The points about YA writers being cliquish and how difficult it is to know what teenagers really want to read and ohmygod what’s happening to YA can be summed up quite handily: Who gives a shit?

I’m not saying that in a mean way, but rather in a wide-eyed and totally bewildered way. If a bunch of writers want to stroke each other’s ego by giving each other totally undeserved five stars on Goodreads or join a group like the Tenners (Tenners RULE!) or the Debs or Contemps in order to commiserate about the ups and downs of writing life with the handful of people in the world who could possibly understand what it’s like (the YA world is frigging small and there aren’t that many of us) then how does that hurt anyone?

It doesn’t hurt teens, the majority of whom don’t know or care about our cliques and various other inbred dramas–the only one of us they could even name off the tops of their heads is Stephenie Meyer. And maybe Maggie Stiefvater if they’re feeling brave enough to attempt pronouncing her last name. It doesn’t hurt other writers–the YA community is friendly as crap. Even a misanthrope like me is made to feel welcome. (And if other writers never bothered or don’t care to join a group then that’s their choice. That’s the beauty of living in a free society–nobody has to do anything they don’t want to. Except pay taxes.) It doesn’t hurt bloggers–the blogger/writer relationship is symbiotic; they like to blog about stuff, and we like to be blogged about.

As far as what teens want to read, if there was a simple answer to that we would all be zillionaires. Because then we would write books they would love every time and everyone would be happy and unicorns would slide across the sky on rainbows. Look, when I write something, I do NOT think about what anybody wants but ME. I write what I want to read, and I’m lucky that so far it’s been what other people want to read as well, but I’m not about bending over backward to make anybody happy. (My Goodreads rating will totally testify to that.) I’m the only one I can make happy, and that’s enough of a challenge, believe me.

So, I don’t know. If you wanna be upset because you can’t figure out why people act the way the way they do or what it is they want, then okay, but settle in for a long haul because you’re never gonna figure it out. For my money it’s always better to look inward than outward.

Kung Fu Theater is something my mom was into. After the cartoons were over, they’d show a martial arts film, usually a Shaw Brothers epic or something with either Bruce Lee or Bruce Li. The best thing I remember seeing during Kung Fu Theater was 36 Chambers of Shaolin. Best kung fu film EVER.