Why I write YA

I have a couple of big-ish blog posts in the works (a new sock-knocker and the interview with Nova Ren Suma), but I was a little stuck on what to talk about in the meantime. So I begged on Twitter, and Courtney Summers told me what to do.

Guys, if Courtney Summers tells you what to do, DO IT.*

*unless it involves Lady Gaga or Twilight or horror movies I couldn't watch from another room. But otherwise, listen!

Anyway, I am ruining my Serious Post.^TM Courtney said, "tell 'em why you write YA." And I thought, hmmm. Why DO I write YA?

Part of it is as simple as "that's what comes out". There was no initial greater YA plan. My first book, The Murderess's Tale, was meant to be straight-up historical fiction. It didn't hit me until long afterwards that the heroine was 16 and it really was a coming-of-age book that just happened to be set in England of 1387. I'd been writing historical YA without even realizing it.

But then I decided I didn't want to write historicals for the rest of my life. I wanted to write a book that *I* would read, that had everything I loved poured into it and shaken up. When I sat down and started brainstorming that book, I listed out all the characteristics of books I loved. And I wrote this paragraph in my writing journal:

So all together, if we have all this stuff, this is some sort of YA. A funny YA, with some sort of fantasy/alternative world element to it, but without the predictable portal crap. A powerful, real voice. A girl who faces things as they are and deals with them—who is having a tough time, and then it gets way tougher and she has to figure it out.

And what came out of that was The Weirdest Thing about Jenna, which got me my most fabulous agent and is out under submission now.  And that was it...bing! I'd found my most natural voice.

But the other side of that question is what do I like about YA, about reading and writing it. I certainly take my fair share of guff from other grown-ups about my reading choices ("Why can't you read books for adults?"), so there's got to be a reason I head for the back corner of the bookstore every time.

YA books--well, the best ones--resonate with the inner me (who is apparently 15). They have an immediacy and a lack of pretense. Sometimes I think kids are the most honest, and as we conform and take places in society we learn to adopt masks for different situations, to pretend, to do the socially correct thing. Teenagers are very aware of the masks, which is perhaps the source of some of the scorn for grown-ups you see popping up at that age. They realize they're probably going to have to use them too, and they try a few on. But they're still figuring out who they are.

There's more drama, but there's also more possibility. And far more honesty, both good and bad.

So the reason really is as simple as that, I guess. I write what I love, and I love YA books.

It doesn't hurt that I think the community of YA writers is the best and most supportive (and funniest!) group of people I've ever come across. I keep finding other writers who feel like soulmates, who are Just Like Me.

I sure didn't find that in high school.