Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Science of Being a Weird Teen

I was at an NHS eligibility meeting at my high school and like every normal kid between the ages of 13 and 19, raised my hand and asked what we should do if we want to write about an activity that had no adult sponsor.

"What kind of activity?" asked the teacher.

"Um, like an independent project."

"What kind of independent project?"

"Like... well, it's a blog, for teen writ-- I'm sure the [200 people] here don't want to hear about it."

Sure enough, the [colloquial phrase] peanut gallery enjoyed repeating my question ("Does blogging count?") but somehow I doubt I will see them at the induction ceremony. You gotta love high school.

The vignette illustrates the reality we live in, being part of a writing universe online and the real world we can touch without a mousepad. I keep writing and life separate; it's easier than explaining to my lunch table the difficulties of query openers. Compartmentalized? Sure. But the differences between my so-called "night life" as a blogger and writer and "day job" as a fashionable and nerdy high school student make writing- real writing- more interesting.

Later I'll be posting some Top Publishing Tips, but in the meanwhile I need to work on my (last) college application and (too many) scholarship applications and then this thing called homework. This is after I've done a happy dance because of all the author emails I've gotten this week AND the crazy, wonderful people who like to follow my blog.

Moi? Quasi-popular? Never, I'm too weird.

1 comment:

Katie Beth said...

I do the same thing. I don't talk about blogging much at work or school. For people who don't have the internet background that I do, it's kinda weird, so I just leave it alone unless it comes up. I have plenty to write about as it is. :-)