Since finishing the first draft of JUMP, I've kept quiet about what I've been working on since, except for briefly mentioning that I had started a new novel.
There's a couple reasons for this, but the biggest reason is because it's a little different from my previous novels—in the fact that it's my first young adult novel.
Since I started writing seriously, I've shied away from YA even though I read YA extensively—I probably read more YA than I do anything else. I've thought about it for a while, but I still wasn't sure if I wanted to dive into those waters. I was wary of them. I stuck my big toe in one time. You might remember it, you might not. Probably not, because it only lasted a few days. A FEW DAYS was all I could take before I yanked that big toe out of the water. Writing YA terrified me. Because, to write YA the way I want to would require me to face experiences and emotions from my own teen years that I just wasn't ready to face.
Then something happened. Over the summer, there was a minor explosion on the interwebs about YA and whether it was "too dark." You might remember it. Guys. I said zilch about it online. But I was fired up.And I began to realize that YA is where a huge part of my passion lies. I care about YA literature and about the teens who read it. About the difference it can make for those teens. And you know why? Because of those experiences and emotions from my own teen years. The very reasons I shied away from YA turned into the reasons I decided to write a YA novel.
So I thought, screw just dipping in the big toe.
And I dived in. It was terrifying. It's still terrifying.
But I feel good about this novel in a way I haven't experienced before.
Am I saying I'll never write another adult book? Absolutely not. I have a lot of passion there, too. And I have several other ideas for adult novels that I care about too much to abandon forever. But I figure: I read both, I love both, so why the heck can't I write both? Especially now. Hopefully someday I'll have an agent and an editor and a publisher to worry about, but why not explore this now while I have to freedom of being able to write anything I want, without having to worry about anyone other than myself?
What are you working on?
There's a couple reasons for this, but the biggest reason is because it's a little different from my previous novels—in the fact that it's my first young adult novel.
Since I started writing seriously, I've shied away from YA even though I read YA extensively—I probably read more YA than I do anything else. I've thought about it for a while, but I still wasn't sure if I wanted to dive into those waters. I was wary of them. I stuck my big toe in one time. You might remember it, you might not. Probably not, because it only lasted a few days. A FEW DAYS was all I could take before I yanked that big toe out of the water. Writing YA terrified me. Because, to write YA the way I want to would require me to face experiences and emotions from my own teen years that I just wasn't ready to face.
Then something happened. Over the summer, there was a minor explosion on the interwebs about YA and whether it was "too dark." You might remember it. Guys. I said zilch about it online. But I was fired up.And I began to realize that YA is where a huge part of my passion lies. I care about YA literature and about the teens who read it. About the difference it can make for those teens. And you know why? Because of those experiences and emotions from my own teen years. The very reasons I shied away from YA turned into the reasons I decided to write a YA novel.
So I thought, screw just dipping in the big toe.
And I dived in. It was terrifying. It's still terrifying.
But I feel good about this novel in a way I haven't experienced before.
Am I saying I'll never write another adult book? Absolutely not. I have a lot of passion there, too. And I have several other ideas for adult novels that I care about too much to abandon forever. But I figure: I read both, I love both, so why the heck can't I write both? Especially now. Hopefully someday I'll have an agent and an editor and a publisher to worry about, but why not explore this now while I have to freedom of being able to write anything I want, without having to worry about anyone other than myself?
What are you working on?