Cory Doctorow on the joys of writing for teenagers:
That’s one of the most wonderful things about writing for younger audiences — it matters. We all read for entertainment, no matter how old we are, but kids also read to find out how the world works. They pay keen attention, they argue back. There’s a consequentiality to writing for young people that makes it immensely satisfying. You see it when you run into them in person and find out that there are kids who read your book, googled every aspect of it, figured out how to replicate the best bits, and have turned your story into a hobby.
…
young people live in a world characterized by intense drama, by choices wise and foolish and always brave. This is a book-plotter’s dream. Once you realize that your characters are living in this state of heightened consequence, every plot-point acquires moment and import that keeps the pages turning.
Here is the Egyptian blogger/tweeter @sandmonkey, tweeting about the relationship between parents and their activist children.
this story more than anything highlights the generational rift in egyptian society over the #Jan25 revolution.
It also is a prime example of how people could live in the same house & have totally different backgrounds. Sumthin all JAN25's can relate 2
This revolution not only facilitated the peaceful transition of power from government to people, but from our parents generation to ours.
This transition is based on both guilt & regret, because they never did anything similar & they allowed the mafia regime to continue.
And it was a Mafia Regime. It was always better to be with the Don than against the Don, for those against him were crushed or killed.
So, they allowed the thugs to rule, allowed corruption to spread, & learned to adapt to the system, cause that's all they had.
And not only did they enable the regime, they tried to stop us from doing anything to stop, believing that it can't be stopped.
And we defied them, despite the threats & the yelling & the guilt trips & emotional blackmail, & we proved them wrong. #jan25
This naturally came as a shock to them, cause they never thought it could be possible. They truly believed they were protecting us.
So now they feel sad & guilty, cause their lives were wasted accepting evil & they even tried to stop us from eradicating it. #jan25
So, our parents are now divided into 3 types: 1) The "we don't know what's going on, so we will depend on u to inform us" type #jan25
2) The "I will suddenly be proud & brag of ur revolutionary nature to all my friends, coz I need to jump on the bandwagon now" #jan25
3) The Angry " y'all dunno what u r talkin about, u r destroying this country, democracy will never work, human rights meen" type.
You can imagine that, can’t you, in the UK or anywhere else once protests finally get somewhere? [he’s also getting an encouraging about of backchat from young egyptian activists, saying their parents were with them all along [NadaPrudence @Sandmonkey my mom was there with me from day 1 ! she’s my tear gas buddy !!]
[insert boilerplate rant, viz: if only we had a medium where I could forward this without copy-pasting a dozen segments into an email. *sigh*]
those of us who are reaching adulthood in the 21st century are in many ways more conventional than our parents….orthodox, driven, a little boring, and with a deep desire to save the precarious world that we are about to inherit.
With a few notable exceptions, my peers are driven not to create, nor to rebel, but to stabilise. We want jobs, a foot on the housing ladder, and to protect the planet….My generation may not be turning up at a church, temple or synagogue every weekend, but nor are we running through the streets strewing flowers and reinventing rock music. On the contrary: the millennial generation is replacing the cultural and spiritual orthodoxy of its parents and grandparents with orthodoxies of its own.
— Laurie Penny in CiF
Mumblecore movies are made by buddies, casual and serious lovers, and networks of friends, and they’re about college-educated men and women who aren’t driven by ideas or by passions or even by a desire to make their way in the world. Neither rebels nor bohemians, they remain stuck in a limbo of semi-genteel, moderately hip poverty, though some of the films end with a lurch into the working world.
— New Yorker