My daughters, now 20 and 22, used to love watching cartoons when they were young. Often, Kim Possible would end up on the screen. The titian-haired teen crime fighter with the bare mid-drift, and her naked-mole-rat-loving sidekick Ron, cared a lot about everyone and everything.

Kim and Ron had hope enough for hundreds.

Writing for the young adult market can be tricky, particularly if you're well beyond having that youthful optimism—that blossom of hope all teenagers have at the core of their being.

Yes, I said hope. If you're a parent with a couple of teenagers in the house, I apologize if coffee just spewed out your nose. Cough it out, dear. You'll get past it.

Despite what you may think, I am NOT crazy for believing teenagers have hope. I turn 50 on Wednesday, but I remember. When I was a teen, I cared about EVERYTHING. I usually tried to act like I didn't care about anything, but I cared. Almost as much as Kim and Ron.

Hope. Hope. Hope.

As a writer of young adult fiction, I do find myself writing grittier for today's readers. Death and sex and drugs and alcohol are no longer entirely taboo. Still, no matter how saucy or dark or dire the subject matter becomes, I strive to write with hope at the heart—the core—of my YA story.

But what's hopeful about teenagers? Aren't they angsty? Don't they get upset about everything? Aren't they prone to moodiness and indulge in end-of-the-world syndrome when they get a hangnail?

Perhaps. Some. But even those stereotypical teens who are angsty and upset and moody have hope. The best tip I can offer writers of young adult fiction is to remember that teenagers who see the world as conspiring against them HOPE there is something better just around the corner.

I may be turning 50, but I remember.

I hoped I'd get a prom date (I did, but my boyfriend broke up with me two weeks before the big day). I hoped I'd get a pony (I did, but he was a mean little thing and bit me). I hoped I'd get a lead in the school musical (I did, but I flubbed a song when the cute piano player in the pit smiled at me). I hoped the popular girls would accept me and stop making fun of my prominent nose (They did not. The pretty, little bullies called me Beaker).

I remember being very angsty and upset and moody. If Hal gets a zit on his lip and the entire football team dubs him Herpes Hal, it's a big deal. These are life-changing, world-crushing problems for a 16-year-old.

Fortunately, I grew up and got over my seemingly minor life-changers. At the time, though, I was convinced everyone was conspiring against me. Secretly, I HOPED for better. Any day that didn't end in tears was a day of hope. One good day could lead to two good days, then three days, then four days strung together to make a good week.

We've all been there.

A YA writer must connect with teenage readers by stepping back in time to their own days of being angsty and upset and moody. Just like Kim and Ron and teenagers across the globe, we writers must have hope.

Lots and lots of hope.

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Artwork by Michelle Haas.

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For some, it is all about perseverance. Being your "personal best"—whether a writer, a dog walker, or an accountant—is about the choices you make and the ability to push through adversity.

Today's blog isn't about how to use "they're" or "their" or "there." It has nothing to do with setting or plot twists. It doesn't even have much to do with ability (or lack thereof).

It does have bunches to do with character, though.

I'm not talking, "Sally's raven hair whipped about her face, the scar at her temple a shadow of her past" character.

I'm talking about personal character—STRENGTH of character—the type of character in one of my favorite childhood stories, "The Little Engine That Could," by Watty Piper.
 
We'll call my writing critique buddy, Laurel Houck, The Little Writer That Could. She's not only little (cute as a button, really, and feisty as they come), but just about the most determined writer I know.

“I once had an agent tell me, ‘You’re persistent. I’ll give you that.’ It wasn’t meant as a compliment. But it has proven to be true,” says Laurel.
 
Laurel is talented. REALLY, really talented. I've been listening to her stories for years, always just a little envious of how effortlessly her writing seems to leap off the page. As a critique partner, it has been hard for me to find something, anything, to improve upon. Instead, I get so lost in her words that I forget to take notes. But, effortless as her writing seems, I know just how hard she works at it. She puts in the time. An incredibly prolific writer, over the years she's produced a historical YA mystery set in a graveyard, a snarky middle grade, beautifully lyrical picture books, a heart-wrenching story set in a Nazi concentration camp, an epic YA trilogy, and so much more. ALL of it ... great stuff.
 
It wasn’t easy for her to get here, but I am thrilled to see Laurel's first ghostly, romantic, angst-filled YA, "The Girl With Chameleon Eyes," now available for public consumption.
 
About the book:
Summer is “The Girl With Chameleon Eyes.” She knows that she’s a ghost, and that something in her past has prevented her eternal rest. But what she did and how to expiate that guilt is a mystery—one that must be solved by her seventeenth birthday or she will roam forever. Kota, unhappy and at odds with everyone, feels an instant attraction to Summer. She recoils at the mere sight of him. Yet they are drawn together in a dance of mutual need, choreographed by the ages. When both of their lives begin to unravel and intertwine, will love be enough to save them? Or will evil consume them both?

For Laurel, getting a novel published has been years in the making. Often, even the most talented of writers must face unexpected obstacles. The ins and outs, the ups and downs, of Laurel’s personal writing journey are not for the faint of heart.
 
“My first sale to a major publishing house, a YA trilogy, made me swoon,” says Laurel, who saw her dream turn south when the parent company overspent on a well-known author’s latest book. “We unknowns were cancelled because they needed to save money.”
 
Laurel’s next sale, again to a major house, was a co-authored MG series. When edits were almost complete on book one, the editor decided to remove Laurel from the project and retain the other author. Laurel’s partner, also a member of our writing group, refused. The two writers (both equally talented) sold it to another big house.
 
“Same scenario, except this time they wanted him off the project,” says Laurel, who also refused to leave her partner in the dust. The series has never found a new home.
 
Over many years of putting her work out there, Laurel has had the ubiquitous rejection letters and the increasingly popular no response at all. She has been agented and un-agented. She’s experienced hate tweets on what some considered non-PC subject matter. There have been promises made and broken and even a fellow writer who tore her work apart in front of an editor at a writing retreat.
 
“A rare occurrence,” says Laurel, “but there you have it.”
 
And yet, through it all, here she is. Still writing. Still doing her thing. Still putting out wonderfully crafted stories like, “The Girl With Chameleon Eyes.”
 
She is grateful to Melissa Keir at Inkspell Publishing for this opportunity. And for the many friends and family who have believed in her and been supportive since the beginning of the journey.
 
Every writer has a different idea of what his or her personal best can be. Anyone who wants to see success at the end of the journey may have some uphill battles to get there. And the downhill plummet from the top may not be as easy-breezy as one would expect. The key is to put in the time, work your way up that hill, and take the plunge. If it is something you feel committed to, persevere.

“I’ve had no special knowledge or thoughts that someday I would certainly be published. But for whatever reason, I simply kept on keeping on,” says Laurel.
 
Indeed.
 
Be Laurel. Be that Little Writer That Could.

Congrats, my friend.
 
Laurel has been writing since the age of six when Crawls the Caterpillar inched across her wide-lined yellow notebook paper. She has published magazine articles in Skipping Stones, Westsylvania Magazine, The Tribune Review, The Loyalhanna Review, and SEAPC magazine. Blog posts have appeared on All the Way YA and at seapc.org. In addition to The Girl with Chameleon Eyes, Inkspell will publish her next YA novel in March of 2020. She lives in the Pittsburgh suburbs with her husband and their fur baby, Mable. And she’s the world’s biggest fan of chocolate milkshakes.
 
Website:       laurelhouckpages.com
Facebook:     Laurel Houck
Twitter:        @laurelhouck
Instagram:   laurelscottage

Amazon link to order The Girl With Chameleon Eyes.

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