I Blame Taylor Swift

I Blame Taylor Swift

(Straps on feminist skirt)

Yes, I've had time to remember my many inspirations for writing a YA sci-fi/romance novel. Taylor Swift was one of them and she contributed to it...not directly, though. I do have a couple of her albums, though - full disclosure - not because I sometimes get the feeling to listen to some Taylor. (Fine, I have three of her albums, Fearless is the best, IMHO)

She was able to relay in a very dorky, but honest way what teenage naivete feels like. For me, a big dumb male, the first album (Fearless) was a heart on the sleeve offering of what exactly goes on in a typical 16 year old girl's head. It's like entering a fantasy world. From this I began to extrapolate how the other half of humanity thinks. I also started thinking about the different lives the two genders lead.

Gender, Fear, and Love  

Your average common white male hardly ever needs to fear anything. If I ask any white man when he last feared for his safety, he'll have to think before remembering a time. Ask the same of females or people of different skin color and they will tell you exactly when and it was probably very recently. Then I ran a thought experiment in my head: when would a typical white male feel real fear for the first time?

School tends to be a place we hardly think of as a dangerous place. You get your edumakation as well as the community immersion important in teenage years. It also introduces the type of fear I'm babbling about. 

Outside of domestic abuse situations, most kids will get a first taste of interpersonal violence in school. Cliques determine importance, safety, and budding romance possibilities. You are either in one, want to join one, or are cast out of one and on your own. Valhalla forbid if you dare date someone from a different clique, say a dork wanting a very popular girl or vice-versa. You could call cliques tribalism, though it's a type relegated to certain environments.

So, to wind my way back to Taylor, her songs of girl issues in and out of school put me on the path of trying to understand how and why women think what they do. More importantly, I began to understand how the environment, for example school, shapes a girl's outlook on life, people, and how she tackles social challenges.

Mean Girls

Most guys knew of a girl or a group of girls in school who were mean. Remembering my school experiences, these girls were aliens trying to push me around. I didn't get girls. I definitely didn't get alpha girls. I avoided them like a plague.

What I didn't know was what life was like for your average girl in school (95% of dudes do not know this): Prison rules, vicious character assassinations, subtle rage imbued in gossip/rumors, long lasting psychological damage felt by any girl who had a tough time in school. Most guys didn't really know the kill or be killed atmosphere girls faced daily in school. Oh, and all this was before smart phones and social media.

Guys beat each other up, then carry on. Girls are merciless demons to each other. Near instant communication via smart phones and social media magnifies this environment to destructive levels. The results are the suicides and permanent mental damage teens inflict on each other. Forget girls being mean to guys - I learned that I never EVER want to be reincarnated as a girl in high school. 

Enter my character Abbie in ABBIE'S PLAYLIST FOR HARRISON. Abbie is the sum of all I learned about girls from the wifey, friends, co-workers, and some insightful stories about girls in school. I used this information to make her tough, but easily wounded. She defies norms, but lives the typical life of a popular girl in school. She hides who she is to stay comfy in her clique. And she never lets in any boy.

I bet there's a bunch of guys out there who think they had a rough time in school. To them I say:

p.s.: I don't like Taylor anymore. Too much drama and Pop crap. Hate the short hair and lipstick too. She lost it years ago I guess... 😩