Author Interview with Lauren Rosolino

Author Interviews

August 18, 2016

Author Interview with Lauren Rosolino

I’d like to welcome Lauren Rosolino to my blog, author of NA romance “Running to Stand Still”. Welcome, and thanks for answering my questions!

When did you know you wanted to be an author?

I think it happened when I was a senior in high school. I was on the school newspaper, planning to study journalism in college when I realized that running around the school trying to hunt people down for interviews was exhausting and that I’d much rather just be making up my own stories. So I experimented with a serialized fiction story in the school paper, got really good feedback from people, and really enjoyed the process. Writing my own stories felt so much more me than writing news pieces. I started working on my first book that year. (Where it promptly sat untouched for four years after that until I graduated from college.)

What inspired you to write Running to Stand Still?

This book will probably be the most emotional, autobiographical story I will ever write (many, many more posts on this on my blog).

This story started to form in my mind during the winter of 2012.I was settling in after a year of epic change + rapid decision making (moving, buying a house, getting married – all at the age of 19) and was starting to feel very, very trapped. I was driving to class at Wayne State University, winter semester of my Junior year. Paradise by Coldplay was playing on the radio. I was miserable and depressed. And I had to find a way to be okay.

As I walked through the parking garage on campus, this idea bubbled up… A story about a girl desperate to leave. Why couldn’t she leave now? What was keeping her there? She was a bartender at her dad’s bar – set in Harper Woods (where my mom grew up, close to where I grew up, close to where I went to school – all in the Metro Detroit area).
What did she want? What were her dreams? What would make her happy? Where did she want to go?

It had a haunted sort of feel. Of broken dreams and disappointment. Of sinking in grayness. Of coldness. (Or perhaps, that was just what I saw around me in January.)

I drew a lot from my experiences of growing up in the suburbs of Detroit–the sights, the smells, the sounds, the texture of life there. A lot of the story came from this experience I had where I was somewhere I didn’t want to be and was constantly wondering to myself, how did I get here? When did this become my life? And I think a lot of people can relate to that, especially in this age where no path is clear-cut anymore.

What is your editing process like?

It keeps changing from book to book. For Running to Stand Still, I wrote the first draft through without editing and outlined as I went. Took a break (in this case, a very long break because we were in the midst of moving). My second draft was the hardest because it was the most tedious. I wanted to make sure I was hitting all the plot points I needed to be hitting when I needed to be hitting them, and make sure every scene, every sentence, every word served a purpose. I think that took about a month. My sister-in-law read it at this point (I needed to know it wasn’t complete garbage) and for the third draft, I took her own feedback and my own notes into consideration. Then my mom and two beta readers read through it. Made changes (mostly just clarifying confusing things at this point). For there, it went to my copy editor. I made the necessary changes (mostly grammatical) and then, it was done. Phew!

What was the most challenging thing about writing this book?

Writing this book tore me apart. At times, I was positive it was going to kill me. Because it was as much a personal journey as it is a piece of work.
It was only through writing Jamie’s story, exploring and grappling with her demons, that I was able to unveil and wrestle with my own. Because in every way, Jamie’s scripts, those lies she believes, are mine. Verbatim. The only difference is the circumstances under which they were formed. Jamie’s character arc has been my path. Her struggles have been everything I’ve had to work through myself. And I can honestly say that, writing this book saved my life. (I go into much more depth on the subject on my blog)

Did you set any writing goals for 2016? If so, what are they?

Finish this book and publish it!

Are you working on something now?

I’m just in the beginning stages of brainstorming, outlining, and researching my next book, another NA romance. In my first book, The Charm Necklace, Anthony Cusato is the teenage boy who kills the protagonist’s fiancé when he was texting and driving. This next book will be his story. I’ve been waiting so long to write it.

It’s going to be (I think) a story about how someone comes face-to-face with the guilt of having done such a horrible thing, but yet, they’re not innately a horrible person. How do you live with yourself after you’ve killed someone? What does your life look like after that?

It’s also the story of how people try to save each other in moments, mental illness, and the dichotomy within people, very Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I just love the idea of how someone can be so caring and compassionate on the one hand, and yet so cruel on the other. I can’t wait to explore it.

About the Book

Title: Running to Stand Still

Author: Lauran Rosolino

Genre: NA Romance

Collin was who he was: simple and easy.

Me? I was jagged and complex. I wanted everything.

And despite how he made me feel—safe—it was clear to me that we’d never work out in the end.

That divide between us would always be there.

Because I’d never ask him to give up on the things he wanted.

And, while I sometimes wished I could be that person, I wasn’t.

Just seven more months. Then Jamie Benson can leave this goodbye town behind her and start her new life in Chicago. She can leave this place of broken glass and cracked sidewalks and rusted fences. This place that holds nothing good. She can leave the ghosts and spinning rooms and shattered promises in her rearview mirror and never look back.

But all the stories she’s been telling herself are threatened when, one night, while tending bar at her father’s hole-in-the-wall dive, she meets Collin—a boy who is good and honest and sincere in a world where everything is harsh and cold and detached. A boy who makes her feel safe. A boy worth staying for.

Will Jamie be able to untangle the truths from the lies? Or will the sins of the past swallow her whole?

Author Bio

Jesse Speelman Photography www.jessespeelman.com Author of The Charm Necklace and Running to Stand Still. Writer of stories about finding beauty in brokenness.

She is a storyteller. Adventuer. Partner. Coffee drinker. Magic believer. Rebel with a gypsy soul. Lover of the woods and books, the woods and walks.

Born and bred in Detroit, Lauren grew up reading Harry Potter, watching Gilmore Girls, listening (and dancing) to a lot of music, and wondering why people do what they do. She graduated from Wayne State University with a BA in Psychology. Lauren lives with her husband, dog, cat, and bunny in Charleston, South Carolina.

To find out more and read her blog, Wonderstruck, visit www.laurenrosolino.com.