Next I headed over to Boston. com where I found “Young adult novels heating up the charts.” All those paranormal romances and boarding school fantasy novels? They’re pretty much saving publishing. The article compares the sales of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (600,000 copies) to Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay (1.3 million). So there’s certainly a monetary incentive for publishers to go after those books that Bruns and Grimes decry. As far as mainstream media covering YA goes, this article was pretty good, especially in its lack of hand-wringing about what these books are doing to our children (making them read, that’s what!). I was annoyed, though, by the reasons given for the popularity of YA books: essentially, YA books center on self-involved protagonists and we are all self-involved these days. “How often” asks the article, “do adults get to think only about themselves”? While indeed there is an inward focus in YA novels, and an emphasis on growth (aka coming of age), neither the teens I know nor the teens I write and read about fit this narrow model.

Taken together it seems that YA is in a state of material growth but depravity of content. While I, too, often roll my eyes at the similarities amongst stories that I come across in review journals, I don’t think we need to declare a state of emergency yet. I once saw television producer Tom Fontana speak and he said, “The best thing about television is also the worst thing about television: there’s something for everybody.” Such is the case with YA literature (and all literature, really). Yes, there is a lot of stuff out there that seems to lack originality, but there’s also much to celebrate: unique voices, unusual stories, characters who become our friends. Below I share my list of cross-over titles that don’t fall into the mold.

First, though, I want to get back to the essential point in Grimes’ piece. The problem, she writes, is not that the unoriginal books exist, but rather what books don’t exist because of them. She makes a strong argument that by writing these copycats, authors are depriving themselves of the opportunity to write what they are truly meant to write:

No one can keep you from pouring your creative energy into cloning someone else’s original idea, of course. But if you do, chances are you’ll have little self or soul left to produce, and enjoy, the brilliance of your own original creations. And, by the way, your original idea is priceless, simply because it is yours. . . .write your own story, not somebody else’s. In the end, you’ll be proud of yourself for having done so.

So here it is, your Read Write list for today: young adult novels that appeal to adults without being cookie cutter copies. As writers, I think we’d all love to appeal to as many readers as possible. Here are books that show you can do so while still following Grimes’ advice to write your own story.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is innovative not just for his use of found photographs — which are creepy and touching at the same time — but for tying a story of loss, hope, and loneliness to a paranormal thriller. (Note: I’m not actually sure if this was published as YA. Priced at $17.99 it would seem to be, but I think the publishers are keeping it purposefully ambiguous to tie into that crossover market).

When I did study abroad in Northern Ireland, my friends and I would pass around Nick Hornby books. We’d giggle and read aloud our favorite parts; we’d use the humor of the books as inside-jokes amongst ourselves. I wish we’d had Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison then — though we probably would have been kicked off the trains for laughing too loudly.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E. Lockhart. Man, I love this book. In her 2009 Printz honor acceptance speech, Lockhart reported that she’d heard Frankie called borderline psychotic and a feminist hero. I’m definitely in the feminist hero camp. At the risk of being hyperbolic, never has a book dealing with class and gender been so funny.

Sometimes a book that might seem to fit the form — an orphan, a boarding school — is anything but. Circus Galacticus by Deva Fagan is that book. Admittedly I have not read this since it was in drafts, but I adored it — and I don’t think it was just my love of circuses talking. Orphan Trix is stuck at a snobby boarding school, but when the Circus Galacticus comes to town, she sees her chance for escape. The wildly imaginative setting puts this one ahead of the pack.

Finally, I hesitate to put The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean on the list because it is indescribable. Here’s how WorldCat does it:

Taken to Antarctica by the man she thinks of as her uncle for what she believes to be a vacation, Symone–a troubled fourteen year old–discovers that he is dangerously obsessed with seeking Symme’s Hole, an opening that supposedly leads into the center of a hollow Earth.

I have never participated in NaNoWriMo before, but that hasn’t kept me from being deeply cynical about it. This is probably because December always found the writerly listservs to which I subscribe bombarded with questions like, “I finished my novel in November. How do I get an agent?” I would roll my eyes, but others would patiently explain that perhaps a little revision was in order first. I understood their enthusiasm: when I finish a draft of a novel, I want everyone to read it, too. But, I know that it’s not actually ready yet, and a good waiting period for all readers — myself included — is in order. I guess that’s why I was unimpressed by the idea of writing a whole novel in a month. How good could a book written in 30 days actually be?

My ideas about NaNoWriMo started to change as I met more people who had come out of the month with (eventually) working and successful novels. I also took the approach for the first time of writing what I called a “skeleton draft”: the bones of the story to which I would go back and add flesh. Since I’m an adder-onner rather than a pruner,  this approach actually makes sense to me. So, while I took longer than a month to write my draft, I was starting to see how such an exercise could be useful.

I’m also a huge believer that you don’t become a writer by thinking or dreaming or plotting or talking about writing. You become a writer by sitting down and writing. NaNoWriMo provides the structure that people need to make writing a habit.

What really made me come around to the idea of NaNoWriMo, though, was hearing an interview with Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus,  on NPR’s All Thing Considered. She spoke about how she used NaNoWriMo two years in a row to build the world of her novel. To me this seems a perfect use of the month. True, it’s not actually writing a novel. But committing to writing 50k words that explore your world — that seems a priceless luxury.

Now that I’ve decided that NaNoWriMo may not be so bad after all, I would love to participate. However, this year I’m working on revisions of The Water Castle. I’d love to get those done by the end of the month. NaNoRevMo? Maybe next year I will jump in with both feet.

In the meantime, our booklist today will be books that came out of NaNoWriMo. Perhaps the best known success story is Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. The Hub highlights more. Here are several more, some with tips from the authors, that I hope will inspire you to take the plunge.

• Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. See her Bookduck interview in which she dispels my misconception about the project: “There’s often a misconception that NaNo is about writing a book in a month. I mean, National Novel Writing Month. It’s there in the title! But that’s really not what it’s about. It’s about creating a first, very very rough draft that you can eventually — with a lot of hard work — turn into a novel.”
• My fellow Mainer Deva Fagan wrote the first 50,000 words of Fortune’s Folly in 2003, finishing her rough draft in December. She did a guest post on why it worked for her that year — and why it didn’t in a subsequent year, for Abby the Librarian, who ran a series on NaNoWriMo.
• Sydney Salter has had two successes with NaNoWriMo books: My Big Nose & Other Natural Disasters and Swoon at Your Own Risk. Like Deva, she worked into December to finish her drafts.
• Cindy Pon told me: “i wrote 35k of Silver Phoenix (the dreaded middle) using nano in 2006. i never used it with the intention of completing 50k in a month. i only wanted to push myself through the middle and establish a good writing routine. i wrote for about 40 minutes a night, 5 days a week, and averaged between 1k to 1800 words in those 40 minutes. i would say at least 28k of those words i wrote stayed in the novel.”
• At 19, Jessica Burkhart took part in NaNoWriMo and wrote what would become the first in her twelve book Canterwood Crest Series. If you’re a member, you can read her story at MediaBistro.
• If it weren’t for NaNoWriMo, it’s possible that Carrie Ryan’s bestselling Forest of Hands and Teeth would not exist: “It was the rule that says you have to start something new that made me write Forest — I already had several other projects going and so I had to come up with something new.”

To all those participating in NaNoWriMo 2011 — good luck and get writing!

I also forgot to take pictures at the conference. I did a panel with Ellen Booraem, Deva Fagan, Carrie Jones (who apparently almost died on the way there), and Kelly McClymer. Kevin Hawkes was the keynote speaker. He was funny, charming, and really insightful. I loved seeing his work step by step. He also said something that I wrote down in paraphrase: in illustration, everything needs to add to the emotion of the picture; otherwise it should be cut out. And I kind of want to write it out and frame it as a reminder to myself, because the same could be said of writing, of course. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of it.

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On Friday, I did a workshop about standards for school library media programs that was awesome. It was led by Pam Berger, who was just fantastic. Then I went to the author panel with Eric Van Lustbader, Chuck Hogan, Tracy Chevalier, and Julie Powell. Ostensibly it was about books into movies, but they talked about all sorts of things. As a new author, I found it fascinating and reassuring when they talked about reviews. Except for Lustbader, who insisted he didn’t read his I should have taken notes and written down quotes because they were interesting. Chevalier talked about how the reviews balanced her, since most people who write to her or come to her events like the books. Both she and Hogan mentioned that they wished they could learn something from them, which is one of the fallacies of book reviewing, I think, that the author will read it, incorporate it, and somehow improve their work.

Next I went to the YALSA happy hour in which I met many hip librarians whose fashion I very much want to emulate, and with whom I had great conversations. I met people on various award committees who would not spill at all, even with my clever attempts at tricking them like, “Oh, I so want to know who wins!”

Saturday was exhibits and authors for me. It met up with Deva Fagan and Erin Dionne and they each knew so many people, and it was like every time I turned around I was being introduced to another magnificent author. It was crazy, and I was star-struck. Then I met my lovely agent Sara Crowe who took me to lunch along with Varian Johnson and Mary Atkinson. Can I tell you how amazing it is to have a business-lunch that’s all about literature? It is totally amazing.

So then I was going to crash the Tweet Up, but sometimes I need a little break from interaction, so I found a quiet place and started reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson, one of the many arcs I scored.

Finally I met some librarian friends for dinner at Tapeo, a tapas restaurant right in the neighborhood where I used to work when I lived in Boston. Good food and nostalgia — nothing better than that! Then I took the train back to the exact stop where I used to live, and my husband picked me up, and it was like when we first started dating. Sigh. And we all lived happily ever after. The end.

Oh wait! I forgot an essential part! So I mentioned the committees above, and I finally did get my answer. First off, congratulations to all the winners of the ALA Youth Media awards! I think it is a wonderful collection of books that won the awards and were put on the lists. My dear Deb L.K. Madigan won the Morris for Flash Burnout. Ash by Malinda Lo was one of the finalists. Ash was also one of the top books of the Rainbow List, a list which, I am very proud to say, also included Secrets of Truth & Beauty. Kekla Magoon, who I met at the Bar Harbor Book Festival, earned the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award for The Rock and The River.

There’s some more good news for some of my writing buddies. Saundra Mitchell is nominated for an Edgar for Shadowed Summer. And Carrie Jones, who has my heart and a duct tape rose, is a New York Times Bestseller with Captivate!

One question I couldn’t answer was what book made me want to become a writer. I loved the other author’s answers, and some of those definitely inspired me, too (esp. A Prayer for Owen Meaney). I can’t point to one book, though, that was like a switch of a light. It was more the cumulative effect of reading wonderful books, and going to those worlds, and living through the author’s worlds. I wanted to create world’s and people like that, too, first for myself, and eventually for other people.

But I’m curious, writers, is there a book or author that made you want to write?

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Recently, Erin was interviewed in a great article about “positive characters of size.”  I need to get reading some of the other books mentioned in the article. I would also like to add Wrenn from Leigh Brescia’s One Wish. I’ve only just begun this book, and I am finding it tremendously powerful — and a bit like Leigh read my middle and high school years’ diary.

It just so happens that Erin and I, along with fellow Deb Deva Fagan, will be doing a panel at the Bar Harbor Book Festival about positive, unconventional female characters in YA and MG lit. We’d love to see you there!

Today I am very excited to bring you Fortunata from Deva Fagan’s Fortune’s Folly. Deva is the only Deb — so far! — who I have met real life in person, not just on the interwebs, and she is so cool, down to earth, and fun.

Character name: Fortunata
Age: Teen
Biography:
Fortunata is the daughter of a famed Master Shoemaker who has lately lost his talent. She now supports herself and her father as a traveling fortune-teller. She loves nutcakes, sensible shoes, and white roses.

What is your talent?
*in a resonant voice* I am Fortunata the All-Knowing, Mistress of Magic, Doyenne of Dreams!
*in her normal voice* Sounds impressive doesn’t it? Amazing how many people believe that line…

What will you wear for the evening dress competition?
*she sighs* I suppose it’ll have to be this old thing. *she fiddles with her star-spangled but somewhat threadbare fortune-teller’s costume* All my really nice things got sold after mother died and Father lost his skills. Just please don’t look at my shoes, by the Saints. *her shoes are bright yellow and black and bear a strong resemblance to bumblebees*

Who is your escort?
Prince Leonato of Doma. No, you don’t have to bow, he doesn’t put on airs and all that. *lowers voice* Doesn’t he look just like Saint Marco the Fair? And you know he’s never teased me a bit over these silly bumblebee shoes. *sighs*

And now for the interview portion . . .What’s the biggest challenge facing today’s youth?
Hmm… Well you know, so many people come wanting the All-Knowing Eye to tell them what to do with their lives. You know, they’re sweet on someone their parents don’t approve of, or they aren’t sure whether to dedicate themselves to the Saints or become farmers. And most of the time, they really know what they want, but they haven’t realized it. They want someone else to TELL them what to do (that would be me). It seems like more people ought to be able to think for themselves, and not go around waiting for some sham fortune-teller *coughs* I mean, someone who possesses the All-Knowing Eye to tell them what to do. It’s their own life, and they need to make their own future happen.

Thank you Fortunata and Deva!

Fortune’s Folly is available now — I’ve seen it! I’ve seen Deva holding it! You can order it from Amazon or at your local independent book store. If you’re in Maine, like Deva and I are, try the Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta — they have a great YA section.

To learn more about Deva, please visit her website (it’s purty).