The work...and thoughts on the young adult market

A lot of people are wanting to write young adult. There are good reasons for this I suppose. There's a big push right now. I don't know if my story can be considered young adult, fantasy or strictly fiction? I have no idea. I just want to write a good story. My lead is a young teen age girl who has some serious problems. Not all of it is her fault, but a good part of it is not having a good role model to follow. I can in some ways relate to this character. It would be so easy for her to fall into the shadows and become something really evil, but right now she is fighting it tooth and nail. The adults in her life are frustrated and ready to give up. The problem is the adults are more self absorbed than she is, and I think this is very prevelent in our society today.

So many children are left to their own devices without an anchor.

I'm not saying it's all the parents fault, not at all. Because I believe you can keep throwing out a rope but if that individual doesn't grab it and hang on there's not a whole lot you can do. (And let me say that there are a lot of parents who do a fantastic job of raising their children)

Still, I have hope. I've gotten where I turn off the t.v. in my house. They all know it's coming. I cannot seem to stand the white noise anymore. I want to go outside, I want to walk and breathe and live. I don't think many children have that opportunity anymore.

When did it happen that recess got cut from thirty minutes to ten? Can you honestly expect a group of thirty 8 year old children to have a silent lunch (which is no talking and then only get 10 minutes to run out all of that energy?) during an eight hour day? That is just crazy. Tell me in what office that happens? Could you put a group of 30 adults in a room, give them work to do and expect them to behave? No. Because there are coffee breaks and smoke breaks and bathroom breaks and talk by the water cooler etc, etc, etc...So if we wouldn't do it to ourselves why impose these guidelines on our children? Most offices take an hour lunch. Our children get thirty. And that includes recess. Shameful is what I say.

Sorry going on a bit of a rant here.

But at anyrate...I'm working on this book and I've now got the beginning plotted. And I'm halfway through the middle. I know where I'm going and I know what my issues are and how I'm going to show it. Yeah me.

I'm going to start doing some sketching out of sections. I don't really want to wait until January to start writing. That is silly and I don't know why I'm trying to make myself fit into a certain mold. While it's true I needed to plot out the book, I really feel like I've done this. There are threads that need to be completed and wrapped up but I know where I'm going with it. I may even be done with the plot for this book by the end of next week. I'm working my little tushie off on this.

I'm going to be using these pages kind of like a online record of what I'm doing with this story. It will be fun to see how things progress.