Monday, January 17, 2011

Throwing Away Love Letters and Looking for Jordan Catalano

Do you know that my YA betas tell me that they don't read blogs? They aren't against blogs, per se, they just don't read them. Huh.

So who is reading them? The blogger dashboard has this little button at the top that says "Monetize" which gives you stats on how many people have read your blog. Cool, huh? And it appears that my blog has been monetized (or whatever) by more than just family members. But what really makes a blog worth reading?

I write my blog to practice writing and to talk about this crazy journey of writing a book that I am on. I used to write in a journal when I was younger. You know, all the typical emo stuff that teenagers go through (because really, you aren't sitting down to write in your journal when you are in a great mood). Then, one day, it occurred to me that I would be aghast if anyone ever found my journal. I mean, what if I were killed or in a car accident or something and my parents found this journal and read it and then thought, "Holy Crap! Our kid was really depressed"? Yes, I was depressed in high school (it was HS, who wasn't?) but if my journal was any indicator, I was practically the next Sylvia Plath. So I threw the journal away and now I totally regret it because that would have been such good fodder for YA books.

I also threw away the teenage boy love letters that I received. I kept them for a really long time and finally, after I met Julio, I threw them away because what was I doing with these other guys' letters? And as smitten as I still am with Julio, I totally wish that I had kept them. Because RADIO STATIONS ARE FOR LOSERS is partially a love story and I am struggling to get the voice of my boy. Teenage boy voices are hard to get. First, it is difficult to capture the incessant mumbling thing, and second, it is even more difficult (for me, at least) to be able to portray the humor and self-deprecation of boys. (How in the world did "My So-Called Life" pull off Jordan Catalano so beautifully?)

And as much as I have kept Julio's cards and notes, they just aren't the same as a teenage boys. Which means that I will need to find some boy betas and do the big ASK to see if they will let me interview them (which is going to be awkward to say the least but what are you gonna do?).


This should be interesting...

3 comments:

Marie Rearden said...

Jordan Catalano. He was so perfect...

I had the journal. I kept the letters. Like you, I threw them all away, but now's the fun part. You get to recreate them with all their misspellings and fumblings. High school was the pits, but not when you had a letter from a 'that' boy in your locker, or better yet, when it was discreetly (YEAH RIGHT!) passed to you in the crowded hall.

Ahhh, childhood. :)

Lisa Galek said...

Teenage boys. Good luck. Maybe you could just have him mumble so much that you don't catch any of his dialogue?

I hear you on journals. All mine are gone, but I would love to look back through them and see what earth-shattering problems I had (who to sit next to on the bus? The trauma!). There'd be a lot of great stuff in there...

PS - You should allow people to see your email on your blog (that way when you leave comments, people can email you back!)

Paige said...

I have some teenage boys that are friends of mine on FB - you can stalk them like I stalked Eleni and Franz - before they hooked up and I knew they were totally going to hook up. Let me know - you can log on to my FB account and check them out :-) At least it's something in the meantime until you get that boy to talk to you!