Making Fiction out of Life

I wasn’t too much into being a teen when I actually was one. Six years of experience, including praying at night for slimmer thighs, living in fear of spit-balls, and an incident at a cheerleading competition involving a trailing wad of toilet paper, a three-tiered pyramid, and urine sprinkling on my head in front of a thousand spectators, left me aching for teenhood to end.

But somewhere in my early twenties, I found myself drawn back to those years. Maybe it’s because, as a teen, I had closed my eyes to all the excitement this age has to offer. Or maybe it’s because now slimmer thighs and visible laugh lines have provided a safe distance to look back from, where I can fully appreciate both the excitement and the angst.

I always knew I wanted to write. I’ve been creating stories since before I could hold a pen. When I was a teen, I was writing about people in their twenties, and when I got to my twenties, I started writing about teens. While it may be a simple bout of the “grass-is-greener” syndrome, the truth is, I can’t think about writing for any other audience. I love young adults (YA)—the genre, the culture, the literature, films, TV shows, slang—the whole bit.

When I started the graduate Creative Writing program at Emerson College, I knew I wanted to write teen characters, but I wasn’t that familiar with the YA market. I soon found my niche in a Young Adult Literature class, taught by writer/illustrator Lisa Jahn-Clough. I started reading YA authors: Robert Cormier, Francesca Lia Block, and Laurie Halse Anderson to name just a few. I then knew I was in the right place—a place where teens get a voice, where real young adult issues are spliced open and explored.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing Blue is for Nightmares. It brought me back to the suspense genre that I absolutely loved as a young adult. I remember tearing through books by Lois Duncan, V.C. Andrews, and Stephen King. It thrills me that my own work can contribute to a genre that I found, and still find, so exciting and rewarding.

In a series of adolescent novel workshops, I started and finished Blue is for Nightmares. Though I knew I wanted the novel to reflect my passion for suspense when I first began writing it, I had no idea I would delve into the world of magic and witchcraft. That is, until I freewrote a candle scene that just seemed to work—a scene that actually turned out to be the inspiration for the entire novel.

Despite being raised in Salem, Massachusetts, I didn’t know too much about the formal practice of the Craft, though I heard growing up that my grandmother had experience with the sixth sense. She was born blind, and perhaps as a result was able to develop her other senses more keenly. Like Stacey Brown, the main character in Blue is for Nightmares, my grandmother was able to sense some things before they actually happened—particularly unfortunate things. Knowing this prompted me to start researching her experiences in-depth by asking lots of questions. I learned a lot this way. I learned of passed down home remedies, interesting family superstitions, tea readings, card readings, and specific experiences with the sixth sense, some of which found themselves in the novel.

The whole journey of writing the novel and doing the research was a truly wonderful experience, because it brought me closer to my grandmother, though she passed away when I was only nine. It also enabled me to feel a deeper connection to my family, even to those I never had the opportunity of meeting.

I recently finished a draft of the sequel to Blue is for Nightmares, White is for Magic (slated for publication in May 2004 by Llewellyn Publications). It takes place one year after Blue is for Nightmares, during Stacey Brown’s senior year at Hillcrest Prep. I’m also interested in the possibility of writing a third; I like the idea of a trilogy and I’ve grown quite attached to my characters. Currently, I’m working on a couple of new projects that test the young adult perimeters by experimenting with honest, edgy fiction for older young adults.