Why I Can't Seem to Find Time to Write

I had to modify my post this week.  I wrote it out when I was really tired, and when I looked over it later, I just didn’t like how it turned out.  I wrote a list of all the things I did that day in order to show why I didn’t have time to write a decent post.  Now, if I had been Sheena, it would’ve been hilarious, but alas, I am not Sheena, and my list was kind of boring, which I suppose is somewhat a reflection of my life.

I just had one of those days where I felt like I worked all day long and accomplished nothing.  I have those far too frequent.  The time just flies by and those little things that should only take a minute seem to take up huge chunks of time.  I’m sure everyone has days like that.  Anyway, it was a bit cathartic for me to map it out, to try to figure out where my day went, but I don’t think it worked well as a blog post, so rather than cringe every time I see it up there, I thought I’d just hash out a new one real quick.

There are no big writing lessons in this post, just a general rant about how hard it is to find time to write.  In looking my day laid out, I could see little moments here or there where I could’ve done more and been more productive, so it is helpful to examine your day and see those missed opportunities.  But sometimes those moments are needed.  Perhaps I’m a wimp, but I need a little downtime here and there to kind of recuperate and get back out there.

I always get a little frustrated when I see the writing advice to treat writing as a job, to buckle down and get serious and write, write, write, and read, read, read or you will never make it.  The problem is I would love to do that.  I would love to spend eight hours a day reading novels and writing, but the time just isn’t there.  I’m a stay at home mom and I know so many people in our society don’t take that job serious, but honestly, my job never ends.  I am at work and on call all day and all night.  Every day, including vacations.  All parents do this.  Working parents work all day and care for kids at night.  There isn’t room to treat writing as a second job because unless you beg or pay someone else to watch your kids, you are taking care of them.  You are working.

I’ve tried to get serious and push harder and just neglect the house, the kids, and the husband a little to get more writing done.  It took me a week before I could feel a tension in the house, and my poor husband got the worst of it.  I gave him very little time, and the time he got was me being crabby and frustrated because I was still falling behind on all my imaginary deadlines.  After a week, I knew I couldn’t keep it up.  It was hurting everyone around me including myself, and I wasn’t even getting paid for it.

I know that there are writers out there who are stay at home moms just like me and get a lot more writing done than I do, and I’d love to get some tips if you have any to share.  I heard Stephenie Meyers wrote Twilight in three months while taking care of more kids than I got, and the youngest was a toddler.  To me that is just amazing.  How did she do that?  But I'm not sure what she did would work for me for me and my family (although I’m willing to try any suggestions).  We are all so different. The bottom line is that I just have to have patience and do the best I have with the time I got.  

I still believe and hope (fingers crossed) that as my kids get older, I’ll have more time for writing.  Hopefully if I ever get a contract, I’ll have figured out how to be more productive, and if I get enough money coming in, maybe I could even afford to hire a babysitter here and there and a maid service to get a little more writing time.  Dare to dream.

So, I’d still love to hear from all you writing parents out there.  How do you find the time to write?

~MaryAnn

Imperfect Parenting

My seven year-old loves to read, so naturally, when I brought home the createspace version of Hatched, he wanted to read it.

Panic set in.

It wasn't because I was worried he wouldn't like it, or that the story wasn't good. Nothing so logical. I started to panic, because I allow my characters to do things I would never let my children do.

On Friday, Melanie wrote this awesome post on how we aren't our character's parents, and how as authors, we need to stop coddling them. It's brilliant, and definitely worth reading.

Mom let them do what?

It made me think though. I've never thought of my characters as my children, so I've never tried to coddle them, or tried to give them the same sense of morality that I want my children to live by. I've only tried to create true characters in honest situations. And true characters make out with cute boys, swear, and stay out late fighting the forces of evil. At least they do in my head.

Does writing about that make me a bad mom?

When my kids are teenagers, and get busted for staying out past curfew, will they say, "but you let your characters do it?" Will my daughter flirt and kiss cute boys, just the same way Larissa does in Funny Tragic, Crazy Magic?

Probably.

As a mom, I try to show my children the example I want them to follow. I try to practice what I preach. I want to let them know what I think is right or wrong, and I expect them to live by the rules my husband and I set.

 But I remember being a teenager. I remember the heartache, and the confusion. I remember what happened in the halls of my Junior High. I remember making bad decisions, and I remember the consequences. The idea floating in my head of what my perfect children will be like when they are teenagers forgets all that. My children won't know anyone who does drugs. My perfect children won't feel heartbreak, or be in car accidents, or swear, or be involved with any of the vices I regularly and happily inflict on my characters.

I don't write for teenagers because I want them to know what they should be doing, or what good kids do when confronted with evil. I don't write morality plays, or EFY firesides. I write for teenagers because I want to help them know they aren't alone. I write for teenagers, because I remember what it is like to be a teenager, and those are the stories that infect my brain, and force my fingers to dance across a keyboard.

I've  heard, "My parent's just don't understand" so often from teenagers, that I think it has become a cliche. I wonder if maybe teenagers think that, because their parents want their children to be something that they aren't, and they don't understand why it isn't happening. Maybe parents don't understand, because they are too busy trying to teach the kids how to be better, to stop and see the kids for who they are. Maybe we don't want to see what our teenagers are going through, because we know pain is coming, and we can't protect them from it.

It's a hard road, trying to figure out the line between accepting our children for the perfectly imperfect creatures that they are, and expecting our children to be good, to be kind, and make good decisions. My oldest is seven, and I'm already panicking about it. What do you do? Do you let them be real, or do you try to teach them to be better? Is there any way we can do both?

Can we set firm limits and expectations while allowing our children the privilege of knowing that WE as parents aren't perfect? Do we have to pretend to be something we are not, in order to force our children to be something that doesn't exist? Is that really what being a good parent is all about?

I try to write about real people. Maybe I need to allow my children to be real as well.

And maybe, I need to allow my children to see that I'm real as well.

Why does that concept make me panic?

How Writing is like Parenting

I wrote my first novel in high school, but I didn’t return to writing until I was pregnant with my second child.  So throughout most of my serious writing (in high school I was just playing) I’ve also been parenting, and I’ve seen a lot of parallels between the two.

Here are a few that I’ve noticed.

It’s harder than it looks

When I was pregnant with my first child, I wasn’t worried about being a parent.  After all, I had tended a lot of kids, watched nieces and nephews grow up, and read the books.  If all that failed, I had my mom who was a baby pro.  How hard can a newborn be after all they sleep all the time? 

Then the baby comes.  And for some reason, newborns can’t sleep.  You think that sleep is so important that it would be to our evolutionary advantage for babies to be able to go to sleep, but they don’t.   Not without constant jiggling and walking around, and once I do finally get them sleeping, the minute I put them down, they wake up.  But the difficulties of parenting do not end there.  There is potty training, disciplining, teaching them to share and get along with others, worrying about them falling behind in school.  All of this is so much harder than I ever anticipated.   

It never ends, and it never gets easy.

Writing is the same way.  I’ve read hundreds of books and watched hundreds of movies.  I was taught basic grammar and composition in school, so writing a novel should be easy.

Only it’s not.  Putting words together to paint images and evoke emotion is so much harder than the pros make it look.  Weaving plot points together and creating believable characters is far more complex than I ever imagined.  And I find myself staring at that blinking curser for hours wondering why it is so hard to express what is in my head.  And I begin to realize that even those writers who I thought were horrible are actually kind of amazing.

Advice is everywhere, but finding the right advice is tricky  

There is a lot of writing advice and parenting advice.  There are books and articles by professionals.  Other struggling parents and aspiring writers offer their two cents as well, and even people without kids or have never tried to write anything beyond a term paper have advice to offer.   Great advice can be found anywhere, but sifting through that advice and finding what actually works for me is challenging.

I’ve noticed that for parenting and writing some of the advice is like gold, a lot of it has to be tweaked, some I can’t figure out how to apply, others while good I just can’t use because it is so contrary to my personality, but very little of it is completely useless.

But figuring out how to apply that advice is tricky.  So many times I read an article and it sounds so clear, but when I try to implement it in my parenting or writing, I realize how complicated it really is.  I’d love to have Super Nanny or an awesome professional writer as a mentor standing over me and helping me to see exactly how to make the advice work, but I don’t.  

So mostly I’m floundering, trying to sift through all the great advice and figuring out how to make it work.

Never stop learning and growing

The thing a miss the most about my life before children was coasting.  When I started something new like a job or college or even marriage, my life was thrown in an upheaval, but eventually I adapted, figured out what I need to do to be successful and then went back to coasting.  There was far more coasting than adapting, and that is what I like.  I only like conflict and tension in books not in real life.

But in parenting, I hardly ever get to coast.  My kids are constantly growing and changing and getting smarter and smarter, and never seem to stop challenging me.  I’ve had to learn to accept a life of constant upheaval and adaption.

Writing is no different.  Every time I think I’ve got this writing thing figured out, I realize I’ve only scratched the surface.  There is so much to learn and different techniques to perfect.  Every story provides new challenges, and I’ve realized I’ll never be done learning.  I’ll never be able to just coast.

And honestly, I think that is kind of awesome.  :)

Comparing myself to others is painful and pointless

There is a mother in every neighbor who seems perfect.  Her house is always spotless, her yard weed-less.  She always looks amazing and so do her kids.  Her children are popular, well-behaved, athletic, talented, and at the top of their class.   The rest of us just stare at her and wonder if her house is in some sort of time warp.  She must have more hours in the day then us mere mortals.

Sometimes other mothers get overly critical and try to tear her down, or they compare themselves to her and feel inadequate and inferior and bad about themselves.  It can make them feel insecure and question all the decisions they’ve made and doubt all their parenting choices.   I hate to admit it, but I’ve been there.  No good comes from all that negativity, just hurt feelings.  It is a waste of time and energy and isn’t going to make you a better mother.

Writing is no different.  There will always be another writer that seems to have it all together.  Writes better than me, writes more than me, reads more than me (coughcoughSheenacough).  But comparing myself to that writer is pointless, a waste of energy that should be put into my writing.  So the best thing to do is to say, “You go girl,” and move on. 

In the end, I gotta be me

This was a hard thing for me to realize as a mother.  I was so used to finding solutions to problems, that I wasn’t ready for problems that have no one right answer or no wrong answers or sometimes no answers at all.   There is no magic formula for parenting.

There is no one in the world exactly like me, and there are no other children that are exactly like mine.  And what works for one parent or a thousand or a million parents won’t necessarily work for me.  In the end of this crazy parenting thing, I have to find my own way.  Become the best mom that I can be with my own distinct values and perspective.  I can’t be the mom in the parenting books.  I can’t be like the perfect mom down the street or my sisters or my mother.  I have to be me, and adapt my parenting style to fit my very awesome and unique children.

Now I’m not saying not to read parenting books or seek parenting advice; that would be foolish.  I’m not so arrogant to think that I don’t have anything to learn.   There is great parenting advice out there that will make me a better parent.  I believe I should learn everything I can, but adapt that knowledge to fit me and my children.  Knowledge is how we develop as parents as people as writers.  But in the end, we have to embrace the part of us that makes us different and turn that difference into our greatest strength.

Writing is the same.  It is important to read and learn about how to write effectively, but in the end I need to use that knowledge to learn how to accentuate my own personal style.  We are all unique, and it is what makes me different that develops that hard to define voice that all agents are looking for, that part that makes every story, even ones that have been told a hundred time before, really unique.  

Writing what I love and the way I want it to be gives my writing authenticity and can really make it shine. So learn all you can about the craft of writing, but in the end develop your own style and embrace who you are, and your story will be amazing.

That’s all I got, but I’d love to hear any of your insights.  What have you learned from parenting or life that is applicable to writing?

~MaryAnn

Yes, You Should Have Gotten a Flu Shot

But don't worry, Ryan Gosling's got your back.

It's been a wild week in the McCanless household. Under-parented children, over-medicated adults, and some kind of pink sugar-related holiday stuck in the middle of it all. I don't know if it's the flu or the Tamiflu, but I've been in too big a haze to even read, let alone write. So I'm keeping it simple tonight with ten things I learned over the last week:

1. Husbands are awesome, and mine is extra-super-special awesome, but they can’t be trusted to buy Valentines. That's why Kid #2 had to pass out Dora the Explorer cards to his mostly-boy Preppy Kindergarten class. There wasn't even any sort of compensating candy attached.

(Corollary: I do not like the little boy who refused to accept my child's offering because it was "for girls". He's on my poop list. I usually have another name for this list, but the kid is five.)

2. One day of gorging yourself on candy while your mother dozes in a semi-comatose state, with only her own hacking cough keeping her from complete oblivion, won't hurt your health. At least not measurably, in the short term, as far as the aforementioned mother can tell.

3. Argentine ants like to kick me when I'm down.

4. A five-year-old can figure out how to do his own temporary tattoos. So if you keep murmuring something about "Maybe later, honey, mommy's really sick," while he keeps asking for you to help with one of his Valentines, you may discover the next morning that he's got a tattoo on his neck. This may not strike you as terrible until you take him to his school in the slightly rougher part of town, where a significant number of parents have their own, permanent, neck tattoos. You may still decide that you are too busy sucking air into your gunky lungs to bother washing it off for a full 3 days.

If you're treating your fever like a slot machine,
that might be the fever talking.

5. Adults aren't allowed to run fevers as high as kids do. When you see your temperature climbing over 103, the appropriate response is to call the doctor. It is not to waste all of the (surprisingly expensive) plastic covers for the ear thermometer by obsessively betting against yourself on how high you can go.

6. The forehead-kissing method of fever detection does not work if the one doing the detecting also has a fever. This should be obvious, but somehow... Well, I apologize to everyone who comes down with this illness because I thought Kid #2 was fine.

7. How I Met Your Mother is funny.
8. I am blessed with people in my life who are kind and caring and there in a pinch. I couldn't have survived this week without friends covering carpools for me and inviting the kids over for playdates, teachers forgiving forgotten homeworks and missed volunteer shifts, and my husband being all-around wonderful even when he got the two days of sore throat and sniffles that were his version of "sick." (Corollary: I married hardy stock.)

9. Kid #2 is five now and not a baby anymore, but he's still the best little nap companion in the world. I mean, I hope he feels better and stuff, but until then... SNUGGLES!!!

10. I totally, absolutely, 100%, without a doubt should have gotten a flu shot.

Once I've sprayed the office with Raid and cleaned up the thousands of tiny dead ants, I will begin clawing my way back out of the hole I sank into this week. So, in the spirit of overdone Internet memes...

Kids and Imagination: Reading vs. Television

Go ahead and say it.
I'm demonizing television.

There are nefarious trades to be made, trying to combine writing and motherhood. This is a story of the dark side. The sinister underbelly of the writing life. One mother’s desperate, shame-filled dependence on help from a poorly screened, under-qualified emergency babysitter.

You may know this shady childcare provider by the name of “television.”

It happened the summer before last, when Kid #1 was six. Kid #2 had fallen asleep after a morning-long tantrum. I was desperate to finish a writing assignment for a class. So when Kid #1 asked to watch TV, I caved. We’d had a rough morning, leaving him in that hard-to-please mood where everything was bound to be a battle. I could have suggested he read a book or play Legos. But I was desperate for some uninterrupted writing time, and I chose the low road: Netflix.

The streaming selection seemed abysmal until I stumbled upon  James and the Giant Peach. Everyone loves Roald Dahl! It’s animated! It’s about a peach! And a boy named James! Game on.

So I haven't read the book
or seen the movie.
Come on. It's a peach.
How is that not a safe bet?

Kid #1 slumped on the couch. I hunched over my laptop on the armchair. The movie played. I edited like mad. He was mesmerized, if the fact that he forgot to whine for snacks was any indication. I hyperfocused, he vegetated, and we found a homeostasis that seemed to work.

John doesn’t like me showing the kids anything he hasn’t pre-screened, and with good reason: I tune out boring stuff better than anyone I know. For me, kids’ television usually counts as boring stuff. (When I was pregnant with Kid #2, John suggested he play the Thomas the Tank Engine theme song in labor, as it takes only a hint of Thomas to render me comatose. In the end we went with the more natural soundtrack of screaming. So much for epidurals.)

James and the Giant Peach was like soft classical Muzak in the background, actually enhancing my concentration.

When Kid #1 shifted position for the first time in eighty minutes, I realized the credits were rolling. Then I took in the sight of tears streaming down his innocent but angry little cheeks.

“How could you make me watch that?” he demanded, trembling. “It was really scary!”

His body started shaking with huge sobs, which he punctuated with proclamations that he would have nightmares forever. I held him on my lap and planned my acceptance speech for the Worst Mother in History award.

I should have known. Director Henry Selick seems to have his finger on the pulse of my child's deepest fears. Earlier that year, a poster for Coraline had sparked months of Kid #1 talking about how much he didn’t want to watch that movie. He would choose random times to remind us that he wasn't ever watching Coraline—in the car, at dinner, ten minutes after I’d put him to bed. This was a good clue that I should stay away from things Selick directed, but I wasn’t thinking clearly that day.

Obviously, he should have watched Jimmy Neutron.

Or, okay, read a book. Or gone outside or something. Whatever. Let’s not dwell on what should have been.

The book that made
reading an addiction.

At the time of the Peach Debacle, Kid #1 was a newly independent reader. He’d dabbled in Magic Tree House books before getting hooked on The Secrets of Droon, by Tony Abbott. It's about the same reading level, but less formulaic and with a richer and more exciting fantasy world. He tore through them until the 13th one, then stopped partway through. Something about that book scared him. He didn’t get upset or have any nightmares. He just moved on to Dragonbreath.

I kept meaning to read the book myself to find out what scared him, but I never did. If I’m not attentive enough to watch a show while I’m in the room with my son or to notice him trembling with fear for an hour and a half, I’m probably not getting around to reading everything he reads.

Cut to a few months ago. At some point he’d gone back to Droon and finished the series, no longer scared. He’d also finished the whole Harry Potter series, and Dragonbreath, and Diary of Wimpy Kid, and Big Nate, and at least a hundred others I haven’t kept track of. He reads his favorites over and over and over again. When he found an old copy Charlie and the Chocloate Factory on our bookshelf, he fell in love with that, too.

The back of the book had pictures of other Dahl covers, one of which was James and the Giant Peach.

When Kid #1 saw this, he was not pleased with the reminder of his unspeakable trauma, or with the idea that Dahl could somehow be responsible for it. He told me again, just so I’d be sure not to forget, that James and the Giant Peach was VERY SCARY.

“You know, Buddy, I bet the book isn’t scary,” I said. “Wasn’t it really how the people looked that upset you? If you read the book you can imagine them however you want. You’d probably enjoy it.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe,” he said. “But it’s too late now.”

He’s a fatalistic eight-year-old.

This movie got great reviews,
and I doubt it's scary to most kids.
My kid ain't most kids

This can''t even scare a McCanless.

Every parent has heard ad nauseam that reading is good and screen time is bad. I’m in no position to lecture here. But this experience gave me a new appreciation of what books can offer, beyond the whole brain cells and IQ thing. (Because let's face it, that’s been done to death.)

Kids are great little regulators. From the time they’re born, that’s one of the main things their nervous systems have to do in addition to crying and eventually taking apart electronics. They learn to regulate their emotions, regulate their expression of those emotions, regulate their responses to stimuli like sounds and sights and smells and touches. They are little regulating machines, and their imaginations are the foremen of the whole operation. They can decide how to picture something, how much to absorb, just how violent a violent scene is and just how mean a mean aunt is. A book without aid of imagination is about as engaging as a pile of paper, and as easy to put down.

Contrast that with movies and TV shows, where the always-moving pictures capture and keep their attention. My kids can’t even tear their eyes away from the televised State of the Union Address. I’m confident a transcript would not hold the same appeal unless we turned it into paper airplanes.

On screen, every detail is dramatized in a way that kids can’t shut out, and sometimes—even when you least expect it—it’s too much.

So here's my advice: If, in a moment of weakness, you decide to buy peace and quiet with television, think twice before sacrificing a great book in the process.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Kid #2 has had a bit too much Kung Fu Dino Posse...

On Gossip Girl and Growing Up

or Why I Haven't Gotten Anything Done Since Christmas

We television lovers know the holiday season, despite its joys, can be a desolate time. After eating yourself into a coma at Thanksgiving, you plop on the couch and... gasp! Re-runs. You can no longer lose yourself in an addictive, magical world full of perfect-looking 20-year-olds pretending to be unsupervised 17-year-olds exchanging clever sexual innuendo with 30-year-olds pretending to be immortal 22-year-olds who drink scotch like alcoholic 40-year-olds.

In other words, Vampire Diaries went on Winter Break. (Until last night!)

My older sister came to the rescue this year when she told me she couldn't wait to catch up on Gossip Girl while she wrapped presents.

Really? Gossip Girl? Isn’t that about high school students who, ah, gossip a lot? Secretly I thought, “Okay, sis, you've passed the 4-0 mark and you're watching high school drama that doesn't even have vampires. That's just sad.” And then, equally secretly, I checked Netflix to see if they had it streaming.

"Mind-blowingly inappropriate" - Parents Television Council.
What more endorsement could I need?

They did. They do. I watched the pilot while wrapping ten gazillion Legos. I'm hooked.

I'm not going to tell you how many episodes I've watched since Christmas. Fellow Proser MaryAnn is kindly waiting for me to send her the next batch of my behind-schedule novel for critque, and I will lose her respect forever if she finds out the actual numbers behind my procrastination.

So I'll just say this: After a non-stop writing focus through December, I took a break for Christmas and getting back in the swing of things feels like trying to hop on a moving zoo train filled with angry lions. So much easier to watch it ride off into the sunset without me while I sit on this comfy bench and fire up the Netflix.

Moreover, I really, really, need to see Nate and Serena get together. Or Nate and anyone. I don’t care. I’ll watch Nate kiss a tree. (I avoid reflection on what a creepy old lady this makes me by watching another episode.)

Still, as I sink into another 42 minutes of glammed-up teenagers non-chalantly ordering martinis at an exclusive Manhattan nightclub, the never-ending novel is in the back of my mind—specifically, a conversation I've had several times about my genre. It goes something like this:

Friend: What are you writing?
Me: Urban fantasy, I guess. Or maybe paranormal romance. I'm not sure where it fits yet. I don't know if it's quite a romance, but it's not quite gritty enough for UF. (Translation: My writing style just doesn't match up to the first-person, action-packed exploits of a bad-ass heroine with a tramp stamp.)
Friend: Why don't you write young adult?
Me: But I don't want to write teenagers.
Friend: Just make your characters 17 and then find a way to get school and parents out of the picture.
Me: That seems a little sneaky. Plus I want my characters to be able to get naked if and when I learn how to write a decent sex scene.
Friend: Forget that. Skip the sex and write YA. Your book sounds more YA. I like YA better than most adult books, anyway.

I write adults because I want my characters to be able to travel on a whim, buy and sell real estate, order liquor at a bar, have adulterous affairs, and pay their own bills.

I've never had a martini. Sad.

Photo: Microsoft Office Images

I turn on the television and find out—news to me—these are all things that teenagers do! Who knew?

And there's the crux of why I can't turn my characters into teenagers. Teenagers are kids, and kids shouldn't be doing the things my characters do, let alone what TV teens do. I think that Gossip Girl, as fun as it is, isn't really about kids, and it shouldn't even be for kids. What happened to kids having a different set of behaviors, a different set of rules to live within? Where's the drama in being a teenager if you don't have a curfew?

Sometimes I wonder: Are we portraying teenagers as grownups because they relate to it, or because adults do? Is it that we "grown-ups" really aren't so different from our teenage selves, except that losing the holiday weight has gotten fifty times harder? I don't wanna grow up... except for the money, sex, and alcohol please. Those are pretty sweet. But I'll keep the youthful skin tone, thank you. Whose fantasy is this?

One of the themes that makes Gossip Girl great—that keeps it from being just parties and fashion and musical beds—is characters constantly making mistakes that force them to question who they are becoming. Are their friends just stops on the way to a greater, more important destination, or are they the connections that ground them? What is the difference between having a social network that can get you into any party and having a friend who will come over in the middle of the night? They question their values, they question the roles that other people play in their lives, they flirt with independence and push people away, and they do stupid, hurtful things and then try to make amends.

They attempt to reinvent themselves, only to be haunted by their own most deep-seated beliefs about who they are.

Chace Crawford. Sigh.
Photograph by Christopher Peterson

I was always more Jan Brady than Serena van der Woodsen, but adulthood happened: I’m married with two kids, plenty of bills, and a doctor who now answers my physical complaints with, "Well, you're getting to that age..." Yet no matter how much reality I throw at myself, I’ll always relate to that person who longs for adventure and excitement and fairy tales. I’ll never stop being someone who would trade my right arm to be five inches shorter, I may never stop getting zits at the worst times, and I will definitely never stop trying to blossom into a different flower, trying to shape who I am into who I want to be. It’s in my nature. Perpetual teenager.

So bring it on, Gossip Girl. I’m with you all the way. 
And if I had a daughter, I might even let her watch, too... When she was 30.


But for my own writing, I'll stick with characters following the rules I grew up with, which means if they want to take adult risks, they'd better be adults.

XOXO
~Sarah