Roadtrip Wednesday

So I haven't done one of these in forever, mainly because school has been overwhelming. But since MA got flooded, yes flooded as in we couldn't leave the town - that's what you get for living right on the river - I haven't had school. Yayy. So, over on Roadtrip Wednesday, they asked what you'd do with monetary success.
One, travel, obviously.

Then, get Andy McMahon to play a personal show for me. That would be the lead of Jack's Mannequin and Something Corporate and probably the most inspirational leukemia story ever. Oh, and he's adorable.







Then I'd get an insanely expensive Pnina Tornai wedding dress and Tiffany & Co. engagment ring, yes for myself.
Then, only because Karla brought it up, I'd pay these boys to take off their clothes. Because I'm shallow.

Yes, that's a chicken he's holding. The chicken is optional.















And then, the rest goes to Doctor's Without Borders. Really. If you haven't checked it out or donated, please please please go there now!!
So, now you know what I'd do. What about you?

T-t-tease

I just got back from my pilates class, and I kind of want to die. I have this love/hate relationship with my instructor, or maybe it should be more love/hate. As soon as I get there she's the best thing ever who totally motivates me to lose those five pounds before summer, and by the end I want to die because I can barely breathe and my hair is a mess and I don't look anything like her.
Anyway, because I'm dying from class, I'm crashing and teasing early. I guess technically this is no longer a WIP, because it's in agent's hands but...eh. I have nothing else to tease from. So, this is THE scene. Or as my beta likes to call it, "the nookie scene - aka just stop being a baby and write it already." It went back and forth between us at least four times and I'm still not satisfied. *ahem* no pun intended.

SNI...Monday?

I just finished up my male POV novel I've been teasing from, which is now called SINK, you know, for now. Until I get bored and change it again. Anyway. While I'm still focused on that, beta feedback, reading it for the billionth time, I'll tease from it probably once more. In the meantime, I've started this. I only have one page written, so I don't even want to tease from it. It's crazy rough and I might not even continue with it, but I want your opinions!

Also! Give me your best horror movie recs. The Blockbuster near my house is going out of business so boyfriend and I bought bunch of horror movies. Shooter (I know, not a horror movie, bf's choice), 28 Weeks Later, Paranormal Activity, Quarantine, and My Bloody Valentine (okay, it's an awful movie, but Jensen Ackles just brings the sexy and makes it tolerable.) Any other suggestions? We've got the world's biggest zombie collection in the apartment already, but we love gore!

SNI

Tease!

 I literally just got out of The Crazies - go see it if you haven't - so I'm teasing before I try to sleep, hoping not to be attacked by psycho almost zombies. Also, if the lead in the movie didn't look just like me in 15 years, it would have been less upsetting.
So, here we go. Tease from the middle of the tentatively titled, Weight of This Water. Gimme your feedback on the title, love, hate, brandy new idea I haven't thought of?

snip! you guys are incredible

Teaser Tuesday!

Tease from my WIP that is still without a title! I should probably do something about that soon.

snip!

T-t-teaseee

 As I've been attacked by an evil virus that put me out of commission for a week, and I just switched to windows 7 (yay!), this has been moving super slowly. To the point that it's a little pathetic. At least I'm not sick anymore (knock on wood) so I can actually keep moving forward.
Oh, and, Hello Spring Break! Thanks for finally showing your face sunshine. NE has missed you.
This may also cause a delay in writing...if I'm lucky :)

    snip!

T-t-t-easeee

 Tease from the new, nameless, WIP. It's going slowly, because school is overwhelming, but here it is!! CJ is the brother Milo hasn't seen or heard from since he left for college four years ago.

   thanks for being awesome guys!

Why we write YA

So I was reading Amna's post  and got to rambling in her comments. The gist of the post was about whether or not our teen years are the best of our lives. Which got me to thinking why so many of us write YA, and read YA, regardless of our age. Now, I have a cold, and am running on strictly cold medicine and coffee while my college homework steamrollers my social/writing life, so this may not make much sense.

I'm 20, so I'm technically not a teen anymore, though I don't want to call myself an adult. Then again, if your characters are no longer in high school, it's hard to categorize the novel as YA.
Being a junior in college, I guess I'm not a young adult anymore. I did graduate high school at 17 and start my freshman year of college at 17 because I have a December birthday, so I was a teen, out of high school.
Why do we limit YA to high school? And why is that the genre we want to read? Of course, in the long run, I won't have an answer for this, but it's interesting anyway.

High school is a time of great change, sure. It's about finding yourself, finding your friends, falling in love. But I think you find who you really are in college. You don't spend 6 hours a day with your friends anymore, so you lose touch with a lot of them. It's tragic, it really is, but maybe that's how it has to go. You'll probably fall in and out of love a few more times, then find a real relationship. You'll pick a major, realize you never want to do that as a career, change your major, realize you never want to do that, have a crisis, finally pick the right major, and move forward. You'll discover what you want to do in life, who you always want to be around, who you want to live with, love, marry etc. etc.

It's the grown up world and it's terrifying, but once you're there, it's easy as pie. Like I said, I'm still only 20. College isn't the 'real world' but it's still this huge obstacle people fear. And you know what? It's not that bad. It's not even that different. Maybe I'm in for a huge shock when I graduate, but my boyfriend and a lot of my close friends have, and nothing is different yet.
There's a great chance I'm naive, but I like to dream. Even though getting here was easier than I dreamt it would be, I don't want it to end. I like having this wide openess still in front of me. I like the idea that I'm young, this is the golden time, I can do what I want and mostly get away with it.

But remember, picking a major doesn't mean that's your life career. Graduating and starting a career doesn't mean your locked into it. Never forget to dream. That's why we all write YA, right? Cause it's about dreaming, changing, and falling in love.
But people of all ages read it and write it. So why can't we live it?