How Do I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?

On this fine Christmas Eve, I thought I would keep things in the holiday spirit and talk about something totally relevant to the season--swearing.* Over on Mysterious Matters, Mysterious has a post about sex and swearing in the manuscripts he's been seeing. As I mentioned before , sex and swearing are hot button issues in YA because the readers of YA are under the supervision (at least theoretically) of adults. Some of those adults are strict, and some of them are my mother, and some of them are fine in theory with books that have a little bit of swearing in them, but get freaked out when the characters engage in sexual activities that are (statistically) typical for people the same age as the characters in question. Here's the problem: I was (am! totally am) a young adult. I have spent time with young adults. And many of the people I know are teachers of high school and junior high students. And in all those cases, the anecdotal evidence suggests that young adult are qui...

1. I got the first season of Everwood on DVD a little while ago and, man, I love that show. I know it was (supposedly) family friendly, or whatever, but it's another fine example of teenage characters done right--sarcastic, self-involved, dramatic, but totally relatable at the same time. (CALL ME EPHRAM!) And I cry at least every third episode.* 2. Dear Winter, if you could pick either rain or snow, I would really appreciate it. Thanks! 3. I have heard the hype about Harry & David pears before, and I always thought "jeez, how good could it be? It's a pear ." Yes, it's a pear and I'm an idiot, because Harry & David pears are The Best Pears I Have Ever Tasted In My Life. If you have the opportunity, try one, but make sure it's ripe.** I ate one before it was ripe, and it was just another pear. But a ripe Harry & David pear? Worth the wait. 4. We had the annual potluck at work last week, and I have to say that the people in my divi...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all chicks love Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and that is because P&P is a f***ing awesome book. Many people dismiss P&P as a "romance" novel, which it is, insofar as there is a romance in it, or a comedy, which it is insofar as there are some funny parts, but I prefer to think of it as just a Really Good Book, one that you can read over and over again, because the characters feel very real and relatable, which is not, I should point out, the same thing as "likeable" because, as you know, I do not believe in "likable" as an asset. Wow. That is a very long sentence. Anyway, even though none of my seven intrepid blog readers don't know the plot of P&P, it's basically this: -girl meets boy -girl thinks boy is a snob (which he is ) -boy thinks girl is beneath him socially (which she is ) and also may be a bit of a money grubber (which she is not --that's just her mother) -boy starts t...

Writer Jeff Abbott raises some good points here about making time to write. Apparently, he wrote the first novel he got published between the hours of four and seven in the morning, which makes even this early bird cringe. There's "early bird" and then there's "the sun won't be up for three hours," you know? But the point is not lost--if you want to be a published writer, you will find time to write. Hell, you will make time to write. Einstein doesn't have anything on the aspiring novelist as far as the space-time continuum goes. I am a practicing attorney, for a company that makes products you have totally bought, even if you haven't heard of us (but you've probably heard of us). Currently I bill between 200 and 250 hours a month at that job. I also teach LSAT prep 2 or 3 nights a week for The Princeton Review. And I have friends. And I date. And I walk my dog. And I go to the gym three times a week (or I try to). And I make tim...

1. Although I'm not a fan of winter, I am a fan of the holiday season. It seems that people really are nicer during this time of the year,* and Christmas lights are pretty. But the television really sucks. Seriously, it's like every channel turns into the Hallmark Channel or Lifetime Movies, showing movies where lonely (but beautiful and talented and sexy) women get hooked up with random (but hunky and smart and secretly rich) men by Santa. I like the cartoons and other holiday specials, though. 2. I like Noah Wyle a great deal, but even I couldn't suffer through The Librarian films on TNT. Is there anything as bad as a bad fantasy/adventure film? 3. One of my favorite things about the end of the year is all the top 10/top 100/best of lists that come out this time of the year. For example, Vh1 Classic has this show on right now called "One Hit Wonders" in which each show has a theme, like One Hit Wonders: British, or One Hit Wonders: Dance. The host is...

Girl by Blake Nelson is the book that taught me timelessness. That sounds strange, considering that it was published in 1994 and is actually pretty rooted in the emergence of the grunge culture, but it's true. I look at some books today, full of pop culture references and technology, and I think "this book is going to be out of date in 6 months." But Girl talks endlessly about bands and popularity, only it does so only through fictional references. So we understand what kinds of music Andrea listens to and what kind of person she is, but we don't think "oh God , she's into Nirvana? That's so 1994." And that's why Girl fourteen years old and is almost as fresh and perfect today as it was the first day it came out. I don't remember how I heard about Girl --for some reason I have an impression that I read about it in a women's magazine like Cosmopolitan or Sassy or Jane . Although I didn't really read those women's magazines....

This will be a short one: Agent Diana Fox has a message for all writers out there who think "oh, agents don't even read anymore! They don't even recognize a famous piece of literature * when someone changes the name! I bet I could just pretend she requested something from me and she would believe me!" Fox's message is simple: you're wrong . ~~~ *As Guardian writer Jean Edelstein points out , sometimes agents do recognize that someone is trying to pass off famous work to see if it will get published. But they just don't care.