Worthy of the Week

Hey all, it’s Friday, so here’s another Worthy of the Week, a weekly breakdown of things worth sharing. If you like what you see, feel free to join in! Just post your link in the comments, and I’ll stop by 🙂 Check out the first two here. 

Inspiration: 

So if you follow me on twitter you might have noticed I’ve been working on a brand new untitled WIP! Since you’re all so great, I thought I would share a sneak peek of some of my inspiration for it, and maybe you can even take some guesses 🙂

 

Issues:

You may have heard of the recent Slate article bashing YA, which in the very title says “you should feel embarrassed when what you’re reading was written for children” and goes on to compare YA to the “kiddie pool” and says (more or less) that any self-respecting adult is too sophisticated and complex for juvenile level reading. The Bawdy Book Blog wrote a great post which summed up my feelings on the subject brilliantly.

YA is not the “kiddie pool” it is a bridge between age, generation, and gender. It is just as beautiful and powerful as adult or any literature, sometimes even more so. YA tackles the hardest subjects unapologetically, it is raw and honest. It has taught me so much about myself, and has helped shape who I am. It has given me characters to admire and love, characters that have stayed with me. To this day, I still remember reading Alanna, the fire-headed heroine who becomes a knight in Tamora Pierce’s first novel. She was fictional, but she was a role model who inspired me to be fearless, strong, and courageous, but also myself.

More than anything, this little incident has just shown me yet again how amazing the book community is. The #promoteYAinstead #IreadYA and #noshameinYA tags today were great. So, if you love YA, and aren’t ashamed of it, go spread some love, and wear the button proud 🙂

Words of Wisdom:

As I am jumping into this craziness all over again with a brand new story, I find myself fighting all my old demons and fears. Mainly, the struggle between the ideas in my head and the words on the page. It’s hard to start from ground zero. But as I told a friend this week on twitter, you can’t force a story. You also can’t finish a book, any book, if you never start, or never write 🙂 So, this quote by James Thurber felt especially relevant this week.