Why Teenagers are Geniuses
By Jacquelyn Mitchard
Don’t tell them I said this. They’re already insufferable, with their fishnets and their silky hair – and that’s the guys, so don’t get me started on the girls!
For the best title of a book I ever wrote (THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN), for the best plot device (ALL WE KNOW OF HEAVEN), and, yes, for the absolutely everything of this suspenseful new novel, I owe it all to teenagers who live in or otherwise lurk around my house.
This is the scene:
ME: “I need to get another line of work. Maybe operating a Bobcat.”
TEEN GIRL: “Bad writing day?”
ME: “Bad writing LIFE.”
TEEN GUY: “I was outside the other night alone. You ever notice how, you’re out alone, and people do different things at night? Not just nurses and cops, them too, but not just them. People act different in the dark. People do things, in the dark, they wouldn’t do in the daytime? As if they can get away with it?”
ME: “As if darkness confers some kind of moral cloak of invisibility?”
TEEN GIRL: “I don’t think that’s what she was going for …”
TEEN GUY: “But okay, say there were these kids, and they only went out at night …”
ME: “VAMPIRES? I can’t do vampires! Ever heard of ‘Twilight?’ I’d be laughed out of town. Okay. Here’s an ad. Heavy equipment operators command top dollar. The demand is huge …”
TEEN GIRL: “Not vampires. They’re … they have that thing, that allergy to light….”
ME: “Xeroderma Pigmentosum?”
TEEN GIRL: “This guy and this girl, they’re smart and fierce and cool and they love sports, the more extreme the better…”
TEEN GUY: “Like Parkour! You jump twenty feet from one building to another, two stories off the ground …”
ME: “Hey! How do you know that?”
TEEN GIRL: “Uhhhhhh … from YouTube.”
TEEN GUY: “And then one night, they’re doing this X-treme thing, like bouldering up a building …”
ME: “Bouldering? You know this only from seeing it on YouTube?”
TEEN GIRL: “That’s what he said. I didn’t say that.”
ME: “You DID it?”
TEEN GIRL: “I didn’t say that either. Anyhow, they look in a window and they see something … they see, somebody. He’s … evil. He’s … like a monster. And they know him. No, they don’t know him. They maybe almost recognize him. But it’s all hidden. They can’t tell anybody …”
ME: “Why not? I’d be screaming from the roof tops!”
TEEN GIRL: “You’re the writer. Do I have to do everything for you?”
ME: “I’d appreciate it. I’d also give you forty dollars.”
TEEN GUY: “Fifty. So what if nobody believed her? About the things she saw at night? So whoever it was, whatever it was, could get away with it. Because they have no proof. Just the proof of their own eyes. Just, what they saw.”
ME: “What we saw at night.”
TEEN GIRL: “Creepalicious. I’ll split the fifty with you. Go to Target?”
TEEN GUY: “Movies first.”
TEEN GIRL: “We’re out of here, Mom.”
ME: “It was a dark and stormy night … well, it actually was a dark and stormy
night …”
Jacquelyn Mitchard is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books of fiction and non-fiction, including the first book in the Oprah Winfrey Book Club, the critically acclaimed 'The Deep End of the Ocean.' The editor in chief of a new Young Adult publisher, Merit Press, she lives on Cape Cod with her family, but is not afraid of great white sharks.
http://jacquelynmitchard.com/
On a random summer night, the trio catches a glimpse of what appears to be murder. Allie alone takes it upon herself to investigate, and the truth comes at an unthinkable price. Navigating the shadowy world of specialized XP care, extreme sports, and forbidden love, Allie ultimately uncovers a secret that upends everything she believes about the people she trusts the most.
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For more, check out Sarah's interview with Jackie!
I'm a little humbled to be part of a blog that snags guests like the fantabulous Jacquelyn Mitchard. I read her books for adults as a teen (DEEP END OF THE OCEAN- WOW!!!!!), and I'm looking forward to reading her book for teens as an adult. Now if only she'd share those plot devising kids of hers- I'd pay $60, at least.... off to buy this book!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat set-up ... I want to read this book, and I didn't even know being allergic to darkness was a thing. How do you come up with this stuff? Seriously. loveslit.blogspot.com
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