Icy TaB and Cool Rick Springfield on a Hot Summer Afternoon

I'm all caught up with paying work today, so I'm grabbing the opportunity to do a little brainstorming on one of my pet writing projects. ("Pet" for me means nobody has assigned it — I'm simply writing it because I want to.) I've been batting it around for a while.

It's a YA novel about two friends who continually miss the boat with each other. I want to explore how even the slightest misperceptions about a friend's words, actions, and intentions can derail even the purest of relationships. And I love the idea of looking at the situation through teens' eyes. Kids, especially good friends, spend more insanely concentrated time together than adults, so the story can unfold over a relatively short time period. No idea how the whole thing will pan out, but I like having a bit of time to play with it.

After lunch I grabbed a TaB to perk me up. (I buy a six-pack when it goes on sale around here, so once a year, tops. I still love it.) The bright pink can and saccharine aftertaste never fail to elicit sunny summertime memories from the late 70s and early 80s — a perfect place for my mind to touch on as I conjure the teenage mindset. I decided to further help that mindset along by also cranking a couple of tunes from my own teendom as I settle back in at my desk.

I must say, it's fun to blog and think about the story this way. Nothing screams "teen mind" at me more than the retro-intense enjoyment of an ice-cold TaB and the still-heart-stopping-strains of "Jessie's Girl."

Time to put my freshly inspired brain back to work!