Guest Post from Julie Particka:
The Music of My Soul
The Music of My Soul
Inspiration comes from a lot of places, and as I’ve
mentioned pretty much whenever I’m asked, the main inspiration for Playing
the Perfect Boyfriend came from conversations with my single friends about
the never-ending deluge of well-meaning questions. When are you going to find a
nice guy and settle down? When are you going to have kids? They all kind of
translate to “When are you going to have the kind of happily ever after I think
you should have?”
Newsflash: people hate that.
But while that was the core of the idea—a different kind of
happily ever after—it wasn’t enough. And so I started paying attention to which
of my friends were the ones who complain about that. Then I took a long, hard
look at post-divorce me and realized we had a lot in common.
This particular epiphany happened while I was sitting in my
minivan in the Jr. High parking lot, waiting for my kid to get out of school.
It also happened while I was blasting Halestorm.
I discovered the band Halestorm a couple years ago and
promptly bought all their CDs I could get my hands on. Listening to their music
makes me feel like somehow Lzzy Hale has a direct line into my soul. So that was
also the moment I knew I had to work the band into Jade’s book.
It’s not a huge thing in the actual text. I mention a couple
song titles (one tongue-in-cheek and the other as a pivotal moment) but the
inclusion was less about individual songs for me as it was the attitude that
Lzzy brings to her music. It’s raw. It’s revealing. It is unapologetically
real.
And that was something I desperately wanted Jade to be. I
didn’t want her to be a picture perfect heroine. I wanted her to have faults
and failings—major ones—and not to apologize for a single one of them. I knew
going in that it would make her a polarizing figure. People were either going
to love her or hate her.
And that is okay by me, because it means she’s real in the
way that only certain people manage to be. She’s not the girl who everyone
thinks is “nice” or who “everyone gets along with.” She’s fiercely loyal,
viciously protective, and passionately loving. She’s the kind of person I would
happily call friend…and on occasion “bitch.” But that’s okay because she’d call
me one right back, and then we’d laugh about it—as best bitches do.
If you’re curious about the band that speaks to my soul (and
Jade’s), though, here is a smattering of the Halestorm titles I had on repeat
while writing Playing the Perfect Boyfriend (in no particular
order—Okay, fine. It’s most-played on my iTunes…):
“You Call Me a Bitch Like It’s a Bad Thing”
“Love Bites (So Do I)”
“Nothing to Do with Love”
“I’m Not an Angel”
“Love/Hate Heartbreak”
“What Were You Expecting?”
“Beautiful with You”
“Break In”
“Freak Like Me”
“In Your Room”
“Sick Individual”
“Amen”
“Mayhem”
“Bad Girl’s World”
