Skateboarding

One idea I had during the briefing was to base the book on something personal to me that I think other people could identify with. I spent most of my teenage years skateboarding all day everyday whenever possible, redefining public places making them into a playground. Places that would seem so bizarre as a place to play and relax to anybody unfamiliar with the sport. I became very comfortable in these spaces from skate parks to  underground carparks to some random part of an industrial estate. To this day I find open tarmacked areas quite appealing when most people would consider them an eyesore or just not register them as anything at all. I would like to make a book that shows this point of view and try to communicate the message of different perspectives and how much they vary. everyone has these places from their youth that mean the same thing to them even though they are vastly different. I am not sure whether I want to use this as the basis for this brief, I need to do more research an explore other possibilities but it is some thing I definitely want to work on at some stage.

Update- I have been thinking more about this idea and I'm not sure it will work. I wanted to portray the characters as outsiders. When I was younger there were very few skateboarders and places to skate. The skate scene was made up of a relatively small number of people, skateboarding was definitely not seen as cool. Now skateboarding is much more popular to the extent that skaters have big money sponsors with brands like Nike and Adidas. If I try to make this book the way I wanted to it would probably only appeal to a very specific group of people who enjoy the nostalgia of the narrative. I would like to make a book that is more universally accessible. Although the specifics of the idea may not work I would like still like to explore ideas such as social groups, outsiders, perspectives and empathy.