Taking it Back, Waaaay Back

In my YA PET PEEVES post, I mentioned two of the things that bother me are an MC having a classic novel as their favourite book and an MC with a 60's/70's or 80's band/singer as their favourite artist.

The way I figure it, there are at least two reasons authors do this:

a. They want to pay homage to a book/musician that they love.

b. They don't want to date themselves.

I'll deal with dating yourself next week on Write Away Wednesday, but today, I'd like to look at how to insert your favourite stories and music into your novel without making me (and possibly other readers) want to gag from the unlikelihood/genericness of it.

1. PUT IT IN CHARACTER

I mentioned in the same pet peeves post that there is a type of teen who takes pride in loving a (semi-)obscure 60's or 70's rock band. If your character is that type (usually emo) then it's fine to have them love THE RAMONES.

My first year in Japan, I had a co-worker who was a - well, none of the nouns are publishable on this blog- so I'll just desribe him. He was the type of guy who was smart and was happy to shove it in every one's face. The guy who used words that noone else understood, and then made you feel dumb by saying, "Everyone knows that 16-letter SAT word!" and not bothering to explain. The type of guy who would say a Japanese word in a room full of English-speakers and not translate. (You have no idea how tempted I was to speak to him in French, Spanish and Italian all year.) WOOSAH!

Anyhow, that type of guy often also loves a band/book that is decently acclaimed but not popular with their contemporaries. They will also categorically explain to you why their favourites are "objectively" the best and why you're an idiot for not seeing it. (I don't reccommend this character, unless you mean for people to hate them.)

2. MAKE IT A PLOT POINT

Really, really, love the soundtrack from FLASHDANCE? Don't just make your MC a fan. Make it a subplot. Have the MC starring in a remake of FLASHDANCE by the failed ballerina-cum-high-school-drama-teacher. Or entering an anniversary contest where they have to make a video to SHE'S A MANIAC.

One caveat is that simply having the MC do a book for Lit. doesn't mean she quotes Dickens all day.

3. GIVE THEM A REASON

Did you love music from 50 years ago when you were a teen? I'd think not. So why should your MC? Maybe there's an emotional attachment. Maybe her Mom died in a fire when she was 7 and one of the few possessions that she left behind was THE BEATLES' GREATEST HITS, which was in her car's CD folder. So now the MC listens to The Beatles every morning as she gets ready for school and every night as she does her homework.

4. REFERENCES

One of my favourite musical references in a book is found in Lisa Descrochers' PERSONAL DEMONS, when something happens on the corner of First and Amistad. If you love THE FRAY's HOW TO SAVE A LIFE as much as I do, you'd catch the reference and squeal like a little girl. If you don't like The Fray or don't know who they are then the reference sails uneventfully over your head.

Please use this sensibly and don't tell me that the MC's life was like "a hard day's night on a yellow submarine," because I will laugh until I turn blue- and that's pretty hard considering my race.

5. ADULTS

There's absolutely no reason an adult can't be a fan of a 60's band. So have the parents or the teacher or club supervisor or someone else in the teen's life constantly shrieking THE SUPREME's biggest hits.

There you have it: 5 ways to pay homage to your favourite music and books. Can you think of any others? Are you guilty of the "I only love the classics" MC? What do you do to put a different spin on it?

Being a Writer: Beachbody Style

Maybe you've heard about Beachbody. They're one of the biggest stakeholders in the excercise/diet/fitness industry and boast such programs as P90X, Turbo Jam and Hip Hop Abs. But we're not here to get in shape- even though 9 out of 10 Claire Dawns will tell you my blog is great mental exercise.

I use a lot of Beachbody products so I come into contact with their motto a lot.

Decide. Commit. Succeed.

I think it's a great formula for any sort of success. Especially as a writer. So for the next couple weeks I'll be talking about how to get your writing life in shape with Beachbody.

DECIDE

When do you become a writer? It's a tough question. But let's look at some other fields first for comparison purposes.

When do you become a waitress? I don't know what the norm is in your country, but for me I think the number of waitresses with professional training in food services is still not the majority- especially outside of the hotel industry. So, I'd say you probably become a waitress the day you take your first order and serve it to the customer.

When do you become a lawyer? In many professional fields, it's a qualification that determines whether or not you can use the title. Whether or not you have a job, or are practising or even intend to practise, you become a lawyer when you're admitted to the Bar (or whatever equivalent your country has). It's the same thing for other high academic professional fields: accountants, doctors, etc.

In some fields, it's works either way. You become a plumber by working in a plumbing company or by taking a plumbing course.

Now, let's look at writing. When do you become a writer?

Some people will say you're a writer when your book gets published. But you as a writer don't do anything on publication day, all of your work comes before hand.

Some people will say it's when you get a book deal. Ditto. Your book has probably still got a lot of edits between then and publication, but you've brought it far enough that a publisher is interested in it.

Some people will say it's the first day you sit down at a keyboard or pick up a pen with a story in mind. But in that case, every body who's ever written is a writer.

So, when do you become a writer?

Chalene Johnson of Turbo Jam says, 'It's mental, just decide.' And I agree. You're a writer when you say you are.

For years before I became a writer, I thought of being a writer. When I was really little I loved reading, but I first wanted to be a scientist. Eventually, as I think every book-lover does, I thought about being a writer. It was a fuzzy 'some day in the future' sort of dream. Sometimes I wrote as a kid, mostly poetry, as well as essays for school. I didn't even attempt a novel until I was about 15. (Only 15 pages in, I quit. I have the attention span of a gnat. Wait, no I take that back- a gnat's attention span is actually pretty long.)

As a teen, I had an incredible desire to be more practical. My natural yearnings are all towards 'immature' concepts like doing things I love, which is why I ended up being the only person doing the semi-random combo of French-Computer-Management at A Levels. (We only take 3 subjects plus general paper in the final years of secondary school.) But instead of going purely for the things I loved (like writing) I tried to find practicality within them. Like I love Management theory, so I aspired to be some kind of manager, even though I despise decision-making and actually being responsible for other people. And when I moved on to study languages, I aimed for teaching, even though I suck at discipline.

I never stopped writing- poetry at least- and a strange side effect of studying French and Spanish was being involved in the student government of the Faculty of Humanities and the University where I got to run and participate in Poetry Slams. I still considered writing completely impractical, and therefore a "childish" pursuit. But it could be that thing in the background that got me through all the miserable moments of practicality.

In 2008, I discovered nanowrimo, the 30 day novel-writing challenge. some of my friends from Canada and Scotland who happened to live nearby in the backwoods of Japan were doing it. And I thought, what the hey. I've always waanted to write a novel. And I have a job, which I'm required to be at 35 hours a week, but which only actually calls for 15 hours or so of actual work. And in all those hours when I'm not working, I'm sitting at a desk, staring at a computer. Since I never have desk jobs or jobs with down time, it seemed like the universe had aligned itself with the specific intent of having me write a novel. Perfect.

Nano is like a drug. After eating, sleeping, breathing your novel for 30 days, there's bound to be some residual effect. I started following Nathan Bransford, discovered Marsha and Natalie's blogs, and eventually started a general blog of my own, intending to focus one of the days specifically on writing. Some time between completing nano and the first year of writing my blog- a two year span- writing stopped being a thing to do in the background and moved into being THE thing I want to do, with everything else in the background.

Sometime in that two years, I decided I was a writer.

Having a Baby Changes Everything

Remember that slogan from Johnson and Johnson? Obviously your sleep pattern will change. Your ability to just go wherever and stay out for however long will change. The amount of free time you have will change.

But if you think about it logically, there are some things that change even though it's not absolutely neccesary. Some people change their lives so that they are a better example to their kids. What was good enough for them, is not a high enough standard for the kids.

When you have big changes in your life, they affect all the other facets of it.
When you decide to be a writer, everything changes as well. You stop writing only when the muse refuses to be ignored. Now you also write when the muse is only half-awake, when she's on leave, and even when she's curled in a ball in the corner laughing at you pitiful attempts. You spend time actively building a network of writers on blogs, twitter and writer forums. You try to improve your craft. You learn the industry. You wonder if you should go on that vacation, or if you should use the money for a conference. Or if you should turn the vacation into a solitaire writer's retreat in an exotic locale. You re-prioritise, because even though you'd love to go to that party, your fingers are on fire and you just have to get down these couple chapters. You take your Kindle to restaurant outings with friends, because heaven forbid there should be any downtime for reading and you not have something to read. What? That last one's just me, huh?

So, where are you? Have you decided yet? Say it with me.

I'M A WRITER.

The Whole World but Me

Ever feel like the whole world is doing/loving something, when you're either totally lukewarm about it, or despise it vehemently? It happens to me so often, I wonder sometimes if I fell off another planet.

COFFEE

Coffee doesn't seem to have the same effect on me that it does on most people. It doesn't make me sit up and open my eyes, or if it does, that's not enough to cover the fact that it tastes absolutely vile. My dislike of coffee is particularly apparent in the novelling world, where authors are always on about their morning shot or chugging a jug to stay up and get that scene right.

CAFFEINE

In fact, my non-response to coffee extends to all the caffeinated stuff. I spent two years at a US military and the philosophy was basically: you can stuff yourself full of carbonated beverages, as long as you stay awake in class. But even when I was chain-drinking Mountain Dew- the most potent non-Coca Cola thing on campus- I would fall asleep. I've even managed to fall asleep while STANDING ON PARADE!

When I'm sleepy, I will fall asleep. That's just how it is. Weirdly enough, I'm also a periodic insomniac. Go figure.

CHEESECAKE

One of my best friends is always trying to get my right to be a female revoked because I despise cheesecake. And chocolate cake. And icing. I'm not really a fan of cake in general. Or ice cream, especially if it's not rum and raisin or a crazy Japanese flavour. So when I see movie characters get depressed and down a tub of Haagen Dasz, it does nothing for me. I'd much rather have Muesli.

HOT WINGS

Also not a fan of spicy things. I think I don't like foods with strong tastes. When I lived with my mother, I'd sometimes eat plain ramen or plain spaghetti and she and another best friend would accuse me of not having taste buds.

MILK

I can't explain this one. I just don't like milk, which is why I don't really like ice cream, because it melts and tastes like milk. I get most of my calcium from cheese, or masking milk in other foods like omelet.

ANYTHING i

The first non-food entry is to proclaim my hatred of all things 'i'. iPhone, iPod, iPad. I guess I feel like it's more technology than I need. And I feel like there's someting else less hi-tech or that I already own that does everything the 'i' stuff does.

SMART PHONES

On the same note, I'm not a big fan of smart phones. I don't need to spend my day in chat rooms, when I'm faced with real people who I can really chat with. My cell phone here is a Disney phone, which gives me the cool advantage of having an @disney email address. Like most phones in Japan, you can read books on it, scan bar codes, convert currencies, look things up, etc. I use my phone to send and receive calls and messages. All else is just fluff to me.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

I like blogging, and I'm just getting into twitter. I also have a personal facebook page. But sometimes I feel like there's just too much network-y stuff in the imaginary world and not enough in real life. So when people tell me that I need to get on [insert social media here] I'm like, not gonna happen. I blog because I enjoy it. My twitter is 99.9% professional. And facebook is to stay in touch with the other foreigners in Japan (since were so sprawled all over) and friends in other parts of the world. I'm not on facebook to spend all day on WhateverVille. And I don't tweet to tell you about all the inane nothingness in my life. That's not to say that I won't occasionally do either. But that's occasional. And I don't need more than the blog/twitter/facebook combo to do it on.

MONEY

Money is strictly a means to an end for me. So money in the bank is never worth more than a trip to a country I love, or better yet one I've never been to. Apart from an absolute obsession with Adidas, I'm also not worried about brand names. And even though I love Adidas, it only extends to things it's relevant to. Like I'll be Adidas sneakers, because I want proper foot support while running. But I couldn't see myself owning Adidas perfume (perfume is another thing I can't stand, that lots of chicas go for) or Adidas toothpaste, because there are very many other brands that will do exactly the same thing for half the price.


How about you? Is there anything the whole world seems to be caught up in that is so not you? Are you totally accepting of it, or do you struggle with it? Do your friends and acquaintances try to drag you over to the dark side?

It's Monday. That's what's on my mind.

Universal Teen

I mentioned last week that one of my stories is featured in the WRITE FOR TOHOKU Kindle e-book. (Go buy it and help the Japan recovery effort.) That stroy is about an experience which reminded me about the similarities in humanity despite how different individual cultures.

As a teacher in/ resident of Japan I get to see a lot of the differences between the teens here, the teens in America (I lived there for a couple of years and all), and the teens in Japan. According to culture shock theory, when you first go to a new country, you notice all the differences, but after a while, you start to see similarities.

FRIENDS

One defining factor of teenager-hood is how close teens are to their friends. The most important person in a little child's life is probably their mother or another member of the family. Adults are often closest to their significant others. But teens are almost always closest to friends their own age- especially school friends. I see this all the time in my schools. Maybe, it's even more true in Japan than in the West. In Japan, you're a part of your "group". As an adult, that's your company. But as a teen, that's your school.

WHEN YOUR BEST ISN'T ENOUGH

After the All_Japan High School Female Hockey Finals. As, you might guess, this team didn't win.

Teenagerhood is full of all these times and things where you have to push yourself to the limit. In my island, we sit an exam at 11 (ish) to decide what secondary school we'll go to, which in turn kind of decides the rest of our lives. In Japan, my kiddies have an exam at 15 for high school. It's not so bad out here in the bush, but it's probably super competitive in places like Tokyo and Osaka. All over the world, teenagers must puch themselves with great grades/sports/extra-curriculars to get into college.

But sometimes you lose. Princeton can't take a million applicants. All the teams can't win the championship. Sometimes you get really close and then you fail.

And the sort of heart-wrenching disappointment that comes with that is universal.

TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL

Two of my favourite students have dropped out of school. Not my school- I only teach up to middle school. But they went on to high school and only lasted a year. High school isn't mandatory here, but most people tend to go in the country areas. Anyhow, these two kids turned up at the festival today. They've both got their hair died this bright brown, almost orange colour. One of them has an earring and wears his hair host-style- you know the super-styled Japanese man-hair.

I remember some of the people who didn't continue onto 6th form (16-18 yrs old) at home doning this exact same thing. Like I'm not doing school, but I'm cooler than thou.

HERE, BUT NOT

The idea for this post came to me at a dance festival at one of my elementary schools. The teachers, parents and I are all dancing. All the elementary students are playing the drums for the dance. And pretty much every student who's passed through the school in the last 6 years, and is now in Junior high or High School is on the sidelines.

The JHS/SHS students don't come over and dance. They don't watch. They sit in their own corner and chit-chat.

And that reminded me of something I've seen teens do all over the world. Put in the effort of getting dresed and leaving home, only to completely ignore an event when they get there. Seriously, if they wanted to chill, thye could chill anywhere. I have no explanation for this, and I'm pretty sure I did it as a teen too.

So there you have it, just a few of the things I've seen in the two hemispheres, and therefore assume to be fairly universal among teens. What's a defining act of teenager-ism in your mind?

Review and Giveaway-34

As I mentioned before, this will be the last regularly scheduled giveaways. That doesn't mean there won't be giveaways from time to time. As I looked through my options for today's giveaway, I realised there were several books I hadn't got to give. And I want to. So, stay tuned...

First, last week's winner of

WRITE TO BE PUBLISHED is...

Liza!!!

Congrats! Email me at muchlanguage (at) gmail (dot) com with your full name and address.

Now, for today's giveaway.

From Goodreads:

Manhattan It Girl Riley Swain is no pudgy wallflower. She's brash, bold, fashionable, and yes, fabulous. Riley has no qualms about kissing her best friend's crush, or bribing her dad's lawyer. But this spring break, Riley's dad and wicked stepmother are shipping her off to New Horizons, a two-week fat camp in upstate New York. And it's miserable: like military school without carbs. But then Riley gets to know adorable Eric, who sees beyond Riley's tough exterior. Soon, Riley might just realize that maybe it's not her shape that will change at New Horizons. . . but her heart.

My take:

I'm always complaining about how any "other" character always has to have an issue with being "other". Finally, a book with a fat chick who's happy. (Please note: I'm not a phat and proud type who thinks morbidly obese is fine, but Riley isn't morbidly obese.) Riley is fabulous. In a "nothing in the closet is last season" sort of way. She's the sort of person who you always notice when she walks into a room. She's strong-willed and (mostly) knows what she wants. Fantastic character!

I did have a fairly major issue with the book. There is quite a bit of "Edward Cullen" creepiness going on. And somehow, all that stuff is even more creepy when it's not a vampire doing it. That said, the difference between a sweet obsession and a creepy obsession is a fine line. And frankly, if someone was like that to me, I'd probably ignore the creep factor. (Sadly.)

RULES
Tell me your favourite strong, secure (preferably YA, but not necessarily) protagonist.
Open internationally, followers only.
Open until Wednesday, 11.59 pm EST.

Good luck!

PS, Literacy day coming up and the next contest has to do with that...
PPS, Anyone know where to find the Mr. Linky things so people can sign up with their blogs, a la blogfest style?

Why there's Sex in my YA

In all the contemporary YA I've written, sex comes up. It's actually a major premise and a theme in MS1 and MS5. (Oh my gosh, I sound so cool with 5 WIPs! WOOT!) Why do I make sex take a front seat in my YA, especially when it's such a hot topic, and often controversial for conservative watchdogs?

Because I think in our Western society, sex is ALWAYS an issue.

Even where it's not overt- think about how many things tie in sexiness when that really has nothing to do with it. How many times have you seen cars, beers, food, etc advertised using beautiful women in suggestive clothing?

Alright then, let's talk about sex, baby. Here are some reasons I think sex is always relevant in YA.


(Listen to what the say at the beginning. So appropriate for the sex in YA discussion. And there's the rap in the middle about STDs. Maybe they should make all parents and teens watch this vid! lol)

HORMONES

Some adults file their sexuality away in a closet. But that's so much harder to do as a teen with hormones spilling out your eyeballs. (Seriously glad I wasn't a boy, so I never had to deal with inappropriate rushes of blood to inappropriate areas of my body.) With the raging hormones, situations escalate quickly. A simple brush of fingers and your blood temperature is through the roof.

TALK

Everybody's talking the talk. Even if their friends are all virgins, they're theorising about it. And sex makes its way into even casual conversation. People are boasting about all sorts of things.

CURIOSITY

All this talk (and the fact that sex is all over the other entertainment media) naturally leads to sex taking up space in your imagination. What's it really like?

PRESSURE

A signficant other or close friend might actively put pressure on a teen. And even if noone purposely tries to convince them, the pressure of just knowing that all their friends have "crossed that finish line", can make a teen feel like they should too.

CHOICE

Whether or not to have sex is probably one of the biggest, most agonising decision a lot of teens face. If you choose not to have sex, then that's something that defines you and plays a role in your life.

LOVE

And of course, there's the Judy Bloom-esque concept of two teens deeply in love and just wanting to take their relationship to another level.

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

At the end of mandatory schooling (16 in Bim), I was a virgin. I can't say if that's rare for Barbados or not. I think we're a little freer with our sexual ideals, living somewhere at the intersection of African culture, remnants of slave days, and Christianty. Among my friends, however, it wasn't the norm.

Despite the fact that I was a virgin, I had a HORRIBLE reputation. It's all very explainable. When I was 13, I had a completely innocent non-sexual relationship with an older teenager. One day we were walking somewhere and a classmate saw us. Out of nowhere, I'm the subject of all these rumours. The weird thing is that I was just walking down a road, not even holding hands, with this guy and 2 of his friends and 1 of mine. And somehow, people got images of inappropriacy from it. It was like a scene straight out of the 16th century. (Good thing we didn't do SCARLET LETTER in English Lit!)

For the rest of my school life, and even after, these sexual rumours coloured my life. It went through a few stages. First there was rampant denial. Then there was amusement at seeing what rumours people could come up with. Eventually, I got jaded enough that I stopped caring about my reputation at all. If people are going to say you did something, why bother to SEEM like you're not doing it? And furthermore, why bother NOT doing it?

WRAP IT UP

From my experience, whatever a teen's stance on sex, they come into contact with it. In my personal life, sex haunted me for YEARS before I even went near it. YEARS! Sex shaped my teenage years. Having to live through that reputation and still hold my head high, give me a strength I still need in the face of detractors sometimes.

Still, it's important to consider how you represent sex in YA. As a teen, there's so much misinformation. If you're writing YA, you have an opportunity to show sex in a beautiful pure light, as the dark issue that it can be, or just matter-of-factly. The only thing you need to be careful about is not to be preachy.

I won't support any argument that says universally that sex is not a concern and shouldn't be in YA. If it's an issue you find even moderately common in secondary and high schools around the world, then it's an issue that belongs in our books.

(Just in case you wondered, this concern doesn't seem to exist in Japan. Sex outside of marriage/as a teen isn't really frowned upon. I wonder if sex isn't something that Buddhism and Shinto speak to. Even if it is, Japanese people are a lot more lax in practising religion. Children outside of marriage are really frowned upon though, so in the event of unplanned pregnancy, people either get married, or abort. And when you couple that with how uncommon oral contraceptives are the abortion rates are higher. There's no shame or moral dilemma to abortion either. It's just a fact of life.

Needless to say, sex is pretty much a given in Japanese high school romances, and possible in real ife Japanese high school.)

Women's YA

I write YA, but I'm open to the possibility that some day I'll also write women's fiction. There are certain topics you just can't deal with in YA. And no, I don't mean things like suicide (one of my fave YA books is about suicide: Jay Asher's TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY), rape, murder, etc. They are all fair game in YA these days. So what can't I deal with?

Well a teen can't really:

Feel like they're stuck in a dead-end job
Be a jaded divorcee
Feel like they've been a failure for the last 25 years
Do anything for the last 25 years
Jet-set around the world when they get sick of being in one country (unless they're a Gossip Girl teen)
Just drop everything (legally, they're required to be schooled somehow)

It got me to thinking, since I'm not a fan of the execution of adult books: Why can't Women's fiction and YA fiction meet in the middle?

WHY?
If we look at why people, particularly women, prefer YA then we also see why they don't read adult/women's novels. Here's some of the reasons I came up with:

1. High School. Some people miss their school days. I loved school and I'd rather be back there right now. Ironically, I don't read YA for high school. The Caribbean school system is based on the British system and very different to the US system.

2. Lack of gratuitousness. If you're going to have sex or violence in YA, it's in there for a reason, not as a spice.

3. Possibilities. Life is full of possibilities at that age. You can be anything- do anything. As Natasha Bedingfield once sang, "Today is where your book begins/ The rest is still unwritten."

4. Pace. In children books, the emphasis leans more towards telling the story than revelling in the craft. Children are less forgiving of slow pace, so you'll be hard-pressed to find half a page of description. In fact, the description is almost always mixed in with some action or interior monologue or something.

5. Proximity. For me, MG stories are told like you're there as a part of the adventure. YA ones are like you're the MC or their best friend. And adult tales are like you're watching things unfold on a screen. A side effect of YA (for me) being the closest proximity to the MC is that a reader also feels what the MC feels, and so YA provides the most powerful emotional connection on a 1 to 1 (MC to reader) level.

6. Voice. There may be voices in adult books that are as strong as YA voices. I just haven't read them yet. When you feel a character, you FEEL a character. (Ew, no groping!) Maybe that's why YA books are "so love it or hate it". I feel lukewarm about adult books so much more often.

7. Premise. Maybe it's a result of the possibilities clause, but YA premises are just so much more wide-ranging. (I'm going to throw out that unexplainable buzz phrase, "high concept".) What if a part of your society revelled in watching you fight to the death? (Hunger Games) What if you were a regular, non-descript girl and an impossibly sexy supernatural guy fell for you? (Twilight) What if you started to fall for your dead sister's boyfriend? (The Sky is Everywhere) What if you were an average Jane and you decided to get back at the evil hierarchy of pretty/popular people? (half the cheerleader/jock movies or books in the history of the world- lol)

8. Inexperience. Some YA plots depend on this. A lot of the romance-y bits in YA have misunderstandings where I would have just told the guy stuff flat-out. (Maybe that's just me though. I was like that as a teen too. lol) Also, plot twists happen as a result of bad decisions.

9. Issues. Even though YA plots are fast-paced, many of them deal with huge issues in great depth. Weirdly, in adult fiction, it's often either issues or pace. As a reader, it seems that you can't have both. Maybe this is the biggest reason I don't read adult fiction- many of the literary books get all bogged down in Siglo de Oro style (art for art's sake and choose the most beautiful word over the most understandable or most appropriate) and genre books go off on fun tangents without any deeper point.

10. Living the YA life. I don't know how common this is, but it's true for me. Lots of MC's in adult fiction have careers, marriages, kids, and are generally stable. They haven't been through 10 jobs in 11 years. (Yes, I have. Only 5 were full-time, if that helps.) They don't travel very much. And by travel, I mean go anywhere outside work, home and [insert one social activity here]. Maybe some people don't feel like they life "an adult life."

TRANSPOSING IT

Of the points I've listed (and I'm sure there are more reasons people read YA)the only thing that's absolutely precluded in a book with an MC above 18 is high school. Why can't I write books with inexpericed adult characters, great all-ecompassing premises, and fast-paced, issue-filled plots? Why can't my MC explore different possibilities for the rest of his or her life? Why can't I keep my book pure and not just have sex and stabbing (not in the same scene, of course) just for the heck of it?

Why can't I write a book for the person who, like me, feels like their life is more YA than adult?

WRAPPING UP

There are a few ideas that I want to write that definitely require adult MCs, but by my one sad attempt at an adult book (MS4RIP) taught me that I'm not one for valuing craft over story, or writing "sensible" characters, who are locked into their lifestyles.

If I ever do write women's fiction, it's going to have a YA feel to it.

Somewhere out there (I love that song) someone's ready to tell me there's no market. I beg to differ. In the first quarter of 2009, Twilight sales comprised more than 16% of all book sales.* It's said that almost half of Twilight's readers are adults. Market that!

Here's to Women's YA, and the hope that some day it will exist.

*I think this is an American statistic.