I'm in too deep, and I'm trying to keep, up above in my head instead of going under again!! Twenty points to the person that can give me the name of the song and the band. (I love games too much)

Anyway, I get this question a lot, because I always say I hate having romance as the only conflict in the whole damn story. So, I thought it would be fun to do the thing where I give you my idea and then give you a challenge to write and leave the link in the comments. So here you go: Real Issues for Teen Fiction (That Aren't Strictly Romance!)

1. Divorce

I'm a sucker for stories where kids try to keep their parents from getting divorced or trying to get them back together (like The Parent Trap). Seriously, family life makes a huge impact on teenagers and I don't understand why teen fiction writers tend to ignore that. I wanna see a story where a divorce really fucks a kid's world up. One where the kid doesn't want to have to pick sides. They don't want to have two Christmases.

Or one of my favorite plot lines (that got seriously worn out in the '90s, but I'm totally okay with bringing it back) where the kids try to chase off all their single parent's potential dates. I did that with my best friend more than once and his dad still has no clue some of the shit that went down was our doing. But he liked really bratty women that were very bad to him, so we had to do something.

Seriously, that's your challenge: write a story where divorce is the main conflict. Maybe the MC doesn't want her parents to get divorced and so she's acting out at school and failing and all this shit. Or maybe she does for whatever reason (except abuse!) and s/he goes on a crazy journey to break them up. Or be a cutie and try my suggestion of the MC trying to run off potential step-parents. Then post the link in the comments. Those make me so happy for whatever reason.

2. Social Networking (Yup. Naked Pictures are Forever)

One of my friends is writing this fabulous story about a girl that has to deal with her naked picture getting shown to the entire school and I'm head over heels about it. I've never seen one like it and I just think the idea is brilliant. Brilliant! This is one of those really relevant topics that people hardly talk about unless there is a huge scandal.

But I love this, because this is a huge, hot topic. Like, lemme see if I can get you started on some ideas.

Okay, well, you guys probably know by now I had to delete my social media in high school, because a very unflattering picture of me at a party ended up online (I wasn't totally naked, but if you look hard enough you can find a picture of me pretty damn close to it, that shit is forever). (And if you wanna have a good laugh about the situation I'll share this fun fact: it was on MySpace. Because MySpace was still a thing! Ha!)

Anyway, so it really does cause a problem. Back then the problem was that I was sixteen and the vast majority of the other guys in the picture were over eighteen (and for those of you that don't know, anything under eighteen is child pornography). I was also slightly inebriated, which is also illegal.

And had I not deleted all my social media, that picture would have spread. And ruined my whole life. Because employers will find that shit. So don't do it. Because now it will be all over Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and I don't even know what else people use. Back then, it was one website. And it was taken down within hours and I still got in big trouble. I thought my dad was going to have a heart attack.

And see, only the people in the picture, at the party, or exposed to it online (because not everything was instant gratification back then) knew about it, luckily, but just think about it today. Immediately everyone knows.

And this sexting thing. My God. It's ridiculous. I can say this, because I wasn't completely naked: Do NOT, under any circumstances take a naked picture. And do NOT ever send one. Because that is not a good thing. I had a friend be arrested because a fourteen year old sent him nudes. He was eighteen. He's now a registered sex offender and will be for the rest of his life because of this fourteen year old girl. Nudes ruin lives. Don't do it.

But you should write about it. Because THAT would make for an interesting story. I'm loving the one I'm reading now. But your challenge is to write another one where naked pictures are the main conflict. Then you should post the link in the comments so I can read it.

3. Illness/Disorders

I didn't put what I actually meant as the subheading for this, because I knew it would turn some people off instantly, but hang around and listen. I'm talking about secret illnesses (and no, not cancer, as per what has been incredibly popular these days.) I'm talking less terminal or just different. I want someone to research something else for once.

Like, my aunt had cystic fibrosis and she never told anyone at her school. None of her friends knew that she was actually really pretty sick. When she had to go to the hospital and miss school, she told her friends she told her friends it was her grandparents. Not true (and it was the 70's/80's. People had no clue in a small town).

When she died in '93, people were shocked. She was just about to turn 32 and obviously she died entirely too young, but they had no clue that she was only supposed to live to be 12. But she literally hid it from everyone because she didn't want them to know how sick she was.

You'd be surprised how many people hide their diseases and disorders from their friends because they are scared to be perceived as weak or helpless. And they don't even have to be life threatening illnesses.

I have a chronic pain disease and I went to school because no one was going to tell me no. I didn't like being weaker. It fucked up my grades sometimes (but extra credit is a miracle) but I did it.

My best friend's younger brother is dyslexic and he didn't tell people in school because he was afraid they would think he was stupid. My brother's best friend was schizophrenic and he didn't tell me until after we were done dating and back to being just friends and then he told my brother a week later and we were the only two that knew.

So here's your challenge: it's not an entire conflict, but character development to let them have different disorders and illnesses (besides depression, eating disorders, and cancer because c'mon). And as a bonus, have them be on a mission to destigmatize it before they confess to having it (like dyslexia, or something like that). That would be fun. Then post it in the comments. 321 Go.

4. Finding hobbies/talents/interests

When I was seventeen I went through this entire thing where I decided I wanted to reinvent myself because I didn't feel like I was good at anything. And had I had the proper time, that would have been quite the adventure. But I didn't.

Anyway, I was seriously going to try everything our school had to offer, but I didn't end up trying much of anything because the gym takes up a lot of time. But I was going to do math club. I was going to do science club and key club. And I was going to try cheerleading and FFA (Future Farmers of America in case you didn't know). I was going to try the yearbook staff and the school newspaper (that I found out they stopped printing my freshman year, ha!) I was going to do everything I hadn't already done (because now that I think about it, I did a lot more in high school than I thought).

And honestly, I wish I had.

But how fun would it be to read a story about someone trying out for everything the school had to offer just to find the niche where they kind of belonged. I know people that didn't participate in anything in high school *cough*mybrother*cough* and they always regret not attempting to find out what they liked.

That would make for a fun story. Because I guarantee I would have been worse than a failure at a lot of the stuff. I mean, science? No. Not my forte. And I grew up helping out on farms, but FFA? The only time I interacted with Ag teacher was when he bought us beer (which he subsequently got fired for, but whatever)

So challenge: write a story where the MC is trying to find the right club for them (and please try to make it funny and not all about cliques. I mean, I did art, choir, FBLA, track, cross country, sports management, charity, make a wish, and a bunch of other shit with people from every "clique". School is not Mean Girls. Stop trying to make a Mean Girls school a thing. It's not fetch).

5. College/Grades/Scholarships

Who hasn't freaked out about grades at some point in their life? No matter what they say, no one wants to fail things. Unless the character is a nerd, no one seems to care about grades.

But you know when I said that I failed things but ended up passing because of extra credit? Some of my teachers had some insane as shit extra credit (which they could do at the time, I don't know about now).

Like, my freshman Civics teacher was the offensive coordinator for the football team, so my extra credit was literally that I had to bake cookies for the football team. Which I was going to do anyway. But baking a million cookies from scratch in one evening isn't exactly easy with one oven and an incompetent best friend.

(Funny story, people always ask me when my best friend specifically became someone I could see myself spending the rest of my life with and not just messing around with and I always answer it was that night when he was asking me how many chocolate chips to put in the batter and I told him to make it as black as my soul and he muttered under his breath where he thought I couldn't hear "what soul?" And that, kids, is the moment I knew. Not romantic, but totally true. Aren't we sweet?)

Anyway, when I went through my seventeen craze I didn't turn in an extremely important English paper and the teacher let me make up by having me hand draw an entire historically accurate depiction of clothes in a Victorian woman's closet. It took for-fucking-ever but I managed that.

But what about all the crazy hoops you have to jump through for scholarships? And college? How about making those the conflicts.

So that's your challenge: the MC is trying to get their grades up and get into college/get a scholarship. There are so many things you can do with that. So go. Fly. Run.

And that's all I have for now. Let me know what you think. And definitely let me know if you do the challenges (or have already done them in something you've already written. Go you).

And since people are back on the "you haven't been telling funny stories at the end of your rants" kick again, here. A funny story that's not funny, but my best friend finds hilarious. It's long, but you asked!

Okay. Well, every year I try to make a big deal out of my best friend's birthday and it's not even because of the fact that he's my best friend. It's because when we were in Kindergarten I didn't go to school on his birthday (even though I begged my parents (which was the only time I ever begged them to let me go to school instead of to let me skip school)).

And it just so happened that all the stars seemed to be crossed on that day, because it was also the day my Kindergarten teacher didn't check her calendar (which she always did so she could sing you happy birthday and give you a cupcake and a toy and a hug because she was the best). And his family was also going through a really stressful ordeal. So for the whole day no one told him happy birthday.

But I didn't know that. So that afternoon I baked a bunch of cookies (with my parents of course, I was fucking six) and I made this kick ass card and I got him this great football and it was the best. Then I made my dad drive me to his house (because I couldn't carry everything) and when I got there I marched in and his parents gave me this kind of strange look (but not too strange, because it wasn't all that odd I'd show up bearing gifts (I swear, giving gifts is my hobby. It's my favorite thing in the world and I'd do it always if I had the time and the money).

But anyway, I march in, dump all the stuff on his kitchen table and tell him happy birthday and he just stares at me for a minute. Then he looks down at the card, glances over at the cookies, glances back over at the football, then back up at me. Then he gets this very confused look on his face and says "It's not my birthday", which, in turn, made me very confused.

So, both of us, being very confused, look back at his parents and in that moment his dad got a look that quite obviously said "oh shit" and his mom had nothing but pure terror in her eyes as she turned to his dad and said so calmly it was almost scary (you know how moms do that) "You forgot your son's birthday."

And the next day our teacher realized her mistake and tried to make it up to him, so that year his birthday was celebrated a day late. Then, the next year his mom felt so bad that she jumped the gun and celebrated it a day early. Then his parents split and he started living with his dad, who knew his mom had celebrated it too early, so he overcompensated by celebrating it too late (because he thought she was three days early instead of just one). And so, my best friend was fifteen before anyone in his family realized when his actual birthday was, and when they asked him why he didn't say anything he just said that he didn't want to kill their fun. That's when I knew he was too laid back.

And he thinks it's hilarious. I think it's sad, but in a way it's kind of funny, because he doesn't care. And I like making a big deal out of it. And that's my story. There you go. Don't tell me I didn't include a funny story.