Writing for Teens

I gave a workshop on writing for teens this week. I still argue that you can break the stage beyond fluent readers into two parts:
Teens
Young Adult
Teens are still struggling with puberty, they are leaving childhood behind and they still retain an idealised view of adulthood. They like to see children having the power of adults. They will often read up about people a couple of years older than them.
Young Adults are post-puberty but still struggling with hormones. They are sexually enabled but may or may not be sexually active. They still have problems because their brain is still growing. They can suffer mood-swings, and tend to judge with their emotions. They often lack sleep. They are risk takers, because of the excess dopamine in their brain.
In their reading they seek books where the protagonists and other significant characters look like them. They need fast pace and emotional closeness, and this often leaves the writer at odds; these require two different writing styles. Often the author can combine both by making the stakes extremely high.
It is often difficult to place a YA novel in a genre; it is frequently multi-genre and multi-themed. The unifying factor is that it is a Biludungsroman, usually taking one adolescent theme and more often than not it is identity.
Also, this reader likes to have a substantial amount of control over the text.
The group on Saturday did get quite deep into this. It was most interesting.

Trouble Shooting

A lot of writing is about trouble-shooting.
Your characters won’t behave, so you pin them down or listen to them and pin yourself down.
You don’t like your work when you reread it x weeks on, so you change it to please the writer that you have now become.
You become published and that means dealing with an editor and a copy-editor. They are there to make the work as good as it can be. But they can also make you feel totally inadequate. You have to hang on to the fact that they basically like your work. Very much in fact in these days of cut backs, which make it even harder to get published. Copy editors can be infuriating. But they are often right and when they’re wrong you might find you are as well and you have to find a third way. The third way, incidentally can be far better than either the first or the second. We’re not talking compromise. We’re talking about something far bigger.
The book is out there. What will the reviewers and the critics think? What will your personal friends think? They say they enjoyed listening to you read at the book launch. A week later they don’t even remember going to your book launch. Were they just being polite?
You agree, actually. That book that has just come out was finished probably at least a year ago.
You aim is just to write perfectly. Every time you miss that particular mark you have to trouble shoot. In the end, writing is mainly rewriting.

Submitting to an Agent

I’ve done that today for the first time in ages. I’ve lost a publisher recently. So we go back to that. I actually feel cool enough to submit to one agent at a time and not worry. Just get on with the writing in the meantime.
It took a long time to get the submission ready. First of all I had to have a good look at their web site and see what they were really after. Then I had to write the query letter and the synopsis just the way they seemed to be asking for it. Of course, though, what took the longest was reediting the text. Spooked was completed a year ago. I’ve moved on since then. I can’t leave it alone. Does this mean that the first thirty pages are going to be absolutely polished and the rest, should it ever be accepted, be out of kilter? Maybe every time I get a rejection, I’d better rewrite the whole lot, then. Plenty of work, then.
Sadly, I’ve noticed on my travels that some agents are not accepting unsolicited submissions. Does this mean that you have to get agents’ agents?
All a little worrying.

New Semester

They say that everywhere student numbers are up. It is to do with the recession, the credit crunch, call it what you may. Young people are putting off the evil day by going into Higher Education. Yesterday we met with our MA students. We could hardly fit in the room. This time last year we all managed to fit around a table.
As we move about the campus at the moment – well we can’t actually move – there are queues everywhere. It is really the busiest time of the year. But I don’t remember it being quite this hectic last year. I presume it will die down a little. However, next week we get our other students back.
Another couple of signs:
- I had to arrive late on Monday and although we only have one year group in, the car park was full.
- The mail room, usually full of boxes of reams of paper is down to two boxes.
We have 69 students enrolled for English and Creative Writing. The numbers are still swelling. Good recruitment, but what will happen when it comes to retention?

Our Chocolate Workshp

I have to admit to this being absolutely fabulous. I think we gave out good information. Certainly, the delegates furiously wrote down notes. I hope there was the right balance of instructions / discussion / hands on having a go at writing.
I covered:
The Bridge House style
Voice
Structure
Character
Openings
Editing
Our marketing officer talked about some marketing ploys.
The venue was good, with the only slight disadvantage that we had to eat in the same room as we had our sessions. We suffered from Rainy City weather and all we could really do to stretch our legs at lunch time was wander around the chocolate shop. That was a feast for our eyes and noses, and certainly got the taste buds tingling.
But goodness, Slattery’s did us proud. We had excellent tea and coffee with lovely biscuits- mainly chocolate though not all of them. Then the lunch was brilliant - scrumptious sandwiches and delicious pies and pasties. Lovely salads including the most gorgeous tomato one. Cakes. They seem to have calculated two per person. Of course we couldn’t manage all of them, event though we carried on eating them with our afternoon tea. They did give us boxes so that we could take some home.
Could chocolate be a muse factor for the short story writer?

Multi-tasking Authors

Approaching Alzheimer’s? Senior moments? And the rest?
Or is it just the sheer number of different things a writer has to do?
Yesterday, I forgot to take my two memory sticks to work with me. When I came home from work, I forgot to bring my manuscript that I’m editing with me.
Well, I am the wrong side of fifty.
But I think it’s something else. Currently, I have these particular balls in the air:
- Arranging my book launch – this evening. Definitely related to my writing.
- Arranging my workshop tomorrow. Definitely related to my writing and publishing activities.
- Arranging a family party to celebrate the life of my late father who died on 14th August this year. Not writing related, but so similar to those things I do in relation to my writing that I can hardly distinguish it.
-Arranging a workshop next weekend.
-Completing a bigger project to do with my father’s art work. Not writing related but involving applying for an Arts Council grant – something that’s part of my day job.
-Juggling timetables at the university. I’m employed by the university because I am a writer and I have a Ph D in Creative Writing.
Not to mention the actual writing.

A New University Year Apporaches

It’s that time of year again. We have Induction Week next week. All the new students come along. We have all sorts of different contexts in which we meet – once over bacon butties and once more formally. And in preparation for that we have all sorts of meetings and panics before that happens. We’ve been in meetings from 10.00 until 2.00 today, though admittedly the last hour was informal and over lunch.
We have a new GTA this year. She is doing a Ph D and will be teaching on a couple of modules I’m convening this year. It’s so good to have fresh blood. One of my meetings was with her, so quite pleasurable.
In many ways, though, it will be a relief to teach. While you’re teaching, you can’t be doing anything else.
And with my new module, Introduction to Children’s Literature, there is something to look forward to.