We love YA

Okay, I feel like a bit of an imposter as a blogger on a site surrounded by these wonderful Young Adult Writers.

Out of my seven manuscripts in various stages of development (and/or decay), only one of  them is a YA story.

Some of my other stories have youngish heroines (18 and 19 year olds, or early to mid twenties) but they are not aimed at a YA audience.

But I do intend to write more YA, right after I polish some of my other manuscripts.

My only YA to date is a story called Diary of the Future:

16 year-old Nicky Symons is disconcerted when a conversation with her crush Zach is repeated word for word for the second time in a week. But that evening as she re-reads her diary, she realizes that the journal she has found in her mother’s second hand bookshop gives her the power to write her future. She thinks she’s discovered the key to happiness and starts pre-writing her own and her best friend Mel’s destiny. First she ensures that she hooks up with Zach, the cutest guy at school. Then she arranges for Mel’s holiday fling, Tony, to move to town. But when her arch enemy Sonya ends up in hospital, and she discovers that Tony has left behind a pregnant wife, Nicky decides the diary’s power must be buried. But Mel has other ideas. What happens when Mel digs up the diary and starts using its power?

The story is not yet published, though it does exist in a limited edition of one – an edit copy. Part of my creative visualisation process to see the book in actual print one day.

While I’m no longer a ‘young’ adult, I still think of myself as a girl, rather than a ‘woman’ or (horror!) a lady.  I still think young, watch young, though my taste in music is starting to betray my age.

So here are some of my teen faves:

Books

The Twilight series (I’m Team Edward all the way)

Feed (M T Andersen)

Before I Die (Jenny Downham)

Movies

Pump Up the Volume

Heathers

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (yes the movie, before the series)

TV Shows

Beverly Hills 90210 (the original)

Melrose Place

Twin Peaks

Absolutely Fabulous

Dead Like Me

and here I thought I was going to end up with an extensive list for you, but as its past midnight, and I’ve spent the last ten hours watching the Sound Relief concert (and some of those bands took me back to my teen years), I can’t think anymore. Guess I’ll be coming back her for edits as my brain defrags.

I also have my own blog Write on Track. Come and say hello.

I also do collage poetry – so I cut up magazines and arrange the words on a page until I create a poem, like this:

More of these on my Chickollage blog

and sometimes I even put them on products and sell them at my Chickollage shop at Cafepress.