Today's guest blogger is Wendy Corsi Staub, the bestselling author of over seventy novels, including LILY DALE: DISCOVERING --- the latest addition to her paranormal series for young adults. Below, she retraces her career as an author and reflects on how much --- and how little --- has changed since she began writing more than fifteen years ago.I launched my career writing novels for teenagers back in the early nineties, when the YA market was booming. At the time, I was a mere half-decade or so beyond my own teenaged era --- roughly the same number of years, in fact, that now separate me from a certain milestone birthday I’d rather not reveal. (I’m sure some of you left-brainers can use the clues above to create some kind of algebraic equation and figure out my age --- i.e., A x B – C = O+L+D. Personally, math was never my strong subject.)
When my first novel won the RWA Rita Award for Best Young Adult Novel of 1993, I figured --- ah, optimistic youth --- that I was set for life. Selling almost a dozen more books in the next few years didn’t exactly dissuade me. Then, out of nowhere, the YA market hit the skids.
My editor suggested that I try writing for adults. I did, with great reluctance. I mean, I aspired to be the next Judy Blume, and everyone knows SUMMER SISTERS was no ARE YOU THERE GOD, IT’S ME MARGARET.
Surprisingly, however, my first adult novel did well. The next did even better, and wouldn’t you know I hit the New York Times Bestseller list a few titles later? A career was born.
Flash forward about a decade. Now that I’m an almost middle-aged (somehow, my definition of middle age moves just beyond my reach with every birthday) adult novelist with a string of bestsellers, the YA market has heated up again. Thus, I’ve created a paranormal seri
es of books for teens and tweens, set in Lily Dale, New York, the real-life town filled with mediums who communicate with the dead.I quickly discovered that a lot has changed since I started writing YA in the early 1990s --- let alone since I was a teen in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Kids today live in a world of instantaneous gratification, thanks to the Internet. According to my editor, they don’t have the patience to read narrative, or long chapters, or pages without a lot of “white space.” I had to change my writing style accordingly. And I had to get to know a whole new generation.
These days, kids listen to Kanye and Jay-Z and wear Uggs and hoodies. We listened to Cheap Trick and the Eagles and wore clogs and cords.
Ah, cords. Made by Levis or Lee, they were all the rage the fall I entered high school. Straight-leg cords, worn, of course, with wooden-soled clogs. Levis were the coolest, but the hip tag advertised your size, while the Lees only said LEE. I had a pair of Levis. With my fingernail, I scratched at the tag enough to obliterate the size. (I clearly remember my size --- 28X36 --- which doesn’t seem so horrible now.)
But I usually wore Lees. My favorites were skin tight and dark green, and I wore them with a cream-colored velour top that was the height of fashion in 1980.
In the back pocket of your cords, you would carry a big comb --- or, if you had enough hair, a pick --- that you would frequently remove to style back your feathered hair. These days, this hairdo is known as the mullet, and no kid would be caught dead in it.
Not everything has changed, of course.
My own kids, who now happen to be a tween and a teen, run a familiar daily gamut of angsty emotion. They are frequently --- and often simultaneously --- grossed out, insecure, indignant, ravenous, mortified, sullen, and in urgent need of some item that can only be obtained if I A) drive through the rain at night to a store that’s about to close; B) lay out a tremendous amount of cash or C) Get so worn down by nagging and/or whining that I cave and agree to do both of the above.
Every day, I hear myself repeating things my own parents said:
“Shut the door/the fridge/your mouth.”
“Turn off the light/the TV/the music.”
“Who took the scissors/tape/notepad out of the drawer and didn’t put it back?”
“Put that cup/bowl/plate in the dishwasher when you’re done.”
“Who ate the last Popsicle/Twinkie/Donut and put the empty box back into the cupboard?”
Yes, I’ve learned that many things, for better or worse, never change.
My favorite enduring quality? Most kids still enjoy a good book --- narrative, long chapters, non-white-space, and all.
-- Wendy Corsi Staub
