Guest Blogger: Jimena Novaro: Music and Me

Jimena Novaro

I have the privilege of hosting my friend, Jimena Novaro! I met Jimena on Twitter and have had the honor of getting to know her as she builds her career.

Today she is writing about music. As a current music lover and former music major, this is a subject near to my own heart.

She is currently blog touring for her book, Blue Rabbit, and I am fortunate enough to have her stop by! Without Further ado, take it away, Jimena!


Music and Me

Jay, thanks so much for hosting me today! Hello, readers of Jay’s blog―thank you for stopping by!

There’s something magical about that expanding feeling I get inside my chest when I hear music that I love. I’ve always been drawn to writing about those things that border between terrifying and beautiful, rational and irrational―those dark places within us that give us the most pleasure and the most pain. To me, that’s where music lives.

I know that some people just listen to music to pass the time, and that’s unfathomable to me. As humans, do we need music? Would we survive without it? At base level, sure. We don’t eat it, don’t drink it, don’t breathe it. But then, music is just the same as any other human art―we created it for a reason. To connect our spirits with our gods, to connect to each other, to keep the shadows at bay when we crouched around our fires thousands and thousands of years ago.

Like storytelling, music is primal. And maybe even more primal. Music is simpler than language; you don’t need to know any codes to understand it. If you just sit there and listen, it’s there―in the wind, the running water, the birdsong, the chatter of people, the buzzing of insects, and even the tapping of computer keys. There are many alternative therapies that use music as a tool for healing, for creating vibrations that we feel throughout our bodies.

If you’re lucky, someone sang to you as a baby to calm you and to put you to sleep, and far before you knew any words you understood what that meant: comfort, love, and peace.

Music isn’t just a collection of notes arranged in a pleasing (or annoying) form. Music isn’t a genre or an artist or a technique. Music is part of who we are. It’s part of humanity.

Music has helped me through a lot of things. It’s been my companion and my friend. It’s absorbed my anger and given me back peace and serenity. It’s made me open up my heart and feel things, which is important to me because I’m not the kind of person who’s one hundred percent in synch with my emotions. It quite simply transcends words, but I hope I’ve been able to give you at least a small glimpse of what it means to me. And I hope there’s something in this beautiful world that means as much to you.

About Jimena's book, Blue Rabbit

In Knoxville, Tennessee, there’s a bridge to another world.

When they first cross it, Erika and her friends feel like they’ve stumbled into a dream. Magical and mysterious, the other world becomes their little paradise, a place to explore and escape from their everyday lives. Until one night a boy from school, Mike, follows them to the other side―and he’s kidnapped by strange and powerful Creatures.

Back home, everyone thinks Erika and the gang are responsible for Mike’s disappearance. The dream has become a nightmare. How can they negotiate with these Creatures to rescue Mike and clear their names? And why are the Creatures fixated on Erika, who feels drawn to their world even as she senses the danger?

Jimena Novaro
Jimena Novaro always knew she would be a writer. It just took her a few years to realize that she wanted to do it full-time, and relegate things like going into outer space and being an opera prima donna to hobbies. She loves reading and writing science fiction, fantasy, and YA. A self-proclaimed geeky sort of nerd, she spends a lot of her time fangirling over her favorite shows, books, and bands and educating herself about super-important topics such as how to survive an arrow wound and whether or not you can shoot a gun in space. Sometimes she gets super serious and rants about some socio-political issue or other.

She’s a member of the awesome fantasy authors group Mystic Quills. You can find her free epic fantasy serial, The Withering Sword, on her website (a new chapter comes out every Sunday!) Her first book, Blue Rabbit, a YA urban fantasy, comes out this December!

Also, if you want to know more about her or her upcoming novel, Blue Rabbit,

Please like her on 

(Jimena Novaro Writer)

Follow her on 

(@JimenaNovaro)

Add her book on Good Reads

and/or visit her website http://www.jimenanovaro.com.