If I was going to write a novel based on my own adolescence it would be pretty dull. I might focus a little on how I wish I had paid better attention and gotten better grades in high school. Other then that I didn’t have any kind of extraordinary experience or any kind of message to portray. It was only after I turned twenty that a good story began. I would probably write a novel on the last years of my adolescence and the first years of my supposed “adulthood.” It’s my belief that kids today don’t actually leave adolescence at twenty. I know I didn’t. My story starts at age 19 when I got engaged. I thought I was so grown up. I had moved into a new house with my fiance, and was setting up house and going to school. Everything seemed fairy tale perfect. I got married a week after turning twenty-one. Life was great for about a year and then everything fell apart. He cheated, and suddenly I was 22 and about to be divorced. Life kinda sucked at that point. I spent a year going out and partying with my friends while the divorce proceedings were happening. It was an extremely time in my life, but I did have an insane amount of fun also. The divorce was finalized and I got a crappy office job, and a cute apartment. It was tough because I was not really prepared to do everything on my own. I had to pay bills and manage money, and while it might not sound so sad it was a tough time for me. I didn’t really have a support system. I learned a lot in the years between my 21st and 25th birthday’s. I tried out a bunch of jobs trying to find what I wanted to do with my life. I was a receptionist, a flight attendant (which could be a story of its own), a daycare teacher, and a veterinary receptionist/attendant. I might not have a story that reveals some great truth or insight, and my story never had a terrible tragedy although it was an extremely difficult time for me. The moral might be that you have to have many different experiences in life to really find yourself, or maybe that it’s important to stay positive because this to shall pass. In any event my novel would certainly never be a best seller, and definitely not turned into a movie. It may not be a compelling story, but it’s all mine.
Learning in the Age of the Trigger Warning
11 years ago
When we live our own stories we are convinced that they are not interesting enough to tell but oddly enough someone out there would probably want to write down your story. I agree with you that adolescence doesn’t end when it used to but it would be interesting for you to base your story in a time when adolescence ended at age 17. All of my aunts and my mother (the first time around) were married at 17 or so, an age we clearly accept as childhood now. The story of your young marriage and later divorce would be a great young adult novel, you just have to tweak the time frame a bit, and it doesn’t have to be completely autobiographical to hold some truth.
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