Spring Cleaning

I realized today that the snow is melting. Which means snowboarding will be ending. It also means that I'll be down one job. I'll have more free time to do things. Like sit in my room, in my pajamas, with my laptop and write. And maybe read. If Baxter's lucky, there may be some snuggling to be had, too.

There is a lot I need to organize....

Anyway, it's Road Trip Wednesday over at YA Highway, so I figured I'd jump in. Their question posed was something along the lines of, Spring Cleaning, What do you hope to clean up in your writing?

I've been hearing from agents that they're having difficulty connecting to my main character(s), rather I'm still stuck in the showing verses telling. So, once the snow melts and my heart dies a bit (only for a couple months, it'll be back!) I fully intend to sit down and give my novels a few rounds of editing. Right now, I'm focusing on my memoir.

What about you guys, what common pitfalls do you fall into?

In Responce To The Wall Street Journal Article

For those of you who haven't heard, the WSJ has written an awful article about YA and how it's just so horrible now. How it's all dark and curses and it's just not good for teens today. They claim that years ago things were different (I take it they never read Cynthia Voigt's Izzy, Willy, Nilly or Fat Chance by Leslea Newman, or any of the other various novels....)

But here's the truth, if you're ready for it. Are you ready? Okay....here is it:
High school can be a very, very dark place for some of us. 
Some of us don't even make it out alive.

When I was a freshmen, the very, very hot boy who sat near me in my seminar class was killed in a drinking and driving accident. His name was Fred Horak, and I barely knew him...just the sadness that surrounded his death (oh, and a year or so prior, his sister died of meningitis.)
As the year went on, my sister's best friend, Kara died from cancer. Less than 4 months later, my best friend, Kellie, died in a car accident (non-alcohol related). After Kellie died, I fell apart and nothing was the same. I couldn't deal with life, I barely moved or got out of bed....things just stopped. Then the girl who sat next to me in my creative writing class tried to kill herself because of a boy and other issues....It was like a slap in the face. When she came back to school, we showed our scars to each other and I tried to tell her that there was something to hold onto, but I wasn't even sure if I was telling the truth...

Add in the fact I lived with my crazy mother and her alcoholic and mentally abusive boyfriend...and things were not so happy in my world.
Soon enough the boy who made my world start revolving again cheated on me. (I found out the day before Valentine's Day). Then shortly after I tore my ACL snowboarding and had to get surgery and was told I may never run again. My high school cross country coach treated me unfairly to the point my sister cursed him out at a meet, in front of the entire team (and parents). I had to meet with the principal, the super, and various other higher up figures in the school system.
And then when I was 16-17, I moved out of my mother's into my sister's and the boy's because if not, if I had stayed I would have killed myself.
But this is my own, personal story and even still, I'm leaving out a lot.

And I survived.

How?
Because I spent a majority of my time writing Confessions of an Immortal Heart, because I read books that kept me sane. Because I watched Soap Operas and stood up for myself and refused to be treated shittily ever again.

So here's to you, Wall Street Journal. For those of you who think that growing up is easy, or full of puppies and kittens and happy little rainbows, or whatever else kind of lies that you're looking for in our novels, it's not. If anyone tells you that it is, it's complete bullshit. Not all of us survive, and those of us who do are left with scars that will always be apparent, that will make future relationships difficult, staying alive even harder. And we write about these experiences with our characters because while, yea, they may be dark, they do happen in real life.

High school sucked for me, and I'm sure beyond any doubt that I am not the only one. So I write truth, and about friends who die, and mental health issues, and how deeply words can truly cut people because that is and that was real to me at the time.

YA Saves.

Romance And YA

Last night on Twitter, there was the #yalitchat feed that went through and primarily discussed YA Romance and where its placement should be. People were asking questions like:

"If my main character is 14, is it weird if she's dating an 18 year old?"


"Do writers have an obligation to write healthy relationships verses crazy stalkerish, I'd die for you?" 

The questions and topics went round and round, but most stayed on, "What do you want out of YA romance?"

The question that really drew me into the topic was "What is the difference between YA romance and Adult?"

I answered the question saying that the biggest difference between teen love and adult love is the way we fall, or how willing we are to fall. I remember when I was 14-18 just falling all over myself for a boy. He could do no wrong. Even when my sisters told me he'd cheated on me, I refused to believe it (after all, how could he surpass me sexually if we'd never even gone that far?). Then the day before Valentine's Day, I found out the truth, and made him verbally tell me. I needed to hear it from him because he was the only person I would be willing to believe. (Stupid, right?)


Even after his admittance, we stayed together for another 2-3 years. It was hard and I was frequently angry and would pick fights, but I still loved him and believed that love could fix all things. I was so willing for some magic to happen the way it does for Disney, or in books....but real life is a little bit harder to deal with. Especially when you have outside pressures telling you how bad of a person he is, that you can never trust him...It wears on you, even if you try to fight it.


I graduated high school, and he was there taking pictures and giving me hugs and telling me he was proud of me. When I decided to attend a college 1,000 miles away, he was the one to pack me up and drive me out to Maine. At the time, I wasn't speaking to my sister, and he was the one to convince me to do so because "You don't know the next time you'll get to see her..."


He remained in Michigan and joined a fraternity, and pretty much cut off contact. Because I still had enormous trust issues with him, and let's face it, I'm needy and like attention, I couldn't deal with the distance. We officially ended between my freshmen and sophomore year of college (and strangely both graduated May of 2010. Keep in mind, he was a freshmen in college when I was a freshmen in high school). The final ending was really, really hard on me. 


The reason why I'm telling you all of this, is to kind of show how willing I was to just let love overrun my life. For a long time I considered staying in Michigan to be with him, and we talked about him moving out to Maine with me. I skipped classes to hang out with him, I brought him to school dances. For those years, he was my entire world. And at the time I was okay with that...


When the decision came, I realized that if I remained in Michigan (which would have been solely to stay with him), I wouldn't amount to anything. And so I took the risk and grew up (as all good protagonists do), and moved because in the end I realized that it was what was best for me. 


Here I am x-amount of years later without him, still stumbling around, much more hesitant to believe guys or trust them. But I'm making my way and growing on my own.


In the end, while relationship romance rocks in books, I really think the best love story, is the one where you learn to love yourself. (Which I am learning daily.)