Tootin' your horn!
If you've read Think Pink, then you'll know that I totally advocate tootin' your horn. Because telling the world how fabulous you are doesn't have to mean you're a mucho-big-head-girl - far from it!

If you do stuff of fabulousness or someone pays you a compliment, don't be coy or brush it off, celebrate it, bathe in it - toot your horn!

In fact I'm gonna go right ahead and toot right now because as well as writing books, I'm agony aunt for Mizz magazine, the bestest magazine for girls here in the UK, ever. I also write features for the magazine too - yep, author, agony aunt and writer - I really do have the best jobs in the world.

Anyhoo, I just got an email from my ed-lady at Mizz - hey Julie - attaching some completely ah-mazing feedback about some features I've written recently. They were all hoogely complimentary and made me make eye water and everything.

I often get told that what I do is frivolous fun, and to some extent it is, but as my ed-lady Julie says, 'frivolous makes people laugh and that's the best thing ever.' I also get told that teen mags have a negative impact on teen girls and that all they care about is boys and looks - now, while there are mags out there that are like that, Mizz most deffo isn't.

Mizz rocks.

I'm not just saying that because I work for them, in fact, it's the reason why I do work for them. They're not afraid to tackle hard hitting issues like coping with death and eating disorders and positively encourage, more than any magazine I've ever read, self-respect through features about boosting confidence, how to make friends and celebrating you-niqueness. It offers up relevant information to help readers make informed choices about their lives, which personally, I think is pretty freakin' awesome!

Teen mags often get a hard time for their content, generally from people who 1. aren't teens, 2. wouldn't know how to communicate with teens if their lives depended on it and 3. have never actually sat down and read a teen mag cover to cover.

Everything I know about life - puberty, sex, boys, make up, confidence, how to feel good about myself - I learned from magazines. Just 17 was my mag of choice and is the absolute reason why I'm doing what I do today. Which brings me back to the fact that by doing what I LOVE - writing positive, feel-good material for girls - I'm making a difference.

That's deffo worth tootin' my horn about!

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