Thursday's Children: On Inspiration

Thursday's Children is a blog meme where writers come together to talk about what inspires them. You can find more information and join the blog hop here.

There were important writerly folks who first inspired me to be a reader: teachers, family members, famous and well-respected authors, whose books I devoured like a fat kid at an All-You-Can-Eat-Dessert Buffet...or, ya know, my husband at an All-You-Can Eat-Dessert Buffet...But what first made me pick up a pen and decide I was going to write a novel? That didn't have anything to do with books, really. No, my first inspiration to write came from five boys, who happened to be in a band...of sorts.


No, really. Stop laughing.

I have fifteen spiral notebooks dating back to the fifth grade that are full of long fiction I wrote about these guys. (*whispers* I still have that poster, too.) The first "novel" involved a group camping trip and five girls who looked suspiciously like twenty one year old versions of fifth grade me and my four best friends who were ever-so-conveniently the girlfriends of the New Kids. The story included a long-anticipated albeit very chaste kiss with a certain boy-bander who turned out to be gay--thus setting a precedent for many of the boys I would lust after in high school and college.

They were the first "characters" I ever felt I knew well enough to write about. My first crushes, they inspired all sorts of delicious fangirl dreams. The words flowed effortlessly from my four-color batgirl pens to the wide-rule, lined paper in my trusty NKOTB Trapper Keeper (I went through two of those.)

Cuz I was all like..

Beyond inspiring the characters in my first attempts at writing, my adolescent musings surrounding my favorite boyband are symbolic of the things I cherish about that time in my life. Looking back at this poster and pictures of my friends and I back then, the memories I have surrounding this band and my experience with them is the pinnacle of my adolescence. Their music spoke to everything a teen girl wanted in the late 80s/early 90s. They were the centerpiece of every kick-ass slumber party I ever attended. It reminds me of everything that was fun about being a teen girl, experiencing crushes, love and heartbreak for the first time.

I could go on and on, but really, Alex Gaskarth said it best:

I think everyone has that band or artist that reminds them of the music they loved as a teen. The songs that remind them of epic moments of adolescence. For me, these memories are also intertwined with the moment I became a writer.

So, now that the forefathers of Justin Bieber and One Direction look like this?

Yeah, there's some inspiration to be found there, too. Although, perhaps, the days of fantasizing about camping trips and chaste kisses are a thing the past. ;)

Coincidentally, their new album, 10, hits stores and iTunes next week. Check it out. Me and my TrapperKeeper have a date to see them in concert this June.