The perils of planning ahead? You learn stuff.
If you’re a writer you know you don’t write one story at a time. You don’t compose one essay, build one character or plot. As you construct one world, another emerges.
My current MC has a best friend who’s unconventional — she’s a hippie past the hippie era, she’s an artist. She recycled before it was trendy. She eats wheat germ and likes it.
And I started thinking about this character’s kids, who are not part of the story, and how they would not know how lucky they were. How they would wish some things about their mom were different. And then a a daughter, and a new story were born. A young adult novel about very normal young adult things told in a way I think might be very out-of-the-ordinary.
So I make notes in my New Book file. I type away when the story or the character takes my hand or bounces around in my head. And knowing how my daughter and her friends read books like banshees, I’m hoping that they will give me feedback. Because we all know that YA is hot. Kids don’t know anything about the economy or publishers or agents or Borders or ebooks or small presses or self-pubbed books. All they know is that they want a good story.
So just when I’m feeling all 2009 about possibly being a YA author one day, I find out that YA novels are regularly panned by The New Yorker. Actually, the whole genre is put-down. Not that I care what they say, but I was just surprised. I mean, some of the best books in history were not intended for adults. Little Women, Catcher in the Rye, Diary of Anne Frank, The Little Prince, Harry Potter, The Outsiders, Anne of Green Gables, Chronicles of Narnia, The Neverending Story, The Count of Monte Cristo.
Shall I go on?
I didn’t even mention one Judy Blume book…Laura Ingalls Wilder or any of the books my daughter and her friends screech over. Parties and Potions? The book with the signed bookplate? Done. And being the way she is, my DD will read it again.
Do you or your kids or kids you know have an all-time favorite children’s or young adult novel? Is there a classic book you read as a kid that you’ve re-read as an adult? Make a list and share it here.
Well, anyway, I’m glad the literature snobs had their say, otherwise Jackson Pearce would have had no reason to do this:
Bravo to Ms. Pearce. She’s got a future as a public speaker. My kids have read so so many series of YA market books, I can’t keep up.
Looooved STARGIRL and LOVE, STARGIRL by Spinelli. Was so glad he had a sequel done, when my daughter and I discovered the first book.
The whole family is reading WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS out loud for the second time.
The Little Prince.
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I’ve gotten to where I don’t care who puts down what. I figure other people’s snobbery about any given thing is their own issue, and I’m tired of making it mine.
A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L’Engle. Then I read all of the rest of her books — the ones in my local library followed by books I got through inter-library loan, because I am obsessive like that.
From there, I devoured all of the science fiction/science fantasy books I could find (THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE et al., THE HOBBIT et al., DRAGONFLIGHT et al.) and have continued my love affair with them to this day. I dream of the day when one can get a clone of someone else’s brain — I want to be first in line for Anne McCaffrey’s.
And no, I don’t need a life. I HAVE a life. I just like HER life better!
screw em’. There was an article in the NYTimes saying that you’re almost better off publishing your own book. You’ve got a great blog, people who are big fans, do you it yourself. I think it sounds like a gret idea and I LOVED and read ALL the books you mentioned.