Having teens of my own, who let me just add, I am not trying to impress. I come into contact with a lot of them from time to time, if I am lucky! Just listening to them is like mainlining adrenaline.
I was debauched in my 20s, but I was fit and healthy in my teens.
I feel more pressure when I’m writing for teens. I’m very aware that my audience is impressionable. Therefore, I’m far more careful about what I say and the language I use.
Only those with skin as thick as elephant hide can hope to sail through their teens unscathed by self-doubt and bouts of depression.
I saw a photo of a Christian Lacroix couture dress when I was in my teens and decided right then that that’s how I wanted to look on my wedding day. In my mind, that’s what angels looked like.
Oh the innocent girl in her maiden teens knows perfectly well what everything means.
I built two forges when I was in my teens. I was just really, really into metalworking and making stuff.
Teens have a sensational narcissism and genuinely believe that their experiences are unique and can’t be explained to adults. But we forgive them for their mistakes and naivete.
I was very aware of Jeff Buckley. My brother actually bought me The Mamas And The Papas and Jeff Buckley for my birthday when I was in my early teens.
I used to pray to God that I wouldn’t get breasts. Then in my teens, I tried to be quite feminine.
I’d be scared of hitting 60 and looking like a granny when the child’s just in their teens. I’m happy I had my daughter when I was in my 30s.
I was kind of lucky because I was fit and healthy when I was in my teens, got a bit wild in my 20s, and stopped round about my 30s.
In my teens, I was very insecure. And so I invented Roger Moore.
During my teens and early 20s, I proved to be anything but what most people expected Billy Graham’s son to be. I’m so thankful he never gave up on me or quit loving me.
Teens are being portrayed with depth because they are multidimensional, and they deserve to be portrayed as such.
Older teens tend to write to me and say, ‘Thank you for not writing down to teenagers.’ And then there are the letters from adults who say, ‘This is such a good book; why did you write it for teens?’
I must confess that in my teens and twenties, I loved ‘Mansfield Park’ rather in spite of Fanny than because of her. Like Fanny’s rich, sophisticated cousins, I didn’t really get her.
Here’s something a little more personal: In my teens, I was having a hard time and ended up in a therapy group of young women, some of whom had endured terrible childhood traumas.
When I was in my early teens, I joined a cult. And we weren’t allowed to listen to secular music or anything that wasn’t made by us. So I spent a lot of time not listening to music, and by the time I could, I just didn’t get into it.
Later, in the early teens, I used to ride my bike every Saturday morning to the nearest airport, ten miles away, push airplanes in and out of the hangars, and clean up the hangars.
In my early teens, I was working in a Wimpy Bar and delivering cab company cards to make cash. I also ran a tuck shop at school. I struggled academically because of being dyslexic. When I saw other families and what they had, it inspired me. I thought, ‘I can get that, too, if I work hard.’
I was, without a sliver of a doubt, a no-good, lazy slacker of a child, and after I discovered literature, I was totally and utterly a no-good, lazy slacker of a child who read books. A lot of books, good and bad, but my favourite – the books I read and reread in my teens – were by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
I’ve always been interested in setting my stories against a big event, the importance of which my younger readers are slowly becoming aware of as they move into their teens.
Older teens tend to write to me and say, ‘Thank you for not writing down to teenagers.’
Teens are always shown as one dimensional. They’re stereotyped. When I was in high school, I cared about more than getting a date or making the team.
Lord knows I’m not the poster child for eating right and exercising, so I don’t want to give that impression at all! This is the same person who people have watched have a weight problem in her teens, so come on!
In my late teens, I fell out of love with music – you know how kids are, when you’re encouraged to do something, you rebel. But then I picked it back up again.
I felt I ought not to be wasting time, and I hurried to graduate from high school to enroll at UCSD. I also hurried to finish college, to go on to higher studies. By the time I was in my teens, I had a strong sense of mission, wanting to discover something important or solve a major problem in biology or medicine.
