I'm Just Sayin'

Happy New Year!! 2015 has been amazing for me in so many ways. Mostly because I have put everything on hold and spent thousands, literally around $16,000 on SCBWI events, conferences, workshops, the Highlights Foundation, plane tickets, hotel expenses, online writing classes with top people in the industry, all to make my goal of getting traditionally published in YA. With that came working literally every single day on my novel-writing every single day without exception. That sounds easier than it is when you work full time, have a boyfriend, and a dog, and go to the gym, etc., but I did it! This year and giving up so much time and money, was/is scary as hell, as I have basically only paid min payments to bills, and not saved a dime for taxes because every extra cent I have is going to my young adult writing. When I decided to stop acting and go into animation, this is what I did. Yes I was offered a job by Disney at an audition from doodling on my call sheet-this is true...

Do you want a GREAT YA novel about a truly sad, messed up kid dealing with overwhelming grief? Read  NOT AFTER EVERYTHING by Michelle Levy *I chose the above photo because to me, it says everything about the main character in this story. I found it on the internet, but here is the actual cover. This book is the BEST book with a boy lead that I have read in years. I can say that immediately it reminded me of S.E. Hinton’s THE OUTSIDERS, and J.D. Salinger’s THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. I was obsessed with both of these books as a middle school kid going through more than any kid should-and they are why I became a writer. When I opened Michelle’s book I couldn’t stop reading it. Although since I was on a plane headed to a workshop for writers, I had to. I picked it back up on the return flight and finished it. The day I finished it, I started again from page one and read it a second time. I rarely reread a book the same day that I finish it, but I wanted to savor every single wo...

So many of you know that I write from the male POV. I am not trying to change the way things are done in teen fiction or any of that, it's just what comes to me. I do, however, feel that boys are grossly under represented, in that most of the teen fiction that have strong male leads are MG action adventure-not that there is anything wrong with that. I LOVE the Maze Runner and Percy Jackson books as much as the next person. I write contemporary YA fiction from the male POV. Maybe it's because I was obsessed with S. E. Hinton in middle school or that I just like boy driven stories better, but that is how I write. I am writing for the teenage boys. Hopefully girls will like my books too. Recently I was at a SCBWI convention and someone said to me, "you are writing Boo-hoo fiction like John Green" because yes in my first book there will be some deaths. I don't think of it as Boo-hoo fiction, I look at it like intense there are consequences to your actions stories fro...

Okay anyone who went to highschool or who lives in the real world, read  Thirteen Reasons Why -I am planning to blog about this book on both my blogs-But I will say this, unless you were homeschooled, this is the shit that goes on in high school and sadly even as adults. Not everyone commits suicide, but what people do and say does impact others period. I honestly believe this book should be require d reading in the 9th grade (maybe 10th) starting now. I'll post the blog links when I get to them, I am being more thoughtful about them than my usual ramblings because of the subject matter-so it's just a question of time. And I know this book is a few years old, I didn't read it for a lot of reasons, mostly because when I read the title I said to my friend in the bookstore "shit this is about a girl who kills herself, I think I need to wait"....so I waited. I kept picking it up at Barnes and Noble and carrying it around and then ultimately putting it back. It...