Young at Heart

Okay, I'm not old. I just turned 31, which I consider to be just barely old enough to justify me acting like an adult. And young enough to still call my parents for advice about stuff. I'm married, though, so that ups the relative age a few years. Given how many nights I stay in reading instead of going out and partying my youth away, I'm probably even older than I thought.

Plus I just got my first real wrinkle.

Oh god. I'm ancient.

*chugs a bottle of wine*

Okay, I'm better now. Normally, I could care less about age. I mean, on the internet, no one knows how old you are, right? And that's all that matters. Besides, in my day job, being older is an advantage (for some reason people get uppity about being charged $225 an hour to talk to someone who's younger than your grandchildren... and I can't say that I blame them!).

But I'm working on a Young Adult novel these days. And my heroine is in high school.

I barely remember high school. My overwhelming impression of it is that I couldn't wait for it to be over. I even considered graduating a year early to escape to college. I didn't, but man, I wanted to.

So how am I supposed to write a book with believable high school characters when I can barely remember what high school was like?

If I were older and had kids of my own, I'd pester them until they told me. If I had cousins or nieces or nephews that were in high school, you can count I'd be harassing them for the hip new things. But I don't. So short of hanging around the local high school until I get arrested, what's a girl an old lady perfectly aged female individual to do?

I do have some leeway because this is scifi YA, so a couple hundred years in the future, who knows what kids those days will be saying/doing? But attitude will probably stay the same (unfortunately!)

So I've been watching a lot of teen movies. Yeah, sure, they feature 20-somethings trying to pretend like they're high schoolers, but they do a pretty good job of getting across the stereotypical teenage drama. Any suggestions for movies or TV I should check out?

Otherwise, I'm up a creek until my non-existent children are conceived, born, and grow up.

Although I did just get a monster zit, so maybe I'm regressing. In no time, I'll remember what life in the super cool crowd in high school was like (Yeah, right. I was a nerdy loser back then. And now.)

Like, totes later, dudes!

Full of it

I'm not so much Sarah as I am Snuffleupagus. My dad visited and left me a loverly head cold as a parting gift. I have done nothing this week but curl up on the couch and watch Dexter on Netflix. (Cool show, btw)

So because my head is fuzzed out, I offer you this video instead. Listen, learn, live.

When are you, you?

My husband is gone for a week on a work trip, so obviously I'm in my pajamas, eating crappy food, and (as soon as I'm done here), catching up on crappy TV. Not that I don't do any or all of those things when he's around, but I put out a lot less effort at being a normal human being than I do when I'm alone.  Which made me think... which me is really me?

I'm an introvert. A introvert who is outgoing. No, it's not a contradiction. I'll talk to lots of people, but all the while I'll be wishing I was alone with a book. So I'm an entirely different person at a party than I am at home alone with my husband (with him I can just be myself). And I'm yet another person all together when I'm entirely alone.

We have so many facets to our personalities. At least, I hope we all do. Otherwise I probably need to see a shrink.

But the point here is don't forget about that when creating characters. Don't just make them one thing or another. They can't just be the cheerleader or the nerd or the knight in shining armor. Give them depth. Think about what it is they do in public that they would never do in private, or vice versa. Are they like me? Talkative at a party, but later complaining about how my jaw hurts because I've talked too much? Or are they the wallflower that desperately wishes she could chat with someone, but who sings heavy metal karaoke in anonymous bars?

Give your characters quirks. Even if they aren't things the reader can relate to, the fact that they actually have quirks will make them instantly more relatable.

Now that I've imparted these words of wisdom, I need to go eat some more cheese and turn on some 80s movie. It's research. For my nanowrimo novel. No, really.

-Skye (who really does miss her husband!)