Young Adult: It’s Not Just Romance Light

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Author: admin
Published: Jan 23rd, 2008

By Kirsten Scott and Trish Milburn

If when you hear the term “young adult novel” you think Sweet Valley High, honey, it’s time for an update. When I (Trish) was in high school, YA did mean Sweet Valley High and the little teenage romances put out by publishers I don’t remember. YA went through a slump for several years, but in the past few it has enjoyed a resurgence. And it’s expanded in exciting new directions. Still, many of the emotions of high school are tied up in crushes, getting dates to dances, and first loves. Today’s YA novels often explore these areas even if the heroine is having to face off against vampires or deal with huge issues like the divorce of parents or the death of a loved one.

Kirsten and I have written both adult romance and young adult novels, so we’re well aware of both the similarities and differences between the two genres. We thought it might be interesting to take a look at those, then delve into those all-important questions like “What was your worst high-school experience?” To get us in that high-school/YA frame of mind, Kirsten and I are sharing our photos from high school. Oh, the things we do to entertain you, fair RNTVers. J There’s one of Kirsten mugging with her high-school debate coach. The one of me is your standard high school photo complete with teased bangs held in place, I’m sure, with Aqua Net.

First up, Kirsten with the similarities. Drum roll, please.

1. You’re gonna fall in love with the heroine. The essence of any good romance is that the reader has got to empathize with the heroine, and you get this in spades with a good YA. You get insecure, tortured, imperfect, zitty, sometimes irrationally hopeful girls JUST LIKE YOU USED TO BE. Okay, still are. YA isn’t fairy land. It’s a place where real kids battle with peer pressure, society that wants them to be one thing when they are pretty sure they’re the opposite, and above all, the terror of believing they’re the only one who is so geeky/ugly/nerdy/lonely (fill in the blank with your personal insecurity). They’re so human it’s painful, but tugs right at your heart.

2. You’re gonna think the hero is sooo sexy. Yes, he’s only sixteen, but it’s okay when he’s a fictional character. Trust me on this one. Remember how insanely hot you thought the captain of the football team was? Remember how you held your breath when he walked past? How you seriously forgot how to form words when he acknowledged your existence? You’ll get that feeling back again.

3. You’re going to hold your breath waiting for them to kiss. Obviously, adult romance takes it to another level. But remember that first kiss? The AGONY of waiting, wondering if it would ever happen? The terror of thinking it might? It’s all there, and just like in an adult romance, the first kiss means so much.

4. You’ll close the book feeling hopeful. Now, Trish is about to explain why that doesn’t mean they’re going to live HEA. Who did end up with their high school sweetheart? (Okay, some of you did, which makes me cry EVERY TIME I hear it, but most of us were not so lucky.) But that doesn’t mean you don’t end up feeling like your heroine is destined for great things. She is. It just might not be in the arms of a guy.

5. You’ll be swept away. In a way, writing a YA is always an exercise in world building. We authors aren’t in high school, so we’re recreating a world we used to know, and we take that job seriously. So expect to feel the whirlwind of emotions, hear the lockers slam, and taste that nasty cafeteria food. It’s all waiting for you.

And now for the differences:

1. There doesn’t have to be a traditional happily ever after in YA. There might be a happy ending in that the heroine gets the guy she wanted (or at least the guy she should have wanted all along). But we don’t see them get married and ride off into the sunset. Who knows? Maybe they will someday, but not now when they’re still sixteen and in high school.

2. Sex scenes. While today’s YA includes sex scenes in some novels, they are typically not written in the type of detail that adult romances are. While my first YA, Heartbreak River (Razorbill, Spring 2009), does include a sex scene, I wrote it much differently than I would for one of my adult romances. Still, it was important to include to give the relationship between the hero and heroine an air of authenticity. It’s important not to write today’s YA as if you’re giving a morality lesson. Teens will pick up on that fast and many times will stop reading. What good does the lesson do if they don’t read it or if it doesn’t ring true to their lives?

3. The balance of romance versus other elements. There are still YA novels out there that focus a lot on the romance between the heroine and hero (Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series comes to mind), but there are also many wonderful YA novels that have the romance as a secondary plot. The heroine may be dealing with other equally or more important issues as well. In Heartbreak River, the heroine does want to get back with the boy she’s liked most of her life, but she’s also dealing with the death of her father and a phobia she’s developed because of her father’s death.

4. Language. Though most of us steer clear of the purple prose in our adult romances, there REALLY is no place for it in YA. In fact, you have to channel your inner teenager so that you write with an authentic teen voice. This is especially important because…

5. Many YA novels are written in first person. While this may not be totally unheard of in adult romance, it’s an exception instead of the rule. First person works well in YA because it makes everything more immediate, and the reader (typically girls) can identify more with the heroine of the story.

So here are some questions for you. Let’s keep the comments rocking all day long!

1. Are you a YA reader? If so, who are some of your favorite authors, and what are your favorite books?

2. Did you read YA when you were a teenager? If so, how do today’s YA novels compare to those older YA novels for you?

3. What was your most horrible high-school moment? (You thought I was going to let you of the hook, didn’t you? Bwahahaha!)

Kirsten Scott
Delcroix Academy: The Choice (Hyperion Books for Children, 2009)
Delcroix Academy: Rising Waters (Hyperion Books for Children, 2010)

Trish Milburn
Heartbreak River (Razorbill, Spring 2009)

170 Responses to “Young Adult: It’s Not Just Romance Light”

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Anna Campbell
on Jan 23rd, 2008
@ 11:36 pm:

Hey, Trish, you could be an extra on Flashdance! Kirsten, you haven’t changed much at all. Hey, great post. I read a lot of young adult. One of my critique partners, the fabulous Vanessa Barneveld, writes in that genre so I needed a crash course in what was around. And you know what? I love it! There’s something so raw about those teenage years, isn’t there? And when an author can capture it, the story is utterly compelling. The range in YA now is phenomenal. I mean, you can go from Harry Potter right through to the grimmest and most realistic of stories. I really like Tina Ferraro’s Prom Dress story. Haven’t read How to Hook a Hottie yet but I will. I love Caridad Ferrer – she’s quite gritty which I think works well. Then there’s something like the Artemis Fowl books that are so much fun with their underworld full of fairy characters. I’ve noticed one of my favorite authors, Eva Ibbotson, is having her adult books reprinted now as young adult – just shows you how the boundary posts have moved over the years. I started reading adult books very young so never really had a ‘young adult’ phase – also when I was young, adult books were nowhere near as graphic in terms of sex and violence as they are now. It’s wonderful to go back and discover all these new authors! And I’m really looking forward to Kirsten and Trish’s books coming out. Trish and Kirsten, can you tell us a little bit more about your stories and also the inspirations which led you to write them.
Fedora
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 12:52 am:

Hi, Trish and Kirsten! I really enjoyed your post today–I haven’t read much YA recently, but do still on occasion. I did read a ton eons ago, with authors like Judy Blume and Marjorie Sharmat leading the way (Is that even considered YA? Or is that real kid stuff?)

And ugh, horrible high school moments? Must we go there? Aside from a drawn-out and painful breakup, there were also icky crush-related moments–working up the nerve to ask a guy to dance and being turned down is right up there! Oh SO glad that was oh so long ago!
Vanessa
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 2:39 am:

Hi, Kirsten and Trish. Terrific blog! I’m looking forward to reading your books.

I grew up on SVH and Sweet Dreams books of the ’80s. The SVH world was so far removed from my reality, but that’s what I loved about the books. It was kind of like a soap opera and just as addictive. I hear they’ve reissued the series, but unless it’s been totally updated, I’m not sure today’s YA audience would relate to it.

As for my horrible high school moment–gee, there are so many untold horrors to choose from! I’ll pick the least humiliating one: my first day at a new school wearing a uniform my mother had made. It was beautifully constructed. However, Mum added a few creative embellishments to the blouse, like a contrasting, non-regulation collar and hem. She said my uniform looked so much better than everyone else’s, but all I wanted was to blend in. Foiled!
Suzanne Welsh
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:28 am:

What a neat view into the world of YA books. Thanks, Trish and Kirsten. Alas, I was a teenager before any really, really good YA books came out. I guess Barbara Cartland, Grace Livingston Hill and “Sue Barton, Student Nurse” books filled up my early years, then I quickly found Kathleen Woodiwiss’ books, so I catapulted into Single Title historical romances! But there was this one book that really stood out in my mind. It was a small book, titled “Sixteen”. It was so sweet, and the heroine is so great. In the end, she gets the hero, her first kiss and the hero’s ID bracelet. Very cool back then! I actually still have that book
Suzanne Welsh
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:38 am:

Okay, confession time. ONE of my most embarrassing incidents…(No we are NOT going to talk about THAT incident Bandits!!)…in highschool.

I was a sophomore and had a crush on Gary Lewis, one of the Lewis twins in our school, and a running back for the football team. Big shoulders, curly black hair, great smile. Be still my heart! Well, I knew that every day after my gym class, he cut through the gym on his way to his eigth period class.

Our school was built in the early 1900’s and the locker room was two flights above the gym. So, after basketball, I dashed up the stairs to the locker room, showered by sprinting through the water spraying out the showerheads and threw on my clean clothes. In such a hurry to see my hero, I forgot to tie my shoes! Oh yes, you see where this is going.

Halfway down the last set of steps, I caught on the shoestring, turned my left ankle and landed on my knees, right in front of Gary!!!

Bury me now! Sigh! Utter mortification. He helped me up, but then hurried to his next class. My BBF Marion helped me to the coach’s office, we called my mom, trip to the hospital, two days off from school, sprained ankle….and Gary fell in love with a cheerleader. Sigh.
Maria
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 6:22 am:

Hi Trish and Kristen – so glad you’re here. I didn’t read YA in my youth – but recently I’ve read Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan and Adios to MY Old Life by Caridad Ferrer I loved them both.

There are too many embarrassing high school moments. Give me a minute to have my coffee and I’ll clue you in on at least one.
Buffie
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 6:33 am:

Hey Trish and Kristen!!! It’s great to have you here with us. The only YA books I read as a teen was the Sweet Valley High series. I wasn’t much of a reading in high school, though I did love Ethan Frome.

Suzanne — too funny about the football player — not what happened to you, but his name Gary Lewis. That’s our pastor’s name!

I remember the first prom that the dh and I went to. We had only met a few weeks earlier and it was my first prom (I was 16, he was 17). One the way to the prom, he told me he wanted me to wear his class ring. Well, needless to say I was over the moon!!! I couldn’t believe it. The night was a dream — dancing, walking around and talking, and need I say, lots of kissing At the end of a long, but totally wonderful night, the dh walks me to the door, holds me close, kissing me oh so sweetly, and says “I’ll need that ring back. My mom would kill me if I don’t come home with it.” I was floored! My perfect evening ended like that!!! It was heart breaking for a 16 year old!! But I did get the ring on a permanent basis later on that year, and since then I have added a wedding ring to it.
Gillian
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 6:40 am:

Go Trish Go! Bushy haired girls unite! Man, I was so flippin’ proud of my every-six-months perm, and of course the fact that the fried ends were like six shades lighter than the roots was sooooo attractive. Ah, high school. The funniest part of looking at those pics is that boyfriend’s hair was was thicker and curlier than mine…..and he is now dh, who doesn’t really have any hair left to speak of. (course he look fabulous–men!) Kirsten, you look adorable!

I’d love to hear the story behind your stories as well….and I’d love to hear how you YA authors hit that “teen” voice! I can’t imagine anything harder. My girls are all wrapped up in those Eclipse books–I can’t think of the author. But they love them. And my oldest daughter (14) collects the teen books where each girl is facing a cancer or disease of some kind. If I wasn’t so lazy I’d get up and go find one.

Embarrassment in high school? I sorta just blended in–I was everyone’s friend, but not popular or cool (snort!) at all.

My most vivid could-have-been-a-YA-novel memory was when I was a junior, at our fall homecoming dance. We won the game, which of course made for a happy dance. I didn’t really dance at all at these things, I was one of those who planned, decorated, and cleaned up, yes? So I’m standing by the food table and all of a sudden, the “it” group of football seniors walk in, fresh from the showers. And Mr. Heartstopper, all raven black hair, emerald eyes, and tan skin came by, must have loved the music, told his friends, “Let’s dance,” then looked around, looked at ME (swoon), and said, “Let’s go dance.” I was in stunned heaven.

But then the next song was…OMG….a slow song. And instead of just leaving the floor he took my hand and said, “Stay with me.” Swear to God. I think my heart stopped. I’ve never forgotten the feel of his shoulder through his cotton shirt, the way he was still warm and damp from the shower. He smelled like Polo. (gotta love the eighties) It was the most spellbinding four minutes of my sixteen year old life.

Then the song was over, he bopped off with his friends, and Cinderella went home with the mice But I have darling hubby now, so all is (very) good.
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 7:17 am:

Hi, Trish and Kirsten! I love this post. Since I have 13- and 14-year-old daughters, YA novels are a necessary (and expensive) part of our lives. When I was a young teen (like my girls!), I read the teenaged Judy Blume books. “Forever” almost broke my heart – and they did it!! Shocker!

I really loved “The Pistachio Prescription”, I recall, although I thought the heroine was an idiot for madly plucking her eyebrows. Guess what the 14 yo did a few weeks ago?! Another shocker! *g*

My older girl is all into Nikki Burnham and all the other Simon Pulse books. She also adores Stephenie Meyer, Scott Westerfeld and Sara Shepard. My younger daughter is more into fantasy but also enjoys mystery and straight YA. She reads Christopher Paolini, Meg Cabot and Ally Carter (her new obsession).

I have to decide which incredibly humiliating high school story to share. There are SO MANY!
Alexandra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 7:37 am:

Thanks Mom! Don’t forget I also have an obsession for the writing styles of Angie Sage. By the way I’m the 13 y.o. daughter!!!!
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 7:42 am:

Wow, isn’t it great when your kids read your blog posts? Yikes! Yes, by all means, add Angie Sage to the list. (scurries off to find out who the heck Angie Sage is…)
Deb Marlowe
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 7:48 am:

OMG, Trish–Big Eighties Hair RULES!

I have ventured a little into today’s YA, I really enjoyed Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress. I’ve yet to run into a new one with an intimate scene–looking forward to yours, Kirsten! When I picture those scenes in YA lately, the big deflowering scene from Big Love comes to mind. Have you guys seen it? The older son has his first experience and it is just so painfully awkward and embarrassing!

There was a book I read as a teen and I cannot remember the title, but it is still so vivid in my mind. It was about a teenage couple and how they had gotten pregnant and was a detailed, nitty gritty look at how hard their life was as a very young married couple with a baby. It had a hopeful ending, but man, talk about birth control! Should be a mandatory read for all hormonal teens!
Beth Andrews
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 7:50 am:

Wonderful post, Trish and Kirsten! I adore YAs (and have some ideas of my own – but I need to stop thinking about them and WRITE them *g*) I totally agree with your similarities and differences between YA and adult fiction – well done!! And your pictures are great – Trish, we had the same hairstyle

As a teen I read the SVH books and a ton of the YA romances. I actually still have a couple of them in my basement. One I remember was titled (I think) PS, I Love You *g* and it had the boyfriend passing away from leukemia at the end. Very sad. But luckily, the author wrote a sequel where the heroine finds love again *sigh* (Can you tell I’ve always been a romantic?)

Some of my favorite YA authors are Meg Cabot (especially her Where R You series) Joan Bauer and Jaclyn Moriarty. I also recently read The Boyfriend List by E Lockhart which I loved. Oh, and I loved both Fever and Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson. I’ll stop there but the list goes on and on and on

My 13yo loves Esperanza Rising and The Giver and my 10yo recently read her first Judy Blume (It’s Not the End of the World) and is clamoring for more *g*

Buffie, I was LOL about your dh asking for class ring back! Too funny!

Gillian, I too got “spiral perms” – which was so crazy because my hair is naturally curly *g* Guess it wasn’t curly enough.
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:02 am:

Deb Marlowe, that story sounds like the movie “For Keeps?” with Molly Ringwald and Randall Batinkoff. I really liked that movie. It did not candy-coat the incredibly hard decisions and choices facing very young parents. They were still in high school and decided to have a baby. Ack!
Alexandra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:02 am:

Just a clue mom (Caren)…Angie Sage wrote the books Magyk, Flyte, and Physik.
Christie Kelley
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:04 am:

Great pictures! Trish, I love the hair. Probably because mine looked so much like that when I was a teen. I have to admit I’m not a YA reader. Even worse, I didn’t read Harry Potter either. Okay, I read the first half of book 1 with my then 3rd grader because he couldn’t pronounce some of the names. Then he got ahead of me and that was it.

I don’t remember there being such a great selection of YA books when I was growing up. It seems like I went from Laura Ingalls to Victoria Holt–loved those gothics! By the time I was in Junior High, I was reading Harlequins from the library. Hmm, any surprise that I write romance
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:07 am:

Beth and Trish, weren’t we all seduced by the promise of the perm? Even my dh admitted to getting one in the early 80s. Horrors! I have a great picture of me circa 1982 with long hair and a really gorgeous perm my mother had given me. Since we lived in Houston at the time, I almost have a tan (I think I am now dealing with the results of all that horrid sun!) and, really, my hair was beautiful. So of course, for no reason at all except I needed to mix it up, I cut it all off. Really short. Mistake! But you know, it was hair and it grew back. *sigh*

Apparently, I still have that need for change, which is why my hair is now red (although it is fading to auburn, thank goodness).

Hair so Reba red
Why did I do that again?
Ah, the thrill of change
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:18 am:

Anna, LOL! And gee, thanks, I’m going to have Irene Cara’s “Flashdance…What a Feeling” going through my head all day! I might even break out the dance moves here in my office.

You’re so right — there is wonderful range. I loved the Harry Potter books and just finished reading Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy (of The Golden Compass fame). I really like the mixture of YA with paranormal. As for Heartbreak River, my first YA novel to sell, there are lots of things that went into that story coming together. First, I love Western settings (not necessarily cowboys, but I do love those; rather, stories set in the American West), so I picked Colorado. I’d written the Amtrak train through Colorado a couple of times, and I thought it was beautiful. Then I wanted a heroine whose life had been turned upside down and she was trying to right herself again. So I gave her family a river rafting business that she’s been involved with and loved her entire life — until her father died on that river. She develops a phobia of the river and fear of drowning, which I could realistically portray since I can’t swim and am very uncomfortable in/on boats of any kind. Those who know me know I don’t like flying either. I’m really a terra firma kind of gal. Finally, I developed a complicated romantic relationship and, voila, YA novel. I can’t wait to hear more about Kirsten’s. Hers sound right up my alley as a reader.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:25 am:

Fedora, I really need to go back and read those classic Judy Blume books. It’s been so long, I think I’ve lost some brain cells along the way.

I hear you about the humiliation of dances. I was the classic wallflower, pining over someone I couldn’t have. Now I know why. Let’s just say that the high-school picture above was my best one. I just recently went through the pictures my mom has, and when I looked at some of my pictures (let’s say 5th grade through my sophomore year), I was like, “Good grief, no wonder no one wanted to date me! I wouldn’t date me either.”

Vanessa, I think today’s soapy teen books are things like Gossip Girl, The A-List, The Clique and the like. I admit I haven’t had time to read all these books, but I do watch the TV show on The CW based on the Gossip Girl books and like it. Rich kids in NYC — yeah, so not anything like my rural West Kentucky upbringing. Oh, and the horror of not blending in!
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:30 am:

Good morning RNTV!! Oooo, I’m already loving the embarrassing moments (especially ’cause for once they aren’t mine!!)

I’ll start with answering questions about my journey to YA. It started a couple of years ago, at the Atlanta RWA National conference. I went into the conference on a huge high–my first book had finaled in the Golden Heart, my second book was a finalist in a bunch of other contests, two of which (the Daphne and the HHRW) were to be decided at Nationals. I had agents calling my room asking to meet with me. I had interviews with agents set up in advance. It was dreamy.

But nothing went right. I lost all those contests. I didn’t get an agent. I got a lot of “you’re almost there” feedback, but not even a request for revisions. Crushed, I headed home and tried to decide what to do next. I had heard other authors–La Campbell being one–say they sold when they found the genre that showcased their voice best. So I figured I would put down the Regency historicals, and try something very different.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but my YA story was inspired by a C.S. Lewis book. (Geeky high school moment–I was always the nerd in the class who loved doing her homework.) Okay, so I won’t bore you with details, but I was fascinated by the concept of duality (where good and bad are on equal footing, and you wait to see who will win) and Christianity (where C.S. Lewis suggested bad is a component of God, who is much bigger than “good” or “bad). Most fantasay/sci fi, I realized, was about duality. Epic struggle between good and bad, and the driving question is who will win. What if a fantasy went the other way? What if you could never quite tell what was good and what was bad?

Okay, now you’re all turned off the book because you think it’s about Christianity. It’s not, I promise! It’s about good and bad, and how we as people always have both inside of us. That it isn’t easy to point to one thing and say, “that’s bad” because everything has facets of both. My heroine is a girl with a psychic gift–the problem is that when she uses it, even to do “good,” people get hurt. Bad, right? She doesn’t know, and doesn’t want the responsibility of making the decision.

The book is about choices. Taking responsibility. This lends itself nicely to a love triangle, right? So she’s got sexy, tough, “bad” boy on one hand, and sexy, smart, “good” boy on the other. She’ll have to choose between them. And in the meantime, she’s got to figure out what’s really going on at the creepy private school she’s been invited to attend.

The one with the big gates that lock behind you.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:33 am:

Suzanne, I think there were a lot of us who found Kathleen Woodiwiss fairly early. That that Sixteen sounds familiar, but then I could be thinking Sixteen Candles (the movies). Oh, no, I can just seen the scene with Gary. It’s something straight out of a YA novel, and I think that’s why YA novels ring so true with readers well past their teen years. No matter how old we get, we can still FEEL the agony of high school and all its drama and trauma.

Hi, Maria! I read Adios to My Old Life a few months back and enjoyed it. I haven’t had time to read Caridad’s next one yet.

Buffie, that’s sad and funny at the same time about the class ring. Oh, prom. Do I have a prom story? Okay, I went with a good friend to my junior prom (I wasn’t exactly in high demand as date material), and even though we were friends I had a crush on him that I’d not confessed. Good thing! A couple of years later when he went to college, he came out. Yes, just call me Clueless Trish.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:34 am:

Perms: I have to say that I did have a couple of perms in high school that were real doozies. I have poker straight hair, and in my efforts to get it to curl, I totally fried sections of it. Most of the time I just let it be. It’s pretty much the same now as it was in high school. Except I was blonder back then.

I’m still a blonde, though. Seriously. It might look brown, but it’s blonde.

Blonde I tell you!!

Naturally blonde!!
Susan Seyfarth
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:41 am:

Oh, the horrors of the eighties perms! I had several myself in jr high, but by high school I’d left them far behind to become your typical anti-establishment, thrift-store-shopping, chuck-taylors-wearing, super-straight-short-bangs granola girl. I’d done SVH & Judy Blume in jr high, but by high school, I was all about the bodice ripper, door stopper, sooo very politically incorrect historical romances that had me sighing in disappointment over the few boys unfortunate enough to date me. Alpha males aren’t easy to come by when you’re a nice girl in a small school dating nice boys. Not that I would have known precisely what to do with one anyway. The problem with being a precocious reader is that your experience on paper waaaaay outstrips what you’re prepared to deal with in real life. But if we’re going back to the books we loved when we were in jr high, would it be silly to talk about the Narnia Chronicles? That series had me bereft over the lack of magic in the world. I wanted so badly to go somewhere else where I could shoot arrows, talk to fauns & be recognizes for the queen I was inside….

Great post, ladies. Can’t wait for your books to come out.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:44 am:

Gillian, yes, I was quite proud of what we all called KBH (Kentucky Big Hair). My hubby had longer hair when we met our freshman year in college, but now he keeps it buzzed close to his scalp. That’s actually good because he has this funky cowlick in the middle of his head. Hee hee.

Oh, your dance moment was swoon-worthy. And Polo! My gay friend I went to prom with practically bathed in the stuff, but I loved it.

Stephenie Meyer is the author of Eclipse. That’s actually the third in the Twilight series (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse so far), and they are awesome. She’s developed quite a following. It’s not up to J.K. Rowling’s, but it’s quite impressive. And I think the other author you might be thinking of is Lurlene McDaniel.

Caren, Nikki is a friend of mine so I’m happy to see your girls like her. I read Scott Westerfeld’s Midnighters series and loved it. Also Meg Cabot’s Mediator series.

Alexandra, I haven’t read Angie Sage, but I just went over to Wikipedia and skimmed a little about her series. Sounds interesting. Adding to my incredibly long list of books to read.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:44 am:

YES to everyone who wrote about SVH! I read them all, every darn one. And it cracks me up to see them on the shelf today.

Fedora, I would definitely call Judy Blume YA. She’s pretty much the queen of YA, in fact. La Blume, but not as prolific.

I didn’t read YA romance much in high school myself other than SVH. I was too busy with Lace, and Sweet Savage Love. I did read a ton of David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, and Piers Anthony, much of which is now shelved in YA.

I’m not sure what Trish would say about this, but I think if you read YA to get “romance light” or “romance young” you’ll be disappointed. It’s really its own beast. I struggled a bit to come up with similarities, to be honest. The fabulous thing about YA is how VARIED the genre is. Even within “romance” you’ll get Twilight (sensual vampire romance) and I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You (adventure about a spy girl who longs for love).

Hey, shout out to Alexandra for her cool obsession with Ally Carter! She’s a pub house sister of mine (Hyperion). She’s fabulous! If you want a fun adventure with an adorable love story, she’s it.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:47 am:

Suz, YES to Narnia! Also a huge favorite of mine, though I got bored a few books later and don’t remember if I ever finished the series. But who could ever forget The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. C.S. Lewis was just an amazing guy. He’s one of those celebrities I would have around the table for dinner, if I could have anyone.
Joanie T
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:47 am:

Big Hair? What about the equally big earrings needed to offset said hair?

Great post Trish and Kirsten. I’m kind of in Cristie’s boat….I don’t remember there BEING books designated YA when I was a YA! (whimper). The first book I remember reading that wasn’t a Scholastic selection was “Jassy”…I think by Phylis A. Whitney?

My critique partner Karen Ender is writing fantasy/paranormal YA and I marvel at her skill in putting modern day youths (who have SO much more to deal with than I did as a youth). I would imagine writing YA holds similar challenges to writing category and I bow to that ability.

As to high school humiliations? Well, I was definately NOT the popular girl and spent a lot of time dealing with unrequited love (usually boys with red hair…hmmmm). As far as peer acceptance. I distinctly remember the day I was walking home from the bus stop with a neighbor girl who was forming a girl group called “The Gang”. I remember everything…the sunshine, the dog barking, kids playing….as she informed me I could not be part of “The Gang” because……I didn’t have a ten speed bike!

That rejection played a huge part in the remaining high school years and….occasionally…even into my adult years.

I gain no small measure of satisfaction in saying now “Oh, Yeah! Well you can’t be a Bandita!”
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:51 am:

Suz W., it sounds to me like you’ve got an ebay hunt to go on!! Find Sixteen and report back!

Fedora, high school dances were just an exercise in futility for me. I had lots of boys that were friends, but no boyfriends, though I desperately wanted one. You know the drill. I was a hopeless romantic but how can you settle for 16 and zitty when you’ve got alpha males waiting between the covers of a book?

Vanessa, OUCH for the detail on the collar. Why don’t parents understand how life altering embroidery can be? Alexandra probably had to go to school, but I’m sure Caren has done something equally horrific to her.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:53 am:

Suz W.–oh, so you still have Sixteen. So go find it and report back! Ouch on the trip in front of the cute guy. Isn’t it amazing how these things are burned into our brains? Horrible thing, memory. Thank goodness they say it’s the first to go.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:53 am:

Deb, LOL, yes the hair was definitely big in the eighties. I think that picture is circa 1988, during one of the three or so years I actually wore contacts before I gave them up because they were killing my eyes. I’m not so vain now and just wear my glasses, but thank God glasses aren’t as big and ugly as they used to be. Even in my wedding pictures they were honking big.

Beth, I totally want to read your YA stuff when you write it. Oh, and perms. I had several of the home variety because my hair is naturally flat as a pancake but fine and a pain in the butt. That’s why I’ve got it cut off short now — just stick a little hair goo in it and go! Or, as the case is on most days, just run a brush through it and go.

Christie, gasp! You haven’t read Harry Potter. Horrors! I was a little late coming to the series. Either book three or four was already out when I started them, listening to the Jim Dale audiobooks as I drove around the state for my then job. The last two or three I read in book form and even stood in the midnight line at B&N to get Deathly Hallows. And I loved the Little House books and TV series too. The Laura-Almanzo romance was one of my early favorites on TV.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:55 am:

Caren, I’m having a hard time picturing you with red hair. Maybe you should do a blog over at the Romance Bandits about your hair experience, complete with before and after pics.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:57 am:

Maria, Caridad is sooo talented! We’ve got to get her to guest on the Romance Bandits! (note to self…throw self in front of Ms. Ferrer’s vehicle and beg for guest appearance).

Buffie, I thought I remembered you being one of those happily ever after with your high school sweetheart girls. So sweet!! I love the story about the ring, because it has such a happy ending, but I’m sure was completely traumatizing.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:04 am:

Good morning, Kirsten! I so hear you on the geeky high school thing. I loved school (with the exception of trigonometry — shudder) and have been known to do extra credit work just because I wanted to. You know, that could have been another component of the not dating thing. Sigh.

I totally agree with your thoughts on duality. I think J.K. Rowling did a wonderful job of this with her books, and Joss Whedon has showcased this in many of his TV and movie characters. I mean Angel literally has a bad side of himself inside that wrecks all kinds of havoc when he is let loose.

I realized after reading your first comment just now that I didn’t mention how I came to write YA. I’d been writing romance for a number of years, getting close but not falling over the fence to the published side of things. I had queried by dream agent, who was the agent for a couple of my good friends, and all seemed to be going well until I got the rejection. I was crushed. When I talked to one of those friends, Stephenie Rowe (another wonderful YA writer), she encouraged me to write a YA since the agent repped a lot of YA. Feeling I had nothing to lose, I decided to give it a shot — and found that I really liked it. I could channel my old feelings from my high school years and mix them up with a more modern story inspired by watching a lot of teen movies and The CW/WB programming. I sent that book in to the same agent, and this time she signed me! I’m still with her, and I owe it to the kick in the butt Steph gave me.
Christie Kelley
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:11 am:

Perms!! Never had one. Then again, never needed one either, had big hair then and still do. I did think about getting my hair straightened but my stylist talked me out of it.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:12 am:

Susan, your post had my chuckling. I wish I’d had enough confidence in high school to do my own thing and be anti-establishment. Alas, I was that typical teen doing my best to fit in and be like everyone else.

Is it horrible if I mention I haven’t read the Narnia books (people I need to clone myself so one of me can do nothing but read!), but I enjoyed the first movie and am looking forward to Prince Caspian.

Kirsten, I think you’re right about YA not being romance light. While some lines have focused more on the teen romance angel (the now-defunct Dorchester Smooch for one), YA has really grown and stretched its boundaries. Like I mentioned in the post, there are typically romance elements in the books, but there’s usually a lot of other things going on too. It’s kind of like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer series — yes, there was the whole romance with Angel, but Buffy had other concerns too. Killing vampires, trying to fit in at school, keeping her mother from finding out about her sneaking out at night to kill said vampires, family issues, etc.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:17 am:

Joanie, yes, there were a ton of big earrings in my jewelry box too. And until about halfway through high school, I didn’t have pierced ears so I had to wear those horrid, pinching clip-ons. Ugh!

So totally odd about the Gang and the ten-speed bike. I’m sure it hurt at the time, but you’re right. She can’t be a Bandita!
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:19 am:

Christie, isn’t it weird how those of us with stick-straight hair always wanted curly hair and those of you with curly hair always wanted yours straight?
Kim
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:22 am:

Morning Trish and Kirsten! So good to see your smiling faces:D

UGH, you would ask about high school. My worst moment? That would be sometime around that 3-year stretch I attended. Although there were some good times, those would be the days I played hooky at the arcade. But shhh, don’t tell my mom. LOL

I’m NOT touching on the 80’s hair. Must. Not. Go. There.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:33 am:

Kim, ah, the arcade. I wonder how many quarters I pumped into machines to play Ms. Pac Man, Frogger, Galaga and the like. I lived in a small town, and we didn’t really have an arcade. There were machines in the back of the Pizza Hut though.
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:54 am:

Oh, Susan, that was it exacty. In junior high, I read Tolkein and C.S. Lewis and Anne McCaffrey’s dragon books and literally cried when I had to come back to reality and realize that my real family existed in some other dimension and would never find me in suburban Nashville. They never did, either!

Since Alexandra (of above posts) and I are playing hooky today, she insisted on seeing my junior high yearbooks. Yes, friends, there is a good reason I never had a boyfriend until my hair grew out, I lost the huge glasses and my teeth were finally straight (4 yrs later). She has been laughing hysterically at the pictures. She even suggested we should make a movie (still-shots, I suppose) of my yearbook pictures because it would be so hilarious. *sigh* It was bad enough at the time. Must we really revisit them?

Then again…there were references in several of the comments written therein about how I was “crazy” and “smart” and had, apparently, a number of personalities. Hm. I think those kids knew me better than I knew myself! Man, was I tore-up looking. No wonder I had so much angst!
Anna Sugden
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:57 am:

Fab article Trish and Kirsten. Love the pics – Trish – how gorgeous with all that hair! I’m another one who permed despite having really frizzy hair – uggh. Not for long – I then went to the Charlies Angels flick and then went completely over to punk and imitating Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees (I lived in the US, but went to school in the UK – hence the mix!) I do admit being around for the real punk era – Sex Pistols and all.

This is making me feel old – they didn’t have Sweet Valley or any of the others when I was in high school. Then again, I went to an English boarding school (yes, with the gates and the tunnel under the cliffs to the sea etc etc). I do remember reading some teen romances – my two favourites were one about a Candy Striper (I think that’s what it was called) and one about a girl called Sandy (could be something like Three Loves has Sandy). Okay – can see I’m going to have to dig in the box of books up in the attic.

I started reading Mills and Boons and Denise Robins very young – and some other books which are definitely not romances, but very heavy into sex. (shh). Once I’d found romances, I didn’t go back to books about high school.

Will have to think on embarrassing moments *shudder*. I did have some awesome romantic moments though … maybe I can get away with one of those instead.

I can’t wait to read both your YA’s and I can see that I’m going to have to make a list of books and authors.

Oh and a big wave to Caren’s daughter – great to see you!

PS I’m still holding out hope for Trish’s The Wishing Tree to be published
Jeanne AKA The Duchesse
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:58 am:

Mornin’ ladies! What a great post. I really enjoy YA and one of my fav classes in college was Young Adult Literature. They wanted analysis and all that crap, but it was worth it just to sit and read for hours in the YA and kids section of the library. Grins.

I loved both your stories about how you came to YA. Its a unique voice, I think and a delicate balance to bring the modern world with all it’s challeneges into a “I’m invincible, I’m immortal, I’m awful, I’m a geek” world.

So had to LOL (in a good way) about your pictures. If I went back in time to find you, there’s still (hair issues aside) so much about both of you that’s recognizable. :> I look SO different now and boy am I glad about that. As to high school horrors, there are SO many. I moved in the middle of my 9th grade year from a junior high (Grades 7,8,9) to a high school (grades 9,10,11,12) near Cleveland. Ugh. CULTURE SHOCK. So misery was pretty much a sure thing since all the kids there had pretty much know each other since kindergarten. SO the outcast, as Kim Possible would say. Ha!

BTW, Kirsten, you have me hooked at “The one with the (big creepy) gates that lock behind you.” Oh, yeah. Readin’ this one! :> And what’s up w/ shelving Eddings in YA? Have you read the bloody…well, of course you have. Grins. I can understand SOME of McAffrey as she supposedly started the Dragonriders series AS a YA, as did Mercedes Lackey, who wrote Arrows of the Queen as YA, but the rest of the series goes very dark and adult for YA.

Susan, you said: “The problem with being a precocious reader is that your experience on paper waaaaay outstrips what you’re prepared to deal with in real life.” Wow, so true. My Dad is a librarian – director of Library systems, if you want to get technical. I’ve been haunting libraries since before I could walk. Learned the Dewey decimal system early. Explored. Whoa. SO not prepared. And I was the non-confomist reader too. Started with Narnia and went straight through Surprised by Joy when I was about eight or nine. Then all the Tolkien books, and every single Anne of Green Gables I could find. (How’s that for a dichotomy?) Never read SVH, because I SO couldn’t relate. I didn’t have boyfriend problems. Can’t if you don’t have a boyfriend. Ha! I did, by my Junior Year, but since he was a fellow outcast, I didn’t take it very seriously. Snork.

I’ve read every one of Harry Potter, and Trish, isn’t Jim Dale a WONDERFUL reader for those Books on Tape? Gosh, the voices…
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:09 am:

Btw, Alexandra said to tell all “her fans” hi and that she is playing video games. Hm. I’m sure, in 13 World, that is breaking news!
Wendy
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:13 am:

Great post, ladies. My worst high school moment? Too many to name here. However, one that kept coming back to haunt me is I never got asked to any of my school’s major dances. Sure, I went, but with friends.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:17 am:

Anna, you’re so sweet. I really do love The Wishing Tree. Maybe someday I can get it and Coven and my other YA published.

Jeanne, while growing up with same people who knew you all the way through school was its own kind of horror, I’m sure being uprooted and plunked down where you knew no one was awful too. And yes, Jim Dale was fantastic as the reader for Harry Potter. I just read an article about him that talked about how some of the audiobooks people tried to dissuade him from doing a unique voice for each character because there were going to be SO many of them. He decided to stick to the plan of having different voices and there ended up being between 100 and 200 different ones. He had to tape himself doing each one and keep copies to keep it all straight. Can you imagine the preparation? Wow.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:18 am:

Caren, your daughter is cracking me up!

Wendy, isn’t it wild how incredibly important high school dances are and how the memories of them are burned in our brains forever?
jo robertson
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:22 am:

Oh my, Trish and Inara, what a super topic! Trish, you were cute as a button in high school! I’d never post MINE; it was carved on stone tablets.

Interestingly enough, I never read YA when I was one; in fact, I don’t even know if they existed LOL. I came to YA when Stephanie Meyer published her brilliant vampire triology, Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. She does an amazing job of balancing sensuality (without actual sex) and action.

Can’t wait to read both of your YA’s to come out. I think it’s difficult to write YA (for me anyway). Many of us don’t even WANT to remember those years!
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:26 am:

Oh Gillian, I think that story is definitely novel-worthy. In fact, I’m swooning just thinking about it!!

You know, I didn’t think about the “world-building” thing until I was writing this post (and, admittedly, straining to think of similarities with adult romance!). The voice is definitely part of it. Some YA writers really try to make sure to include lots of slang, swearing, and what-have-you in their books to make them “sound” realistic. I made no attempt to do that. I wasn’t cool when I was a teenager, I didn’t talk like a skate punk then and I don’t now. My editor actually encourages me to take out cultural references that will immediately date the book (like popular singers–though I’m absolutely certain my heroine loves Avril Lavigne, I don’t mention her specifically.) I focus on remembering the emotions, and letting that color the voice. I don’t think it matters particularly if you use slang (though you’ve got to use it right, if you’re going to try!), but if you fake the emotions, you’re going back on the shelf. No question.

My memories of being a teen are all about the intensity–feeling like I’d NEVER get a boyfriend and all hope was lost, worrying endlessly about my weight and crying crying crying because I wasn’t pretty. That sort of thing. So that’s what I channel. The deep emotions that we’ve still got inside us, but have learned to tamp down as adults.
jo robertson
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:27 am:

Buffie, what a hilarious story to tell your children! I’ll bet you never let your husband forget it. What, did he do the same thing with your engagement ring? (Grins)
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:29 am:

Caren, you should go get the Princess Diaries and read it right now! Alexandra will agree. Meg Cabot is brilliant. Her Mediator series was definitely part of my inspiration for Delcroix Academy. She has a tough, street-wise heroine who really wants to be loved. But she can punch and kick and hold her own with the bad guys. I love that.
jo robertson
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:34 am:

Kirsten, I’m in love with your book and I haven’t seen a word of it! I love those titan clashes between good and bad, especially when it’s difficult to know which is which. And a heroine who takes the journey to find out — superb! Very “save the cheerleader, save the world” – ish.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:34 am:

Deb, that book gives me the chills just thinking about it! You know, I had a friend who got pregnant in 8th grade and the crazy thing is, I don’t remember being particularly shocked by it. I mean, I was surprised, yes, but ultimately it didn’t seem like a huge deal. How SCREWED-UP is that? She was brilliant and had the crappiest of all crappy home lives (dad in jail, mom was totally uninterested in being a parent) and she wanted something to love that would love her back. Funny thing is, she had the baby and still managed to get a scholarship to go to the Honors program at our state university. I wish I could see her now and find out what her life was really like then and now. I suspect she’d be incredibly inspirational.

Oh, and Alexandra and any other teens that may be reading–DON’T GET PREGNANT BECAUSE YOU’RE LOOKING FOR LOVE.

(Just in case there was any confusion. )
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:40 am:

Oh, Kirsten, Alexandra has a WHOLE SHELF of pink Princess Diaries books! She adores Meg Cabot. She has even read some of her “adult” books, though she doesn’t love them as much. I don’t think she’s read the Mediator books, though. I’ll have to find those!
Stephanie Hale
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:40 am:

Great post! Trish, I’m loving the turned up collar. I was into that trend myself for a while!

My most embarrassing high school moment had to have been one Friday night when I was waiting on the sidelines in my band uniform (which believe me was embarrassment enough), and the football hit me right on top of the head. Luckily, we had to wear these really dorky hats (which probably saved me from a serious concussion). Everybody came running and I just sort of stood there, wishing I could disappear!
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:42 am:

Beth, the mind boggles at the thought of a spiral perm and already curly hair. Sounds like the Princess Diary heroine’s hair–the upside down yield sign!

Caren, I remember that Molly Ringwald movie! Yeesh, pregnancy is a good example of how intense and challenging the issues in YA can be. It’s so easy to think, “they’re kids, it’s not that important” and brush off their angst and emotional roller coasters. But it’s not that simple or easy. They’re going through real serious stuff, and YA books tackle it head on. Suicide is another topic I’ve seen tackled in YA that’s absolutely bone chilling. One of my favorite authors is Alyssa Brugman (an Aussie, of course!) who wrote an incredible book called Walking Naked that takes on this issue. Harsh but real and for any parent of a teen, probably should be required reading.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:45 am:

Christie, I am with you. I know my sister read a lot of YA but I was too busy with Harlequins. I think YA is really coming into it’s own as publishers get comfortable letting authors take on those tough issues (like pregnancy, homosexuality, suicide) that teens really are struggling with. When you try to sugar-coat everything, it just doesn’t interest anyone.

And really, most teens are either having sex or want to read about it. I think that’s a given. I’d prefer my daughter does what I did, and just reads about it for a long time, but who knows? At the very least, I hope she can talk to me about it.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:47 am:

Trish, one of my boyfriends from high school came out a few years later, too!! Akkkk!!
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:49 am:

Joanie T, we Banditas can definitely take “the Gang.” I’m not worried.

(what a nightmare for you! I can see why this was imprinted on your young mind!)
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:51 am:

Anna S. my boarding school sounds a lot like yours! Except creepier. I hope (for your sake!).

You were way cooler in high school (actually, probably now, too, judging by those shoes) than me. I was listening to Cyndi Lauper and Billy Joel. And country music, because that was the only station our car’s AM radio could tune in.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:54 am:

Jo, what I like about writing YA is that I can recreate those angst-filled teenage years and create the ending I wished would have happened.

Kirsten brings up a good point about slang. I’m of the mindset that you make up your own slang for a YA book so that it doesn’t get dated. I mean, I couldn’t put “cool beans” in a modern YA. Again, the master, Joss Whedon, is great at this. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he created teen-sounding slang words, tweaked real terms to make them sound like teen slang, etc. There’s even a published book called Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon. An example is “God’s gift to the Bell Curve”, which is another way of saying “moron.” See more examples here: http://groups.msn.com/TheSlayersHellmouth/yourwebpage16.msnw

Of course, I wouldn’t use those in your own work, but you get the idea about making up your own lexicon or occasional slang words.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:56 am:

Kim, you were clearly one of the cool kids in high school. Admit it, will you? I mean, playing hookie and going to the arcade? Wow. That’s infinitely cooler than anything I did in high school. I took my calculus books on spring break. that’s how cool i was.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:59 am:

Kirsten, the story about your friend who got pregnant in 8th grade to have someone to love her back just broke my heart. I hope she’s enjoying a wonderful, successful, loved-filled life.

Steph, I’m sorry but I’m laughing out loud at the band moment. I can empathize — by two best friends were in band. I am not musically gifted and cannot twirl a baton unless I want to give myself a concussion, so my contribution was to be the mascot for one football season. The moment I put on that smelly dog head, I asked myself if I’d gone crazy.
Kate Carlisle
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:03 am:

You just need ONE horrible high school memory? How about the whole experience? LOL. On the upside, we moved a lot when I was a teenager, so after one year of humiliation, I would get to start over with a whole new crowd the next year! Ah, good times. No wonder I buried myself in books! I was a big mystery fan, starting with Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames. When I was 13, I started sneaking my father’s Ian Fleming books from his socks drawer and I still have a huge crush on James Bond.

My current favorite YA is Ally Carter’s “I’d Tell You I Love You….” I bought it for my niece last year and had to buy a copy for my very own, just to make sure it was suitable (that’s my story!). This year, I bought her the sequel. My niece is twelve so I wanted something sweet and funny and Ally Carter’s books are perfect.

Can’t wait to read your books, Trish and Kirsten! Great fun post–and fabulous photos!!
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:03 am:

Kirsten, I think you hit it on the head about how so many want to brush off teens’ “problems” as no big deal. But they are a big deal, mostly because if they’re facing something like a horrible home life, they can’t do anything about it. Sadly, I think that’s why some teens take their own lives. They don’t feel like they have any control over anything in their lives other than being able to end it. It’s so incredibly sad that a teen gets to that emotional place. But even if it’s not that drastic, there’s still that whole lack of control element that makes things worse.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:05 am:

Jeanne, considering yesterday’s post, I’m a little worried that my book sounds good to you. But seriously, you nailed it: you said: I’m invincible, I’m immortal, I’m awful, I’m a geek–that’s our readers to a T.

Jo, you are so sweet! I do hope everyone likes the book, but it will be FOREVER before it comes out. I won’t believe it till I see it.

Caren, I hope Meg doesn’t read this and get offended, but I think YA is really her strong suit. The YA voice that is so perfect in YA doesn’t work as well in adult. But I adore her YA. Love love love it. And run out and get the Mediator books RIGHT NOW for your poor, deprived daughter! She needs them!
Buffie
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:05 am:

Buffie, I thought I remembered you being one of those happily ever after with your high school sweetheart girls. So sweet!! I love the story about the ring, because it has such a happy ending, but I’m sure was completely traumatizing.

Yes, it was pretty traumatic. I do still tease him (and my MIL) about it even though that was 21 years ago this April. It’s so hard to believe that we have been together that long (and that I am that old!!!!).

And speaking of being “cool” in school, I was definitely not on the A list. Well, maybe the A honor roll — yep that was me — good grades, national honor society, beta club, key club, French club, FBLA, and even a officer in the . . yes . . . computer club! I think I was on the B list. There was another Buffie (though she spelled her name wrong Buffi) who was on the A list — blonde, perky, and captain of the drill team — need I say more?
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:08 am:

Oh my goodness, the brilliant Stephanie Hale stopped by! If you want a can’t-put-it-down-cause-you’re-laughing-too-hard-and-want-to-know-what-happens-next book, try Revenge of the Homecoming Queen. Brilliant.

And Steph has one of the coolest websites ever:

http://www.stephaniehale.com
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:09 am:

Kate, LOL on the “good times” moving from school to school each year. Gah!

Have you all noticed there’s this running theme among us writers — very few of us seemed to be the belles of the ball in high school. We retreated to books, and looking back now I’m kind of glad. Sure, I wish I’d had a few more dates, but dude, I wouldn’t have wanted to end up with any of those guys. College was SO much better. I met my sweet and wonderful hubby, I made a whole new group of great friends, I even changed what name I went by. Until I went to college, everyone called me Patricia. It sounds so weird now since I started going by Trish in college. And I feel more like a Trish than a Patricia. It’s weird when I see people from high school and they call me Patricia. And what’s worse? What my family calls me. Pat! Gag, gag, gag. (No offense to anyone who goes by the name Pat, but it’s just not me.)
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:11 am:

Trish, the Buffy slang has me floored. Sounds like JRR Tolkein who made up a whole Elf language to go with LOTR. I’m among friend here, so I’ll admit it. I am WAY TOO LAZY to do this. Way way waaaaaaay, too lazy.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:13 am:

Wait a minute–Trish was a MASCOT?!?! How did we not know this!?

The Romance Bandit regulars may recall that I was a walrus for the high school musical. Anyone remember my brilliant line?
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:14 am:

I agree with Kirsten’s assessment of the Mediator books. Hie thee to a bookstore and get them now. I LOVED them.

Buffie, I was much like you — in just about every conceivable academic club there was. I mean, Science Club for crying out loud! I’m not even a science geek. My favorites were English comp and history classes. But it all looked good on the college apps, and I desperately wanted to go to college. I was the first person in my family, on either side, to go.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:16 am:

Yep, I was a big dog called Ol’ Blue. We were actually the Rockets, but it’s kind of hard to dress up like a rocket. Thank God there are no pictures as evidence.

Okay, showing my geekdom here — I think it would be totally cool to be able to speak Tolkien’s Elvish. (Hmm, I need a geek emoticon.)
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:18 am:

Trish, you adorable thing, you! Yes, that is truly geeky, and yes, we love you for it.

I think you mentioned it in the blog, but that picture of me from high school? That’s my debate coach, who I adored. I had incredible teachers and I loved them all (mostly). Biggest teacher’s pet in the world, that’s me.
Aunty Cindy
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:21 am:

Good Morning All!

Trish and Kirsten what a great post! (as is KJ’s post about coquis over on the Bandit Blog. Yes, that’s a shameless plug.)

Like JoMama, there were very few YA stone tablets around when I was in high school. LOL! And as for embarrassing moments, Aunty would rather not mention that faux pas with the Dauphin… AHEM!
Gillian
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:21 am:

Just popping in on lunch break– good grief, I’m really embarrassed by how much I didn’t know about YA! I can’t wait to read your books, ladies, and I know my girls will love them. ( they think the historical romance lining my shelves is beyond boring…)

Speaking of M. Cabot? My oldest saw I have one of her early Regencies and tried to read it, gave up ten minutes in, and her smart mouth comment was “So she sold this, and then she learned how to really write?”

I’m just loving those teen-age years, yessireee.

Trish, WTG on the college!
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:21 am:

Okay, all you cool cats, I have to run to work. I was going to play hooky all morning but they simply cannot live without me. Huge sigh.

I’ll try to check in after lunch my time–HUGS AND KISSES! Keep the party going!!
Kim
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:23 am:

Gillian–*groan* you would bring up Polo. Gawd, I was in love with the smell of that.

Trish–I’m horrible at video games but I was hooked on Road Blasters. As long as you could feed quarters you could keep playing. LOL.
I have to ask, the shirt you’re wearing in your H.S. picture, is that one of those Pepsi shirts? Man, those were all the rage at my high school and I wanted one SO bad. Never did get one though. Yes, I’m still traumatized by it.

Kirsten–bahahaha! Me? A cool kid. ah, that would be a big fat NO. My first boyfriend was one of those jean jacket stoner dudes with a cigarette in his hand that showed up at H.S. occasionally but never stepped foot in a classroom. (Yes, I love bad boys who wear Polo) He lives down the street from me and looks like a strung out Toby Keith

Oh, I adored the Sweet Valley High books! That’s where all my baby-sitting money went.

Welcome Stephanie! Great to see you.
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:25 am:

Kirsten, I remember your walrus begging someone to TOOOOUCH his TOOOOSK or something like that. What was it again?!
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:27 am:

Trish, I recalled (in perusing the 8th grade yearbook) that my friend Cindy said she speak speak Elvish. Matter of fact, she called herself Eldaglen. She also invented a whole backstory for her Elvish self. Later, she purported to speak Orc. By the middle of high school, we began to worry about her a bit…Fun girl, though! *g*
Kim
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:28 am:

Oh man! I just checked out Stephanie Hale’s website. Seriously kewl site!
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:30 am:

Aunty Cindy! We’re SO GLAD you’re back from the Continent! Can’t wait for your blog to come up. Y’all, Aunty Cindy is the MOST FUN EVER! Um, she also uses a lot of captial letters and exclamation points. Just wait and see! =:-0
Aunty Cindy
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:32 am:

Caren, her name was Cindy and you worried about her? Really now, doesn’t that go without saying???

And yes, I do believe Kirsten’s line was “Toouch my Toosk!”

AC
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:32 am:

Now, Jo and Cindy, I think you two exaggerate way too much about the stone tablets. They at least had papyrus, right? Snort! Ducking and running.

Gillian, too funny about what your daughter said about Meg Cabot.

Kim, hmm, I don’t think that was a Pepsi shirt. Just your run-of-the-mill, fat-stripped shirt. I do have a picture when I was wearing a Coke sweatshirt though. THAT picture will never see the light of day. If I didn’t think my mom would miss it, I would burn the thing. LOL on the jean jacket-wearing stoner guy. As soon as I read that, I remembered our very own version. I wonder where that dude is now. I wonder if he’s even still alive.
Aunty Cindy
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:35 am:

I believe the Carolinian expression is “nanny-nanny-boo-boo”, Caren?

You will note that I did not use one exclamation point in my last post and only one capital letter (the T in toosk).

Must be all that upper-crust civilisation I was exposed to in the past week.

AC the refined
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:39 am:

Trish, you’ll get a kick out of this. In reading the dedications (or whatever) people wrote in my yearbook (which we called an “annual”, btw), someone wrote, “Later my kuji!” I squinted at the handwriting. Kuji? What the…? Then I remembered that was a word we made up to mean a cool person who was a friend. Like “homey”. I’m not sure kuji lasted beyond 7th grade.

The funniest thing? There were all these nice boys in 8th who wrote (in a very guarded way) that they thought I was pretty. I wasn’t. At all. But wasn’t that sweet? And I was such a twerp, I’m sure I didn’t think twice about any of those nice boys. I wanted the “cute” boys. Looking at their pictures, most of them weren’t that cute. But I can see loads of potential in the “nice” boys. *sigh*

One boy wrote (8th grade), “To Caren, Maybe you will see me next year and good luck to all of your so called romances. Gary” I think Gary was a little bitter. He thought me and my friends were very silly, giggling over boys and whatnot. I think he kind of liked me, too. He quickly became embittered in high school and has probably been grumpy ever since. *g*

Youth is wasted on the young!
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:46 am:

OMG! I totally have to blog at Romance Bandits about the dedications in my 8th grade yearbook. Some of these are priceless! Some I don’t even know if I paid attention to, really. This whole digging into your junior high past thing is a treasure trove!!
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:47 am:

OMG! I totally have to blog at Romance Bandits about the dedications in my 8th grade yearbook. Some of these are priceless! Some I don’t even know if I paid attention to, really. This whole digging into your junior high past thing is a treasure trove!!
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:49 am:

Hey, I just realized all the links for my name are going to the crazy Bible college site that you hit if you misspell Blogspot as Blogpsot. That’s what I get for typing too fast. I’m just not that good a typist! (Also the reason for the extra ginormous link in comment 86 – ack!).
terrrio
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:53 am:

My, y’all have been busy. I would not go back to HS for all the money in the world! Poor, overweight, unattractive girl with bad teeth and glasses in a private school full of rich, preppy brats. Need I say more? LOL!

Trish – I think we must be of an age. I had so many perms and HUGE hair. All the girl pictures in my Sr. yearbook are 98% hair. It literally fills the frame. I was also a band geek. Big shocker. In 8th grade I carried the bass drum (I was 4′10″!) and the first game of the year, walking across the field, I hit one of those orange things in the corner of the end zone and the drum hit the ground. I was in total shock and just stood there as the band went on without me. LOL!

I started reading the old YA books in middle school and by the time I got to HS was in the full fledged romances – Woodiwiss, McNaught and many others. I haven’t read any in forever but I hear all over that there’s a ton of great stuff coming out of this genre right now. My little girl is 8 so in a few years I’m sure I’ll be tripping over them in her room. Not that I’m not tripping over my own romances right now in my room. LOL!
jo robertson
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 11:54 am:

Uh, you might be right about the papyrus, Trish. I saw a Doogie Howser-type doctor recently who said I didn’t look a day over fifty. I think I’ll divorce my husband and snag the doctor!

Okay, confession time here: YA’s have never been my thing. I figured that I went through enough of that angst in my own adolescence. Why did I need to relive it?

But here’s the thing: the new YA’s are brilliant, I TELL YOU, brilliant!!!! (Don’t touch a single one of those !’s, Trish ). The issues are so significant, the lives of teens so fraught with worry and moral dilemma, the outcomes so poignant that you just HAVE to read them. Our new crop of YA writers are really something. They make me want to embrace my inner adolescent. A little. Maybe.
cassondra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 12:02 pm:

Caren Crane wrote:

Apparently, I still have that need for change, which is why my hair is now red (although it is fading to auburn, thank goodness).

Hair so Reba red
Why did I do that again?
Ah, the thrill of change

Oh, love of Jesus!
Not the Christ, the haircut man
Caren Can’t resist!
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 12:15 pm:

Caren, what an interesting word — kuji. Sounds kind of like the little coqui frogs KJ is blogging about today over at the Bandits blog.

Isn’t it wild how so many of the things signed in yearbooks sound the same no matter where you grew up? I think I have some of those “maybe you’ll see me next year” types of sigs.

Terrio, OMG about the bad drum moment. Sounds like being in band was a traumatic experience for several of you. And why does that remind me of the line from American Pie that Alyson Hannigan’s character always says: “This one time, at band camp…” And yes, we were all big hair back in the ’80s. I remember this was a cause of great frustration for one of the English teachers who was in charge of our graduation ceremony. All us girls had the big, teased bangs, so we didn’t want to wear our morterboards flat on our heads and mess up our hair. So we pinned them on the back of our heads, and she kept saying like we looked like a bunch of 747s about to take off.

Jo, I think that’s the key to YA being so vibrant now — they’re REAL. Even the paranormal ones feel like they could be real because the heroine is dealing with so much real-life stuff in addition to the paranormal aspect.

Oh, goodness, Cassondra is still haiku-ing. Quick, someone, we need an intervention!
Anna Campbell
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 12:56 pm:

Hey, Kirsten, I rather like being La Campbell. Sounds like I’m a cancan dancer with fabulous legs and a tartan costume! You know, Toulouse-MacLautrec might have painted me and put me on a poster for the Moulin MacRouge, that well known restaurant where they serve le haggis with la champagne.
cassondra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 12:59 pm:

Caren Crane wrote:

The funniest thing? There were all these nice boys in 8th who wrote (in a very guarded way) that they thought I was pretty. I wasn’t. At all. But wasn’t that sweet? And I was such a twerp, I’m sure I didn’t think twice about any of those nice boys. I wanted the “cute” boys. Looking at their pictures, most of them weren’t that cute. But I can see loads of potential in the “nice” boys. *sigh*

Posh, I seem to remember, that in my Killer Kisses blog, you mentioned a teenaged Casanova who told you…hmmmm…lemme see…”you’re cute now, but when you’re 30, you’re going to be a knockout!” And he was the IT boy at the pool????? Methinks some of the bad boys actually had their eye on you too.

And ain’t it the truth about the nice boys–about how they’re standing off to the side, wanting us, and we’re so completely blind by the “coolness” of a few that we miss out. (sigh)

God, I don’t even like to think about high school.

Trish and Kirsten, this is one of those things that goes straight to the soul. I’m so glad one of you–Trish was that you? Maybe both of you–said it DOES matter. It’s rotten when adults laugh at or blow off the pain and angst of a teenager. Those feelings are just as real–and therefore, to me, just as important–as “adult” feelings. Just because we’re older, why should ours be more important. And who are we to think (in all our wisdom) that because we’ve lived and seen the passing of the pain–and moved on to other things–that the pain is less significant? Shame on a lot of us.

I think authors like you who respect that stuff are doing a good thing for those readers. They NEED somebody to write about it. I’m betting it helps them feel less alone.

All I had was Grace Livingston Hill. SO NOT APPROPRIATE. In the opposite way. There was no sex of course. No tongue, actually, and nothing else real either–I don’t remember a situation or feeling that I could relate to my own life. I could escape into it, but that’s it. Which is fine, but it’s LOVELY to see all these new YAs with real-life stories (or NOT) that address the actual angst of real young adults.

I read Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries only recently. And OMG. I have to go out and get the rest. And I think I said on yesterday’s blog (or somewhere I was typing) that I thought the YAs I’m reading in contests are just top notch. The writers are raising the bar. Some of them are far better than a lot of adult novels I’ve read that have been published!

This is a tad off genre, but for Christmas our niece wanted chapter books from the series …….oh, rats….Something or other Switcheroo. That’s awful that i can’t remember. Not enough coffee yet. But I read them and I could NOT put them down! And the thing that writer did was tap into the emotions of the kid at the time. It was goal-appropriate for the age group (small children–8-12 I’m guessing) and addressed real life issues, but OMG, the stories were EXCELLENT! I read every one (carefully, so I wouldn’t wrinkle a page or anything) and then put them in the box and wrapped them.

No matter what we’re writing, I keep coming back to that emotional honesty. It gets you, no matter how old you are.

Oh, and the big hair…Sheesh. Farrah hair. That was me. I have straight long hair and I started perming it when I was fifteen. Permed all through the 80s–all through college–until I went to Nashville–to a bigger city and an arts community and began to sort of “find” myself and learn to like the real me. Real me is not Farrah hair. Blech.

Embarrassing? Try falling UP stairs, in high heels and a skirt. In the main hallway by the gym, in front of three boys. Uh…yeah….it wasn’t pretty. Well, it’d be a lot less pretty now, cuz I was solid muscle then…but you know what I’m sayin. They didn’t even offer to help me up. Just walked away laughing hysterically.
Anna Sugden
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 1:07 pm:

Kirsten – actually our school did have a resident ghost. Or at least a haunted picture … and it’s a pretty scary looking building. We used to call it Colditz on the Cliffs. Hmm – may have to blog about it some day.

I forgot to say that I didn’t read many YA’s, but I looooooved Brat Pack movies … The Breakfast Club (Judd Nelson was so sexy!), Pretty in Pink (I adored Ducky!).
Anna Campbell
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 1:08 pm:

Kirsten and Trish, your books sound fantastic. And Trish – I think Heartbreak River is a corker of a title! I’ve loved reading all the high school memories. Oh, man, I wouldn’t be 16 again for quids!
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 1:33 pm:

Cassondra, I just recently judged YA entries in a contest and the vast majority of them were excellent. I’ll be quite surprised not to see some of them in the finals. I think some of that might be because YA is so very open, unlike adult romance where at least newer writers get kind of stuck on all the conventions “they’re supposed to have” in them.

Oh, and I did a bit of online sleuthing and I think you’re referring to the Katie Kazoo Switcheroo. I don’t know if my niece has read them. She’s 11 now. Wow, there are 27 of those books. Just skimming through the titles, a personal favorite is “Girls Don’t Have Cooties.” Well, duh, only boys have cooties.

Anna, I loved the Brat pack movies too. Molly Ringwald will forever be associated with high school for me. Gee, I haven’t seen her in anything in forever.
Joanie T
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 1:36 pm:

Wendy,

Don’t feel bad about not going to any of the school dances (except with friends). When I went to high school girls NEVER went unless they had a date. Hence, I never got to go

On my senior prom night? My friend and I went to Pizza Hut then to see the movie ‘Blazing Saddles”

Sad, I tell ya. Pathetically sad.
cassondra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 1:41 pm:

Trish wrote:

Katie Kazoo Switcheroo. I don’t know if my niece has read them. She’s 11 now. Wow, there are 27 of those books. Just skimming through the titles, a personal favorite is “Girls Don’t Have Cooties.” Well, duh, only boys have cooties.

Trish it WAS Katie Kazoo. And “Girls Don’t Have Cooties” is one of the books I got for my niece! It’s terrific.

They’re little books, ya know? Chapter books for –not beginning readers exactly. Oh, heck. I have no children. When I have to buy books for the kids I go to Barnes & Noble and stand in the children’s section looking helpless until some kind store employee takes pity on me and shows me to the section appropriate for my nieces and nephews. Anyhow, our niece is six going on twenty five, and is an advanced reader, so we got her five (I think) of the Katie Kazoos for Christmas. I’m not surprised there’s 27. They’re popular I guess, and rightfully so. They’re good.

I felt every emotion and insecurity, right along with Katie.

Your niece may be too old for them. I dunno. Katie is in elementary school I think.
terrio
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 1:43 pm:

Joanie – I’m right there with you. No homecoming, no semi-formals, no prom. But I made up for it when I got to the bars. LOL! Danced my little derrier off.

Trish – I almost told a band camp story but stopped for that reason. LOL! My little one is really into the Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osbourne. She read parts of one to me once and they really are interesting. Sort of Harry Potter meets Narnia light.
cassondra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 1:43 pm:

Joanie T said:

Wendy,

Don’t feel bad about not going to any of the school dances (except with friends). When I went to high school girls NEVER went unless they had a date. Hence, I never got to go

On my senior prom night? My friend and I went to Pizza Hut then to see the movie ‘Blazing Saddles”

Sad, I tell ya. Pathetically sad.

Joanie, they were just starting to do this–girls starting to go alone or as a group of girls–when I was in high school. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of the in crowd enough to have a group of friends with the nerve for such boldness….

AND proms? Every prom I had–I was somewhere half way across the state at a music gig. I missed a lot. :0/
cassondra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 2:03 pm:

Oh, and Trish, our pacman games and other such electronic wonders were in the pizza hut too! Small town life…gotta love it or you’d lose your mind.
cassondra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 2:26 pm:

Trish said:

Molly Ringwald will forever be associated with high school for me. Gee, I haven’t seen her in anything in forever.

That’s because I think she’s doing Broadway now….

She was fantastic.

That was college days for me (I’m about that much older than you I think), but what an actress! And she’s sort of the mental picture of teenage angst for me–in those coming of age films she did in those years. I admit that when I read Meg Cabot’s books, I sort of see Ringwald as the heroine–or a version of her, anyhow. I haven’t seen the movies or the tv spinoff, so I don’t have those actors/actresses to slant my vision of the characters. Interesting that it comes back to Ringwald. I think that means she did the role of angsty teenager real justice!
Maureen
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 2:34 pm:

Hi Trish and Kirsten!
I haven’t read much YA although my daughter has some books from high school. I have read some of Meg Cabot’s books and she is such a wonderful writer in whatever she writes. I don’t remember anything horribly awful from high school except my hair cut which was styled after Farrah Fawcett, the most popular hair style in the late 70’s. You had to put much hair spray in it and it still didn’t stay in place.
Christine Wells
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 2:44 pm:

Kirsten and Trish, I’m so sorry! I thought I’d commented yesterday but the blog must have eaten it. I haven’t read much YA at all, pretty much went straight from Nancy Drew to adult fiction. My mother used to borrow the books on her library card for me because I wasn’t allowed to borrow from the adult section–isn’t that ridiculous? But I did buy a teenage magazine and receive a Sweet Dreams book as a freebie once. How I treasured that book! It lived secretly in the box I kept my children’s Bible in. Uh-oh, is that blasphemous? Anyway, I can’t find the Bible now, but if it’s still at my parents’ house somewhere, then the SD book is still there. Oh, and there were the Judy Blumes I smuggled home from friends at school, too. My parents wouldn’t have approved!

Actually, as a teenager I read Georgette Heyer a lot. I think they’re wonderful books for young girls. If I wrote YA, it would be with an historical bent, I think. I’d love to do that one day. Congrats to you both on your wonderful sales! And thanks for a great post.
Anna Sugden
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 2:57 pm:

Yes, Molly is on Broadway – we saw her a few years ago in Cabaret … which was in the old Studio 54. How sad am I that I was so thrilled to be in Studio 54, even if it was a theatre and not the ‘in’ place for the beautiful people any more.

Also sad enough to buy a fun book called Looking for Andrew McCarthy – just because I was a Pretty in Pink fangirl!

Christine – I read Georgette Heyers and Anya Setons too.
helen
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:04 pm:

Loved the post Ladies most embarassing moment in high school that was a long time ago and I was fairly quiet then and shy so tried not to do anything noticeable.
There were not any YA books around when I was growing up that I know about I read a lot of Agatha Christie back then. My daughters read the SVH and Babysitters club books.
I have read all the Harry Potter books since they have been out a couple of times now and loved them.
Have Fun
Helen
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:04 pm:

Terrio, my niece read at least some of those Magic Tree House books. She also liked Junie B. Jones and now is all into the Hannah Montana books.

Cassondra, too funny about the Pizza Hut and video games. When I was young, we had exactly two chain restaurants in my hometown — Pizza Hut and Burger Queen (yes, Queen) which later became Druthers which later got bought out by Dairy Queen, I think, and eventually closed. Of course, by then we had a Dairy Queen too. There wasn’t a McDonald’s there until I went away to college. It’s still kind of weird to go back and see it there. As an aside, the DQ in my hometown recently had a fire and is closed while they repair everything. On the sign outside, it says, “Flamethrower got out of control. Closed due to fire.” Snort.

Maureen, I remember putting so much Aqua Net on my hair that it moved with me. After my senior prom, I took all the pins out of my French twist and it still sat there on my head like it had been shellacked on.

Christine, some of my favorite YA novels were the little historical ones that were about the size of a category romance, maybe smaller. I mentioned above that one of my favorite subjects in school was history, and that flowed over into my fiction reading, whether YA or adult romances.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:16 pm:

Anna, Pretty in Pink is one of my all-time favorite teen movies. Now there’s a fun topic, our favorite teen movies. Of course, I loved The Breakfast Club. Newer ones I’ve liked are 10 Things I Hate About You (I’m still so sad about Heath Ledger’s death; he was one of my favorite actors), Legally Blonde, She’s All That, Never Been Kissed, The Man in the Moon, The Princess Diaries, Save the Last Dance, The Prince and Me, and Drive Me Crazy.

As far as teen TV — Buffy, Angel, Veronica Mars (still mourning the cancellation), Supernatural (a little older than teens, but it’s my favorite show), Smallville, Gossip Girl. There are ones I need to go back and watch on DVD — Dawson’s Creek, Everwood, One Tree Hill, Roswell, Charmed and Gilmore Girls.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:17 pm:

Helen, I don’t remember, but my younger sister might have read the Babysitters Club books.
terrio
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:20 pm:

My daughter also reads the Junie B. Jones books from time to time but Hannah Montana is her obsession at the moment. Hannah and Zach/Troy/Link. Yeah, I’m so over that boy. LOL!

Speaking of DQ – that’s where I used to play Frogger and Centipede while my mom was working – she was the manager. And we just had to play all the dirty Prince songs we could find on the jukebox. *g*
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:24 pm:

LOL! Dirty Prince songs. “Gett Off”, perhaps? Man, today is taking me back. Wait, is that doves crying?
Anna Sugden
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:32 pm:

Oh – meant to say re the Harry Potter audio books … if you can get hold of the UK versions with Stephen Fry – they are totally awesome. Jim Dale does a good job – but SF is unbelievable!

LOL Trish – nah it’s a Little Red Corvette!
Suzanne Welsh
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:34 pm:

Okay, I’m so far removed from YA it’s not funny! My oldest went from reading The Baby Sitter Club straight to John Grisham. Mostly because The Pelican Brief was all I had in the house for her to read one hot summer day in Florida. Her sister read nothing but regency romances until and comics, until she discovered Manga books as a Senior in High School. I’ve often thought she and I should do a Manga book. I’d write, she’d draw.
Anna Campbell
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:43 pm:

Oh, not crying doves, Trish! I think I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese, I really think so!
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:47 pm:

Suz, you and your daughter should totally team up for a manga book. I tell you the manga takes up a huge area in the closest B&N. I think they even took away some of the romance section for it — grrr.
cassondra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:50 pm:

Trish said:

When I was young, we had exactly two chain restaurants in my hometown — Pizza Hut and Burger Queen (yes, Queen) which later became Druthers which later got bought out by Dairy Queen, I think, and eventually closed.

OMG. (cue twilight zone music). This is EXACTLY what we had and in that order. The Pizza Hut was across the street from the Burger Queen. Burger Queen became Druther’s, which was never any good, then it closed for a long while I think. Then, after I left home, it became a DairyQueen. So now there’s a real DQ there. When I was a little girl, we had a Dairy Queen, but it was just a tiny hut-type restaurant–you walked up to the window to place your order, pay and wait for your food. There were some picnic tables out back. And they made only a few of the DQ items. No Blizzards or anything like that.

Oh, we got a Sonic just before I left for college.

NOW I go back home and there’s a McDonald’s, Taco Bell, I think there’s an Arby’s and a Hardees too….It’s so weird to see the Golden Arches in my tiny home town.
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:50 pm:

Helen, you will find it funny that my son (now almost 22) read some of the Babysitter’s Club books when he was really little – like 7 or 8. He liked them and I was thrilled he would read something – ANYTHING. He also loved RL Stine, who cranked out kids’ horror novels. You know he chose his pseudonym from the most popular letters on Wheel Of Fortune, right?
Jeanne AKA The Duchesse
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 3:57 pm:

Heehee. Pizza Hut. Oh, my. Baaaaad High school memories…GOOOD College Memories. Grins. Maybe I’ll tell that story at the Bandita Bash.

Band. Can I please get a big, huge, UGH!? Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE marching bands. (This to the dismay of my sister and DH who like to actually eat during halftime, imagine! Horrible. NO, you have to watch the band!) Ahem, I digress. I mentioned I transferred when in high school? Old school: Orchestra, first chair, second violin. New School. NO ORCHESTRA. They stuck me playing a wind instrument – oboe of all things – in the band so I wouldn’t lose the credit. Dear lord, the horror. Being able to sight read does not translate a violinist/fiddle player into an oboist. Just so you know this, for future reference if you’re asked. UGH.

Talking about Dairy Queen reminded me too that the lone “burger joint” in my college town was a ratty little chicken and burger place called “The Bantam Chef” with this huge rooster out front. Burned to the ground my senior year. Hmmmm. What a shame….
Jeanne AKA The Duchesse
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:00 pm:

Caren, girl, the things you know. He chose his name from Wheel??? Yikes. I’m struggling to get my 7 year old to read ANYTHING, so I’d settle for RL Stine. I’m actually having to find a tutor – he’s a math guy – and it’s breaking my writer’s heart that he’s not yet loving reading. (Likes to be read TO, just not to do it himself. Teacher says I can’t come read TO him. Imagine that?!)
cassondra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:01 pm:

Oh, I started all that to say that there was NOTHING to do in our town. And I mean nothing. No movie theatre, no entertainment of any kind. Church. That’s what there was to do. Church. How appealing is that for a teenager?

So, the Friday and Saturday night routine was to get in the car and cruise–around the square, back down teh big hill, up the big hill, up the main drag, into the Sonic parking lot, around Sonic, back onto the main drag and back to the square. All night. slowing down to yell and hoot and act like a teenager to the other teenagers in the other car/truck you were meeting, teenage angst swirling in a hormone frenzy.

Oh yeah…miss that. Not.
Joanie T
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:04 pm:

OMG, I’m thinking a lot of our social development took place a Pizza Huts!

That was the “in” place to go on Friday nights. Now, being from a slightly larger town (Louisville) but living in an underserved area of the county that was about all we had….at least in the “cool” factor. An upstart indy called Pizza Inn came for a while and then there was “Shakey’s” pizza. Now they are still here operated by a family but the pizza….THIN cardboard crust! Bleach!

What about disco? Did any of you chicks spray your hair and go out under the ball?
Joanie T
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:07 pm:

Oh, it just came to me when Cassondra mentioned cruising. One Easter weekend, one of the girls who I hung with hand my Mom to make her a Easter bunny suit! It was a great Harvey esque one and she was driving as we cruised the ‘Ville. I can still remember passing this police officer at the Pizza Hut and the double take he did!

Corny as h*ll but FUN!
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:07 pm:

Jeanne, my long lost sister! I got moved when I was a junior in high school. Old school – first chair, first violin. New school – no strings of any kind. Too late to pick up another instrument, so they put me in Spanish instead. No problemo. I got an A and a Spanish award. Good grief. Got moved again in the middle of senior year. New school – full orchestra. I hadn’t played in almost a year! They gave me LAST chair in the first violins (which was like, 10th chair), because they had already had auditions for the semester months before. Second semester, senior year – first violin, fourth chair. That was more like it!

PROMS: let’s review. I got moved when? Oh yes, January of my junior year and November of my senior year. How many proms do you think I went to? That’s right: ZERO. I didn’t know anyone!
cassondra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:11 pm:

Hey, I’m getting the sense that to write romance, one of the prerequisites is to be scarred from lack of high school proms. Hmmm.
cassondra
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:15 pm:

Jeanne said:

Dear lord, the horror. Being able to sight read does not translate a violinist/fiddle player into an oboist. Just so you know this, for future reference if you’re asked. UGH.

Oh LORD! No, it most definitely does not. That was as close as they could get, eh? I’m thinking percussion might have been a better fit????? SHeesh.
Anna Sugden
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:17 pm:

Hey some of the romances are being turned into Mangas. I know one of our recent guests on the Romance Bandits’ blog, Caridad Pineiro, has one. H/S did a couple of the older books themselves too – a Debbie Macomber, I think.

I’d love manga romances – just like all those teen mags I used to read with the cartoon and photo story romances (before I got hooked on Cosmo).
Anna Sugden
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:19 pm:

Joanie – we had a Shakey’s Pizza in Northern Va! It started being a pretty cool place with the long tables and old-time pianist and huge pitchers of beer – then it became a bland chain-like thing.
Jeanne AKA The Duchesse
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:19 pm:

Percussion would have helped the major angst of being in band when I was a fiddle player, yeah. :> Now, if they’d just had a pyrotechics squad… Bwah-ha-ha!
Jeanne AKA The Duchesse
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:20 pm:

Okay, so the themes are angst and pizza hut…hmmm not bad.

Caren, My SISTER!!! :> Still play?
Suzanne Welsh
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:20 pm:

Jeanne, I know what you mean about wanting your son to read. Mine loved the Goose Bump books in elementary school, but then didn’t read another bloody thing until his junior year in high school. He HAD to do a book report, it had to be a book NOT made into a movie or a true life book. If he read 100 page book he got a C; if he read a 200 page book he got a B; if her read a 300 page book, he got an A.

It was cold and I didn’t want to go to the book store, (horrors I know, I think I was coming down with something). So I tossed him my latest Robert Ludlum book, all 600 pages. He moaned, “Mom, I only have to read 300 pages for an A!” I told him to just read the first 300 pages. hehehe…I do have a devious side, I figured if he made it through the firs 50 he’d be hooked! I was right.

Not only did he read that whole book, scaring his friends and teachers by actually reading at lunch and during quiet times, he’s since read about 10 more of Ludlum’s works!

Can I get a Hallelujah and amen?
Anna Sugden
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:20 pm:

Ou yes – disco. I’d like you to know I won a second-place prize for disco-dancing when I was sixteen. Somewhere, I still have the LP of Chic’s Le Freak that I won!
Suzanne Welsh
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:22 pm:

We had a Pizza Hut, and we hung out there after football games. I was always dateless, but had loads of “friends”, so going out as a group was great! No Prom…sigh, but I did have dances and dates in Nursing School. I wonder if the guys knew I’d learned way too much in Anatomy class?
Suzanne Welsh
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:26 pm:

Uhm, on the topic of Manga, which makes me think of graphic novels, which makes me think of comic books, have y’all seen or heard that Sherrilyn Kenyon’s, (aka Kinley MacGregor), Knight of Darkness is going to be out as comic books?? and eventually a graphic novel? How cool is that?
Jeanne AKA The Duchesse
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:31 pm:

Hallelujah and amen! on the boy reading! Wooo-hooo
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:33 pm:

Cruising: In East Nashville, we went to Madison (like, 2 miles away) to cruise Madison Square. Revving engines, kids hanging out on the sidewalk and in the parking lot smoking, hooting, hollering. It was a place where relationships were started and ended. I never cruised, but my older sisters did. I went along once, when I was 12 or 13. It seemed stupid to me. *shrug*

In junior high we hung out after school at a tiny pizza place called D’Anici’s. Picture it: main drag through East Nashville – Gallatin Rd. You are facing south. On your right is a picturesque brick school that used to be a high school (where my mother, father and all my aunts and uncles graduated) that is now a junior high of the same name: Isaac Litton. On your left is the sort of walk-up ice cream place Cassondra described: The Dairy Dip (yes, the Dip). To the left of that, a sad row of retail shops. An insurance agency or some such, D’Anici’s and Brush Drugs. D’Anici’s and Brush Drugs (and, less frequently, the Dairy Dip) were our hang-outs. D’Anici’s had Ms. Pac Man and Asteroids and Evel Knievel and Kiss pinball machines. Too cool!
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:36 pm:

Cassondra, I’ve eaten at both the DQ and the Sonic in your hometown, also the Taco Bell. And the only Druthers I know of that is still in existence is where my FIL lives.

Jeanne, my best friend in high school was an oboe player during concert season and played sax during marching season. My other best friend played the flute during concert season and was captain of the flag squad during marching season.

Oh, Joanie, shoot me but I actually like some disco. I was a Bee Gees fan, even though I wasn’t a teenager yet then. I didn’t go to a club until I was in college, but I really like going dancing. At last year’s Harlequin party at the RWA conference was the first time I’d been dancing since college. Wow, I feel old. And LOL on the giant bunny suit. Cruising in our small town was from the Napa Auto Parts story to — wait for it — the Pizza Hut!
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 4:44 pm:

Anna, you won a disco dancing award? OMG, I’m picturing it now. Hey, you’ve got to sell to Harlequin and we’ll get a disco theme one year.

And you know, when I was in my hometown recently on a Friday night, I didn’t see anyone cruising. I didn’t know if it was because 1) it was too darned cold, 2) gas is like $800 a gallon or 3) they all have Internet now, which is way more fun.

Caren, you do know I’m picturing exactly where you were cruising, right? I cannot imagine cruising Gallatin Road now. There are approximately 8,987,654 stoplights on that road! It drives me insane and I avoid it at all costs.

There was a Dip in my hometown too.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 5:22 pm:

As someone who writes books for readers of all ages, from adults to the 7-10 set, but whose books never are straight romance but rather always have a strong romantic storyline told within the books, I’d say the chief difference between adult and YA is that YA has a newness to the experiences, a truly fresh sense of discovering things for the first time that adult books can never match, although adult books certainly have their own advantages.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 5:24 pm:

That is such a great point, Lauren. And you’re totally right. You only experience first love (or first whatever) once.
Joanie T
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 5:38 pm:

Hey, I don’t shoot anybody who disco’ed Trish. Well do I remember line dancing in my three tiered skirt, peaseant type blouse, wedges at Louisville’s “in” place “Whispering Hills”…located next to…wait for it…a Pizza Hut

I LOVED the BeeGees too! Excuse me….I’m hearing strains of “Do the Hustle”….

I’m trying to get into the manga styles. I know they’re the newest hot thing but….many of them remind me too much of Speed Racer….and I HATED Speed Racer…and his little monkey too!
Kim
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 5:51 pm:

TRISH!!!! I too mourn the loss of Veronica Mars. Gawd but I love her smart a$$. Have you watched season 3 on dvd yet? They included the teaser for the would-have-been season 4. OMG, it was going to be awesome. Fast forward a couple years and Veronica is in her first year at the FBI! Did you know I’m only one degree away from Kristen Bell?!?!? Yup! One of my good friend’s boyfriend (whom I’ve meet) is Dak Shepards uncle and Dak is now dating Kristen. How cool is that? How anal am I? LOL

Jeanne-HA! I not old enough to have disco-ed but man, I love the BeeGees. We did have a teen age dance club in town. Now that was the bomb. I had these flourescent yellow stir up pants that I wore with a white shirt with tails. How’s that for an image? I remember slow dancing with Harold Dekinneker, he kissed me and gave me his gum. I saved that gum for years. LOL

Kirsten–still think I was cool after reading THAT? *snort*
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 5:59 pm:

Kim, I did see the teaser for season 4, and you’re right. It would have been awesome. Sigh. Do you watch Moonlight on Friday nights? At least I get a little bit of Jason Dohring that way. I just love that snarky boy. Hey, if you ever go visit your friend out in SoCal, let me know. I’m hiding in your trunk.

I’m LMAO at the stirrup pants and the shirt with tails. OMG, I’d blocked those from my memory. And eew on the gum transfer — and then keeping it!

Joanie, I think my hubby watched Speed Racer. Oh, and thanks a lot! Now I have “Do the Hustle” in my head. Arrgghhh!
Joanie T
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 6:07 pm:

Trish,

Better to have that then….ready Suz? “Spider Pig, spider pig does whatever a spider pig does”

BEG
Kim
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 6:11 pm:

JOANIE! Stop with the spider pig. ACK. I had to sit through that movie and it took me 3 weeks to get that song out of my head. Thanks a lot

Trish–No, no Moonlight. We tried it but I just couldn’t get into it. That he had been watching the girl since she was little just icked me out. I do miss Logan though. Him and Weevil were always my favorites. Did I mention I loves me some bad boys? Hey, I kept the gum in a plastic bag. LOL I mean it was Harold Dekinneker! The boy every girl wanted to kiss and most probably did
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 7:47 pm:

Kim, now I have a picture of girls all over your area with gum in little plastic bags from the venerable Harold Dekinneker. What a name! Must be Scandinavian. *g*

Trish, you missed a detail! There is no way anyone could EVER have cruised Gallatin Rd. It had a million stoplights even in the 70s! The kids actually cruised the big square parking lot formed by the front side of Madison Square. After the stores were closed, of course. I recall there was a Baskin Robbins around back. There was also a movie theater that eventually became a $1 movie. I saw “Dr. Zhivago” there when they re-released it. The very end – like the last two minutes – the filmstrip had burned up. I had seen it before, but my junior high/high school BFF, Nancy, had not. She was quite perturbed when I said, “I think what happened was…” Since this was before the internet, she couldn’t really fact check me, you know? *g*
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:01 pm:

You know, Caren, that $1 movie theater might still be there.

Kim, I really like Moonlight. They explain the watching her since she was a kid thing well. It wasn’t like he as a perv.
Kim
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:33 pm:

Trish–Really? Maybe I’ll have to catch up because the vamp (can’t remember his name) is just smokin’. But that just icked me out.

Caren–LOL! umm, I’m not sure if its Scandinavian and it might be mis-spelled but its not pronounced the way it looks. *peeking around for The M’s* You pronounce it dickAnecker. *giggles* Yes, all the girls were in lust for him.
Caren Crane
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:41 pm:

Kim, wonder if any Harold-related evidence still exists?! Maybe someone has some on eBay. Eeew! I just squidged myself out! *gg*
jo robertson
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:55 pm:

Kim, I love MOONLIGHT like Trish. Mick St. James is a vampire who’s been watching her since he saved her life when she was a little girl. It’s very sweet and lovely. And he really is the finest vampire. Try it again!
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 8:55 pm:

Kim, yes, Alex O’Loughlin (who plays Mick St. John) is definitely smokin’. Another gorgeous Aussie hottie. I believe Buffie had him as Hottie of the Week awhile back. And oh my on how you pronounced Harold’s last name!
terrio
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:12 pm:

Y’all are so cracking me up. I lived in Nashville back in the early 90s and that’s the one place that I’d go back to in a heartbeat. First year lived in East Nashville where they wouldn’t deliver pizza after 5pm on weekends because it was too dangerous. LOL! Then moved to Goodlettsville and loved it!

I had totally forgotten about stirrup pants. Oh, that’s so embarrassing. Pizza Hut was the place in my town too but we had a Burger Chef when I was a kid as well as a Frosty Treat which was one of those walk up places. When I was a teen I would drive to my church then walk instead of drive. If we did cruise, then we’d all congregate in an empty parking lot until the police ran us off then we’d find another one until they chases us off. See a pattern here? LOL!

I think the dirty Prince song we had was Erotic City. But I wore my Purple Rain cassette out at least twice. LOL!
Christine Wells
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:17 pm:

You two have me champing at the bit to read these books, Trish and Kirsten. I think what is really great about this new wave of YA is that it treats young people’s problems, hopes and dreams as valid and important. Growing up, you’re always told that what you’re feeling isn’t really love or doesn’t matter in the scheme of things, that you should wait until you’re an adult, then you’ll know what real problems are. Looking back, those problems weren’t trivial and the way I handled them profoundly affected the rest of my life. I think that’s why the Harry Potter books are so popular–they give children and young adults big, important problems as well as the power to deal with them.
Christine Wells
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:18 pm:

Hey, no one make fun of Prince. I still love Prince and I’m not ashamed to admit it!LOL
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:29 pm:

Terrio, I like Nashville too. I just don’t like Gallatin Road.

Christine, I think you’re right. I love the YA books where a kid is the one who has to save the world. Harry, Lyra in the His Dark Materials trilogy, the Midnighters in the Scott Westerfeld books, etc.

And I’m a Prince fan too. Hey, I even watched the Purple Rain movie, stellar production that it was.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:31 pm:

Hey, finally released from my cage at the office. Yeesh.

Yes, Caren and AC nailed it. Touch my tooooosk! What kind of madness was that? Did I have NO PRIDE?!

Cassondra, I’m so excited you’re reading the Princess Diaries. Meg Cabot is so fabulous. Try the Mediator series next, before you wade through all the Princess books. I think you’ll like it even better. And right on with the emotional honesty. Teens won’t put up with fakes. Not for a second. Isn’t that the whole Catcher in the Rye thing? Gawd, it’s been a million years since I read that.

Oh, and I’m so with you guys on Molly Ringwald and the Brat Pack movies!!! And how about John Cusak? Anything he was in, I loved. Still do, come to think about it.

Maureen, thanks for stopping by!! I somehow escaped the hairspray fairy. I think it’s because my ultra-straight, thick hair just got greasy looking when I used it. I didn’t have a chance at the Farrah hairdo. I may be crazy, but I did recognize futility early on.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:33 pm:

Christine, you were just as goregous in high school as you are now, weren’t you? Oh, spill it! You were one of the beautiful girls, weren’t you!?

helen, I’m a big Harry fan myself! I’ve got to try those books on tape like Trish suggested. They sound awesome.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:34 pm:

Kim, I had a huge crush on that kid with the jean jacket and the tough, red-eyed look about him. So yes, by my standards, you were cool! See, cool comes in two flavors–cool beautiful, and cool baaad. I would have settled for either.
Pamela Bolton-Holifield
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:36 pm:

Hey, Trish and Kirsten! It’s doglady! Great post! I didn’t read that much YA when I was in high school. I was a real nerd and into the classics and such. Faulkner was my idea of light reading. (SNORK!) I have really enjoyed the Meyer vampire series so far. I was roped into reading Harry Potter by my nephew. His father (my brother, the dolt) refused to let him read the first Harry Potter book as their minister (the narrow-minded, pedantic, pompous ….. you get the picture) had declared them Satanic. When I expressed my opinion on someone banning a book they had not read, my brother said “Fine. If you read it and say it is okay, he can read it.” Through every book, including the last one, I would buy it, read it as quickly as possible and okay it for my nephew to read. It ended up being no hardship as I really liked the books. My BFF write YA. She is just finishing her first one and has entered it in a few contests. And like you said, the ending is not necessarily a HEA, but it is a good ending. I think this must be a very difficult genre in which to write. I mean, I know we were all there once, but today’s world is SO different. How do you two bring your teen experiences to today’s world. (And NO, I am not saying you are ancient, like me. I am saying you aren’t teenagers anymore, although it is hard to tell from your photos!!
Christine Wells
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:43 pm:

Kirsten, you must have me mixed up with someone else:) I wasn’t rich (or sycophantic) enough to run with the beautiful people at my school (thank goodness for that!) One of them earnestly assured me I wasn’t considered a geek because I played a lot of sport…as well as doing all that geeky stuff.*g* I was pretty average looking, I think. But thanks for the compliment!
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:50 pm:

Pamela, thanks for stopping by! But don’t get me started on the people who think the Harry books are Satanic. Grrr. They’re about how goodness and love are more powerful than hate.

As for how I bring my teen experiences into today’s world, I think there are things that are universal no matter when you grow up — liking the guy who doesn’t like you back, feeling awkward or not pretty, the need to have friends, etc. You just have to make sure it doesn’t sound dated. I get the modernity for mine from watching current popular teen shows and movies, reading lots of current teen fiction, sifting through some of the teen magazines, catching snippets of conversations between teens at the mall.
Kim
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:52 pm:

Christine–I knew I loved ya! Prince when he was good is da bomb. Purple Rain is one of my favorite soundtracks evah.

Kirsten–awww, you’re just saying that so I don’t short sheet your bed in San Fran;)

Thanks so much to Trish and Kirsten! Once again the Banditas score a winner!
Christine Wells
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:55 pm:

Yay, Kim! I think he’s a fantastic musician too. Not that I like all of his stuff, but loved some of it.
Trish Milburn
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 9:56 pm:

Thanks for having us here. It’s been a really fun day full of laughing out loud.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:00 pm:

Anna, you’ve got to tell the ghost story on the RB blog–we should dedicate a day to high school memories! Posh can bring her yearbook and you can tell stories.

I have nothing about disco (seriously Anna? 2nd place?), band, small town, or cruising to share, but I did WORK at Burger King for about four years. I can make a Whopper in 8 seconds, burger in 4. Seriously.
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:06 pm:

Lauren, thanks so much for visiting!! Ya’ll should check out Lauren’s site too! She’s incredibly creative and like she mentioned, writes adult, YA, and books for kids. Can you believe it?

http://www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com/

I think when we’re writing adult romance we definitely struggle to get that newness–that’s why there’s so many recycled virgins. And I think that’s why historicals work so well. We love the fact that our heroines get to experience lust and love for the very first time, and experience it with the super alpha male fabulous lover! How great is that?
Kirsten Scott
on Jan 24th, 2008
@ 10:18 pm:

Okay, Trish and Kim are closing us down but I’m just getting going! Wah! Doglady is here! And Christine is playing cool music!

All right, all right, here are my parting words:

Big hair is cool. Trish has big hair, therefore Trish is cool.

Prince has big hair, therefore Prince is cool.

I have flat hair–so where does that leave me?

It’s just like high school all over again! Alone with my nerdy flat hair!!

But seriously, ya’ll were awesome. Thanks for listening to us drone on about our very favorite subject and be sure to tune in for the next pair of Bandita Buddies!!
cassondra
on Jan 25th, 2008
@ 12:46 am:

Oh, and Trish, what used to be the Dairy Queen in my hometown is now….dadadaDA…..the Dairy Dip. The only restaurants that remain from my childhood days are the Sonic and ….all together now…Pizza Hut.
Melissa Walker
on Jan 25th, 2008
@ 10:52 am:

Love this post! Writing for teenagers is the most fun an author can have, I think! What a raw, honest time of life–and the readers will really tell you what they love (and don’t) about your book. Thanks for laying out some details here (and for the photos–haha!).
Any good artemis fowl pictures?
on Mar 31st, 2009
@ 4:16 am:

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