I Don't Write Love Songs

'Cause I don't wanna sing them when the love is gone

Big news last week with the announcement of my deal for my next book, which will be called (drumroll) Write Me a Love Song. My friend Luke complimented me on my “demanding book title motif”. I wonder who I can order around in the next book title?

I love any and all behind-the-scenes content, so let me tell you how this title got chosen. When I wrote the first version of this book in 2022, it was titled On The Sunny Side. The book is a about a country music songwriter whose name is Sunny June, and that, plus the association with a song covered by Johnny Cash and June Carter made On The Sunny Side a no-brainer for me when it came time to pick the title. But just prior to us submitting it to publishers I said to my agent “Do you think we should change the title to Write Me a Love Song? To go along with Make Me a Mixtape?” She didn’t like the alternate title as much, so we stuck with On The Sunny Side.

Doubleday liked the book (yay!) and wanted to acquire it (more yay!) but they were not into the title, pointing out that it didn’t say enough about the book unless readers already knew the song reference and the main character’s name. So I sent over a list of alternate titles, mostly based on song titles and lyrics. Some of my top contenders were I Could Use a Love Song, On the Road Again, and No One Needs to Know. My editor pointed out that the last one, despite being a reference to a Shania Twain song, sounded way too ominous for a romance novel and yeah, I get that. The publishers came back with I Got You Babe which gave me hives because that is one of my least favourite songs of all time and, to be fair, not country music, so I thought it might be confusing to readers. Back to the drawing board.

We all liked Something to Talk About, but it turns out that Penguin Random House (Doubleday’s parent company) had literally just published another romance with that exact title. I woke up one morning with What Happens in Nashville coming to me out of the blue and I really thought I’d cracked it. But, yep, another author had just published a romance with that exact title as well.

Finally, my editor sent me a pared down list of three possible titles drawn from our ever-evolving list of possibilities. Of those three, Write Me a Love Song was my clear favourite and the friends and family I polled agreed. It was an absolutely enormous relief to have that sorted out. Book titles are either easy or very, very hard. Make Me a Mixtape was easy. The book had that title from day one and it suited the story and the themes and the fun reveal in the third act. On the Sunny Side was never quite as perfect to me, but once you’ve written a whole book using one title it is pretty hard to jump to something new in your head. I’m so happy we picked something good and something that was a possibility in my own mind before the book even went to the publisher for consideration.

While all that back and forth was happening I have been working on a fairly substantial re-write of the existing manuscript, amplifying characters, making the plot more complex, and digging deeper into the relationships that the main characters have with each other and with their friends and family. It’s been hard. One of the more challenging writing projects of my recent life. And I’m not finished yet, but I do feel like I’ve moved from “How did I ever think I could ever write a book it’s too hard” to “I think this is going to be good” which is a huge relief.

The book follows struggling songwriter Sunny June who, after a non-successful audition for a singing competition show, gets an offer from Charlie King, the show’s country music judge*, who wants to buy the original song she sang at the audition. The catch? He wants to say he wrote it so he can get back some of the credibility that he lost when his previous (terrible) album tanked. After the song becomes an international super-hit, he begs Sunny to come on tour with him and write more songs for him to take credit for. With their arrangement being a secret, Sunny’s presence on the tour needs to be explained somehow. Which leads us to a classic fake dating scenario (hooray!) The usual chaos ensues as they share a tour bus for a few months, trying to convince the world that they’re in love and trying to convince themselves that they’re not.

Sounds good, right? Great, now forget about it entirely because it doesn’t come out until 2027. (Publishing!) I promise it will be worth the wait.

*I am more than a little worried that people will think Charlie is based on Luke Bryan because of his role as the country music judge of a singing competition show. But other than that, the two don’t have much in common and I actually used Milo Ventimiglia as the visual inspiration for Charlie so that’s more what I’m going for with the character.

April 2025 - How To Help

OMG, vote! Especially relevant to Canadians as today is our federal election. If you’re following me in any capacity I’m assuming you’re not going to vote Conservative, which is great, good job you! But if you’re tempted to not vote at all because you think it’s safe that they won’t win, please just go vote. Polls can be wrong and terrible politicians can’t be defeated if good people don’t vote. If you need a pep talk you can message me and ask for one. If you need help getting to the polls there are people who will do that for you too! (call the office of the candidate you pan to vote for and they probably have volunteers helping people get to the polls). Even if you think all politicians are problematic (fair point!) please just humour me and go vote.

April 2025 - Songs

An artist I’m leaning on heavily for book inspiration currently is Maggie Antone who is just an absolute delight and a spectacular songwriter. Also she has great clothes and she’s good looking. What’s not to like? The title of this post comes from the very applicable-to-my-book song Everyone But You. But I also love Johnny Moonshine if you’d like something more lighthearted.

I’ve also been listening to a ton of Sierra Ferrell who is also a brilliant songwriter and a real joy to watch (her NPR Tiny Desk concert is fun). I first noticed her because of the wild outfits she wears on stage and I’m so happy that her songwriting is just as engaging as her wardrobe. A theme song for Sunny would definitely be I Could Drive You Crazy, but I personally love Lighthouse.

Reminder: every single song that I have ever recommended in this newsletter appears on this whopper of a playlist. It’s fun to listen to on shuffle if you like hearing Def Leppard followed by John Prine.

April 2025 - Feelings

I’ve been on a real tear lately with books, partially because I’m hosting a couple panels for Ottawa Writer’s Fest and I need to get through those books in order to ask intelligent questions to the authors. But also because I had some library holds come in that I could not renew. One of those was Kristen Arnett’s latest, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One. Arnett has been a favourite of mine ever since her debut, Mostly Dead Things, blew my mind with the skill and creativity of her writing. Her books are all set in Florida and, wow, does she ever do a great job of evoking that particular state. Her books are dark in places, but also always funny, and the characters, while often hapless, are good hearted and real. This latest book follows the misadventures of a 20-something lesbian clown who works at an aquarium shop by day and desperately wants to date an older magician. I blew through it in a few days and now I can’t wait for her next one.

Also from the library I grabbed the cosy fantasy novel Bookshops and Bonedust. This is the second in a connected series and I didn’t read the first one, but that didn’t make much difference. I honestly don’t think I’ve read a fantasy novel since being assigned The Hobbit in high school English class. And I don’t even know why I picked this one up, expect that it was on the two-week express loan shelf and I felt like shaking things up a bit. I will say that my husband and kids, who are all into fantasy novels, movies, games etc, have never been more interested in my dinner table book updates as they were when I was reading this one. Everyone wanted to know what was going to happen with the orc and the ratkin and the bookshop. This was a good one.

Thanks for reading! See you next month.

J.W.

Instagram : @JenniferWhitefordWrites

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