Ten Things
You Don’t Know about Throw Away Teen my
first book for Black Opal Books
10. Throw
Away Teen is the first book in my
“Cheerleader” series. Set in and around a private school, Stewart
Falls Academy, twelve girls deal with timely issues while they learn
to interact and build a winning cheer squad. The life lesson their
coach wants them to learn is that, “Sometimes you have to be your
own cheerleader!”
9. Characters grow and
change in a variety of ways which may surprise the writer as much as
it does the reader. When B.J. Larson, a street-smart foster kid moves
to small town Stewart Falls, she’s the Princess of Passing Though,
but has she found a “forever” home, somewhere it will be safe to
unpack and stay a while?
8. World-building in a
contemporary teen novel can be as challenging as creating the setting
of any other story. Stewart Falls may be a fictional town set around
three small mountain lakes in the Cascade foothills of Washington
State. It still required all the amenities from the local pizzeria to
a down-home riding stable to make the book come alive.
7. Teen dialogue isn’t
easy. It’s like learning a foreign language and at 50+ years of
age, my brain synapses have been closed a long time. Good thing I had
kids at the schools where I substitute teach and at the barn to keep
my language real. B.J. refers to herself as “street trash” but
nobody else better put that label on her. And calling her, Blow-Job
will immediately get your butt kicked, as plenty of other girls have
learned the hard way. And no, she doesn’t fight like a girl!
6. Just because the writer
loves a phrase doesn’t mean the editor will and that the phrase
stays through the revision process. B.J.’s mantra that she repeats
whenever she’s scared made her “sound childish” so it went
away. Okay, that was for the most part, but I snuck in a couple of
reps when things got particularly stressful for her. Then saying,
“I’m B.J. Larson and I’m tough,” made it possible for her to
survive one more time.
5. The supporting cast
doesn’t have to be human, but don’t forget the character arcs.
B.J.’s new roomie is an eight-week-old, purple heeler-border collie
puppy. He loves her unconditionally, but has a tough time staying on
task in doggie class. B.J. wonders if he’s like her and has A.D.D.
She learns that it’s normal for puppies to be easily distracted and
she can teach him to stay focused. With the help of her tutor, she
can learn it too. Okay, and a mocha helps!
4. Conflict needs to start
at the beginning of the book with the introduction of the antagonist.
B.J. doesn’t expect everyone to welcome her with open arms, but she
also didn’t intend to have a “face-off” with her new foster
parents’ adult daughter. B.J. may be 15 going on 40, but Jocelyn is
35 going on 12 at times.
3. B.J. discovers that the
guy of her dreams isn’t just a pretty face ~ he comes with baggage
even if he lives in what should be a picture-perfect small town.
Nobody is a “pod” person even if he or she seems that way at
first. Accepting yourself for who and what you are leads to being
able to accept others.
2. Liz and Ted Driscoll,
her foster parents aren’t perfect, but neither is B.J. While it’s
fun to write a flawed character, it’s also a challenge to keep her
true to herself. When she sets a time-frame for her visit, B.J. feels
much safer knowing this home is just temporary. She also comes to
know her new foster parents in ways she never expected.
1. Can the “Princess of
Passing Through” learn to put down roots? Bounced from foster home
to foster home since she was two, B.J. Larson knows life doesn’t
have guarantees. Learning to trust others may be the largest risk
she’s ever taken.
I’m
delighted the Stewart Falls Cheerleaders found a home with Black OpalPublishing. I have a terrific cover and my own real puppy is on it. I
still don’t know how we got him to hold still for the picture –
he’s a whirling, horse-chasing, sister-puppy –attacking,
cat-romping fellow at the best of times. But I have to admit that
when he’s sleeping, he’s downright adorable. He loved our snow in
January, but he does think that the cones I use to teach the kids to
steer their horses are actually made for puppies.
I
spend a lot of time with teens both at the family riding stable and
as a substitute middle/high school teacher. I love hearing what they
think and say – the books seemed to come about naturally out of
both those venues. And of course, it’s always easy to find “beta”
readers at the barn or the schools who are happy to tell me when I
make a mistake and need to rewrite, sort of a “turnabout is fair
play,” time.
In addition to writing
young adult novels, I also write mainstream western romance as Josie
Malone. Last week, BookStrand released my third
mainstream western romance, A Woman’s
Place and so my personal adventure
continues. In other words, Yippee! I always dreamed of someday being
a writer. Then I wanted to be a published writer and this is when I
quote the cliché, “You’re never given a dream without being
given the power to make it come true.” You may have to work for it
however.
A Woman’s Place
follows my first historical for BookStrand, A
Man’s World. In that book, a woman
masqueraded as a gunfighter in 1887 Washington (state) Territory –
actually, Trace was a pretty good gunfighter – everybody just
thought she was a man except the hero who figured it out and helped
save her from the outlaw who stalked her. When A
Woman’s Place begins, Trace and Zeb
have been married for just over six months. Then renegades rob the
bank she owns in the town of Junction City.
So, our hero, Rad Morgan,
the marshal of Junction City sets off to capture the miscreants.
Along the way, he meets his match, and Iraqi War veteran/homicide
detective Beth Chambers takes no prisoners. She’ll fit right into
1888 Washington Territory. Of course, I had to figure out how to get
a woman from 2012 to the Old West and why she was even there, but
that was part of the adventure and the paranormal elements kept
escalating. Much to Rad’s initial dismay, Beth and Trace become
fast friends.
SHANNON
KENNEDY/JOSIE MALONE BIOGRAPHY:
As a child, I loved to
dream away the days in an old cherry tree on my family’s pony farm.
In my imagination, the tree became a beautiful Arabian stallion, a
medieval castle and even a pirate ship. I got in trouble for making
my little sisters walk the plank, but hey, they never broke any
bones. On rainy days, I headed for my fort in the hayloft. While the
rain thudded on the cedar shingled roof, I read books, eventually
trading Carolyn Keene for Georgette Heyer. I used the setting of the
pony farm for my second romance from BookStrand. The
Daddy Spell is a finalist in the Colorado
RWA Award of Excellence contest.
Today I live on the family
ranch in the Cascade foothills of Washington State in what was once a
summer vacation cabin. It’s been modernized and even has indoor
plumbing – woo-hoo! I share the cabin with my two cats or maybe,
they share it with me. I usually write at night after a long day on
the ranch. Some days are longer and harder than others, but I still
write from 8PM to 2AM, seven days a week. As a substitute school
teacher, I love the school breaks but I’m just as busy, since there
are 36 horses to look after, along with other assorted animals.
With
all the critters on the ranch, I don’t have time for a husband. As
for kids, I have to give back the ones who come to learn how to ride
at the end of each day. Now, I’m teaching the kids and grandkids of
the ones I taught way back when we started. I’ve had a lot of
adventures over the years – and in my next 50 years, I plan to
write all about them. I hope you enjoy reading about them!
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