VBT# Xoxoxoxo - Bethany Lopez
Today's VBT# is part of HoneyBee promotions and is for Bethany Lopez's new release xoxoxo . I have to admit after writing the xoxoxo - adding Gossip Girl :)
Today we have a blurb about her book , and a wonderful guest post written by Bethany Lopez herself.
Synopsis: Xoxoxo - Stories about Melissa Book #2 - Bethany Lopez - March 2012
Melissa has learned a lot since her freshman year began, but it isn’t over yet! Her world is about to change again with the birth of her new sibling, and she has to figure out how she will adjust to being the eldest of five kids. She, Jess, and Jimmy are inseparable, and she is having a fantastic time although she can’t help but miss Brian as she tries to learn how to deal with his relationship with Layla. Everything seems to be happening at once and that is when she is introduced to Ben Campbell, a senior at Dearborn High, who becomes an interesting distraction as he helps her deal with the new developments in her life.
Book Excerpt :
ENTRY ONE
First New Journal Entry:
I know, I know, I know… it has been a really long time since I have written anything. In fact, it has been so long, that I decided to get this pretty new journal to replace my other one. That one is old news anyway! When I noticed that the last entry was in October, and it is now April, I knew that I needed to start fresh.
A lot has changed in the last six months. Jess, Jimmy, and I have been inseparable. My parents call us the Three Musketeers (Such an old person saying). I am glad that Jess and Jimmy never actually dated because now we are the best of friends! Brian and Layla are still hanging out and are annoyingly sweet to me whenever we run into each other (which seems to happen all of the time!). Megan has started seeing Mark, and he is at our house all of the time now. I can never seem to be in the living room or kitchen for five minutes without them running in and taking over the TV or grabbing a snack. Nothing has really changed with Mikey or Monica, and Mom is still pregnant. She looks like she is about to burst. It seems like she is always in pain and eating weird food, like grits with maple syrup. I feel bad for her!
Have I mentioned that I really do not want to have kids, EVER!!??
Jess, Jimmy, and I completed our first semester of freshman year, and we did so great in our Photography class, that we were asked to join the Yearbook staff second semester. It is the best class ever! We are in charge of getting great action pics of the freshman class. So, we spend a lot of time going to events and takings pictures for Yearbook. It has been so much fun, and it has really kept our social calendar full. We get invited to all of the best parties and have been to every sporting event. We are always there to hang out and back each other up, and I couldn’t imagine having better friends than Jess and Jimmy.
I am not going to lie… I took the whole Brian and Layla thing pretty hard. I mean, I really liked Brian and thought that we were going to have a shot at a great romance, but the whole fiasco with the dance and my parents really messed things up. Then you throw in the Layla thing, and I was totally bummed for a while. Jess and Jimmy did everything they could to cheer me up, but with Brian on the swim team and Layla joining freshman track, they are often the subject of our photos. I see them everywhere! And whenever I see how he is with Layla, I am reminded of how great Brian is! Plus, she is in my Physical Science class… Ugh! We have been friendly to each other, and I really don’t have anything against her anymore… It just makes me sad more than anything. I can’t help thinking, “What if?”
Christmas was a lot of fun. We had the festivities at my Uncle Lou’s house this year. He lives on Runyon Lake in Fenton, and we had family members travel from all over Michigan to get together at his place for the holidays. It was sooo much fun! I love going to Uncle Lou’s. He has this great house with so many beds in it that you could sleep in a different bed every night! Everyone just shares rooms and space and kind of snuggle together like a gigantic slumber party. I don’t get to see my cousins that often, but when we do get together we have a blast -especially at Uncle Lou’s! Even though it gets pretty cold at Christmas, we all go outside and make snow angels and snow men. I have this new totally cute set of gloves, hat and scarf. They look like they are crocheted with pink yarn, but they actually have a thick and fuzzy liner, so they keep me warm while looking totally fab! I bought this beautiful charcoal grey coat to match, and I have to say, they look really good together.
There was one day where it was cold enough that the shallow end of the lake froze, and my cousins and I went out and tried to skate around on it. Boy, did my Mom and aunts flip out when they saw us doing that… My Mom still brings it up when she gets mad at me! (“What if Monica would have seen you and tried to go out there? You could have been seriously hurt if the ice had broken!) Blah, blah, blah… nothing bad happened, and we had a great time!
Dad and my uncle’s went out on the last day and built an igloo for the little kids to play in. They just made a big mound of snow and then tunneled into it and hollowed out the inside. The bigger kids went out when they were almost done and decorated the outside to make it look like bricks. It looked pretty cool, and I got some awesome pictures of the kids going nuts as they played in there.
After the holidays, Jess, Jimmy, and I would go sledding on a big hill down the street from Jess’s house. I know, sledding is for little kids, not high school freshman, but we had the best time. We would take turns going down together, and we would laugh until our sides hurt. We had such a great time, that for the first time, I was not happy to see the snow start melting. Of course, that only lasted for a minute until I felt the sun on my cheeks. I started imagining flowers blooming, walks at Henry Ford Mansion and Greenfield Village, sun dresses, shorts, tank tops and flip flops, and I immediately felt anxious in anticipation of spring…Not to mention Spring Break, which begins next week!
It is 11 o’clock now, and I have school tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep. I have caught up, for the most part, from the last entry, and will fill in the rest tomorrow!
xoxoxo
Bethany Lopez
Hello Bethany. Thank you for joining us at the blog today. Can you tell us about your latest release, XOXOXO? Where did the idea originate? How did the characters progress? And why did you choose the setting?
I set my books in Dearborn, Michigan and at Dearborn High, because that is where I went to high school. I had the idea for the first book, Ta Ta for Now! about a year and a half ago. I am the mother of five kids, and the idea of writing the dynamic of a large family appealed to me. The characters develop as I am writing them. They are always growing and changing.
How much planning and plotting is involved in your work before you begin to write?
I think a lot about the ploy and the storylines for each character. When I write, I write in spurts and then I stop for a while to think about what will happen next. Sometime it turns out differently than I had originally planned.
Do you have a critique partner? Or do you belong to a writing group?
No, I do not. I have other writers that I trust to review my work, but I do not currently belong to an organized group.
What time of day or night do you best at?
Morning is the best time for me. I get up every morning and update all of the social media sites before going to work. I write whenever I get the opportunity.
What thoughts and emotions do you hope readers will take with them from one of your books?
I want there to be a myriad of emotions throughout the book. I like to write emotional scenes. The best part of writing and reading books, are feeling everything that happens along with the characters.
Thank you for joining us today.
Wow! This takes me back! :)
ReplyDeleteThis was a wee while ago now Bethany :)
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