Going to be writing on the road through May

Tomorrow marks the start of five straight weekends of travel. This also means I'll be spending five straight weekends writing on the road. I wrote quite a lot of Meant to Be while traveling, so I'm hoping all these trips will get my creative juices flowing on my shiny new project (that currently only has one completed chapter).

So what's on the slate?

Tomorrow I'll be driving south to hit Asbury Park with the Boston B Party to take on the Jersey Shore Rollergirls.

The bout is at the amazing Asbury Park Convention Center RIGHT. ON. THE. BEACH. It's going to be a good one (also, probably crazy tough... I'll update tomorrow night with the score!) 

UPDATE: We lost pretty big... the final score was 198 to 87. But that was ok, because the Jersey Shore Roller Girls were AWESOME hosts. We had such a great time playing them in Asbury Park. I'd go back and do it again in a heartbeat!

Next weekend is another hard-hitting derby weekend, when the Boston B Party travels to Philadelphia to take on the Independence Dolls. This one is FOR. SURE. going to be a really tough game. Philly is a notoriously tough team. I hope I'm not hobbled when it's over!

The following weekend I'm off to Tennessee to see my little sister graduate from high school, a fact I can hardly believe. Her graduation from Maryville High School means my own graduation was TEN YEARS AGO. Oh man...

I got her graduation announcement in the mail today, along with the invite to her open house ... look what my mom did to her! Poor Claire ... she was pretty cute, though, huh? You can't see it in the picture, but her prom dress was gorgeous, and I might try to steal it from her for my trip the following weekend... So here's the question ... should I try to find her a super cool gift, or do I just follow tradition and give her cash? Which would you prefer if you were 18 and getting ready to head off to the University of Tennessee?

The weekend after THAT I'm flying to Chicago to see one of my best buddies and favorite couples get hitched.

Kathleen and I circa 2005, acting like goobers on the steps of

the Wisconsin capital.

Kathleen just finished medical school and will be getting hitched and moving to Milwaukee to start her residency. Her soon-to-be husband's name is Joh, though he does go by another name sometimes:

John "Hayward" Williams is a totally amazing folk/Americana singer/songwriter, and if you're into that kind of music I recommend you check him out right away. I'm not just saying this because we've been friends for five years now and he's marrying one of my favorite people.

And in my last crazy trip of a long five weekends, I'll be flying to Las Vegas to represent the Boston Derby Dames at the Women's Flat Track Derby Association Annual Meeting. It'll be my first time in Las Vegas, and while it was never on my list of gotta-visit cities, I'm pretty psyched to be going with my friends (some other BDD WFTDA reps) to hang out with rollergirls from all over the world and geek out over roller derby.

And after that, I get to come home a stay for quite some time. I don't know how May always ends up quite so busy, but it seems like every year it fills to the brim with excitement. I'm hoping to use all the flight time to really crank on my shiny new project. I've been mulling it over and making notes for about a month now, and I think now it's ready to come pouring out. And once I get a good chunk written, maybe I can start sharing some of the secrets of the shiny new project and maybe even some teasers!

Hot pants and fishnets and roller skates ... OH MY!

As promised, it's time for me to tell you a little bit about my (not so) secret life as a rollergirl. First, some good news: my team won on Saturday night, and I was named MVP of the game!!! Pretty awesome, right? I was pretty excited. It was my first MVP, and there was definitely some fist pumping and whooping when they announced my name. Here's a photo from Saturday night of me blocking:

photo by Joe Medolo

Before we begin, here's a little video for those of you who are going, "Roller derby? WHat's that? Is there BALL?!" (for the record, no, there's not).

So the quick and dirty on me and derby: I started playing roller derby in 2007, when the Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls were recruiting for their second season. I had been to all the games of their first season, and it looked so fun that I knew I wanted to play. I skated with BHRG until the summer of 2008, when I moved to Boston for work. That's when I started skating with the Boston Derby Dames. Almost three years later, I'm a skater for the Wicked Pissahs, I manage the Boston Massacre (BDD's all-star travel team), I serve on the BDD Executive Board (which makes me a part-owner of the league), and I am also a skater representative to the Women's Flat Track Roller Derby Association (WFTDA). Oh, and I recently started doing sponsorship and website work for my friend Dee Stortion's skate shop, The Bruised Boutique.

Me (Mona Mour) using my teammate Anita Bangher 

for support while I block the Cosmonaughties' Mrs. Dash

Photo by Joe Medolo

I love roller derby, which is why I'm involved in all those things in the paragraph above (which amounts to about 20 hours per week of roller derby, minimum!). If I could figure out a way to make a living off roller derby, I would (and believe me, I'm trying ... working for Dee is officially my first derby-related paycheck). As much of a passion as I have for writing YA, it's only matched by my passion for strapping on my roller skates and playing the game. It's tough, both mentally and physically, and I'm incredibly proud of myself for the fact that I've played the sport for going on four years now. Taking up roller derby was probably one of the bravest things I've ever done.

Here's a video of one jam from Saturday's game. My team is the Wicked Pissahs (in red), and I'm the one in the white helmet. if you turn the volume up, you can hear the announcers talking about my blocking strategy!

A couple notes on the strategy to help you understand what's going on. The blockers are trying to stop the opposing team's jammer (she has a helmet cover on her head with a star on it). You can see my team (in red) blocking the opposing jammer (in blue). At a couple points, you'll see one of the red skaters with her arms outstretched. This is because you can only engage (ie, hit or block) when you're "in the pack." When you get 20 feet in front of or behind the pack, you're out of play and not allowed to do anything. You can keep your blocker in play (and thus allow her to keep hitting the jammer) by doing something called "bridging," which in essence keeps your blocker from being out in no man's land and allows them to still hammer away at the opposing jammer.

There's so much about derby I could share, but when I sat down to write this post, I realized it was getting LOOONG. To tell you the whole story of roller derby in general, my story specifically, and then discuss just what derby means to me and those that play it? That could fill and entire book. Instead, I've decided to do a couple things... if you send me questions about roller derby, I'll be happy to answer them in a post! I'll also be doing an ongoing series on my roller derby world so that you can get a glimpse into what it's like to live this totally different life (some days I'm Mona more than I'm Lauren!).

So if you have questions about roller derby, feel free to shoot me an email and I'll be happy to answer! lemorrill at gmail dot com.

Too busy to write, not too busy to read!

I'm going to do a new post soon, I promise. You see, this week is bout week, which means I'm overwhelmed by my alter-ego of Mona Mour, Boston Derby Dame. Tomorrow The Wicked Pissahs (my team) will take on the Cosmonaughties. Both teams are currently undefeated, so it should be a good one. Also, it's sold-out.

photo by David Morris

I think I'll spend my next post explaining all that is wild and crazy about having an alter ego (after tomorrow's game and inevitable victory, of course), but for now, I'll just leave you with this:

I'm currently reading Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler. It's a book I saw floating around on the myriad of YA book blogs I read, and when I realized I had a couple more weeks before Bumped appears on my Kindle (are you dying to read that one as much as I am?!), I decided to check it out. I had Amazon send me the sample (um, best service EVER), and I burned through it, promptly purchasing the entire book. The first night I stayed up until after 1am reading, and I only stopped because I literally couldn't keep my eyes open for another second. I'm definitely going to do a review when I'm finished (especially if the plot is going where I think it's going, and even if it's not Sarah did a fabulous job with misdirection and OH THE MYSTERY!). And juicy plot aside, the voice is incredible. Delilah is totally speaking to me, which is what I'm really looking for in everything I read. For now, just trust that I'm willing to recommend the book without having read the entire thing. It's JUST. THAT. GOOD.

Pretty sure I'm going to finish it well before April 26th, when Bumped finally comes out, so I'm going to hit up Sarah's first book, Twenty Boy Summer, next.