Writer in Residence

I am 28, writing books about 16 and 17 year olds. I am 28, writing a blog read by people younger than that. Something that has interested me recently has been the question of what I can ethically write.

I don’t mean in the sense of “what is the best way to ethically write about queer teenagers when I am straight?” which is another topic altogether, but in the sense of, “should I write about this topic/link to this other post/include this phrase? Is it inappropriate? Is it too adult?”

I know YA authors who have been told they shouldn’t write about certain things in their personal blogs. They should not talk about sex, for example, or about drinking alcohol or smoking. They shouldn’t curse. They shouldn’t talk about politics, or what they think about sex education in schools, or racism, or violence. This advice comes from various people - agents, publishers, fellow authors, concerned parents, librarians, and young people.

I disagree with almost all of it, but lately I have been thinking about how to balance the fact that I am an adult, with an adult life, and the fact that I am writing for teenagers, who have teenage lives, and are not legally or socially permitted to do many of the things I can. I have been contemplating where I draw the line on keeping things from the eyes of the Children.

You know who the Children are. The Children are always called upon by those wanting to keep sex education out of schools, or get racy TV off our screens, or censor internet sites. “Just think of the Children!” they cry. “We must protect the Children!”

They are (mostly) coming from a good place, where they think that young people are on the whole more vulnerable than adults (true) and need special protection because of that vulnerability (also true). But I think that condensing all young people into the form of the Children and attempting to install, through legislation or social pressure, a giant bubble wrap ball that will protect the Children from everything that might upset them or cause them to think about adult topics is a bad idea.

I spend a lot of my time thinking about teenagers, and how I want to portray them, and what I want to say to them through my books and my blog. “Don’t think about adult topics!” is NOT a thing I want to say. Young people frequently have to think about adult things because they are already happening when they are young. Often they want to think about them in advance of being adults, so that they can be prepared when they are adults, and ready to do them. Fiction is one way to encounter or mull over adult situations without having to be there in the flesh; blogs are another.

And to be quite honest, if my blog is a partial accounting of myself, it is also an advertisement for my work, and to exclude those things would be false advertising. There are six occurrences of “fuck” in Guardian of the Dead, y’all. (There used to be eighteen. Eighteen was very lazy writing.) There are also instances of drinking, sexual harassment, some truly gruesome violence, and speeding, all committed by or against teenagers. I thought carefully about including those things, and then I went ahead and did it. If you don’t like it in the blog, you probably won’t like it in the books. Best to be warned!

A few months ago, I came up with these rules for myself:

• I won’t talk about personally having sex in my blog, because that’s disrespectful to other parties. But I will talk about sex itself.
• I drink, and will mention drinking. (I also vote, and will mention voting.)
• I will cut down on the cursing - on the grounds that it’s lazy writing, not because I think cursing is bad.
• I’ll warn for violent content and nudity in my own blog, and when linking to others.

But I won’t avoid these topics altogether. I’ll handle them with caution. I’ll think about the presentation, and proceed with the aims of causing least harm and most good. And I will not ever make the insulting mistake of thinking my teen readers must be protected from everything that might upset them or confront them or make them think.

Because I write for teenagers, who are becoming adults. I don’t write for the Children.