What I used to read and how I got to here

Just finished reading Caitlin Flanagan's article "What Girls Want" from December's Atlantic Monthly. I'm presuming it's getting a lot of chatter because she tells us, "I hate YA novels; they bore me." And hey, I had my hackles up, too when I read that isolated from the rest of the article. But in the larger context of what she's saying, well, I don't agree with her, but I take her to mean that in her current "reading life" as she calls it, they don't meet her emotional needs, life, whatever. Okay. Like I say, they seem to meet mine. Let's agree to disagree and move on. Because it's the rest of the article that held my personal interest. Essentially six more pages discussing why Twilight is in her word, "fantastic." Lots of talk about Bella's obsession with her potential defiling by Edward and Edward's refusal to defile her and Meyer's sort of retro subversive description of Bella performing housewifely tasks like cooking Charlie dinner. And how one spring afternoon, Flanagan cut geometry to go off with her boyfriend and get some red wine and whatever followed that.

Okay, there's a reason I'm not a college academic and I prefer to teach high school, even if I do have a very expensive and rareified Northwestern English degree and all my profs had degrees from Harvard and Yale and passed all their really cool lit knowledge on to me. So I'll admit the above summary is lazy and too brief. But hey (pointed comment coming) I write YA. I cut out the fluff and get to the meat of the story. Action over meditation. Almost always. Which I think is good. And gets the story going and cuts out twelve pages of meditative longing over some Proustian church spire or whatever. (see, I told you - highbrow education under there somewhere)

But here's the thing. Flanagan talks of the books she devoured as a girl. (and also has some really funny sentences such as the one in which she says of the young women of Gossip Girl, "these chippies could make a crack whore look like Clara Barton." - which really did get me chuckling even I happen to disagree and think that Blair has a heart of gold somewhere under all that La Perla (or whatever it is; I can't afford it so I don't think about it) underwear. And about why girls love Edward.

And it all got me thinking about the books and heroines I loved as a girl and a teen. Which got me thinking about what I write and how my characters live. About what they want and don't.
So here's the thing - I never wanted to be Jane Eyre. I was pissed at Mr. Rochester for not telling her that small little detail about the crazy wife in the attic. I was okay that he was blinded at the end of the book. I always preferred Jo March to fussy Amy or Meg. (I actually loved Beth best, but then she died which seemed rather weak willed of her even though it made me cry) Jo had to settle for the German professor guy because certainly Laurie was never strong enough for her. Which pissed me off in ways I couldn't express when I was eight or nine. I loved Meg in Wrinkle in Time. She was strong and feisty and my kind of girl. I loved the girl in Judy Blume's Forever (sorry I can't remember her name at the moment) because she chose to have sex and then move on from a relationship that was very nice but needed to be over and - gasp - didn't die from it or catch a disease or suffer needlessly and had in fact made sure to go to Planned Parenthood first. Okay, it was all a little clinical at times, but she was a take charge girl. I had no patience for the sufferings of Madame Bovary and whatshername in the Kate Chopin's Awakening or even poor Anna Karenina. I thought Heathcliff was a whiner.

In short - I never ever wanted the guy to save me. Which, I'm certain accounts for me begin on "team Jacob" in Twi-world and not team Edward. And why Anne in my very own Dreaming Anastasia (Sourcebooks, Fall 09!!) is a feisty little sixteen year old who doesn't take much guff. And Ethan in that very same book - not to give away much at this point - might need some saving instead. And why Andy Meyers in the current WIP Cut Back is generally flummoxed by the females in his world.

So I guess my answer to What Girls Want is different than some. This girl wants an equal partnership whenever she can get it. If saving is needed, let the girl save the boy sometimes, too. Or maybe, they can just both save each other.

Til next time...

2k9 has gone live!

Head on over to www.classof2k9.com
My fellow debut authors and I are waiting for you!
Our first book out of the chute is Rosanne Perry's Heart of a Shepherd, coming in January. It's already getting some great press and word of mouth and you can read all about it and all the rest when you stop on by. Book talk guides, teacher's guides, related recipes. We're serving up fresh fiction for all to enjoy. Even have an Author to Go program you might really like.

I'm excited and thrilled and humbled at all the talent I've been privileged to associate with. So come on by and let us show you what we're doing.

Til next time...

A little gratitude

Agent Jen's been keeping a gratitude journal. I'm not quite that ambitious but as I'm nonetheless thankful lately, I figured it was time. Three years ago, I began typing up my New Year's resolutions. I tuck them into an old planner I keep in my nightstand (okay, it's BTVS planner husband gave me at some point in some moment of enabling my Buffy obsession and it's got great pictures so I don't throw it away, but I digress) Call me crazy, but the act of writing the stuff down really made a difference for me. Not everything gets done, but if I keep them doable and not ridiculous, it seems to work out. As I'm the girl who keeps a life list of things I want to accomplish and places I want to travel to in my pocket calendar in my purse, it all seems to make a certain kind of sense.

But back to the gratitude. We're all - and for many good reasons - rather gloom and doom these days, but I woke up thinking perhaps we just need to change how we're looking at it. 401 K in the toilet? Then figure out some other way to save. That kind of thing. Glass half full or at least not cracked and crushed under someone's bootheel.

So, on this 7th of December, (not the most auspicious date in history for a gratitude list but wouldn't ya know this would be the day I'd post this?), in no particular order,I am officially grateful for:

• agent Jen and former agent Michelle who both believe in me
• Andrea Brown who re-matched me with Jen even as I was sitting off the power grid post Ike.
• a messy, comfy house
• really nice neighbors
• my 2k9 group to share the publishing roller coaster
• my critique buddies
• a crazy posse of friends
• health, including the healing of the abcessed tooth and some kind of tendon sprain in my ankle. Both are gone and I am delighted
• husband who loves me
• son who is funny, brave, kind, and amazingly mostly off our payroll!
• the current cool weather
• having survived Hurricane Ike
• Sourcebooks publishing who took a chance on me and even paid me cash American
• a full time day job that reminds me every day why I write for teenagers
• a crazy extended family and friends who've become like family
• an amazing thing called Kinko's Fed Ex print on line
• democracy
• our new president elect
• my Chi flat iron

Til next time...