The
Jock and the Fat Chick
By
Nicole
Winters
Debut Romance Novel * 250 pages * HarperCollins
Genre:
YA / NA. Mild swearing. No explicit sex.
YA / NA. Mild swearing. No explicit sex.
Buy
Links:
Barnes and Nobel
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-jock-and-the-fat-chick-nicole-winters/1121191657
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-jock-and-the-fat-chick-nicole-winters/1121191657
Chapters/Indigo
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/the-jock-and-the-fat/9780062418418-item.html
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/the-jock-and-the-fat/9780062418418-item.html
Author Bio:
Nicole Winters:
Born into a literary family.
Could write before speaking.
Spent childhood in sunshiny green meadows devouring highbrow
literary works.
Untrue!
More like she was told that C-average, learning disabled students
couldn’t possibly grow up to be writers.
Nicole proved them wrong.
#rebellious
#allthingsfunny
#dudevoice
#braaap!
#bodyacceptance
#hotYARomance
English B.A. from the University of Toronto. Loves cats, books, horror
films, globe hopping and home-baked cookies. Had once been spotted wearing a
sundress.
Cool dudes and motorcycles: TT Full Throttle
Hot guys and romance: The Jock And The Fat Chick
Nicole is
currently at work on her third book involving magic called, The Conjurer.
Social
Media Links:
Website: http://nicolewintersauthor.com/blog
Twitter: @nicolewintersya
Facebook: The Jock and the Fat Chick
Facebook: Nicole Author Page
Website: http://nicolewintersauthor.com/blog
Twitter: @nicolewintersya
Facebook: The Jock and the Fat Chick
Facebook: Nicole Author Page
Blurb:
No one ever said high school was easy. In this hilarious and heartwarming debut, one high school senior has to ask himself how much he's willing to give up in order to fit in.
No one ever said high school was easy. In this hilarious and heartwarming debut, one high school senior has to ask himself how much he's willing to give up in order to fit in.
Kevin seems to have it all: he's popular, good
looking, and on his way to scoring a college hockey scholarship. However, he's
keeping two big secrets. The first is that he failed an assignment and is now
forced to take the most embarrassing course ever--domestic tech. The second is
that he is falling for his domestic tech classmate, Claire.
As far as Kevin is concerned, Claire does have it
all: she's funny, smart, beautiful, and confident. But she's off-limits.
Because Kevin knows what happens when someone in his group dares to date a girl
who isn't a cheerleader, and there's no way he is going to put himself—or
Claire—through that.
But steering clear of the girl of his dreams is a
lot harder than Kevin thought…especially when a cooking project they are paired
together for provides the perfect opportunity for things to heat up between
them outside the classroom….
Excerpt:
I
raise an eyebrow, letting her know I’m listening, but I’m not sure where she’s
going with this.
“I
tell you what to do and say around Mrs. A, and that way I keep my A and you can
pass this class.”
I
consider Claire’s offer. On the one hand, I don’t like her calling me a dumb
jock. On the other, she’s amazingly good at cooking and needs to keep her
grades high, which means if I do what she says, I’ll pass too. I’ve got nothing
to lose, so I nod.
“Okay,”
I say.
She
gives me this big warm smile, like I’ve made her day.
“Good.”
She motions to the fish. “Keep flaking.”
I
respond with a “Yes, Coach,” as a lighthearted way of sealing our deal.
When
I’m done flaking, Claire adds the fish to the thick rice mixture and then
stirs, making my mouth water. It looks and smells incredible. There must be a
million grams of carbs in there. If I ate all that, I’d slip into a carb coma.
Claire
pulls a large wooden spoon from the drawer and then offers it to me. “Want to
taste?”
She’s
surprised when I shake my head, like I have no clue what I’ve turned down.
“Ugh,”
she says. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those carb-counting gym rats.”
I make
a face. “I hate the term ‘gym rat’; it makes me sound greasy.”
“True.”
Claire sizes me up and then adds, “And you’re definitely not greasy.”
Hey, did
she just check me out?
“Okay,
how’s ‘don’t tell me you’re one of those carb-counting fitness bunnies’?”
I
grunt, amused.
“I bet
you work out twice a day,” she goes on, stirring the risotto, “and you eat
nothing but skinless chicken and steamed broccoli.”
I
shrug.
She
bobs her head, like she’s confirming something. “Yeah, you look like a guy who
denies himself pleasure....”
An
unexpected rush of heat spreads across my face. “Well, if you want six-pack
abs, there’s got to be sacrifices.”
Claire
glances at my stomach, and even though she can’t see anything under my shirt
and apron, she turns her gaze away and smiles, big.
That
was definitely a check-me-out move.
Questions for Authors
Is there a message in your
novel that you want readers to grasp?
Living your truth sets you
free from fear about what others think of you.
Was there an Author who inspired
you to write?
I was a reluctant reader
as a kid, but that changed when I was twelve and read THE OUTSIDERS. It really
spoke to me. To discover it was written by a teenager blew my mind. That was
the moment I first thought, how amazing it’d be to write something that
connected with readers just as much as S.E. Hinton’s book.
How did you come up with
the characters in your books?
Sometimes characters just
pop into my head and the story evolves around them and other times it’s the
reverse. I’ll have a concept, but no cast. For example, I got the inspiration
for THE JOCK AND THE FAT CHICK, when a friend of mine said he didn’t know how
to cook and that growing up, dinners consisted of two steps, a can opener and a
microwave. That hit me pretty viscerally. Days later, I thought, what if I had
a character who was an athlete and his mom cooked meals like that? What if he
thought that he could do better, but in reality he did much worse? I know, I’ll
have him eat nothing but energy bars, shakes and gels. So now I had a character
who means well, but is misdirected. At the same time, I’d been reading books
with plus size teen girls in them and they all seemed to be similar: depressed,
bullied, or abused. It got me thinking, how to put my character, Kevin, and a
non-depressed/bullied/abused plus sized character Claire, together? The story unfolded
from there.
What are your current
projects?
I have a couple of
projects on the go. I just finished a middle grade book, MOTOCROSS: SIDEWAYS
WHIP, about two brothers who compete against each other on the racetrack, and
I’m on the second draft of a new YA novel, THE CONJURER.
Do you see writing as a
career?
Absolutely. I’d consider
myself lucky to call it a career.
Do you ever picture
yourself and one of your heroines? If
so, which one?
I can totally see myself
hanging in the pits at a motorcycle racetrack with Mags, a race mechanic, in TT
FULL THROTTLE. I can also see myself in Claire’s kitchen (or future restaurant)
either picking up cooking tips or enjoying her menu creations.
Do you have a favorite
heroine/hero from one of your books? If so, who?
I have two favourites:
Dean from TT FULL THROTTLE because I have a soft-spot for lost boys (a la THE
OUTSIDERS), and Claire, because she’s so confident and funny and likes who she
is without question.
What kind of research do
you do for your books?
I’m a huge component of
hands-on research. (I should set my next book in Hawaii – haha.) For TT FULL
THROTTLE I applied for a press pass and travelled to the Isle of Man for two
weeks to totally immerse myself in the road racing subculture, even
volunteering as a roadside marshal. For THE JOCK AND THE FAT CHICK, I hung out
with chefs and I’ve been working out at the gym for years. For THE CONJURER, I
attended magicians’ meetings and stayed a few weeks in Oak Park, Chicago, where
the story takes place.
What is the hardest part
of writing your book?
I am a very fast first
draft writer. Mind you, it’s a dawg’s breakfast and I take at least a month to
plot and outline my story first. The toughest part is taking it from second
draft to polish. Sometimes I reread scenes or chapters so often that all the
character’s emotional highs and lows feel flat lined. Passages that used to make
me laugh are no longer funny, or parts that used to choke me up, now don’t. It usually
means that I have to take a break from it for a few weeks and that’s tough, so
I try to noodle around new story ideas.
If you could say anything to your readers what would it be?
Read whatever your heart desires. Don’t let anyone tell you
what you should and shouldn’t read or like.
What is your favorite Genre and why?
Contemporary YA and contemporary horror.
When I was a kid all my friends were going crazy over THE
HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I couldn’t connect with talking trees and
animals; it just didn’t make sense to me and it eventually turned me off
reading. It wasn’t until I was assigned THE OUTSIDERS in class that I started
to like stories. I began searching for gritty tales like S.E. Hinton’s works, but
my town had a small library and there wasn’t such a thing as a young adult
section. So after reading all the other stories by Hinton and also Judy Blume,
I ventured into the adult stacks and discovered horror. I sank my teeth into tales
by Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Anne Rice.
Do you prefer to write alone or do you like to collaborate
with other authors?
Years ago, I wrote a few film scripts with a writing partner
and it was a fun experience; we laughed a lot and worked well together. Now we
both write books and, while we no longer collaborate, he’s one of the first
people I trust to read my drafts and give me honest feedback.
Do you ever get writer’s block? If so, how do you get
through it?
A lot of the time I’ll have sorted any blocks in the initial
thinking and outlining stages. That doesn’t mean snafus don’t happen when I write
my first draft. If I come across something I need to research, I’ll put a “TK”
beside it, which is my short form for “Technical, I’ll get back to this”. Or, I’ll
type out a rough idea of what I want to do, then move on and not let it bog me
down. Other times, I’ll bounce around some ideas with other writer friends.
When you are reading a book, who is your favorite author?
Joe Hill. He marries literary with genre so well. He
inspires me.
Do you come up with the cover or does someone else do it?
The publisher designed the cover. They actually came up with
two of them and had their readership vote. (see attached).
If you could change anything in your writing what would that
be?
I wish I could be more languid in my prose. I wish I was a
wordsmith and not just a storyteller. A wordsmith can turn a phrase or come up
with a brand new description for something that can make you go, wow. I’m not
like that, I don’t have a poetic mind.
What book if any would you want to be made into a movie?
I’d love to see the epic poem, THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT
MARINER turned into a film. Sure, the script would be sparse, but so were
CASTAWAY, GERRY, and ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ, so I know it could be done. The tale
is so haunting.
Who would you want to play the hero/heroine?
Ewan McGregor
Everyone uses computers, tablets, phones and no one uses
handwritten form or typewriters, what do you prefer to use?
I’ll use a mishmash. Some days I’ll edit on the computer by
using the speech function to listen to my prose. Other times I’ll print a hard copy,
shuffle the pages, and take it to a coffee shop to edit. If an idea or a good
line of dialogue comes to me and I’m not in front of the computer, I’ll text it
to myself. I’ve also been known to talk out a scene, recording it on my phone
if something comes to me during my walks in the park.
Is there a ritual you do every time before you begin your
book?
Not really. Maybe making a cuppa tea with a splash of milk,
but I’ll do that even if I’m not writing.
What do you do when you finish your book and turn it in to
the editor?
Clean the house. It’s always a mess when I’m nearing a
deadline. I go all “mad professor” and let the laundry, dishes and other to dos
pile up. A little caffeine and a backlog of book podcasts to listen to always
makes the chore less painful. After that, I’ll treat myself to a book I’ve been
itching to read for a while.
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