Just One Day Blog Tour

Posted 01/09/2013 by alicemarvels in Author Guest Post

Welcome to the JUST ONE DAY blog tour! We all know one of Gayle’s talents lies in writing the swooniest books possible, but she’s also a world traveler! Many of her experiences inspired scenes in JUST ONE DAY (and JUST ONE YEAR, out next fall!). Each day along the tour there will be a new photo from Gayle’s travels, along with the story behind the photo written by Gayle!

Paris, France

Writers often get asked how much of their real life informs their books. I’ll answer that question with a story.

This picture is from Paris. It was the summer of 1988, and it was toward the end of my travels with my friend Rebecca, and it was my first of what would become many visits to this magical city. People tend to describe Paris in capital letters and exclamation points, but when I think of that first trip, I remember smaller moments: a picnic in front of a church with delicious edibles we picked up from a patisserie. Breakfast in the hotel: warm croissants and jugs of hot chocolate. And the night Rebecca and I were out walking down a quiet right-bank block and we got pulled into a bar by the rowdy-looking Parisians pictured here. We were immediately handed glasses of some sort of booze and sucked into a vortex of toasting and singing. Through labored English and more labored French, we learned it was a group of florists, celebrating because one of their wives had just had a baby. The flower shop was next door and at one point, it was unlocked and Rebecca and I were made bouquets, waxy exotic anthriums, wrapped in plastic. Moments like these are my favorite part of traveling. They make the world feel smaller, and at the same time make it feel infinite, somehow.

When you read Just One Day, you will see how that moment in Paris, now more twenty years ago wound its way into the book. Like so many things with writing, it’s not something I planned (I write like Willem travels, by getting lost). But it just found its way in. The florists became bakers, but the feeling Allyson experiences, that feeling of life, that’s all mine.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

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Just One Day by Gayle Forman

A breathtaking journey toward self-discovery and true love, from the author of If I Stay.

When sheltered American good girl Allyson “LuLu” Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

Just One Day is the first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willem’s story—Just One Year—is coming soon!

Start reading JUST ONE DAY right now!

LIKE the JUST ONE DAY/JUST ONE YEAR Facebook page for all the latest news!

Want to see more of Gayle Forman’s amazing traveling? Penguin Teen is posting one picture a day on tumblr for a whole YEAR!