Well Happy Wednesday Yall & welcome to day 5!
Please help me welcome Young Adult author Emi Gayle to the blog today :)
She's got a great guest post today about writing for teens when you aren't so much a teen anymore plus there's an excellent giveaway for yall down at the bottom.
Emi will be back as her alter ego Aimee Laine (who I adore!) later on this month so be sure to keep a look out for her!
Writing for teens ... how when I'm not a teen?
Life that’s really full of simplicity when you think about it. No, not when you think as a teenager, but as an adult. Life was ... simpler. But it wasn’t. Not to the teenage me. Life was tough.
As a YA author, I have to try and remember what life was like—get into the heads of people who don’t really know everything yet—and create characters that are relatable.
To do that, I have to be a part of their moment, in with their issues. I have to return to the me that was 15, 16 and 17, who wanted everything in life and didn’t fully grasp that I had to work to get it. That my parents wouldn’t always pay for stuff. That my best friend had feelings and stealing her boyfriend was not an option. That cheating really will get you kicked out of the National Honor Society. That none of that matters in the long run ... but what does matter is how we treat people and how we want them to treat us.
Is any of that clear as a teenager? Some of it, surely. Teens today are far more advanced (mature - not so sure, but mentally advanced) than those of 20 years ago.
But I have to remember. I have to dig deep into the soul of the younger me, and remember what I did know vs. what I thought I knew vs. what I never in a million years would have been able to know.
That is what let’s me write YA novels. That’s what lets me connect with a younger generation even though I’m at least 18 years older than them.
Luckily for me, I have a teenage son who reminds me every day just how awesome life was in the teen years ... and just how hard. That is where I start when writing for the young adult audience. Right there. In the mind of an actual teenager and infusing my own experiences, wishes, wants and needs overtop of that.
~Emi Gayle
In exactly eight months, five days, three hours and thirteen minutes, Mac has to choose what she’ll be for the rest of her life.
She has no choice but to pick. As a Changeling, it’s her birthright. To Mac, it’s a birthchore. Like going to school with humans, interacting with humans, and pretending to be human during the pesky daylight hours.
Once darkness descends, Mac can change into any supernatural form that exists—which makes her as happy as she can be. That is, until Winn Thomas, the biggest geek in her senior class figures out there’s more to what hides in the dark than most are willing to acknowledge.
In this first of the 19th Year Trilogy, Winn might know more about Mac than even she does, and that knowledge could end their lives, unless Mac ensures the powers-that-be have no choice but to keep him around.
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Emi Gayle just wants to be young again. She lives vicariously through her youthful characters, while simultaneously acting as chief-Mom to her teenaged son and searching for a way to keep her two daughters from ever reaching the dreaded teen years. Ironically, those years were some of Emi's favorite times. She met the man of her dreams at 14, was engaged to him at 19, married him at 20 and she's still in love with him to this day. She'll never forget what it was like to fall in love at such a young age — emotions she wants everyone to feel.
Ahhh awesomeness!
Emi is giving one lucky follower an ecopy of her book After Dark & a SIGNED bookmark! Score!
Just fill out that Rafflecopter!
She may even stop by so leave her some nice comments & questions :)
She may even stop by so leave her some nice comments & questions :)
How do you keep your inner kid alive and well?
