Just finished a fun and very authentic romance in which half the ‘cast’ is comprised of working class Hispanic teens. And yet, in my research, I discovered that the author is Jewish (as am I) and middle aged (as I wish I still were). She also lives somewhere near where I grew up (seriously upper middle class). In fairness, I note that she is from a Sephardic Jewish family, which means somewhere in her distant past somebody lived in Spain, but I doubt they have a relationship unless she owns a Ouija board. So how, you might ask*, did she do such a good job? Well, as one of the six people who actually read acknowledgments** I also noted that she talked to a lot of actual teens Why didn’t I think of that?

*or you might not, and who could blame you?

** Excluding people who actually were acknowledged

YA characters tend to have first names like Paisley, Questen, Cashew, Danforth, Gabardine, Garter, Calamine, Rockwell, and other monikers that have never, ever made the top 50 list. Who are these people, and what is wrong with their parents?

I realize it’s been a while since I used the phrase “As the late great (fill in the blank with name of departed important person) once said to me” for some time. I think it is because most of the great people who ever said something to me worth quoting are still around. Which is good.

Another observation after having read approximately 12,000 YA books; Romances tend to be between the very poor and the very wealthy, unless they are between the normal and the paranormal. Sometimes they are between the upper middle class and the obscenely wealthy. Not a whole lot of them between two middle class kids.*

*Not that I’ve written one of those.

3/4 of the way through another prep-schoolcentric novel. It’s not a creepy school. It’s just set in a creepy neighborhood. And it’s a mystery, with a paranormal twist, and I figured out the ending at around page 75, so I won’t be reading the last 1/4. To be fair, the writing is good, and I figured out the ending to Presumed Innocent in the first chapter. So you might really enjoy this novel, if I told you the title, which I’m not going to.

The bad news is the weather is horrible pretty much everywhere except Florida. The good news (for me anyway) is that you don’t want to leave your house and you have PLENTY OF TIME to read the three works I’ve started posting on Wattpad.

The Girl Who Saw Invisible Stars  PG YA modern fantasy

http://www.wattpad.com/story/33790532

Daniel’s Secrets I’d say YA ‘Coming of Age’ PG-15 if there were such a thing A little sex, but nothing vulgar or too explicit

http://www.wattpad.com/story/34189375

Past Perfect YA modern fantasy with, as they say ‘Mature Content, most of it funny

http://www.wattpad.com/story/34194250  for some reason this won’t come up as a link. Copy and paste. Totally worth it (no snarky comments, or I will be sad)

Although nobody has been clamoring for it, I thought it was time to talk about theatre again. Also I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say about my writing, except I’m still doing it. Tonight we’ll be performing a very special Purim show at a very nice synagogue in Potomac, MD. For those of you who have never been to a Purim service, it involves noisemakers, costumes and small children running around the room screaming, kind of a G-rated Mardi Gras, minus floats and beads.We plan to have a very good time and be extremely clever, though we’re not sure anyone will notice.

I’ve totally rewritten my YA modern fantasy, The Girl Who Saw Invisible Stars, because I’m a much better writer now.* It is vampire and werewolf-free and doesn’t take place in a creepy prep school. Completely PG, no sex or graphic violence.** http://www.wattpad.com/story/33790532

*No snide comments, or at least say them behind my back.

**Then why bother reading it? Because you are a 12-15 year-old girl, you know one, or you are humoring me.

As it turns out A River Sutra is on a shelf so high it can’t be reached without a ladder, and someone has borrowed my Dave Barry collection. I don’t remember who and they probably don’t remember me either. So I am forced to reread The Teachings of Don B., which allows me to do some shameless and improved name dropping, as the late Donald Barthelme  once shared a cab with me, and we also went to the same party.

After reading approximately 20,000 pages of YA since late October* I feel I need a short break from talking tigers, teens with superpowers and paranormal romance and trilogies. So this week I’m going to reread A River Sutra and Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs. Think of it as a sorbet between courses, a sort of palate cleanser.

Not hyperbole, honest. It’s research and I’m a very fast reader. Also, I have no life. Ok, that is hyperbole. No…not hyperbole… a total lie. I just said it to be funny.