Why me? Why now?

Sometimes it becomes important to stop and reevaluate why you are doing a thing. I’ve been getting caught up in the debates and debacles of ebook publishing lately since Amazon and MacMillan have come to blows over terms of ebook sales. I certainly do not know enough about the subject to have much to say, but as a writer, it makes me stop and reevaluate not why I write, because I write like I breathe, regularly and automatically. But, why I want to publish the things I write.

Today, I pulled down a box of books I’d put up in the top of my daughter’s closet for a time when she would be ready for them. It is full of wonderful classics like Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary and E.B. White’s Trumpet of the Swans. All perfect for her reading level and age appropriate. I’ve been waiting nearly seven long years to pull these gems out of the closet. To share with her the books I loved when I was her age. I devoured these and many countless others some of which I peg as pivotal moments in my growth as a writer, namely, Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls and Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia. Until reading these, books were fun and funny and a nice distraction from the hum drum realities of my own life. These two books were the first (of many) that actually made me cry (reminder: I don’t like crying). I had no idea books could be that powerful, to make me weep over people and events that were fictional. To make me miss them, feeling an actual physical longing for “seeing” them again, when the book was finished. This was powerful stuff.

I remember elementary grades as having a wealth of wonderful children’s titles available to me. Judy Blume, E.B. White, Beverly Cleary. Katherine Paterson, Madeline L’Engle and Ursula Le Guin being staples in my reading catalog. But by the time I got to middle school the pickings got a little slimmer. While I still read some of my favorite authors from younger years, especially Madeline L’Engle and Ursula Le Guin, I found good titles were becoming allusive. What frightens me most about this time is that I don’t remember any teachers or librarians helping to point me toward better reading. So I became lost in the world of The Sweet Valley High series (how could we forget those beautiful blonde twins from California and their crazy adventures in growing up wealthy). While highly entertaining, these were hardly provocative. I do remember an encounter with V.C. Andrews as well, because what tween does not fantasize about vampires (history does like to repeat itself, even literary history). Dismally, I remember reaching high school and finding only the “Classics” were on the reading lists. So, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, All Quiet on the Western Front, etc. were the prescribed titles. All these I dutifully read. Some I was able to make connections with, but most left me feeling, well – blah (yes, I have a beautiful vocabulary).

In my spare time, I picked up whatever books I could find at home. My mother is many amazing things (artist, crafter, seamstress, juggler of time), but a reader she is not. My father enjoys books, but reads them privately and never with discussion. And while they would have purchased me any book I asked for (oh, yes, I owned the ENTIRE Sweet Valley catalog), I have already said, I had no idea what to read. So, I read my father’s books mostly Stephen King and Tom Clancy type stuff (not my cup of tea, but it was a book) or the paperbacks my grandmother left behind, mostly Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts (is this where my ideas of romance took seed – yikes!) So, I am thirteen and reading solely from an adult list of titles. I think I missed out on something there. See, the protagonists I was trying to identify with were much older and experienced than me. I was constantly playing catch-up and never really on the level with these characters.

Then, I went to college (okay, I transferred, dropped out and transferred again, so now I’m twenty) and took a young adult literature class. Holy Macaroni (to borrow a phrase from a dear aunt)! I was introduced to the likes of Cynthia Voigt, Chris Crutcher, Lois Lowry, and Robert Cormier. The characters these authors were creating were all teenagers, who thought, spoke, acted and reacted like a teenager. And very suddenly, I felt cheated. Cheated out of a young adulthood I never got to fully understand or experience. My teen years were spent pushing full speed into adulthood what with focusing on school studies, SAT’s, college applications and building the all-important, all-inclusive, all-ridiculous high school resume. I missed the opportunity to be a stupid kid. Missed it big-time.

Perhaps my writing YA literature is an attempt to relive vicariously a time I sped through too quickly in my own life. I have often wondered why my voices are mostly teenagers. As I said though, the writing comes without effort. I can’t shut these kids up, so I just write them down. Writing is fun. If nothing ever gets published, I’ll still have to write.

What I need to remember when I attempt to publish (and inevitably feel crushed and crippled by that attempt) is that I want my stories to be published not so I can justify the time I spend writing, but so that teens have characters like themselves to hold to, to laugh with and even possibly cry. I’d like to join other wonderful YA authors like Laurie Halse Anderson (realistic and gripping), John Green (make you laugh out loud), Rebecca Stead (science fiction even a realist can grab hold of) and Sarah Dessen (much more appropriate romance novels than I read) speaking loudly and honestly about what it is to be a teenager. And my hope is that just one kid will read just one of my stories and it will help him to slow down and know it is okay to be nothing more than a teenager. Perhaps then, years later, he won’t wake up wondering why he’s suffering from teenage acne at age 34 (Why me? Why now?). Because young adulthood is a right. It is a rite. And life’s going to make sure you live it one way or another.