I was on my way home from work today and saw a school bus full of kids headed somewhere, probably a field trip or some kind of band/sporting event. And seeing that, it was weird. I was never one for high school...at all. Yet, seeing the school bus sort of tugged at me, reminded me of that school smell on the bus, diesel fumes, old food, and vinyl seats heated by the sun. Well, not on a day like today, I guess. But still, I felt oddly nostalgic about a period that I'd pretty much hated with great intensity.

But high school I think is great fodder for writing. It's a society contained within itself. The upper class, the popular kids, the middle class, the ones that get along everywhere and the lowest rung, those that don't belong anywhere (the ones that are probably software millionaires, convicts or writers now : ) ) At some point, I'd love to write something set in a high school. There's so much drama there on a daily basis. Love, hate, angst, jealousy, all crammed into a bunch of hormone-filled teenagers locked together in a single building for seven or eight hours. Is it any wonder that high school is so traumatic?

Here's the thing I think is interesting--as I was thinking about writing about high school, it occurred to me that I would have to make a choice about whether I would write this story (whatever it is) for adults or teens. The stuff set in high school for adults is usually more graphic, the grittier side of that age. Drinking, smoking, abusive parents, sex in the eraser room (we didn't actually have one of those at my high school, so it was probably in the parking lot.) But the stuff written for teens is cleaned up, purified, all about who's asking who to the dance, whether susie will win a spot on student council, etc. If there's sex, it happens off screen. If there's drinking, drugs, etc, the person doing so is inevitably redeemed in some fashion in the end.

This is an exaggeration, of course, on both sides of things. But truly, it seems that most of the books written for teens sort of gloss over the problems and/or resolve problems in the end quite satisfactorily. I am NOT a proponent of giving teens the gritty side of life, even in fiction. They have enough to deal with. But they are the ones who are living that life. It's seems sort of weird to try to hide a fictionalized version of it from the people who are living it, doesn't it? I wonder if this is why so many teens move from reading teen books to adult books at this age. Reality just doesn't match up. I know I was reading Stephen King in 6th or 7th grade. And my younger sister, much younger!, is reading Nora Roberts now, as freshman in high school.

This is just some stuff I was thinking about...no rant or rave here : )

Ed, if you're reading this, I loved the comment in your blog today about the weatherman sent out into the hurricane.

Check out Ed's blog here. He's very funny! http://www.chrispy.net/~brown/blogger.html

Talk to you tomorrow.