Teenage girls read in packs. It's true today, and it was true when I was a teen growing up in a small town in northeast Oklahoma.

Ally Carter

Categorized in : Girl Growing Up Teenage

Sometimes you forgive people simply becuase you still want them i... by Ally Carter

Sometimes you forgive people simply becuase you still want them in your life.

forgiving apology people

I thought about how there are two types of secrets: the kind you want to keep in, and the kind you don't dare to let out.

secret want two

Don't put your characters on a treadmill. They need to go new places, face new challenges and do new things.

challenges character needs

At the core, I try to write characters who are real people with real insecurities, fears, hopes, and dreams, which is why hopefully readers can identify with them.

real dream writing

I am practical by nature, and I'd heard that being a writer or an artist is a good way to starve! So I was an economics major at Oklahoma State, and then received an M.S. from Cornell in Agricultural Resource and Managerial Economics. I knew if I wanted to write I would do it on my own, but I knew I wouldn't make myself study economics on my own.

oklahoma artist writing

It was easy to believe, between lessons on Shakespeare and Dickens and Austen, that all of the great stories had already been written by dead Europeans. But every time I saw 'The Outsiders', I knew better. It was the first time I'd realized that real people write books.

real believe book

Pain seared through me again-a hot, burning stab in my gut-and yet my body found strength I didn't know I had, correcting as I fell.

burning pain hot

"No," Preston snapped. But he didn't protest long because, if I'm going to be honest - which is kind of the point of these reports - I was already unzipping his pants.

pants honest long

I wonder what kinds of songs Preston's father sang to him." Zach raised his eyebrows. "I wonder if he's in a cell humming them to himself right now." I should have said something-done something. He was in a dark place, there in the moonlight. But before I could say a word, Zach took a deep breath and looked up at the fortress. "I wonder if I should join him.

dark song father

They promised me that this would be my home. That girls like you would always be my sisters. But they weren't my sisters, were they?" Catherine asked, but then the lunacy broke, a quick and fleeting crack, and through it I saw anger and bitterness and rage.

cracks girl home

Give me everything you have," I told [Preston]. "Really, Cammie. I never knew you thought of me that way.

give-me giving way

That’s the thing about spies. Most of the secrets we keep are fro... by Ally Carter

That’s the thing about spies. Most of the secrets we keep are from each other.

spy secret

You should stop and listen to yourselves sometimes. 'We're practically adults, let us run wild.' 'We're only kids, leave us alone.'...You can't have it both ways.

adults running kids

Turns out, you can take the girl out of the spy school, but you can never take the spy school out of the girl.

spy girl school

Despite popular belief, hitting someone with a closed fist actually hurts the hitter almost as much as the hittee.

hitting fists hurt

Like Cammie is fine," Macey said, then glanced at me. "No offense... by Ally Carter

Like Cammie is fine," Macey said, then glanced at me. "No offense." "None taken," I said. "I think.

taken said thinking

Like so many aspiring writers who still have boxes of things they've written in their parents' houses, I filled notebooks with half-finished poems and stories and first paragraphs of novels that never got written.

notebook parent house

It's every little girl's dream," she said. "Interpol surveillance... by Ally Carter

It's every little girl's dream," she said. "Interpol surveillance. And kittens.

girl dream littles

But in the end she merely shrugged, knowing at the very least it would be interesting. Knowing, in her gut, it might just be the beginning.

knowing would-be interesting

The Bagshaws aren't boys. They're bombs with very colorful fuses. by Ally Carter

The Bagshaws aren't boys. They're bombs with very colorful fuses.

colorful bombs boys