Jefferson Author Welcomes Traffic Jams

For most of us, getting stuck in a traffic jam is one of life’s more annoying events. Not for Julianne Grider.

The Jefferson Township author has a magnet on her car advertising her current book, “Maybe This Life.” And she wants as many people as possible to see it.

“When I get stuck in traffic, I always stay in the right lane so that people will see the magnet. And I always notice a little spike in sales of my book after I’m in a traffic jam,” Grider said.

“Maybe This Life” is the first book Grider wrote, but the second one she published. She published her first, “Unplugged: A Portrait of a Rock Star,” in 2011. It tells the story of an aging rock star trying to jump start his career with the help of a personal trainer. Part of the action takes place in Jefferson and Sparta.

Grider has made no secret of the fact that the book’s main character, Tagg Holland, is patterned after rocker Jon Bon Jovi. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Grider worked in the past as a personal trainer for Shape Express.

“Unplugged” is available in print and on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

“Maybe This Life” originally started with a different title, “Heaven Help Us.”

“I had the story in my head for about eight or nine years, and wrote ‘Maybe This Life’ while I was working at Shape Express, but something about it just didn’t seem to work. Then I moved to Jefferson and started researching the town, and the characters for ‘Unplugged’ became very clear in my head so I wrote that one and self-published it,” Grider said.

She admits that she would like to make some changes to “Unplugged” now that it has been published.

“After I published ‘Unplugged’ I started taking fiction writing courses and joined an online writers’ group. I learned so much about point of view, which is something I never paid attention to, even as an avid reader,” she said. “I also learned a lot more about writing dialogue that I’d like to incorporate into the book.”

As the mother of four, step-mother of one and grandmother of two, Grider doesn’t have a great deal of free time, but she uses what she has for writing.

“I sit and write with my kids when they’re doing their homework,” she said. “I sit on my couch with a pad. I’m most creative when I’m writing freehand, so I write all my stories. Most of them start in my head anyway, so by the time I sit down to write, I know exactly what I’m going to say.”

Her next book, “A Touch of Honor,” is previewed at the end of “Maybe This Life.”

Grider’s books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.