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A new start
Apr. 19th, 2024 12:15 pmI don't quite know yet what I want to do with this new journal. I suppose I'd like to recapture some of that Livejournal magic from my teens - make connections with people who share some of my interests and priorities. I use Tumblr and Instagram, but being able to use the Internet with a more sedate pace really appeals to me. The past 4-5 years of my early-to-mid-thirties have felt like a bit of a write-off due to various factors - a small global pandemic, lockdowns, borders closing, various health battles including both my partner and I getting different kinds of cancer and having to undergo chemo and surgery. The battle isn't over yet, and I'm likely to pull through, but the rest of this year is likely to be a tough one. I'd like to have a place on the Internet to hang out that isn't guaranteed to make my anxiety spike 2-5 times per visit.
I'm writing a novel. I've been working on it in various forms since I was twelve. I'm in my mid-thirties now, so I've been working on it for so long that it's become a period piece! There's such a meme online of people reacting with horror at the idea that their childhoods 20+ years ago are history as far as modern-day kids are concerned. It can get on my nerves a bit, because it feels very performative. Personally, I'm not remotely anxious about the idea. I've loved history since I was a kid, especially the idea that the most mundane, everyday things that we do all become history eventually. Perhaps because of that, I adore unintentional period pieces in fiction - some of my favourite YA novels are Jacqueline Wilson's early, less commercial works, like The Power of the Shade, Falling Apart and This Girl. All of them were contemporary teen fiction when they were published, and they're super Eighties now - but Eighties in a "Laura Ashley/Mills and Boon/discos/background worrying about nuclear war/Margaret Thatcher/video nasties/absolutely nobody has had a lick of therapy even when they clearly need it, so they have to figure out their problems imperfectly" sort of way, rather than a Party City version of the decade. They're glorious, and I'd love to write period fiction that way, that feels like a less varnished and safe version of the past. Of course, since this first novel I'm working on is nominally aimed at young teenagers, I have to be somewhat mindful of the grim-grittiness levels, but hopefully in the future I can write more for adults as well.
Writing my PhD on the representation of girls in children's TV animation of the 2000s helped me dive deeply into the ways that girls were encouraged to see themselves and each other when I was growing up. It crystallised what I wanted to explore in my own writing about young girls at the turn of the millennium. In a way, the PhD ended up being research for the YA novel! It also taught me a lot about perseverance, organising my thoughts and doing copious amounts of research.
Due to all the unfun factors I mentioned above and my day job, I haven't gotten as much time as I would like to work on this in the past few years. The research part is extremely fun, though. Over the past 6 or so years, I've amassed a collection of about seventy vintage Australian girls' and women's magazines dating from about 1997 to 2009. I also love exploring old websites and reading old puberty/life skills books. I know that most of what I research won't end up on the page, but it's still fun to immerse myself in it.
