'll check back tomorrow afternoon and again on Friday and Saturday to see if you have more!

xo
Stephanie

Hey Stephanie! Sorry I haven't written back until now. Been a bit busy with school and stuff...and then tomorrow I was gone the majority of the day. LOL

That is a lot of research for the book, even if you knew a bunch of it from when you were younger. I suppose when you write, you're always learning/resarching.
I really like how the band is modeled after Nirvana. How cool!

Whoah, that's quite a fun experience being able to see all that with the band. Good memories!

How interesting about your family story and Emily's. It's kind of cool to see what's different and what's the same for the author and their characters. I know what you mean about your mom though. Mine is seriously one of my best friends.

I like how you ended the book. It's sort of like closure in a way for them all...and yet, still very realistic.

Thanks for sharing the information about Louisa and Michaels' relationship. I honestly never really gave it much thought, but it was an interesting question when Denise started talking about.

It's really nice of you to go into so much detail about some of the people you hoped to help, including yourself, when writing Louisa. I think it's horrible that she's running her whole life and is leaving a good place (michael and emily), but I do get her feelings...it's horribly sad...I don't dislike her though.

It's great to be influenced by a lot of differetn stuff. Gritty books are some of my favorites. I just like the realistic stuff I guess. Makes me think of Almost Home by Jessica Blank. You heard of it?

I've been meaning to read the outtakes. I need to do that. But thanks for giving a bit of background on where they first showed up in your stories. It's crazy how they did change in ways and obviously connected, but it still seems as if the characters core being stayed the same. That's really cool.

I had a question earlier today, but I'm kind of blanking on it at the moment...
ahh! Oh well, moving on! LOL

Do you think you will ever write a book that is very much different from IWBYJR and your next book?

I REMEMBER THE OTHER ONE NOW!
haha Okay...

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone wasn't always the title you were going to use. What were some of the other ideas? Was there anything else they were considering before IWBYJR?

Do you think you will ever write a book that is very much different from IWBYJR and your next book?

My next book is pretty different from IWBYJR and so is the one I am working on now, though they all are similar in that they sort of straddle the line between YA and adult and they are coming of age stories. I love the coming of age story and will probably always write those. If you mean different like will I one day write Urban Fantasy, I'm not sure. I'd love to, but have never had a genius idea for one. I'd really like to write a pirate story, but am waiting for the right idea. I will write a memoir-ish book someday, I'm sure of that. It will probably be creative essay style like Queen of the Oddballs.


I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone wasn't always the title you were going to use. What were some of the other ideas? Was there anything else they were considering before IWBYJR?

The very first title I had was The Black Notebooks because originally I had more letters written in black notebooks between Emily and Louisa. Then I switched it to All Roads Lead to Rock 'n' Roll, which is what it sold under, but they (ie the Marketing Dept at MTV Books because the Marketing Dept is who ultimately decides if you get to use your title, which kinda sucks, but that's the business) didn't think it was "catchy enough." So I started brainstormed. I considered Songs My Mother Never Taught Me, which I still really like and that's why I named a chapter that, but my editor thought it was too quiet a title for Emily, which is probably true. Punk Rock Girl after the Dead Milkmen song was up for consideration along with Rock 'n' Roll Girl. There was a list of about 15 others I sent in along with I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, which was my favorite. Fortunately it was theirs too!

Thanks for the great questions, Lauren!
xo
Steph

Okay guys, I will probably be signing off after tomorrow, so if you have any more questions, please post em by tomorrow afternoon! I've had a lot of fun talking to you!
xo
Stephanie