I'm a southern girl, and I grew up with this slightly schizophrenic upbringing where I bounced back and forth between Atlanta, Georgia, and a tiny mountain town called Brevard, North Carolina. My parents were divorced, and my two lives were very different because of socioeconomic reasons.

But you have to live in the present. You have to take the old and make it new -- that's my point.

Three hot chicks for three hot chicks." "THEY'RE NOT CHICKS! THEY'RE DUCKS!

Just because you're into Kate...well, it doesn't necessarily mean you're gay. Although it's okay if you are. But if that's what's worrying you...' Ariel sighed. 'God. It shouldn't be so hard to talk about this stuff. All I'm saying is maybe you're gay and maybe you're not. Maybe you're bi. Or maybe it's totally a Kate thing. Maybe you'd want to be with her whether she was a girl or a boy.' I blinked. I didn't know if what she said made things better or worse.

You should eat a waffle! You can't be sad if you eat a waffle!

And you're figuring out who you are, and you haven't yet become stagnant in your thinking. You haven't solidified. And one thing that I find is that a lot of grown-ups tend to look back on their high school or middle school years and say, "Oh, thank God all that's over."

And they just slam the door. And they don't peek into that land any more. And they forget that teens and tweens are people, absolutely just as much as adults are. And their problems may play out on a smaller scale, but the things they go through are equally as valid as a CEO trying to figure out how to deal with a crisis at work. I just write for teens because I love 'em.