Lurker? Me?

If you’ve ever had a gander at my Librarything page, you might be excused in thinking that I am a fourteen year old girl. For over a year now, I’ve pretty much read only books for young people. Now, liking the stuff is reason enough to read it. But I do have two legitimate reasons if ever I have to defend my need for teenage vampire novels:

1. I am a youth librarian. I need to know what I am recommending, yo. (And don’t worry- I have never said ‘yo’ at the end of a sentence to anyone under the age of eighteen. They would run away.)

2. I actually aspire to write the stuff. There. It’s out. I am one of the thousands of people who want to write stories and have grand delusions of one day getting one published. So I need to know what is written. And how to write it. Unfortunately, I also know that it’s a long way to Tipperary, yo.

But a girl can dream. And read the blogs of other successful YA authors. Which in a way, is liking being a homeless person who likes to torture themselves by standing at dusk outside the softly lit homes of the well-to-do. Because what do they blog about? About how they are only at 50 000 words and the deadline is looming. How writing is hard (duh.) How living inside the imaginary world inside their own head all day can sometimes screw with your sanity.

Pause.

Living in the real world outside my own head screws with my sanity. I would like to choose option 1, please. My head is a roomy place, I am sure I would get along famously in there all day.

So here are a couple of the authors I follow. I never comment (never have anything to say I’m afraid). But I like to hear about how the writing process is going, what their pitfalls were when they first started out, and yeah, it kind of gives me hope that one day I could join their ranks.

Justine Larbalestier
She wrote a series starting with a book called Magic or Madness. It screwed me up because the premise was similar to the book I am writing except for totally different…Um. Yeah. She seems to have this idyllic life where she writes all day, divides her year between New York and Australia and seems to be married to my next contestant:

Scott Westerfeld
Despite a few technical glitches when I go to his site (the computers at work don’t seem to like him very much), this one is worth a look. Actually, no. His books are worth a look. The blog is pretty straightforward business, but that’s okay too I guess. I haven’t read the acclaimed Uglies series yet, but I did just finish Peeps and Last Days, and HIGHLY RECOMMEND them. Original, quirky, apocalyptic, they are very much in the Buffy the vampire slayer genre but with more science. I like the science. Maybe it is just me, but any book that starts each chapter with a little lecture on the grossness of the natural world has my vote (See previous post). And in the second, he names each chapter after obscure punk bands from the 70s and 80s. Well, it might just be love.

Maureen Johnson
I haven’t read her book Suite Scarlett yet, but I did buy it for the library so it is on my list. I got to her blog through a link from Justine Larbalestier’s blog and came across a post about a field of rabbits and an eccentric list of movies to watch during the summer. Her blog has done its marketing job- I am now curious enough to read the book.

Lurking. That’s me. If you know of any other good YA author sites that I might lurk, please let me know. I now have to go running with three children.