My daughter read part of my work-in-progress today.

She said: “It’s really good, but you can’t swear in middle-grade, Mom.”

“I didn’t swear!”

“Replacing one letter with an asterisk still counts as swearing.”

Me, swearing under my breath: “Really?”

“Yeah, and you can’t say that other word, either.”

She’s talking about this line…

“Josh?” Holden says. “I always thought he was more of a benign dictator than an actual dick.”

“That’s such a good line! It’s not even a real swear word!”

“It’s a middle-grade book, Mom. You can’t say that.”

Me, glaring: “Fine.”

Who knew I’d one day be censored by my own forteen-year-old? And why am I writing middle-grade fiction when I can’t use swear-jokes?

As my mom once told me to say, when I was about fourteen… fooey.