June 6, 2012

Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

Share this:

The word, “bro” suggests a loving family bond. Often jealousy and rivalry is polluting the blood line. How dangerous is sibling rivalry? Nature provides some dramatic examples of sibling rivalry. In the shark world within the mother shark’s womb during gestation sometimes the strongest baby shark devours the weaker before birth. In order to get all the food that the mother eagle brings back to the nest, the first born eaglet will at times push the other eaglets out of the nest as they come out of their eggs.

How is a sibling supposed to survive in a family where the brother or sister is aggressive? In Hanging in the Stars, Andrew must grow up in the shadow of Ally, a scholar athlete on the fast track for a scholarship to an Ivy League school. Their micro managing mother has invested her dreams into molding Ally’s future.  Yet Andrew seems to accept and love Ally though she is clearly more gifted than him. Is Andrew’s love stronger than his jealousy or is he just realistic about the differences in his sister’s abilities and his own?   Does living with a more powerful or more successful sibling prepare you for life’s competition or does it harm your self image?

What about forgiveness between siblings? Andrew involves Ally in a dangerous situation that results in Ally losing her chance at a soccer scholarship? The question can and should Ally forgive Andrew remains. Can Andrew forgive himself for hurting his sister?

In raising my own two sons, who are four years apart, for the most part, they seemed to like each other.  Inside our home I tried to create a loving atmosphere by avoiding comparisons of my sons.  When they fought, I would encourage them to forgive each other, by saying,” Oh make up now. He’s your brother.” Was that good parenting or does that add guilt to a sibling who has been wronged?

What are the limits to forgiveness among siblings?   In the novel Maya is almost beaten to death by her controlling brother.  She has to flee for her life. Can she or should she forgive her brother’s physical and mental abuse.   How much do you owe your brother and sister?  How much do they owe you?

9 Comments

Filed under Siblings

Tagged as ,

March 28, 2012

Domestic & National Violence: Does it all boil down to the need to control another?

Share this:

domestic violence | Pat G SassoneIn Hanging in the Stars, after Andrew and Maya’s first romantic encounter in the park, Andrew watches Maya get into her brother’s cherry red mustang. Suddenly, her drug dealing brother turns around and slaps Maya across the face. Andrew can’t imagine the humiliation of being slapped across the face. When he questions Maya about her brother’s physical abuse, she talks about his obsessive need to dominate.

She compares her brother to Juliet’s father in Romeo & Juliet, who will turn his daughter out into the street to starve and beg if she doesn’t obey him. As Maya explains, “the beatings are about him controlling me.”  Later on in the story, Maya says her brother wants her to become educated so that someday she will be a beautiful, smart woman, becoming a powerful weapon he can use in his business.

hunger_games_trilogy | Pat G SassoneThese days, the Young Adult world of books and films is mesmerized by The Hunger Games series where the state controls teens to the point of forcing them to hunt down and kill each other. Interestingly, author Suzanne Collins recently said in an ABC News interview that she was inspired to write the book based on reality TV and the war in Iraq. Collins also said she would like teens to think of their relationship to TV and to world news. Collins brings up important points for us to ponder regarding violence.  Is competition and the need to dominate simply entertainment in our society? Or, is the need to dominate the reason behind these horrific international wars where we use brutal technological force to destroy our competition? Leave your thoughts below!

For more information on domestic abuse and how to help prevent it, check out The National Domestic Violence Hotline.

10 Comments

Filed under Domestic Violence, Teen Aggression

Tagged as , , , , , ,

March 21, 2012

Tech Phobic Writer Begins Using Social Media

Share this:

I finally finished my first novel, Hanging in the Stars, and took the courageous, costly steps to self-publish. So, I should have been able to kick back and enjoy, right? Wrong! Marketing my book through social media was the next scary step. Though it’s not cool to admit in 2012, I‘m terrified of my computer with good reasons; with a myriad of passwords I often confuse each by one numeral, or the mouse cursor that plays hide and seek with me, or the hour glass icon when the computer slows down that reminds me that the computer is controlling so much of my time!

I knew I could not launch into cyberspace alone, so I hired a young, intelligent, computer savvy marketer, Suz from IXiiV Artist Consulting, who masterfully organized my social media campaign (which involved creating a website, facebook page, blog, and Twitter account to publicize my book). Sounds easy enough. Wrong! It’s a pixel jungle out there, even with my social media marketer, my pixel guardian angel.

For example, the ever changing and often confusing Facebook recreated the noun friend into a verb. Moreover, it took intimate relationships into a fishbowl of acquaintances who often talk about nothing. Then there’s the pressure to “Like” it all. However, my website talks about me as an author and about my book.  For teachers and librarians there are tabs that display study guides and group discussion questions.

Hanging in the Stars touches on many issues that concern today’s teens such as cross cultural romance, single parents, and domestic violence. I discuss these issues in a weekly blog, every Wednesday. Sometimes I wonder maybe talking about nothing would be more brilliant? I don’t like the sound of that word blog. Say it aloud. Your ears will agree with me. What exactly is a blog, but a place to give out information, discuss what matters to your audience? I think of teens, YA authors, and teachers as my audience. Maybe that is too broad a range? I have tried to include advice from professionals on adolescent behavior to give it more weight. Perhaps, that is another mistake? Maybe, I should season my weekly blog with gossip or examples of outrageous teen behavior to boost traffic at my site?

Speaking about increasing my cyberspace friends, I now not only tweet, but retweet and reply, mostly to YA authors. It all boils down to expressing my thoughts in 140 characters or less. What are the short cuts to being more clever? Is less really more? Then there is the fear of making a mistake publically to worry about. One tip I can pass on is never tweet and drink wine at the same time. Your loss of inhibitions connects your hidden feelings and anger with your wiggling thumbs. Also, the chance of hitting the wrong key can easily make your private messages public. Then again, going public- isn’t that what social media is all about?

Leave a Comment

Filed under Authors

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

March 14, 2012

Fight to Survive or Fun to Fight?

Share this:

Teen Violence | Hanging in the StarsIn Hanging in the Stars, Andrew and Maya are reading Romeo and Juliet in English class. The play starts out with a fight between the Montagues and the Capulets that spreads, involving everyone in the town.  After reading this Maya comments that her brother also loves to fight “bare fisted, brass knuckles, broken bottles, box cutters, guns, whatever.”

Teaching in a large New York City high school, I witnessed lots of fights in the hallways, cafeteria and buses. A lot of the classroom buzz dealt with threats from kids from other schools and fights that were about to go down.  One night I remember complaining how the kids seemed so involved in fighting. My son, who was then in college, said, “Fighting-that’s what high school is all about.”

The National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center reports that teens begin fighting for a myriad of reasons including as a response to insults, rumors, ongoing feuds, a response to physical contact including hitting and shoving, and lack of anger management.

What do you think about teens fighting? Do you think most teens fight to protect themselves and their friends or do they just enjoy fighting?

68 Comments

Filed under Teen Aggression

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

March 7, 2012

BFFs: Forever Could Really Mean Awhile

Share this:

BFF | Hanging in the StarsBest Friends Forever, or “BFF,” is most passionately believed by childhood friends. You and that special friend usually share the same neighborhood, teachers, and even each other’s family life. Friends are your whole world when you are young; best childhood friends are part of your roots.

Yet often you and your best friend grow apart.  In Hanging in the Stars Max has been Andrew’s best friend for as long as Andrew can remember. When Andrew is attracted to Maya, a handball player with a killer shot, he invites Max to take a ride over to the park and play some handball, but Max refuses. Andrew knows that Max doesn’t like change and never wants to leave the block. Andrew decides then that he will never be able to tell Max about Maya.

It is painful when one friend moves on and the other is left behind. As a high school teacher, I would often see students lonely because their best friend was now part of a new group or romantically involved with someone else and didn’t have time for them.  I remember when my best friend started hanging out with a new group of friends. To comfort me, my mom said, “You can have more than one friend in life. Just because Lois is making some new friends that doesn’t mean you’re not her friend anymore.”

Many professionals who work with teens often address how to deal when a best friend is no longer available. One such writer, Cherie Burbach, advises that teens are too sad due to the loss of a friendship to think about what they learned from that friend. Burbach also recommends leaving the door open to revive the friendship in the future. Her final piece of advice is to make new friends.

What do you think about this advice and could you add some more tips on how to deal with losing a best friend or coping with a changing friendship? Leave your comments below and join in the conversation on Twitter!

18 Comments

Filed under Friendship

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 29, 2012

Writing My Novel: An Important First Step

Share this:

I just self-published Hanging in the Stars, my first novel. This is a dream come true. Since sixth grade I Crumpled Paper | Hanging in the Starssecretly wanted to be a writer. Raising two sons and teaching high school English came between my dream and the reality of a finished book. I started many novels over the years, usually during summer vacations, only to abandon each manuscript when school started in September; by the following summer the plot had gone stale, or I was infatuated by a new story idea.

However, two years ago when I attended Stonybrook University’s Summer Writing Workshops, I got organized with a game plan. I moved from a character sketch of Andrew to a writing the dinner table scene where he rebels against his mother’s expectations for him. Then, I imagined  his workout at the gym where he makes an agreement with Cruz. The city playgrounds played a big part in my growing up and a lot of my tougher students played handball at the parks. So, the playground swings became a romantic setting for Andrew and Maya, Cruz’s sister. I took lots of photographs of the local playground through the cyclone fence. I watched the empty metal swings move with the cement handball court looming large. I acquired a feel for their romance in a savvy setting.

While writing the book, the characters had countless conversations with each other and me. Sometimes they simply refused to be ignored. In the early stages I decided that Andrew and Maya would be reading Romeo and Juliet, a classic ninth grade text. However, when I started to sprinkle in some quotes from the play, the words were so beautiful and meaningful that more and more quotes were intertwined as touch stones throughout Andrew and Maya’s journey.

To get a clear vision of their journey,  I had to draw a map of the setting and a time line to double check my sense of place and time. Not only did the novel have to be shaped in terms of action and suspense, each chapter had a shape and a hook. I created  an outline of events and an approximate number of pages for each chapter. As in life, often while writing, the unexpected happens. Sometimes what seems to be a wonderful idea just doesn’t work out, and other times little insignificant moments become important.

I wrote every day for six months. Relieved, I finished the last chapter. Little did I know that I had really just begun. Rewrites, editing, publishing, and marketing were all still ahead. But writing the story with a beginning, middle and end for the first time was indeed the first step in a great journey.

Image: Againstar / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

11 Comments

Filed under Authors

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

February 22, 2012

“I Don’t See It Your Way”

Share this:

In the opening scene of Hanging in the Stars during dinner, Andrew’s mother suggests that her son join track or drama club now that he is in ninth grade. He sits silently at the dinner table thinking the last thing he wants to join is some dumb school team like his sister’s friends who joined as many activities as possible to enhance their college applications. Sometimes he feels like screaming at his mother, “I might want to be a graffiti artist and paint curse words over every high school in the city. Maybe I’ll become a juggler in the park with no overhead, no college degree, or business suit. That sounds like a plan I can follow.”

Frustrated Teen | Hanging in the StarsAs a parent of two grown sons I painfully remember when they were about eleven years old they started rolling their eyes at whatever I said. During conversations I’d see them looking at each other in agreement that their mom still lived in the dark ages. Suddenly they avoided public appearances with me. When I wanted to ride my bike in the neighborhood, my younger son said, “You’re not going to ride in the streets wearing that helmet.” When driving my older son and his friend to a seventh grade dance, I had to let them off around the corner. Up until then I thought of our family as a happy unit with similar ideas and beliefs. When they hit puberty, they took every opportunity to let me and my husband know they saw, thought, and wanted to live differently from us.

In Why Do I Fight With My Parents So Much? KidsHealth explains that clashes between teens and parents are common as teens get angry because they feel parents don’t respect them. Parents worry about the loss of control as well as their teens’ safety.

The experts advise teens that talking and expressing yourself can increase your parents’ respect for you as an individual. Try compromises so that both you and your parents feel a sense of accomplishment.  Remember, though it may seem hard to believe, your parents were once teens, too. What do you think of that advice and from your own experience in dealing with your parents? What do you suggest when trying to see eye to eye?

17 Comments

Filed under Parents

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 15, 2012

Wherefore Art Thou Love?

Share this:

Love Quotes | Hanging in the StarsIn my brand new, savvy love story, Hanging in the Stars, fourteen year old Andrew agrees to tutor Maya, the sister of a local drug dealer. Working together on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet assignments deepens their cross-cultural romance.  Shakespeare’s beautiful language becomes intertwined in Maya and Andrew’s love story. Below are excerpts from the novel illustrating how Shakespeare’s words serve as touchstones to the characters’ thoughts, actions, and dialogue.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
Romeo & Juliet: “Did my heart love till now? I never saw true beauty till this night”

Hanging in the Stars: “Andrew saw her playing handball. Her tight body sliding sideways. She sure was pretty with that long black hair that kind of swayed as she moved.”

HOLDING HANDS
R&J: “Palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss.”

HitS: “What if my brother is watching, I’m never supposed to hold a guy’s hand?” ~ Maya

THOSE 3 LITTLE WORDS
R&J: “Dost thou love me?”

HitS: “‘Love me?’ Andrew said. He didn’t know what to say. He felt so much for Maya. He had never said those words to any girl. They were so special. He just wasn’t prepared to say them here.”

THE KISS
R&J: “My lips…ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”

HitS: “Andrew lingered. He wanted to keep kissing her again and again. She felt so soft. He knew he had to leave.”

THE BATTLE TO STAY IN LOVE
R&J: “I fear too early for my mind misgives / Some consequences yet hanging in the stars”

HitS: “From the couch he could see the bright moonlight pouring through the kitchen window. Andrew couldn’t sleep. He kept worrying about Ally, Cruz, Maya and even his mother and about the consequences hanging in the stars – the consequences of his own gigantic mistake.”

To read more you can purchase a copy of my novel here.

Have other favorite quotes on love from Romeo & Juliet or other Shakespeare works? Share them below or tweet them to @PatGSassone with #LoveQuotes!

25 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

February 8, 2012

Introduction to Hanging in the Stars: Teen Struggles with Body Image

Share this:

Book Cover | Hanging in the StarsIn my brand new YA novel, Hanging in the Stars, Andrew, a skinny, self conscious 9th grader is determined to kick his own butt into shape.  During a workout at the gym, a local drug dealer approaches Andrew and offers him help in getting into shape in exchange for tutoring Cruz’s sister, Maya, another 9th grader at Andrew’s school who is having difficulty in English class.  As soon as Andrew meets Maya in the park to help her with their Romeo and Juliet assignment, a romance begins to blossom.

Since my book deals with the many problems teens face, I’m going to use this blog to discuss some of the teenage issues addressed in the book. Hopefully, this will ignite a meaningful discussion and whet your appetite to read Hanging in the Stars.

Motivated by my character’s unhappiness with his “skinny butt,” I wonder how many teens today don’t like the way they look.  Teen Health reports that approximately 54% of American girls and women age 12 to 23 years old are unhappy with their bodies, while roughly 75% of 9 year old girls have dieted for 2 to 5 times in a given year.

Boys have body issues too. Shaping Youth discusses the “hottie factor” and the male use of steroids and  supplements of all kinds Body Image | Hanging in the Starspromising a lean, mean teen machine. Male teens are under peer and societal pressure for a buff body image.

Why is this? Could the media’s obsession with thin females and young men with bulging biceps and contoured six packs be playing with our self worth?

I encourage you to leave your thoughts below in the comment section or follow me on Twitter to further discuss!

22 Comments

Filed under Body Image

Tagged as , , , , ,