- You will look back on this year of your life fondly. I'm serious. You're going to be sixteen and sitting there and reminiscing about when you were twelve and normal. And you're gonna blog about it.
- Everyone you are friends with now will have dumped you within a year. Don't choose your high school based on what friends are going there. Every high school in the area sucks. I went to them, believe me.
- You're going to be just as uninterested in boys when you're sixteen as you are now. This will be a source of constant teasing from your peers. Please don't react. Take the high road. They're all going to get STDs anyway (not that I know this for a fact, but I've got a good feeling).
- You're not going to take any risks. In the next four years, you won't drink alcohol, smoke, do drugs, go out with boys, go out at all, have dangerous friends or engage in any kind of risk-taking behaviour at all. I advise you don't try and go against the fold here, because I don't really want you to OD or get murdered or anything. What? I have invested interest.
- Twilight is going to become wildly successful, though you haven't heard of it yet. For God's sake, don't read it. It will scar you for life.
- You are still going to be in the same crappy town in four years time, except it will be okay because you'll only be two years away from getting the flock out of there by then.
- It's going to get a lot worse. About a trillion times worse. About a hundred million billion trillion times worse. Be prepared. Better yet, try not to become a teenager.
- You will never feel nor behave like a teenager. Sorry about that.
- Try not to tell everyone you meet your entire life story.
- I feel really sorry for you, kid, because you're going to turn into me and in my opinion nobody really deserves to be such a weirdo for no apparent reason. I mean, I wouldn't wish being Steph Bowe on my worst enemy. Which, by the way, you won't have a worst enemy.
- I really have very little advice to give you on account of the fact that you don't really do a whole lot over the next four years. You go to high school, you bail from high school, you sit at home a lot and angst, you write a novel and get published. I'd tell you not to go to high school and circumvent that whole mess but I think that was helpful to your novel-writing.
- I really strongly encourage you no to go through that semi-goth phase because you looked/will look atrocious. And don't shave your head. And try not to be too aware of the world around you. It'll just make you angry all the time about things you can't fix.
What advice would you give your at 12-year-old self (or 16!)?
