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Writing a book is much harder than writing a book proposal. I spent the weekend before Thanksgiving holed up in a B&B by myself overlooking a pond and meadow and horses. I was in Olema, a tiny town near Point Reyes (about an hour north of San Francisco). The sky was clear blue and the temperature was a perfect 73 degrees outside. I stared at my chapter outline and felt a combination of being overwhelmed, dread of publishing something so public (I know the blog is public, but somehow I don’t think about that anymore), fear that I am a fraud and really have nothing to say and more dread. I began surfing the net and occasionally going back to the book. I read some articles I printed out. I ordered several books about teens and youth culture on Amazon. And in the end I began writing several paragraphs about why I’m writing this book.

I’m about halfway through one of my Amazon purchases called “The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager.” I highly recommend it. I ordered it after looking over some research about the history of technology from radio to television to the micro chip and realizing that I not only needed the chronology, but more about how these advances affected teenagers (and their parents) at the time. What I’m learning is that with every technological advance, came collective fear about how it would affect young people. From the book:

“Indeed, the ways in which young people amuse themselves has veen a source of worry since the eighteenth century, when elders worried that their daughters were being ruined by reading too many novels.”

Thanks to the people who emailed me about Myspace — I’ve gotten two responses to my survey so far. I decided I should create a profile as part of the process — check me out. Tom is my only friend at this point [sigh]. I blogged my survey questions — let me know if you think of others I should be asking…

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Categorized under: Books & Print

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