When her parents tell her they’re getting divorced, Maggie decides it’s time to leave home and take her future into her own hands. Moving in with Cole, her best friend and sometimes boyfriend, might not be the best of ideas, but she’s got to start somewhere. Their off-and-on romance gets even more complicated when Maggie crushes on her new voice teacher, Nathan, who unlocks her stunning potential. A sensational music career of her own is finally within reach, but Maggie might need more than perfect pitch to find what she’s really looking for. Out of Tune is a clean novel suitable for young adult to adult readers.
It’s a little less than a month before Out of Tune is officially released. For a long time I’ve gone back and forth with this book — especially when my publisher told me they were closing their doors and that Out of Tune would be mine to do with as I pleased. At the time, I had submitted the novel and it was with my editor there. It was a tough decision, honestly. I think Out of Tune is marketable enough to publish with a publisher (dare I say even a big publisher?), but now I was faced with publishing it on my own.
You have to understand that I thought this book was going to come out in the spring of 2014 with my publisher. My little heart was set on it. I had already made plans, and since I had some good momentum built up with my other books, I didn’t want to throw this one into the querying trenches and cross my fingers that maybe an agent would sign it in a decent amount of time, and maybe they’d think it didn’t need to be completely rewritten, and maybe they’d pitch it to some great editors at great big houses, and maybe it would sell and maybe it would come out before 2016 or 2017 (yes, big publishing is that slow). All of it was a Big Fat Maybe, and well, since I have momentum, why would I do that with this book when it was already with an amazing editor and I know how to publish my own work, already have a business set up, and even a good cover? So that’s where we are, and I’m excited that Out of Tune will be released December 3, 2013.
So, in all that excitement, here’s some more information about the creation of Out of Tune – the official novel that has made me a Huge Country Music fan for life.
BOOK TRAILER
Yay! There’s a book trailer for Out of Tune!
IDEA
The idea for Out of Tune came to me probably about six or seven years ago. I have always wanted to play the guitar. I still don’t have one, but I would like to get one some day when I can afford it, and I’d like to take some lessons and learn how to play a few songs. Maybe even sing. Gulp. But the closest I could get to for the moment was write a story about a girl who plays the guitar and sings. When I started thinking about plot possibilities and themes and conflict, I decided, well heck, what if this girl can’t sing? What if she’s so bad that everyone, even her parents, are embarrassed for her? It all took off from there.
The funniest thing of all is that I knew I wanted this book to be about country music, but that I didn’t really like or know country music. I mean, I know it, kind of … because I grew up in a town where the high school is next to a dairy farm. Yes. Cows. Every football game was bathed in the scent of cows and fresh manure. We won a lot of games because of that since the other teams weren’t used to it and we were. Probably half the population of my high school owned cowboy boots, or at least a hat and a pair of Wranglers. And a lot of my friends listened to country music. Every dance played a lot of country. I even knew how to line dance. But … I resisted country with every fiber of my being. Now, though, after immersing myself in country music for almost 11 months since starting the novel, I love country more than any other music. I got back to my roots, and I’ve finally accepted them. Because of that, Out of Tune is very close to my heart.
TIME
I started writing Out of Tune in January of 2013, this year. I finished it the first week of March. I even queried the dang thing, with some interest but not much luck. I also submitted it to Rhemalda Publishing, my publisher at the time. After some initial revisions, they told me I needed to rewrite the entire novel. It was written in first person present (not my strongest POV), and they wanted it rewritten in third person past. So I tried it for a few chapters, realized they were correct, and rewrote the entire novel in a few weeks. It was so much better, and I’ll be forever grateful to them for their suggestions and help.
EXCERPT
Want a little peek inside Out of Tune? This scene takes place after Maggie has moved in with her best friend, Cole. He’s in a band, and she’s been waiting patiently to sing with them … even though Cole is all of a sudden not as supportive as Maggie thinks he should be.
