Why the best narrators are sixteen

Why do you write? How do you get the ideas for your book? How much do you consider your audience? These are the questions we ask of writers, the truths we want writers to answer. And so I cannot help thinking about these truths. And refining the answers.

For a long time I thought I knew what kind of writer I was—or wanted to be. But to this day I can’t tell you who that was. I know I wrote stories that were always, inevitably, about sadness or solitude and the strength of a flawed yet perfect friendship and there were always self-consciously naked bodies and self-consciously whispered confessions and everything, I mean everything, had impossible endings.

When I started to write the story that grew into THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU it was a story about a single mother who had five year old twins and a newborn and a long-ago love affair she couldn’t let go and a fear of losing herself in her children. I couldn’t put myself inside her, though, not in the places I wanted to, I was lost in the story of her adolescent love affair. And suddenly, almost without my knowing, the twins grew up and the story became theirs. And I realized that, all this time, what I have wanted to write about is the beginning of things. In high school we are beginning to understand the world we live in in a brand new way, yet often being told we are not ready for it yet. The emotions and interactions we experience, however, can be intensely real and mature and so often teenagers handle all of this with a grace and an honesty we don’t give them credit for. I wanted to write about this.

The good news is, it seems to be the right time for this kind of storytelling. Recently Newsweek did a story on young adult readers, their literary interests and attitudes toward content. I think, in a way, teen readers—still at a place where they can read what inspires them and what strikes them—are speaking for another generation of writers, who are maybe too busy or too critical to let books do what they once did. One thirteen year old reader, in the Newsweek article, has it right on in my mind. “The great thing about literature is that it promotes the expansion of thought and the opening of minds."

Right?

Speaking of exercise and amazing people

Three things.

1. I started a new writing tradition on Thursday and it changed my life. I met DM in my old writing class-- and not only is she a design genius, she is crafting the most beautiful, magical, funny and captivating triology I can imagine. She is a stellar writer and a dream reader. We decided to be partners. We're going to meet every Thursday at an undisclosed location to go over each others pages. This Thursday was the first of said meetings. And seriously, it made everything snap into place. We talked about final revisions on PERMANENT INK and the opening pages of TINE and suddenly, thanks to the brilliant DM, I am on a roll... she called out the smallest details and helped me re-form them in exactly the right ways. I love Thursdays. You are going to be hearing a lot more about Thursdays.

2. I am trying to stop coffee. Ok, not STOP. But drastically cut back. One small cup in the morning and that's it. And it means I have pounding, drilling headaches. And the sight of this is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.



And the sight of this is the most boring thing I've ever seen.



But seriously, I feel better. Or. Um. I will soon.

3. Since I started revisions for PERMANENT INK (which was about, oh, three months ago to be perfectly honest) I have completely given up all physical activity. Seriously. Yoga. The gym. You name it. And this week I realised I am all heavy, slow, mush. I must reclaim the exercise. So from now on this is back in my life.



And so is this.



And then there is no way I WON'T be more productive and, well, creatively driven. Right?

Something to Think About

“We come back to the same people to learn something about how we have changed. We want to be assured that we have changed—that we are different and better and older and thinner and wiser and cooler. We want the maps of ourselves to paint different.”

This is something I wrote almost exactly two years ago. It began as something very true, and then it became a scene in my novel. Which then became something quite different.

Recently some YA writers have been posting first lines. The first line of the first draft of a novel and then, the final first line. This had me thinking about the places where stories begin. For me PERMANENT INK started as another story altogether. And then one day I was thinking too much. And I wrote the lines at the top of this entry. And a new character came to life. And he belonged in this old story. And suddenly, then, it had this brand new breath and fury. The first line for me is sometimes at the end or in the stomach of the story. It’s never the actual first line. It’s the line I write that makes me go, oh, that’s it. I’ve got it. And then I can’t stop writing.