A New Adult Novel?? – My Life

Life in the Air Force

New Adult VS Young Adult, Yep, That’s My Life –

This morning while dressing, it occurred to me that since young adult novels seem to be “it” right now in regards to book sales, maybe I should be working on that “great” young adult novel I still have inside my head. But, of course, being ADHD, my brain went in a multitude of directions from there. When I finally sat down to write what came out was more “new adult” than “young adult.”

One of the adages that writing teachers readily preach is “write what you know or know what you write.” So, with that in mind and being that my “new adult” experiences began when I left home and enlisted in the Air Force, this is what came forth from my cranium this morning….

The Plan?

In June of that year, I graduated high school, less than two weeks later, I turned nineteen and more than a month after I graduated, my new life began, or at least that was the plan. In retrospect, I probably never should have enlisted. I should have figured out a way to go to college and become this great, amazing writer, the one who lays dormant inside me.

But that wasn’t my life; mine was about surviving and getting away from the hell that was “home.” It wasn’t always that way, one upon a time I was surrounded by people who loved me and wanted me, but then not all fairy tales have happy endings and when my “wicked” stepmother married my father, she truly was not a very nice person. So like all fairy princesses, I needed to escape and my escape was the United States Air Force. Who knew the proverbial jumping from the frying pan into the fire actually existed? I soon found out.

The Great Escape

I was a farm girl in rural Pennsylvania, my graduating class was 265, actually I don’t think every one of them graduated. We were poor, no way around it. My father’s get-rich-at-farming attempts just never panned out, so if I stayed in PA (my favorite abbreviation for Pennsylvania) it was either flip burgers or marry a farmer. Somehow neither was very appealing. I wanted to travel, to see the world, so for someone like me, the best option was the Air Force.”

In truth, not a bad start. BUT, I write fiction, not creative nonfiction and isn’t my reality incredibly boring? So, here are my thoughts…perhaps, as I siphon through my memories of what my life had been like back then, maybe I can come up a few kernels of research to use in a fictional novel. With that goal in mind, I’ll keep writing and share whatever remotely clever bits I come up with here, on this blog… Or, at least, that’s the plan today. Of course, being ADHD, I could have a new plan tomorrow… 😉