I guess I was popular in high school.
I avoid the young adult section altogether if possible, although it’s sometimes fun to catch a girl lying on the floor, reading ‘Gossip Girl.’
I’d never really babysat. I feel like I’m Blair, or ‘Gossip Girl.’ A teenager, basically – and now suddenly I’m a mom?
She was doing that thing some people do when they act nice and chipper and interested, while just below the surface they’re thinking really mean thoughts, and you can never call them on it because they’d just accuse you of being paranoid.
Smart, truly hilarious, and entirely sympathetic. Like a hot bubble bath or a holiday at the beach, you won’t want it to end.
But I’ve always been fascinated with that prettiest-girl-in-the-class person that I never was, getting inside her head and showing that she’s just as tormented and messed up as everybody else.
When I was 16, 17, 18 years old, I felt like I had seen it all and done it all, and I was really kind of negative about everything.
The girls show more skin these days, but I think, generally, they behave the same way as when I was growing up.
I always resented books that tried to teach a lesson, where the characters are too good: They don’t swear, they tell their mothers everything.
Face it, you have to be sort of an egomaniac to write something down and think that anyone is going to want to read it.
It’s physics. Pure physics, I’m falling fast and faster still. So fall with me. Fall down with me. And stay.
Recently my publicist asked me for a college photo, and I realize how chubby I looked. I know this sounds totally shallow, but my advice is don’t fall prey to the freshmen fifteen!
My high school wasn’t a big public school; it was tiny. There were 36 girls in my graduating class. We were a big group of girls that by the time senior year came along couldn’t wait to get away from school fast enough but we loved each other. It’s really fun to see the girls at reunions now.
My biggest fear in writing ‘Gossip Girl’ was that the characters would sound like stereotypical rich, air-headed heiresses. These were my friends. They were smart and multifaceted. They had interests and passions. They wanted to become lawyers and doctors and writers and filmmakers.
I’m always saying that my books are not autobiographical because they’re not. I can’t choose any one scene and say, ‘Oh, this is exactly what happened to me!’ I just use little snippets of things as a starting point!
Even now, I change my style and clothes from one day to the next, but during high school I blended in. I think a lot of people are that way. I guess that’s why I can write about an array of characters.
I have no sense of what I should or shouldn’t talk about. I just blather. Which is why it’s fun to write ‘Gossip Girl.’ I do tend to just talk about anything.
I certainly didn’t say while writing ‘Gossip Girl,’ ‘Oh this is going to be big!’ It was really like, ‘Oh god, everyone’s gong to hate these people! They’re so bratty!’ But I actually think what is so appealing about them is the humor in them.
I tend to stare at people and memorize what they’re saying and how they say it.
I’ll tell you what I think. I think you need to stay indoors reading more books!