The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading by Charity Tahmaseb & Darcy Vance

THE GEEK GIRL'S GUIDE TO CHEERLEADING

by Charity Tahmaseb & Darcy Vance

Commercial Y/A
Simon Pulse
www.TheGeekGirlsGuide.com

4 Signed Copies will be given away on Friday, February 12, 2010!





About the Book:

When Bethany -- self-proclaimed geek girl -- makes the varsity cheerleading squad, she realizes that there's one thing worse than blending in with the lockers: getting noticed. She always felt comfortable as part of the nerd herd, but being a member of the most scrutinized group in her school is weighing her down like a ton of textbooks. Even her Varsity Cheerleading Guide can't answer the really tough questions, like:

--How do you maintain some semblance of dignity while wearing an insanely short skirt?
--What do you do when the head cheerleader spills her beer on you at your first in-crowd party?
--And how do you know if your crush likes you for your mind...or your pom-poms?

One thing's for sure: It's going to take more than brains for this girl genius to cheer her way to the top of the pyramid.




Read our Exclusive Interview with the Authors!

1) What kind of research did you have to do to bring this story to life on the page?

Darcy: Both of us have a LOT of experience being geeks, so that part wasn’t too hard. We did have to ask my son and his fiancée some questions about online role playing games though. And it’s been a really long time since I’ve been in a math class so I had to brush up on a few terms like Pythagorean Theorem and Camp SOH-CAH-TOA. My cousin, the cheerleading coach, was a lifesaver when it came to jumps and the length of insanely short skirts.

Charity: I had to reacquaint myself with cheerleading today, since many years have passed since I spent my one and only season on a cheer squad. I also learned things that we ended up not using. For instance, did you know the University of Minnesota was the birthplace of cheerleading? I still wonder if we should’ve worked that in somehow (since the book takes place in Minnesota).

2) What scene or bit of dialogue in the book are you most proud of and why?

Darcy: It’s one that happens almost at the end so I can’t spill too many details. I’ll just say it involves a cape, a wand and a one dollar rose.

Charity: For me, there’s one scene in the book that really hasn’t changed since the very first draft. It’s always been the midpoint of the story and I guess there’s something about the scene that defines the story for me. It involves the main character Bethany, her best guy friend Todd, the school’s Little Theater, and some dramatic lighting.

3) When you got that first phone call announcing you had sold a novel, how did you react? How did you celebrate?

Darcy: I was really busy at work when I got a phone call on my cell. I didn’t recognize the number but I answered it anyway. It was Charity. She asked, “Have you checked your e-mail?” I old her I hadn’t and she said something like, “Dude. You should seriously check your e-mail. Now.”

So I checked and our agent had e-mailed the offer. I squealed. Then I told Charity, “Hold on. I need to spin around in my chair like a five year old for a minute.” And that’s what I did, really. I spun and spun. Then I got back on the phone and tried to act like a grown up again.

Charity: You have to understand that Darcy and I never talk on the phone. We do all our collaboration by email and IM. So, for me to pull out the cell and actually call her? It had to be big. Our agent emailed us the news, but she couldn’t move forward until she heard from both of us. My telepathy skills were at an all-time low that day, so I was reduced to actually having to talk on the phone.

4) Be honest, how many drafts did you have to write for this book? Any horrific scenes that were cut from the original that you want to share?

Darcy: Geek Girl’s Guide started out as a solo project for Charity. She’d already written two or three complete drafts before I ever got involved. We did one draft together to switch the point of view, then about a draft and a half for our agent before she finally signed us. We made a few more major changes for our editor, and we had some slight corrections for the copy edit pass. How many drafts? A LOT.

As for horrific scenes, I don’t think we had any of those but there was that point when we realized we’d added about twenty days (in story time) to January. That was a nightmare to correct.

Charity: Darcy’s being generous. The first version had about three drafts. I shelved the project for a while, then went back and did a couple more revisions on it. Then, when I decided to shelve it a second time, Darcy got involved.

And while I know you’re supposed to be cruel to your characters, the never-ending January might actually be criminal. Winter in Minnesota is bad enough without giving it an extra three weeks.

5. What's up next for you?

Darcy: We’re working together on a new Geek Girls book and have ideas for a couple more. And each of us has a solo project we’re writing. Mine is a non-fiction book about the national anthems of North America. I know, I know, it sounds booooring, but really, it’s not. There are all kinds of fun, freaky facts and stories behind those songs. It’s a blast to work on so far.

Charity: As Darcy said, we both have a draft of a Geek Girl book. Mine’s called Dating on the Dork Side. However, as a book--and social experiment--it's still a work in progress. I also have a solo YA project I’m currently revising.

About the Authors:

Charity Tahmaseb has slung corn on the cob for Green Giant and jumped out of airplanes (but not at the same time). She doesn’t think it’s a social stigma to eat alone at a restaurant and read a book. Her favorite city is London, but she loves living in Minnesota. She spent twelve years as a Girl Scout and six in the Army; that she wore a green uniform for both may not be a coincidence. These days, she writes young adult fiction and works as a technical writer for a software company in St. Paul.

Darcy Vance believes it is a lot harder to write about herself than it is to write about others, so she’s tagging Shel Silverstein to do the job for her. “I am a dreamer, a wisher, a liar. I am a hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean buyer.” By day, Darcy is a Volunteer Coordinator for a mental health center. That means she gets to hang out with a lot of cool high school volunteers, put on puppet shows and occasionally don a moose costume. At night, she feeds the dogs and pets the cat. She sometimes feeds and pets her husband too. She also reads, keeps ups with her kids’ lives on Facebook, and writes stories for teens and others.

Visit the authors online at: www.TheGeekGirlsGuide.com.

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