Writing YA Christian lit or Not.

I did not grow up in a Christian home. My parents weren't druggies or alcoholics or abusive. We were just a typical lower middle class family struggling to make it work. My mother stayed at home with us until I was in first or second grade. She then took a job with a maid service. For the first time my sisters and I were given an allowance. As the youngest, I was paid the least for my labor which included dusting and vacuuming. It was $5. And it was enough. A new bookstore had opened in the recently developed strip mall across the street that ran behind our home. The bookstore was the only thing that made the destruction of the farmland acceptable in my mind. I was maybe 8 or 9 at the beginning. Each Friday I would take my $5 and walk to the bookstore. Back then $5 was just enough to buy two paperbacks. This was when I fell in love with Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike. No, there were no Sweet Valley High books for me. My friends were all reading them, but not me, never a one. I was a Nancy Drew girl, a mystery and thriller girl. When I was 10 I discovered what I consider to be the original Twilight series, The Vampire Diaries, LJ Smith. And by the way, the WB series does the book series a great injustice. I read all of Duncan and Smith and Pike and usually read book more than once. When I became a Christian at the age of 15 I was reading Dean Koontz and my Bible and occasionally Stephen King. Seem like a conflict of interest? Indeed. But what else was I supposed to read? Christian fiction at the time left much to be desired. It was poorly written and cheesy to say the least. Recently when I started writing my own YA novel I struggled with this. I wanted to write something Christian parents would approve of and Christian and non-Christian terms would enjoy. Oh but we have Twilight, you say. Um no. While Edward insisting on waiting until marriage to have sex is great and my favorite thing about the entire series, it doesn't override the fact that Bella's entire existence, she thought, hinged on Edward. That's stupid. And unhealthy. While most of my characters are not Christians, they struggle with their morals and with the morals of their Christian friends. But that isn't the focus of the story. It is a thriller after all. And honestly I didn't write it with any moral in mind. My goal was to write a romantic thriller for teens that didn't involve vampires or zombies or werewolves or this ridiculous notion that a girl's life should revolve around a boy. Injecting my Christian faith into the story was tricky. I didn't want to lay it on too thick but I didn't want to ignore it. I'm the end I think a happy balance was found but you would have to be the judge of that. Look for my ebooks Filter at amazon.com or smashwords.com.

Retro Reads Review: Slumber Party~Christopher Pike

Is there anything better than a book you read when you were first falling in love with reading? I grew up as a poor, low-middle class, white girl in Illinois. And when mom started working when I was in third grade and turned my sisters and I into latchkey kids the only upside was a meager allowance. Seven bucks for me, each week, and it was bliss. With fortune in hand I would cross the busy street to what use to be a cornfield and was then partially occupied by a little strip mall. We hated the strip mall, but we loved the little bookstore tucked into it. It was a five minute walk to bliss. In a tiny back room filled with YA paperbacks I met Mr. Christopher Pike and fell in love.
With $7 a week and books costing only half that I was able to quickly amass quite the Pike Collection. Slumber Party was part of that. Sadly my original copy was "lost in the divorce," meaning it was thrown away, but Point Books just published To Die For as a two-fer deal including Slumber Party and Weekend. It's a quick and easy read and far from unpredictable, but Pike is good at getting your heart pumping, because the villain is unhinged and you're not quite sure how it's all going to go down. Pike does, unfortunately have a nasty habit of creating a reading-by-numbers feel. Don't leave so many clues for us Mr. Pike, we're smarter than that. And to be honest, while a lot of the dialogue was spot on for teenagers I found myself often wondering, "Would a teenager actually say that?" It kind of reminds me of the 80's movies wherein all the actors playing teenagers were actually in their early twenties. Fitting because Slumber Party was published in 1985. But still, there's romance and suspense and cat fights and crazy people with lighters. And it's Christopher. And I love him. If you need a few hours of easy amusement, give it a whirl. For me, it's like going home and that's a lovely thing.

Vampire Diaries: The Fury

OMG.
As a rule, crying during teen romance novels is unacceptable behavior.
It almost happened though, almost but not quite.
Maybe it's because I got up so early. We'll blame it on that.

Thus far, The Fury is my favorite of the Vampire Diaries, which really should have all been one book...but what Stephenie Meyer can get away with today might not have flown so hot nearly twenty years ago (wow, let's not put it in those terms again!). The Fury is filled with awakenings and realizations and I was nervous for Elena and the gang, scared for them at times and then suddenly....my tiredness nearly allowed me to cry.
LJ Smith accomplishes what Meyer never did for me...she made me nervous. Yes, I've read the books time and again but every time that concern wells back up. I know these characters, they're old friends of mine and I want things to go well for them....but sometimes things just don't. And that is something else. LJ Smith is willing to allow her characters to go down paths that might be less than favorable. She is willing to shock and to let go.
It still makes me angry that these books were made into a television series (atrocious as it is).
They're making Outlander into a movie and The Vampire Diaries into a series. How backward is that?

At the end of the They Fury I ran back to my room, to my favorite shelf filled with old-school reads (which, I realized to my horror...I am missing a TON of my Christopher Pike books. Where did they go? Where is Chain Letter? And the Final Friends, hmmm? Ich weiss nicht.) and snatched Dark Reunion. Unfortunately, mommyhood duties called and it was time to feed the children. They are in bed now and I'm done talking to you, so now FINALLY I can get back to the gang.

Leg Warmers and LJ SMith

Last night I hauled all of my teen novels out of storage.

Maybe not all, I seem to have misplaced some. Likely, they are in storage.

Again I was struck by the fact that just like leg warmers, the books of the late 80's/early 90's are finding themselves on the shelves again. And not just the shelves of used bookstores. They're sporting shiny new covers with trendy new cover art in the biggest retailers around. Personally, I prefer the old ones. There's something about the use of real people on the covers of the books that has always bothered me. If my stomach wasn't rolling around right now maybe I could figure out what that is.

After finishing the Twilight sage the first book to on my reread list is Christopher Pike's Fall Into Darkness always one of my favorites. It's so funny. After all these years, two decades in some cases, I can still remember the stories just by looking at the covers, and feel the emotions the skillful craft of Christopher Pike wrought in me. Granted, it will be different now as I am older and have lived through quite a bit. Although I am finding that the difficulties I have lived through actually help me connect with some of the stories I read..the difficulties and the most romantic and heartbreaking new beginning...The Lord has blessed me with a wonderful love story of my own. Some adults may laugh that I read teen novels but they shouldn't. My life could serve as inspiration for some of those "silly" novels. Fairytale romances, with all the strife and stupidity and horror and reunions, really do happen. But that's my tale to tell, one day.

Retro Books?

The Reemergence of Christopher Pike

Growing up, my family did not have much money. We were very lucky when mom started working and we began receiving small allowances for the chores we did. My allowance was $7/week. And every week I would take my money and hurry across busy Mattis Street in Champaign, Illinois to the brand spankin' new bookstore and buy a couple Christopher Pike books. Back then I could buy two books and a bookmark. It was awesome.
The first Pike novel I ever read was Remember Me. The spine is horribly creased as I read it many, many times more. O how I loved Christopher Pike! And then crushing news reached my ears: Christopher Pike was a house name! Meaning? He wasn't a real person, just several authors writing under one name for a publishing company. The internet was not so readily available at that point and I couldn't Google it to find out if it was true. Being a silly, emotional sort of girl I gave up my Christopher Pike addiction and moved on.
And then at WalMart last I week I saw, of all things, a Christopher Pike book! O I was so excited and realized that I could solve the .... well the old question. I have just struck informational gold, potentially (http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/library/poetry/94/chris5.html). I am not sure I accept it as truth, but if he is real I am very happy for him. I am also very glad that I still have all my original copies of his books. When clearing out room on my shelves I picked them up once, considering trading them at the used bookstore. I simply couldn't bring myself to do it. There are too many fond memories of my childhood wrapped up in those pages...the thrill of going to the bookstore alone for the first time and with money in my pocket no less! No, I could never get rid of them. I look at them and see so much more than books. I see the beginning of my love for reading and the stirrings of my passion for writing.
Mr. Pike, or Mr. McFadden, whoever you are, thanks for all the good reading.