Why I Love YA

So, Beth Revis is doing this AMAZING giveaway RIGHT HERE. Take a look at the juicy goodness she's giving away.

Take a moment to drool.

Obviously, I want these. Badly.

And so, to get extra entries, (MY BOOKS. MINE.) I'm blogging about why I love YA*.

Which is insanely hard. Because seriously? Why DON'T I love YA?

To make this easier on myself, I am presenting a list in bullet-point form. So here they are. The first ten reasons I can think of for writing YA.

• The rich imaginative world of MG and YA novels kept me sane during my parents' divorce.

• Through YA novels, I learned to see through the eyes of people both similar to and different from me, and to apply what I learned to my interactions with others.

• YA taught me what to look for in a man. From Peeta I learned to want selfless love, from Percy Jackson unswerving loyalty. When I begin to panic and think that no one will ever fall for me, I read a Stephanie Perkins novel and everything gets better.

• YA provided me with role models. By reading along and cheering with the characters I loved, I learned how to battle my own dark wizards and false gods.

• In YA books, I learned the value of an equal, lasting relationship and determined not to settle for anything less.

• It was YA novels that made me aware of YA authors, who are seriously some of the best people ever. I have a very close friendship with many of these people, even if I'm the only one who knows about it. (Yeesh, that's a stalkery thing to say. Guess I'd better go find some bushes to hide in.)

• YA made me think. These books are where I learned to ask the hard questions. (Save my father or save the world?) They made me evaluate, decide what was really important to me.

• YA convinced me I am not alone. Even when I feel like the scum on the toilet seat, there is always, ALWAYS a YA character who has messed up worse than I ever will. And they pick themselves up and keep going. So I can too.

• YA novels have ensured that I will never, ever be bored again by filling my head with more imaginary friends than I can count.

• And last, but definitely not least, YA novels filled me with WORDS. Words so beautiful and crazy and LOUD that they spill over and splash onto everyone I meet. I love my words. I love YA.

So those are my reasons. What are yours? And what have you been reading lately? I just read The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan and OHMYHECKSOGOOD. If you haven't read his books yet, please do. The latest ones are phenomenal.

Now I'm off to write three thousand words and reach 50k by the end of the day! Ta-ta for now! Leave your comments after the beep**.

* Young Adult. In my mind, this genre covers EVERYTHING AWESOME. In real life ... that's still basically true.

** BEEEEEEEEEEP

In Which I Write ON PAPER Like a Cavewriter

So, I'm doing NaNoWriMo*, which is an awesome event of awesomeness that happens every November that I don't have time to explain so you should click THIS LINK and check it out. Anyway, everything was going great for the first couple of weeks. I was hitting 2-3k a day, which isn't great for me, but is definitely decent.

And then last week happened. And it sucked.

Not that last week was all that bad. But I have depression, and that combined with several other factors to make last week the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE.

And my writing showed it. For the last several days, I haven't written more than 100 words in a day. This is not a good thing. This is so very much not a good thing. But instead of fixing it, what did I do?

If you guessed that I fretted myself to flinders in between pursuing pointless distractions, you guessed right. I worried and I tweeted and I cried and I played games on my iPod and I pined and I watched YouTube videos. And then sometimes, I tried to write. And I didn't get anywhere.

And then, about an hour ago, I did something very important. I said, "ENOUGH."

Then I grabbed a notebook and a pen, planted myself on the kitchen counter**, and wrote a hundred words.

It was awesome.

The words weren't the best I'd ever written. They weren't actually very good. But they were WORDS. And I WROTE THEM. And I did it in a way unfamiliar to me***, a way that scared me a bit.

So that's my challenge to you. You know that THING that you're supposed to be doing, the THING that is driving you nuts but you keep avoiding? Go do it. And do it in a way that's a bit frightening, a bit out of your comfort zone, a bit NEW.

Then come back and tell me about it, because I want to hear.

* Yes, I realize that I haven't posted on this blog since dinosaurs walked the earth. I'm sorry. Please place your angry notes/Howlers/letter bombs in this box RIGHT HERE.

** No, I didn't actually sit ON the kitchen counter, you smart aleck. I sat BESIDE it, and put my notebook on it. There was a squished raisin on the counter too, but that is completely irrelevant.

*** I haven't written fiction on paper since the DARK AGES. Like, the last time I tried it was about four years ago. I don't like not being able to go back and change words easily, but in this case, that's exactly what I needed.

(If you've read to the end of this, you're awesome. Have some chocolate and comment, please, so that I can comment back and tell you HOW AWESOME you are.)