I'm a NaNoWriMo winner!

Things have been quiet on the SoManyBands front and I'm really sorry about that. But that was because I participated in NaNoWriMo!

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing month which is where people write a 50,000 word novel from when the clock strikes midnight on November 1st all the way until the clock strikes midnight again on November 30th (today). I've always wanted to participate but never had an idea of what to write about and if there's one thing I've learned this year, it's that having a storyline in your head is the most important thing to get to those 50,000 words. That and having friends to endure the process with you. Some made it (Diana and Fred) and some didn't (Brett and Angela). Either way, we all tried.

In true Sarah fashion, I procrastinated until the last minute, but seriously guys, I was too busy! I had newspapers to put together. I had tests. I had festivals to cover. My time was spoken for but during Thanksgiving weekend, I spent all four days furiously typing up the word count.

So what I've learned from this process is that for one, I've had an interesting life. The novel is loosely based on my experiences as a "blogger" turned journalist with SoManyBands. I never realized how busy and crazy my life has been during my writing career. Since it's fiction, I had fun taking some liberties with the storyline. And two, I am able to pump out tons of words that actually make coherent sense in one night. Man, they are right. Practice (writing) makes perfect.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my excitement. Now that this is over, I can move on with my life with finals and the last issue of Accent Newspaper. After that, I have a lot of updating to do on this website. I've have a lot of posts and articles to post. The end of the year is coming up so that means my yearly wrap up of SoManyBands.

But for now, here's a sneak peek of my debut novel (wow, that feels weird to say that), unedited just for you. Of course, that means this will probably change after many many many edits I plan on doing before anyone reads my novel. This chapter you're about to read is actually based on true experiences from my life.

WARNING: It's a long read. Grab some coffee or a cup of hot cocoa.

Nine Inch Nails changed my life.

When I was younger, my dad didn’t allow my brothers and me to watch MTV. Or wrestling for that matter. It had something to do with being too risque, a bad influence or something. Plus I was also raised Catholic. My grandma was super religious during my childhood. (She has since then relaxed about it.) So every summer when school was out, I would endure what my brothers, my cousins and myself would call “Bible Camp.” Every day we had to read the bible, say the rosary, pray before every meal, sing songs with religious themes and watch movies that told me things such as if you play Queen’s music backwards (more specifically “Another One Bites the Dust”) that it’s telling us to “start to smoke marijuana.” And those movies pretty much scared me into thinking that the devil was indeed lurking over my school ready to snatch me away at a moment’s notice.

So yeah, I was pretty much scared of going to hell starting at a young age.

Therefore, my music selection was narrowed down to 96.7 KHFI, the pop music station. I loved everything that was on it. I was a huge Debbie Gibson fan and you better believe I hopped aboard the New Kids of the Block bandwagon. I still bust a move whenever “You Got the Right Stuff” comes on. My dad claims that when I was a baby that instead of crying for a bottle or a diaper change, that I would cry for earphones. When he would put earphones on my little head so I could listen to Cindi Lauper, I would stop crying and dance in my crib. I have the photos to prove it. This is why I have such a soft spot for a great pop song.

Cut to high school, my freshman year. I was selected to perform in a small ensemble in band for some event that had to do with us performing the presidential march in a hotel. I still don’t know exactly which event made us perform the presidential march in a hotel but I think the incentive for me to participate was so I could skip class. Although, it did mean that we had to be at school before the sun came up. Obviously, I didn’t use my logical skills during my teen years. What a shocker.

Anyway, so I’m sitting in the van with the other band members on our way to Austin for this event. We needed tunes to perk us up (Starbucks and coffee wasn’t exactly hip back in the day) so someone suggested the local rock station, 101X. That’s when I heard for the first time Nine Inch Nails. I had a cousin who listened to Danzig and anything metal and loved to hear it loud, but of course, every time it came on, I would immediately cry and run to my room thinking I would be damned to hell that my dad was going to get mad at me. Not mad that my cousin used his CD player without his permission but that I would go to hell. Yep, these were my childhood priorities, people.

My dad was also a Pink Floyd and KISS fan (and the Bee Gees but that’s not relevant here) but he didn’t bust out the albums until I started listening to rock. And thanks to Wayne’s World, I also became a huge Queen fan even though Freddie Mercury placed backwards messages to encourage kids to smoke the MJ which I never did. Take that! and it’s not even proven if he intentionally did or not, but that’s what the big fans of the J-man said on the TV so who was I to question? Obviously I didn’t activate my journalist mentality yet. So before this moment, there was some rock influential moments in my life, but nothing like this.

There’s a reason why I got so off topic and it is this: the moment I heard Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer,” my world was changed and it was changed for the good. It’s the reason why I actually started listening to rock music.

But at that moment, I was so conflicted. First off, I loved the song. I was immediately hooked. But there was a part of me, that little girl that went to bible camp at my grandma’s house every summer that thought how could I possibly love a song that boasted how much he wanted to fuck someone like an animal. Oh my god, what was my dad going to think? I couldn’t listen to this at home. It was not even an option at my grandma’s house. She might have douse me with holy water and prayed for my soul if she knew I was listening to that song at that moment.

After that day, I made a mental note about that radio station and started gradually tuning in to it until it was all I listened to. It’s funny. My younger brother is the metal/goth rock guy now (I always joke that sitting in his car reminds me of a Hot Topic) and everyone assumes he got me into rock music. But in fact, it was me.

My bedroom was next to the computer room so he had to endure 101X when he was in there surfing the web. And my dad forced him to go to a house party with me (because god forbid, I go by myself) where he heard our friend’s band perform a cover of KoRn’s “Shoots and Ladders.” I remember the look on his face when they started playing. I turned around to see his reaction and he just shot me a look like “what the hell did you force me to come to.” But I converted him over. Saved him a bunch of money from buying those ridiculous DJ Screw albums, if you can even call them that. If you don’t know who DJ Screw is, good. Keep it that way.

But what surprised me about this was that my dad and my grandma didn’t condemn me to an unholy land for listening to bands like Nine Inch Nails. I guess because I was older and supposed to be wiser, they figured it was ok. I have no idea, but as I got older, my dad started bringing out his rock albums and we started bonded over our music.

Oh man, I remember though during my junior year, my brother and I were home alone because my mom was working nights and my dad was out and about. He called home because he was at the mall and wanted to know if I wanted anything since my brother got a video game the night before. He insisted on treated us fair so whenever one of us got something big, the other sibling had to get something of equal value. My dad was pretty crazy but the man did have his moments.

Well, I wanted CDs. Two to be precise. However, I didn’t feel comfortable telling him the titles so my brother had to tell him for me. I’m sorry. It’s embarrassing when you’re 16 to tell your father that the CDs you want him to buy are Garbage’s “Version 2.0” and Orgy’s “Candyass.” I just couldn’t do it. Especially without laughing.

But he bought them after he had to confirm what exactly my brother said from disbelief. Luckily, the girl at the store knew exactly what he meant though when he said “My daughter is looking for a CD from some band named Orgy?”

And that was the moment that I learned that rock music was not going to send me to hell because my dad bought me an Orgy CD.