Me on Writing In a Teen Frame of Mind

Yes, it's been a while since I blogged here, but who's really been waiting for me to post something new??

This is just something I was thinking about the other day and figured I'd post it here since it doesn't quite belong on my review blog.

I write YA. I've been writing YA for a few years now. My main and supporting characters are often teenagers, ranging from 13 to 19. I'll be 25 at the end of 2011.

As E. Kristin Anderson said one day on Twitter, "YA is not a genre. It's a point of view."

It's strange sometimes, trying to stay in the same head space I was in 10 years ago when I was a teenager. My memories of high school quite often consist of sitting in the library before the bell rang, sitting quietly in a classroom taking notes while others talked and shared ideas, math homework, French homework, sitting around in the gym's weight room when it was raining, and sitting with my friends in a hallway during lunch because there was never enough room in the cafeteria.

It's an interesting frame of mind, one that wants to be treated with more and more respect as years pass, one that takes on more and more responsibility, one that's no longer a little girl that needs her hand held as she walks across the street but one who isn't ready for a job and paying rent and living on her own.

I remember a lot of what's now quite often called 'teen angst.' There was a lot of 'I know I'm going to be an adult in the future but I'm not right now and I'm trying to figure out how the world works because it looks like it's one big mess of people who don't know what they want.' University was a lot like that, too. I knew what I liked, what I didn't, who I liked, who I didn't, and what I hoped I wanted to do with my life.

Whenever I work on my current WIP, a tweak on a Greek myth (feel free to guess which one), I have to remind myself to think in that teen frame of mind, of knowing what my MC wants and doesn't want, knowing who she likes and doesn't like, figuring out what she wants her future to be when it's really cloudy and possibly dangerous. She's an MC who's spent all her life in fear and half of it separated from her mother and running around the world to keep from being caught (I once described this book as a teenage girl running from a group who want to kill her for her blood).

Her frame of mind is not mine, and so I have to think back to how high school sucked, how I didn't know some of what I know now about life and responsibility, how homework was my life for 5 years. It doesn't always work, though, which really sucks. There are so many days when I'm tempted to go back to the high school I went to so I could see what it's like now, see what teenagers these days dress like, what they listen to, what they talk to their friends about, where they hang out after school, how they style their hair, what they watch on TV, what they do online, what they read (if they do read outside of a school context), if they like high school or if they hate it.

Odds are teenagers are different than they were when I was in high school. My high school years were 1999 to 2004. MP3 players were average, cell phones picked up in the last few years, no one had a laptop unless your parents had a lot of money and it wasn't one they got from their workplace. The internet was so slow in those days. Social media was non-existent (mostly, I was never really interested in Facebook).

The more I think about it, the more I want to visit a high school in the fall and wander around and talk to teenagers. There are times when I think my teenage frame of mind is outdated and slow, like the computer we used to have. Big and plastic with dial-up Internet. ;)

It's possible I drifted off topic, but my point is the same. In my opinion, to write in a teenager's frame of mind you have to think back to when you were a teen, find that same head space, and use those same emotions and confusion and youthful sass and snark and sarcasm. And it needs to be refreshed every so often so your teen voice doesn't sound outdated, so it doesn't sound like an 'adult' (cause I still don't think I am one) is trying to appropriate a teen's voice and is failing miserably.

So, remember the angst and the confusion from your teenage years, even though you want to forget it because that time in your life was the confusing being forced to grow up and prepare for college stage. I think it helps that I still don't know what I want to do with my life (besides writing). I'm still in that lost and confused about the future stage, even at almost 25.

Good thing there's a lot about the town my MC is in that confuses her, like why she's there and what's coming her way. And this one guy in a fedora that's easy-going and slick but annoys the hell out of her. ;)

Me on Writing in Sections

well, more like chapters & prologues & aside bits & dreams & so on.

i don't mind all these things in books. prologues can be helpful, can hint at what happens later in the book (Hawthorne's Dark Guardian series comes to mind, as does everyone's favourite to be hated Twilight series). dream bits are neat. i like the chat room bits in Alex Flinn's Beastly, they were funny. :)

in the Werewolf WIP i started to add dream bits that hinted at a past life, but then took them out (not deleted totally, i saved them in an extra file) because i thought they were cheesy.

in the Ghost Idea WIP, i'm going to shove in e-mails & journal bits, mostly because it's 2010 and e-mail & blogging are everywhere. most blogs are journals. i've done one like that before.

i'm also trying to cut down on the size of my chapters, maybe between 5 to 9 pages. i like Lili St. Crow's Strange Angels series & those books have some short chapters, like 6 or 8 pages, but then there's 1 or 2 15 to 20 page chapters.

there's also a prologue, but it's barely a page & a half. don't judge me for sticking in a baby prologue. ;) it's choppy (i hope) & happens before the story, it's not a preview prologue, & it raises some questions that get brought up & revealed later on.

everyone had their own method of chapters & letters & prologues & epilogues. i don't mind them. i get a little confused when some agents & editors say they don't like them. i get that not every book needs them, but what's wrong with them?

i like epilogues when it's a single book & not part of a series, or if it's a romance novel & each book is about a single couple (thinking of J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood books, they're so good, even with all the rap music & 'ghetto speak,') & there's a concluding epilogue at the end when it wraps everything up. Lisa Kleypas' The Hathaways also has this. those books are really good, too. :) i'm apparently a sucker for a happy ending, like other single girls. ;)

come back Monday when i try to do an In My Mailbox post. i went to the library today and ended up on a 9-book book high. :D

Me on Forgetting More Things

i really need to blog more. it would keep me from talking to myself.

i think i forget because i don't think i have anything interesting to share. usually nothing exciting happens during the day for me, unless i get something in the mail or i have to go to the store and i see cookies on sale.

why does that sound like i'm middle-aged?? i'm only 23.

maybe i should share what i'm researching for the Ghost Idea (search #GhostIdea on Twitter if you're curious). it's pretty much what i'm working on right now, a YA paranormal novel about a teen girl that starts to see ghosts after (almost) dying in a car accident.

or share what i've been reading. i really liked Rachel Vincent's My Soul to Take, and Brian Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim books. and Kiersten White's Paranormalcy. :)

or what music i'm listening to. right now it's Keane's "Your Eyes Open." very good. :)

hmmm. well, with any luck i'll remember to blog more often. maybe.

if i leave myself a note. ;)

Me on How I Write

i don't mean like a schedule thing, like from 9am to 11:30am i write, then i eat lunch, then at 1pm i get back to it until dinner, then again at 7pm until i go to bed and so on.

i mean the process i use, and my thoughts on outlining versus discovery writing (or, as i always thought of it, writing by the seat of your pants).

when i first got the idea during a YA fiction creative writing class last October/November (thank you to Cathy Stonehouse and the other 4 girls in that class), i went out and bought a little notebook to write down all my ideas in (why i was in a YA fiction class is a whole other story).

in the beginning all i had was a standard family feud idea, which turned into a werewolf pack family feud idea.

i have this issue with reality and why i wish we did have vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters and the like wandering around. some days, reality seems a bit boring. i get that people have interesting lives, and that i have to actually leave the house to have an interesting life, but it's that extra pop of the abnormal and the unexpected that draws me in.

once i wrote something about shifters that ran a bar, but then there was an electrical fire and they had to deal with the aftermath. it was normal, but there was that splash of the paranormal.

(end mini-rant) ;)

so, back to last fall. i started writing down a bunch of ideas in this little notebook, like character descriptions, setting/location/time period info, and a rough outline of plot ideas. now, it's about half-full and it's become a catch-all of plot point ideas, edit ideas, fine-tuning characterization, writing music suggestions, and possible sequel book rough outlines.

i'm wary of writing a totally detailed outline with fiction. when i wrote lit papers in university, i really needed outlines. with fiction, as long as i know vaguely where i want to go, i stick my headphones in and write. if i stray in the little fiddly details, it's because a better idea popped up. if i stray in a big idea, then i really have to think about why i strayed.

i know where i want the story to go, that's so important. as long as i know the destination, the journey can be as fast-paced or twisty and confusing as it wants to be.

now, as i've been working on this WIP over the last few months, and especially the last few weeks (thanks to Patrick Alan, Tawna Fenske, and #1k1hr on Twitter), i've had some good edit ideas. i've worked them in to what i'm doing now, and it kills me to keep from going back and editing before i've finished but it has to wait.

i watched a friend of mine get stuck in the revision loop, where she wrote something, got into it, then went back to edit, then went back to edit, and so on. i don't want to get stuck in that.

for the moment, my process involves writing when i can, writing to music as often as i can, and editing and revising once the first draft is done.

plus enjoying the day long plot epiphany i had yesterday. :D

Me on Writers Who Aren't Published Yet

because i am one, like a lot of you.

sometimes i feel left out in the writing community because i'm not published yet. i'm working away on my laptop in an attempt to write something interesting and different and exciting that will one day find me an agent, an editor, a publisher, and readers.

i love writers/authors who talk about what it was like when they were writing their first book, or their second (or in the case of me, my fourth), because it makes them sound human. it's nice to know they were once me, all full of hopes and dreams and novel ideas they hope aren't complete garbage.

i really hope mine isn't complete garbage.

a couple years ago, when i was hoping it would be easy to be a writer after i finished university, i was listening to The Writing Show with Paula B (http://www.writingshow.com/index.html). i will admit, i didn't listen to all of the episodes, but i listened to the 'Getting Published' series of episodes that featured Paula talking to someone who was writing something they hoped would find them an agent and get them published, especially the ones with Mark Leslie (http://www.markleslie.blogspot.com).

he's Canadian and he was working on a werewolf novel: my attention was totally grabbed.

i loved the episodes with Mark because he was writing while dealing with a day job and a family and all the other ways that life can get in the way of writing a novel.

i want more of this. i want more people trying to make it as a writer talking about how they're trying to make it as a writer. i want more acknowledgment to people who aren't there yet but want to be so much. i want to see more blogs by book reviewers and how-to-write people about the not-there-yets, the people who are writers but not published authors.

i'm still a writer, i'll always be a writer, even if it never works out. i hope it does, i really think the novel i'm working on will be a good one, but i'm still working on it. i'm barely halfway through my first draft.

this is for all the aspiring writers, because you're out there, working hard every day, writing as much as you can in the little gaps of time you're given.

and because you're out there, i want your thoughts.

i want you to talk about what it's like as an aspiring writer, unsigned, unpublished, and not yet ready to throw your novel into the giant slush pile that's out there waiting.

you could do at your own blog, or comment here, or talk about it on Twitter. whatever you prefer.

it would be an interesting thing to do as a podcast. hmmm. *pulling on my thinking hat*

now, i'm going to go write as much as i can for the next hour. it's almost time for bed.

Me on What I'm Doing With My Life

so, it's all official and stuff. i'm now the proud owner of a Bachelor of Arts with a Major in English from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

is it wrong that i'm a bit panicky??

i feel kinda old, like i should have a totally solid life plan and stuff, but i don't. i barely have a job right now.

well, i kinda figured that i'd take the summer to think about what i wanted to do and look into some things, so i'm not totally worried at the moment. i guess in August i will be, but not now.

so, for the moment, i'm taking things one day at a time, trying to write every day (even if it sucks, because then i'm still writing something), and doing things around the house so it looks like i'm being productive.

and now, because i'm fun (i am, i promise :D), here is the latest info on my work in progress.

i'm still working on it, and i'm still enjoying it, which is good. you need to enjoy what you're writing. i keep thinking of bits to add, to takeaway, to edit and fiddle with, but i'm trying to move forward and write down what i want to fix so i can go back later and edit it.

the fact that i want to go back and edit it to make it better is a good sign. it means i'm taking it seriously, that whatever i write first isn't always the best. the hard part comes when i have to decide what needs fixing and what doesn't.

i thought up a good plot twist the other week, and i'll have to do some editing to work it in a bit more, but i think it'll be a good twist. i like it. it makes the whole book seem kind of MC in the dark and sneaky.

i do think i'll need beta readers, but not until i finish this first draft, and the second, and the third, and maybe a fourth, but i'm not sure. three drafts before beta readers/critiquers sounds okay to me.

i can only hope that by the time i query agents, they're still interested in werewolf MC struggling to figure out who she is coming of age YA novels with a romance subplot but it's not the main plot.

*crossing my fingers*

Me on Trying to Break the Writing Block

me: *looking over at Sam sitting next to me on my nest of blankets on the floor of my bedroom* dude.

Sam: *looking down at one hand while chewing on the fingernails of the other* what?

me: where've you been? it's been two weeks since i've written anything that wasn't a typo fix or a line added on to the previous scene that might make sense.

Sam: i'm not the one writing this, you know. you are. aren't you supposed to be able to get past these dry spells?

me: not if i don't know what's going on. did you ever have that talk with your mom?

Sam: *glares at me from her spot next to me, still chewing on her nails*

me: you ever think she would've been happier if when your dad died she died, too??

Sam: are you asking me if i think Mom's suicidal??

me: not really. like, if they'd died in the same accident.

Sam: *looking out the window* well, she wouldn't be in the giant depressing hole she's in now. i don't know. for all i know, i would've gone nuts without her after Dad died. you thinking of killing her off??

me: *glancing off into the opposite corner* it's crossed my mind.

Sam: you think it would make for a better story?? there are a lot of single parent family deals out there, like that Hush, Hush book. Nora's dad died, too.

me: yeah, but from what the summary of the next book says, there might've been a reason for that. i don't think someone wanted your dad killed. not even your grandparents.

Sam: *scoffs*

me: no, really. sure, they're manipulative jerks and need to get the sticks out of their butts, but he was still the prodigal son and everything.

Sam: and now i'm the prodigal granddaughter.

me: sorry about that.

Sam: *waves it off* so.

me: so. *giant pause while i try to find a better song to listen to* do you like the title i came up with??

Sam: yeah, even if you did steal it from that song.

me: it's not stealing if i say where i got it, like when i wrote all those papers and had to quote sources.

Sam: *fake snoring sound*

me: *giving her a dirty look* bitch.

Sam: damn right. *nibbles on her thumbnail* what're you going to do?

me: something. i need this scene, even if i haven't quite figured out your mother's state of mind and motivation and all that crap. and my butt's falling asleep.

Sam: sit on the bed.

me: *waving it off* nah. *sighing* why can't the first draft be perfect?? i've got craploads of edit ideas.

Sam: you're the writer, not me.

me: i hate you.

Sam: then why're you writing about me?

me: self-torture??

Sam: *chuckling* probably. *makes a face* i don't like this song.

me: *glancing over at her* it's not your song, is it?? so, deal with it. i could make you end up with Gabe.

Sam: *cringing* i'd have to scrape off the slime every morning.

me: yeah. sometimes i wish you liked him a little more, like you'd shoved him right into the friend zone instead of the don't like him zone. would've been interesting.

Sam: *drilling her finger into my shoulder* edits.

me: maybe. i don't like him, either. it's kinda hard to make you sort of like him.

Sam: make me?? *giving me a look*

me: you know what i mean. *looking at Sam out of the corner of my eye* you just want to pump me for info about Jack.

Sam: *turns her face away after i catch a glimpse of her blush* you're the one who's got him talking to me.

me: that's cause he wants to. why else do you think he asked about that project thing?

Sam: *shrugging* is his mom going to hate me?

me: hate you? no.

Sam: *glancing out from under her lashes to look at me* but?

me: but what? *rolling my eyes when i get what she's asking* oh, i don't know yet. look, dude, you're like if Romeo and Juliet had a kid. the purists from both sides see you as a smack in the face. not everyone's going to like you. besides, i thought you didn't care.

Sam: *making a growling noise* i don't. i just don't want the whispers to continue.

me: me, too.

Sam: it's not fair to Mom. maybe it would be better if they'd both died in some kind of accident.

me: then everything would get dumped on your shoulders, you know, and then i'd have to come up with some cousin or aunt or uncle, and i'd have to re-write a bunch of stuff before i could continue. i hate making big changes when it's still a work in progress.

Sam: i know, and you've written that intro chapter like, 4 times already.

me: i'm going to do it this way, and when it's done i'll see if i like it with your mom there. if i don't, then i'll change it.

Sam: *nodding while we both sit there as the song changes* is it still raining out there?

me: don't think so.

Sam: darn. i like the rain.

me: me too.

Sam: *reaches up to fiddle with the ring on her necklace* am i going to change soon?

me: soon. i have to write everything in order.

Sam: cause you're neurotic and anal-retentive that way??

me: pretty much. i know what i want to happen. i think i'm better off writing what i want to happen without caring about word count, even though it's hard not to care. then, when all the basic stuff is done, i can fill in the little gaps and do the edits i want to do.

Sam: is everyone going to be the same in the edits?

me: *sighing* i don't know. Evie's good at being normal. you need normal.

Sam: yeah. could you kill off Morgan?

me: no.

Sam: why not?

me: because if you want a sequel, Morgan probably should exist. i don't think she'll be around a lot, except for an argument or two, and then that big fight at the end.

Sam: *nodding* that'll be fun.

me: yup. *looks outside while both of us don't say anything for a minute or two* you think you're ready to talk to your mom now?

Sam: if you turn on the light and sit on the bed. and get rid of that song. it sucks.

me: *sighing* i'll get rid of the song, okay?

Sam: deal. should we do that spitting in the palm handshake thing?

me: no. eww.

Me on Self-Editing

or, why i'm feel nauseous when i have to edit something i wrote.

i don't really know what my deal is with editing. probably cause i've never really had to do any major editing on something. except for this past semester when i had a first draft due early March and had to edit it by mid-April.

for some reason, probably a bad one, i'm used to writing something once and not going back to check it or edit it.

i've also had little workshop critique experience, so i've never really had a lot of edit suggestions from other people.

the other day i finally realized that what i'm working on now will need lots of editing. i've written bits that, while i put them in there cause i thought they should be there, i know that they don't totally need to be there.

when i'm done this first draft/zero draft, i really want to print it out and write all over it with a pencil and a pen, marking it all up.

i'm still sort of afraid of doing it. i know what i want to put in it, but will it be what someone wants to read??

the best I can do it edit it to where i totally love it (and hopefully not take forever), then send it off to find an agent who totally loves it, too.

i can only hope i don't totally suck at self-editing.

Me on Writing and Motivation

it's been a while since i updated this thing. probably should, since it's the weekend and i'm not really doing anything.

i should be writing, working on my WIP, but i'm not. it's because i'm a slacker. sometimes i wonder if i've got the right work ethic to be a writer. i've barely got the right work ethic when it comes to cleaning up around the house.

i have to drill into my head that having the Word file open does not mean i'm writing. i can think about what i want to write next, what chapters and scenes will come after the one i'm currently working on, and i can write down outlines in little notebooks at 3 in the morning, but when i sit down to write my brain freezes and i start playing games instead (the current game is Virtual Villagers 4).

i don't recommend anyone writes where i currently write: in an armchair in front of the TV. my laptop's plugged into a nearby outlet, and so i sit in the chair and write. well, sometimes write. the past few days when i've tried to write something, i've barely averaged 1000 words.

what i need to do in order to write more each day and treat my WIP as something serious that I want to query to agents once it's written and edited and polished to the bast of my ability is to take my laptop back up to my room. TV is terrible when it sucks you away from writing.

i imagine that if i had an actual real serious deadline for my WIP i'd be writing a lot more, and i'd have a lot more than 15,000 words written.

i did that NaNoWriMo thing one year and hit the 50,000 word mark after 20 (or 25, i don't remember) days. of course, that was when i wasn't working and didn't have class that semester, but i still did it.

with me not having class right now and work not a whole lot except 1 or 2 afternoons a week, i should be able to write more than what i'm writing now.

i'm sick and tired of not writing when i should be. after dinner, i'm taking my laptop upstairs to write more than 1000 words tonight.

i need to write. i have this compulsion to write, but i also let things get in the way of me writing.

fail.

until dinner, i'm going to try writing, finish watching Dogma (so funny), and play some more Virtual Villagers.

and maybe babble some more on Twitter.

Me on Setting

Sometimes it’s hard for me to describe the setting of a scene when I write. I can see where the characters are in my head, and I can write what they’re thinking, saying, and doing, but describing their location is often an afterthought. I forget that not everyone can see all the little details I can see in my head.

In regards to my workshop assignment (my current WIP), I imagine not everyone saw the posters taped to the walls inside the school, the papers tacked to the cork board of the classroom, and the grey clouds, heavy with rain, hanging in the air outside the building.

Writing a descriptive paragraph, or paragraphs, isn’t hard, but I have issues in terms of selecting geographic locations as my setting. It’s difficult writing about a place I haven’t been to before, and so when I have to guess it feels awkward in my head. I tried setting a novel I wrote in 2006 in Dublin, Ireland, but I had to guess a lot in terms of building size and street layout because I hadn’t ever been there. I actually made it to Ireland in 2008, and it wasn’t at all what I expected. Of course, I probably should’ve looked online for pictures of the city, but at the time, that never crossed my mind.

At a writers’ conference last October, I overheard two women talking about one woman’s manuscript. She had set half the novel in the US and half in Thailand, but she’d never been to Thailand. When she pitched the manuscript to a literary agent the year before, the agent asked if she’d been to Thailand, and the woman said she was going in a few months. When she returned from the trip, she rewrote almost everything and set the entire novel in Thailand.

I think you have to have been where you set any piece of writing, whether it be an apartment, a house, a farm, or a different country. Unless you’ve seen the buildings and smelled the air of the location, you can’t describe it accurately enough when you establish setting.

happy Easter weekend. enjoy the chocolate.

Me on Titles and Title Block

so, i've been working on an idea i got for a YA urban fantasy/paranormal romance novel. something's been bugging me about it, and a few days ago i figured out why.

i don't have a title. not even a working title that i can chuck and replace later on.

it's been bothering me. usually i've got an inkling of a title when i'm working on something, or i make myself come up with a title before i start writing. not this time.

i've got title block.

i hate title block. it doesn't help that i also suck at titles. titles are the hardest part for me, and it's ruining the fun of writing this novel because i like the story and the characters.

the title has to be good. it has to suggest something, get your point across, but not give everything away. i'm going to look at some books i've read recently (or discovered recently) and tell you what i think of their titles.

Amber Kizer's Meridian: the name of Kizer's narrator/main character. an interesting choice, but it's not just her name. the MC is a meridian herself, which is a compelling idea. when i finished the book i thought it was very good, and the ending left it open for the possibility of a sequel.

Lili St. Crow's Strange Angels, Betrayal, and Jealousy: i have to admit, i was expecting something about angels in the first book. there were vampires and werewolves and zombies (i need to read more zombie books), and so i didn't quite think the title made sense. i still enjoyed the book, enough that i read it right after i finished it for the first time, and then i waited for the second one to come out. it wasn't until about 10:30 this morning that i wondered if the two guys the MC meets are her 'strange angels' in a metaphorical sense. if so, then you're a genius, Lili St. Crow. after reading the second book, the title made sense, and with the third coming out this summer, i can only imagine what it'll be about. i'm currently waiting not so patiently for it to come out.

Lauren Kate's Fallen: i think with the word 'fallen' there's a certain assumption that the book will have some kind of fall, perhaps even a fall from grace. the book has twists and turns, but i don't think i was disappointed. i don't remember the name of the next book, but i'll look it up.

Bree Despain's The Dark Divine: the title grabbed me once i read it. i purposely drove 25 minutes out of my way to get this book because only 1 bookstore in my general area had it, and i was able to snatch up the last copy they had. the title hints at something sinister and something amazing, because what is dark and divine at the same time. and Daniel being so hot didn't hurt, either. ;) (i also love the way there were little headings giving us the time of day and what day of the week; i have big issues with moving forward in time when i write, i feel like i have to write about what happens day after day)

Kiersten White's Paranormalcy: it sounds so funky and bizarre and mysterious. i was instantly hooked.

Judith Graves's Under My Skin: i'm not sure what to say. all i know is it sounds intriguing and suggestive. so many things can get under our skin, and i can only imagine what gets under the MC's skin. (i'm going to have to order this book soon)

so, there are more of my thoughts. i can be kind of rambly at times. i should get back to writing before i get distracted again.

So, let's try this again

i've blogged every so often for the past, i don't know, 4 or 5 years, but i could never do it on a regular basis. i'd do it for a little while, then i'd run out of interesting things to say and i'd stop doing it.

i figure that since i'll be graduating from university this summer (as far as i know), it'll be something to do to keep me from getting bored. i should be graduating. i've done all the required stuff.

so, i imagine an intro on my odd life would be helpful.

i'm Lindsay. i'm, currently, an English lit major in my last semester of getting my B.A. i sort of work, doing after-school tutoring with kids, but i'm tired of how what i'm required to do keeps evolving and plan on giving notice soon. i'd like to say that all of my spare time is spent on writing, but it isn't. some of my spare time is filled with writing. the rest is filled with either reading way too many books or watching far too much TV.

i don't have anything published yet, but i'm working on it. my current work in progress is a YA urban fantasy coming of age type novel. at the moment, my basic premise is that my main character has moved back (with her mother) to the town her parents grew up in two years after her father was killed in a car accident. the town is divided, with two werewolf packs fighting for dominance. because her parents were the town's Romeo and Juliet without all the death, my MC is caught in the middle with one side pressuring her to choose them while the other continually reinforces the fact that the choice is ultimately up to her.

i want it to be more of a focus on my MC and what she's going through instead of the two guys who want to date her, but i'm getting the feeling that it'll be a mixture of both.

i don't really want it to be a stand-alone, i like writing series, but at the moment i don't see how i would continue it, unless the next one involved cops and mysterious dead bodies and strange werewolf ritual bits.

promise you won't steal my idea, people who might one day read this.

i'm not really sure what this blog is going to turn into. maybe i'll just write about my views on writing and books and other stuff. i really don't think i'm all that interesting.

just a girl who wants to grow up to be a writer.