Unfathomable

Two pieces of crucial information are required before this post will make sense:
First, there's this boy, Codename: Sam. Sam is serving a 2-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Washington D.C., and he teaches in Spanish. He is not allowed the modern conveniences of Facebook, is allowed thirty minutes each week to email family members, and can only call home twice a year: Christmas and Mother's day. For the past twenty months, he and I have communicated solely by means of handwritten letter and the old fashioned postoffice.
Second, my birthday is soon upon us.

In one of Sam's last letters, I was told that I'd be getting my birthday present from him soon, but he wasn't specific about when it was coming. He just asked that I wait until my birthday to open it. Well, today I collected the mail and found a large, flat box with my name on it, from some indiscernible company. Curious, and not thinking, I began to open it.
First, I saw this:

I thought I read it wrong, and couldn't help myself. I tore off the packaging.

I was in shock. I turned over the sturdy, hardcover book in my hands, and found this:

A message from him on the back:

411 pages of my writing. In a hardcover book.

I'm still dying. I don't think I've ever laughed and cried when I received a present before. I was struck speechless for almost an entire half-hour, and my mom thought something was seriously wrong when I called to tell her. It's just so beautiful!

If you helped this come to fruition in any way, thank you so much!

More Rocks

Quick post, because it's late, I have class in 5 hours, and my hands hurt.

Every writer's nightmare: Carpal Tunnel. In the words of my favorite internet felines: i haz it.
It reared its ugly head pretty hard about two weeks ago and has had me in it's grip ever since. I wear two clunky black braces almost constantly, which look a lot like the bracers that I strap my characters into. At least, that's what the roommates who've read Diary agreed on. They also agreed that it makes me, the sweet, innocent Jordy that no one ever suspects of anything, look decidedly like I could take down a linebacker. Most of my conversations now go like this:
Friend: Jordy, what'd you do to your hands?
Me: Got in a fight with a polar bear.
Friend: *laughs* ah, really.
Me: Yeah, you think this is bad, you should see the Polar Bear.
(Both laugh)
Me: Nah, it's just Carpal Tunnel being a jerk.

Ok, long story short, I refuse to let this keep me from writing...just from writing legibly. Which is great if you only read what's typed. My teachers and my notes aren't as lucky. I'm also very, VERY slow at writing now. It's dreadful.

Please know that I'm still writing stuff and have mostly gotten out of my psycho funk, it's just...well...ouch.

Love always,
Jordy

(The demon bracers)

(My latest desktop creation)

Leave of Absence

*Hangs head in shame*

Hi everyone. I know what you're thinking: Jordan! Katie! Whateveritisyoucallme! You were on a roll, you had this awesome story going with Ryan and Lucy, and then you got us all excited for some new Sascha and Alex time, and then you fell off the face of the earth!!!
(Some of you, at this point, may also be shocked to see me include a total of three (3) exclamations points there. Those who are shocked likely know me and my abhorrence [vocab lesson] of excessive punctuation, with the exception of the occasional '?!', and thhheee insertion oooffff a bajillion extra leeettteeerrrrrssssss) [insert shudder here]

Ah, ok focus. So here's the deal. My roommate (a.k.a. best friend, Codename: Cat) has taken a serious blow in the physical health department. My neurosis requires that I do everything in my power to make sure she's as happy as possible. On top of that, my family has had to make some tough decisions, my brother especially, that have completely changed things for me. Things that are actually pretty hard to cope with when you're 900 miles from the rest of your family. As the icing on the cake, I got to watch my own mental health slip through my fingers. Remember that scene where Alex carries Sascha down to her appointment with Dr. P? Replace Alex with my roommates, Sascha with me, and Dr. P with a wait list for the school counseling center, and you get, well, my life.

Lorrie Moore said,

"Most things good for writing are bad for life. “May your life be not very good material” is a blessing I offer students."

Someone could write a pretty excellent novel with the last month of my life as the main conflict. Please understand, I'm not writing this to extract your pity, only your understanding. As much as I've tried, I've made very little progress with any of my characters. The funny thing is imagining their voices whisper 'wasn't that the whole point of our story? That strength sometimes means asking for help? Come on, girl, learn from what you've written!'

Alright, so long story short: life kind of sucks right now. (Excuse my French) Just making it through the day in a semi-normal way is a small blessing. I admit, the only reason I'm responding to things on Goodreads and writing out this whole post is because today was an extraordinarily good day (in comparison to the previous). Right now, I'm praying that more good days are on their way, and I can get back to my life. We'll see though.

As a side note: My Name
Most of you know that my real name is not Jordan Bell. My name is Katie T. Over the past few months, I've gotten very accustomed to my pen name. I respond to it almost as naturally as my given name now, and have even been called Jordan or Jordy by friends in person. I like my name. Wouldn't have picked it otherwise! BUT, I just want you to know that you can call me Katie, or Jordan or Jordy or Phil if you really wanted to. Whatever you're more comfortable with, really.

I love you all and wish you all a blessed week.
-Jordy

YA Saves

The title of this beauty is a current trending hashtag on twitter, and it has all my favorite authors ablaze.
The problem is this article from The Wall Street Journal, which decries the value of young adult fiction. As an avid reader and writer of YA, I am very frustrated by these declarations. While I can be the first to admit it when I think a YA novel is nothing but dark smut, it makes me so sad that people are so swift to judge books that they've read very little about.

A friend and I discussed this very thing in regards to Sarah Rees Brennan's Demon's Lexicon. To a casual observer, an innocent passerby, it's a book about a demon who possesses people--including a young woman--the seeking of favors from demonic creatures, and a brother who lies and tries to protect the demon. As someone who's actually read Rees Brennan's books, I don't find myself wanting to conjure up evil spirits, or wanting to pathologically lie about everything. I took from those books the importance of honesty, of taking care of your family regardless of their choices, and doing what you know is right even when the world tries to tell you it's wrong.

When I was in high school, my teachers loved having us read books like The Catcher in the Rye, 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451. With the exception of Bradbury's, I loathed reading these books as a teenager. I thought they were vulgar and crude, and thought that surely there were other books that could show positive growth without the immorality. As I grew older, and especially as I began writing books myself, I learned that in order to show growth, it must be shown that the character has a reason to grow. If the heroine wasn't struggling with, say, self harm, then overcoming self harm wouldn't be as visible or as notable a theme.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that yes, young adult literature today has many dark, and sometimes disturbing, things. It pushes the envelope and questions the things that adults would never think to question. As someone who just barely made it out of the teen years with her head on tight, I can say this: The years between the ages of 12-18 are, in today's world, dark, and sometimes disturbing. In them, we question ourselves and everyone around us. Nothing is for sure. We are tempted with ways to cope with our struggles, like drugs, alcohol, and sex. Odds are, we will be taken advantage of in some way. At some point, we will wonder why we even fight against these things at all. Many will choose to stop fighting and give in to the world.

This age, 12-18, is the target audience for YA. Why on earth would someone target to that demographic a story about stocks and shares, or playground fights, when those things aren't relevant? To the adults who are worried about YA lit corrupting their children: if your children are reading it because the struggles attract them, then your children are already corrupted. If your children are reading it because they enjoy the last chapter, the triumph over struggles, then your children are doing their best to overcome the things of this world in the only way they know how, and with the means that have been provided to them. If the first, then your children are either very strong willed, or maybe they weren't raised in a way that would have been most beneficial to them. If the second, you raised your kids right.

YA lit is not to be approached as a bright, happy ray of sunshine. That is not what young adults need. YA lit should show trials, struggles, temptations, defeats, and all the nasty things of the world, and most of all, it should show strong characters who learn to overcome those things, either on their own or with help. They should give courage to the teens who struggle, a voice to those who can't find their own. Instead of trying to ban a book, parents, librarians, and teachers, I beg of you to please read the books your children do, and focus on the triumph. Don't tell your children to not get caught up in the struggles, teach them how to apply the winning strategies, and how to use the examples of the heroes to win the battles against demons that I promise you, every teen is, has been, or will be engaged in.

Books are not to be banned. They're meant to show humanity. Those which are most opposed are those which likely need most to be read.