The time it was about A Week of Mondays {2}

Posted August 6, 2016 by Stacee in Blog Tours, Giveaways, Interviews | 9 Comments

Hi again! Here we are for my official tour stop for A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody. I’ve been a fan for a while, but I’ve never actually had her on the blog for an interview, so I was thrilled to get the chance.

AWOM_blogtour

Before we get to Jessica’s answers, let’s check out the book.

A Week of Mondays_Cover ImageWhen I made the wish, I just wanted a do-over. Another chance to make things right. I never, in a million years, thought it might actually come true…

Sixteen-year-old Ellison Sparks is having a serious case of the Mondays. She gets a ticket for running a red light, she manages to take the world’s worst school picture, she bombs softball try-outs and her class election speech (note to self: never trust a cheerleader when she swears there are no nuts in her bake-sale banana bread), and to top it all off, Tristan, her gorgeous rocker boyfriend suddenly dumps her. For no good reason!

As far as Mondays go, it doesn’t get much worse than this. And Ellie is positive that if she could just do it all over again, she would get it right. So when she wakes up the next morning to find she’s reliving the exact same day, she knows what she has to do: stop her boyfriend from breaking up with her. But it seems no matter how many do-overs she gets or how hard Ellie tries to repair her relationship, Tristan always seems bent set on ending it. Will Ellie ever figure out how to fix this broken day? Or will she be stuck in this nightmare of a Monday forever?

A story about second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances. Because sometimes it takes a whole week of Mondays to figure out what you really want.

Macmillan | Indiebound | Barnes & Noble | Amazon

Sounds good, right?

right

1. Please give the elevator pitch for A Week of Mondays.

After her boyfriend breaks up with her on the worst day of her life, sixteen-year-old Ellie finds herself reliving the same horrible Monday over and over and decides to use her unique situation to reinvent herself in an attempt to save her relationship.

2. Where did the idea come from?

A few years back I got this inkling to write a Groundhog-esque day book for teens but I couldn’t figure out what the “angle” was. I tried a bunch of different ideas but none of them seemed right. Then about two years ago my editor actually came to me with essentially a title and a one-sentence description of a book they wanted me to write. It went something like this: A girl is stuck reliving the same horrible Monday over and over in which her boyfriend breaks up with her.” And I instantly went, “That’s it! That’s the angle!” It’s about the boyfriend. Or at least it is at first. At first she thinks the reason she’s stuck in this day is to save her relationship, so each time she wakes up and it’s still Monday Ellie tries something new to keep her boyfriend from breaking up with her. But then, as the Mondays continue, she soon realizes that the break-up may not be what actually needs fixing in this day.

3. Did you have any plans or ideas for a Monday that didn’t work out and had to be cut?

Yes, actually! My original outline for the book had a few extra elements that didn’t make it into the manuscript. The day was just getting too long and because i had to repeat everything in the day 7 times, these few extra plot points would have made the book like 50 pages longer! Originally, I wanted Ellie to have an after school job as a waitress in a diner. On this particular Monday, she gets stuck with a horrible table of people who are rude and demanding and never satisfied. I thought it would be fun to track her progress with these people as the Mondays go on. Like one day she’s super rude back and another day she just doesn’t show up to work all together, and another day, she knows everything they’re going to ask for and brings it before they rudely demand it. I was a little bummed not to be able to write this storyline, but in the end, it wasn’t the strongest element of the day so I had to cut it.

4. Which was your favorite Monday to write and why?

Oh! Oh! Definitely the 5th Monday! I actually wrote a whole blog post on this tour about it! It’s the day when Ellie basically goes “Eff You!” to the Universe for putting her in this predicament and she throws caution to the wind, and pretty much goes haywire. Because by now she’s kind of given up hope. She thinks that nothing she does matters and her actions have no consequences, so why play by the rules? Why not just break stuff and flip people off and die your hair purple and kiss strangers and make scenes in nice restaurants? And that’s exactly what she does. It was so much fun to write because I’d essentially spent 4 Mondays building Ellie up as this really polite, goody-goody people pleaser, but on this day? Not so much.

Speed [ish] round:

1. You get the call/email/letter that says you’re being published for the first time. Describe the next 5 minutes.

Dancing around the house to One Direction…oh, wait I do that anyway.

2. What three things would you take to a desert island?

My cell phone

A solar powered cell phone charger

A book entitled “How to Get off Desert Islands” (Who cares if this is a made-up book! It’s a made up question!)

3. You can only read one book for the rest of your life. What is it?

BIG MAGIC by Elizabeth Gilbert because I know if I have that book, I will forever be inspired to write.

4. Who is your favorite book boyfriend and book BFF?

Book Boyfriend: Baz from CARRY ON by Rainbow Rowell
Book BFF: The group of friends in THE UNEXPECTED EVERYTHING by Morgan Matson

5. What is the one thing about publishing you wish someone would have told you?

HOW……………DREADFULLY…………SLOW………IT………IS

And how long it takes to get paid. :)

6. You wake up and discover you are Bella in Twilight. You know how it plays out. What do you do differently? {Huge thanks to Bookish Broads for letting me use this question}

Run.

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Jessica Brody - High Res_credit Brian Braff

Jessica Brody knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer. She started self “publishing” her own books when she was seven years old, binding the pages together with cardboard, wallpaper samples, and electrical tape.

After graduating from Smith College in 2001 where she double majored in Economics and French and minored in Japanese, Jessica later went on to work for MGM Studios as a Manager of Acquisitions and Business Development. In May of 2005, Jessica quit her job to follow her dream of becoming a published author.

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Huge thanks to the lovely ladies at Macmillan for the invite and to Jessica for taking the time.  Make sure you’re checking out Jessica’s website, following her on Twitter and Instagram, liking her Facebook page, and adding all of her books to your Goodreads TBR pile.

Now. Haven’t had a chance to pick up your copy? Macmillan is so nicely offering up a copy. Giveaway is US only and will be coming from Macmillan. Additional rules are here.

**Good Luck!!**

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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