Run Away with Me by J.L. Simmonds
Author J.L. Simmonds has written a guest blog about Run Away with Me, a new YA thriller set in the US.
Hi everyone, I’m Jo, author of Run Away With Me – a YA thriller about two girls who are running away from their home in Seattle, Washington.
I haven’t made a big secret of the fact that the initial inspiration for Run Away With Me came from the music video for Aerosmith’s song Crazy. (If you haven’t seen it before, or heard the song, you should definitely go watch it. It’s on YouTube!) I can vividly remember seeing it on MTV when I was a kid, so you all know how old I am now.
The idea of two girls who throw off the shackles of their lives and run away from home in a really cool car just felt so romantic to me, and offered loads of questions that I would have to answer in the story – like who the girls were, and what was going on in their lives that made running away their only option.
The soundtrack to the story was a huge aspect from the very first chapter – when I sat down to write this story I started with “Chapter One – Born To Run (Bruce Springsteen)”. From there, I knew each chapter had to be linked to an album, and that the music had to reflect what was going on in the story.
Of course, I had to make it even more difficult for myself by having all the albums be cassette tapes! Brooke, who owns the vintage red Mustang they’re driving across the country in, is beautiful and popular, but she’s also weird and cool. Having her be obsessed with collecting vintage cassette tapes fit her personality really well. A lot of the albums that feature in the story are ones I remember from my childhood and I knew early on that they would play a part, like Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell and Michael Jackson’s Dangerous. And then to bring everything full circle, I was able to use Aerosmith’s Get a Grip as the album for chapter three – that’s the album that has Crazy on it!
The great thing about using music as such a foundational thing for writing a story is that I only had to play one or two of the songs from the soundtrack I’d created and I was right back in the zone. It’s not something I’ve done before, but I’d be surprised if music or art doesn’t play a part in future books I write.
The book’s other main character, Jessie, is really different to Brooke and she has to go on a real journey (no pun intended!) to find her inner strength. She starts the story so broken and traumatised, hating the nickname ‘Mouse’ that was given to her because of how quiet she is. The very first scene I wrote for Run Away With Me is the flashback near the end of the book, when Jessie gets home from school and finds – no spoilers – the thing that makes her decide to get the hell out of Seattle. I love Jessie so much as a character for where she ends up: taking control of her life and fighting for the things that matter to her.
I really hope that everyone who reads this book has fun with it, because I absolutely loved writing it. Maybe you’ll discover some new music or a part of the USA that you’ve never read about in a story before, but the most important message is that you’re stronger than you think, and you can do amazing things.
Happy reading!
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.
