Friday Funnies: Sharing News

Thank you Debbie Ohi

1. I'm not much of a talker.
2. I used to be pretty introverted.
3. I used to hold my cards close to my chest.
4. But I'm never going to admit to being this bad.

But *snort* this is pretty funny!

Happy Friday Everyone!

Guesting and Other Cool Stuff

Today I'm doing my first guest post (ever!) over at Still Writing so Jeanne can go and enjoy her birthday week. Please stop by and check it out.

Happy Birthday, Jeanne. I hope you have a great day!

Thank you Tara Tyler!

Also, my PIP Angela Brown, posted some interesting stuff about different paranormal realms over at our Partners in ParanormYA blog today. The possibilities are endless and scary and exciting! You won't want to miss it.

We're still in full swing planning our Partners in ParanormYA blog tour and you can read about it or sign up to host HERE. We are so grateful for the response and support we've received. Thank you all!

Our cover reveals (Neverlove and Givin' Up The Ghost) are next week (EEEP!) and you can still sign up. Just drop me or Angela a line, or use the comment linky below.

The week after the cover reveal I am so excited to interview my illustrator, Corona Zschusschen. Please stop by to see how she created my awesome cover.

And that's it for today folks - Have a great day!

F-Bombing In YA Fiction

I recently read an article about profanity in young adult fiction. Since I write YA, I am conscious of it in my own work, and try to think of alternate ways to cuss. But let's face it, cussing is a stress reliever. And for whatever reason, it's cool. And you know how important it is to be cool in junior high and high school.

This is from the article in Time Healthland: "The researchers defined profanity as any language considered obscene, offensive, taboo or vulgar by the American public. They categorized profanities into five groups:

1. The Seven Dirty Words: Words the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) considers unspeakable for broadcast television.
2. Sexual Words: Words describing body parts or sexual behavior in a coarse way.
3. Excretory Words: Words that have direct or literal reference to human waste.
4. Strong Others: Words defined as strong based on their level of offensiveness or “taboo-ness.”
5. Mild Others: Words that are mild based on their level of offensiveness or “taboo-ness.”"

Profanity in my novels fits into the Sexual Words (I use arse because the setting is England) and surprisingly, Excretory Words (my MC uses crap a lot) categories.

My characters do not drop the F-Bomb. Instead, they use flippin' or freaking. I have nothing against the F-Bomb - I have been known to drop a few here and there. But for myself as a reader, strong language is a distraction, unless it's used in a frantic or high conflict situation.

I'm not familiar with the YA novel Tweak, but apparently 500 instances of profanity were used, 139 of them the F-Bomb. Whoa. Somebody had a good ol' time!

Now Kiersten White, the author of Paranormalcy had a really awesome way of getting around the dirty word issue. One of her characters is a mermaid called Lish, who works the central information center for the International Paranormal Containment Agency (IPCA). Being a mermaid, Lish lives in/under water and speaks through some kind of electronic translation apparatus. When she cusses, it's bleeped out, much like the reality shows on television. So Evie, who is the MC and Lish's best friend, always says bleep when she cusses. That was so clever of Ms. White.

What's interesting is that if these YA novels were television or movies, they'd be rated "R." As of yet, books are not regulated or given a rating.

What do you think about profanity in young adult fiction?

Do you use the F-Bomb in your novels?

Should it be regulated or censored?