Thursday YA Thoughts...Writing Ups and Downs

When will I be a published author? I don't know, guys. I don't know. And, today I feel like giving up on my dream. Sad, right? But, not to worry...this summer...this is the summer I'm going to finish a first draft of something and then I'm sending it out. The more I read YA and the more I read about published YA authors, the more I want it. Then again--the more impossible it seems.

I found this quote today:

“In essence, storytelling is the same,” said Almond, but added that when writing books for younger audiences—like his most recent, The Boy Who Climbed into the Moon (Candlewick, Apr.)—“I do think that it’s almost like stripping away some of the excesses of narrative. It feels a bit like writing poetry.”

Read the whole article HERE! A great article about culture, identity, and influence with insight from YA and children's authors.

Love it! I have decided most, if not all of my YA novels, will be novels in verse, such as Chasing Brooklyn by Lisa Schroeder and Burned by Ellen Hopkins. My writing style is poetic and any long pieces I have written for graduate school read almost like prose poetry.

Narrative, dialogue, detail...it is all excessive. Poetry is about the core, it's about the overall image, it's about the emotion, it's all about the raw.

Here is a snippet to a part of a future novel--this takes place a day after my main character is beat by her father

San Antonio, October 28

Next day pain on my
back is unbearable. Welts,
fuschia, blue, purple,
the color of wildflowers

between Robstown and San
Antonio, that city of river
heralding my brother’s name,
where I want to be.

The cold mud banks
on the shallow parts will
soothe the burn,

and I will
breathe the up-grown
roots along the concrete
edge

under restaurant
umbrellas--red, turquoise,
green--shooting therapeutic
roots through my flesh.

I will float on
my back with Mexican
violins at my ear
and my markings
now covered in water.

Hmmm...does this work for you? Do you want more? Watch out YA world...I'm just about out of my pity party.