These are some of the songs referenced in the forthcoming novel “Bird With No Song”. There are certainly more songs that helped inspire me while writing but they can be found on my other playlists (or I might add them later!)

Once upon a time, when I was writing full time, I’d share snippets from my works in progress as I was actively going through the editing and beta reading process. I’m not sure why I feel so cautious sharing now but I think it has to do with so much online thievery I’ve witnessed my writing colleagues go through over the last 5 years I’ve been focusing on my other career, not to mention I’m not sure if I’ll be going Indie this time around.

Was that me hinting at agent shopping? You decide.

I’m not sure what to do, honestly. I would love your feedback. What I am willing to share is that this new novel is called Bird With No Song and if it had to be placed in a genre box I’d call it general fiction featuring a teen protagonist.

BIRD WITH NO SONG

Sixteen-year old Josiah “JoJo” Smith has done a pretty good job of flying under the radar despite his well-known relatives until his mother, former child musician Annie Smith, renews her relationship with Luke Preston, the lead singer of the world famous band Periscope.

JoJo was already struggling to reconcile his desire to make music with his extreme introversion, anxiety, and self-esteem issues. Now life’s a chopped-up drama salad of fake friends, real friends, fake family, real family, hashtags, squish-names, and the crushing weight of expectation that goes along with trying to step outside of being the son, nephew, or grandson of someone famous. Add that to all the confusing feelings he has for his best friend Josef and the intriguing new girl at school and he’s, well…

Everything’s fine. Just fine. No big. It’s whatever.

***

If you are interested in beta-reading, please let me know!

Hey there, long suffering blog followers! Still working on the Work-in-Progress entitled “Bird With No Song”, but it’s in the rewrite/self-editing phase and I’m hoping to be shopping for beta-readers soon. Yay! (I hope) On the agenda for this week is to update the playlist on YouTube with the songs that head each chapter and others that just vibe with the story. I hope I remember to make time for it. As some of you might know, I am an essential worker in “Real Life”, so I’m not suddenly swimming in hours at home to write.

Tonight, like millions of you, I’ll be streaming the #TogetherAtHome concert. You can join me talking about it on my socials if you like.

New playlist, FWIW. Wasn’t making time to write, am now. Thanks for your patience. Like, YEARS worth of patience. I see you! It’s hard to wear three full time career hats. I’ll do better.

Really, I update this playlist frequently. One song is responsible for changing the name of my WIP and of course, will remain on the final book playlist. But what IS that title, Gen, you may ask? I mean, I still don’t know the title to Star Wars IX, so you can just share in my suspense. What if I change it again? I’m in that chaotic messy middle phase of the novel, with all sorts of extraneous scenes in my slush file. Will they make it? We’ll see… I really love these characters, both teens and adults, and I’m hoping you will too.

You know, my previous novels in the Downey trilogy never fit very neatly into a genre box, but for the sake of marketing I would call them romance/family drama. Basically because you’re forced to, even when you’re Indie. Marketing is exhausting, and I stopped for a while knowing that at the time I was not writing in earnest. But now I am, and I’m trying to decide if it fits a genre box.

Needless to say, I’m chafing a bit at discovering there are supposed “rules” one has to follow if one is writing Young Adult. I had no idea people liked to delude themselves that 16-year-olds don’t swear. I asked my 16-year-old daughter what she thought of this rule and she said, “Young Adult is for twelve year-olds and adults who want to relive their childhood.” (All said while texting on her iPhone something that contained ‘ffs’ and ‘gmafb’)

There was no swearing in that verbalized sentence but trust me, my faceless internet friends, it was only because a “parental unit” was in the room. I have been down the hall from her and her friends and, lawdy child, I blush at their filthy tongues.

So I ask, how disingenuous is it to pretend teenagers don’t swear in your prose? I think very. Now, do you need to salt every line with it? No, of course not. But I’m not about to pretend the main character of my current WIP (who is sixteen going on seventeen) has the lexicon of a monk.

So I guess… my work-in-progress has a teenage boy for a main character, but probably won’t be ‘young adult’ if one has to conform to that rule. This book is (hopefully) going to deal with topics such as depression and anxiety and sexual identity and of course, family dynamics.

Is there a genre box for that? Good thing I don’t write with genre in mind.

“I will not fit in your box.” — Dan Reynolds

Yeah I suck at the updating the website thing… But you all know where to find me.

How would we write without music to feed our souls? Thank God for all the artists whose creativity gives us a burst of energy to feed our own creativity. Even if nature is all the music you need, that is still basking in the artistry of life, isn’t it?

Here’s a sample of my current writing playlist: