MY TY: Conor Lynchof Gonzaga College, Dublin, on how he published his own illustrated novel of teenage life, 'Livin' and Ledgin' Before the JC'

I WANTED TO do a story about teenage life and who better to do that than a teenager? It’s pretty easy for anyone my age to relate to the situations that the character gets into. It is 54 per cent fictional, 40 per cent factual and six per cent unbelievable.

In a drawing book, I created cartoons on all sorts of things. One day during art class, my friends were looking through the book and then the teacher got his hands on it. He was really impressed. He encouraged me to write a short story or something along those lines, and so later on I brainstormed random cartoons on the back of my copybook.

Using the style I had developed from my drawing book, I started drawing Dublin scenes with what would become the character (Rob) for my book. The character’s initials, RO’YSH, stand for Rob O’Yourke Sean Hudson. The personalities of people I know, as well as some I had heard about, were entwined into the characters. After doing a couple of drawings, I coloured them in with Pro-Markers, which enhanced them.

By now it was late 2007 and my friends had kept up to date with more and more of my drawings. Early 2008 and I had 50 illustrations but still no words. So I began to type. Every second night or so, while chatting on MSN, I would type a few more paragraphs.

I fed my drawings into the printer, so that the drawing and text were on the same page. The book was nearly finished. During the next few months, I proof-read it and changed bits around. I got a lot of encouragement from friends and family to publish it.

We wrote it up and rang the relevant publishers. After having no luck, we went ahead and self-published it. A lot of people had doubts that I would actually go ahead and get it published. No one in school knows how hard it is to publish a book. Most of them just thought, “you get your book printed and the shops stock it” – just like that! It was a long process but well worth the effort to see my artwork on the shelves. I’m not an avid reader, but as a child I would look through the pictures rather than actually read the words in books. My book is based along those principles: you could nearly follow the story without actually reading the book.

It may be an “inconvenient truth” but many teenagers drink and smoke. It has become part of our modern culture. My cartoons portray a teenage lifestyle driven by money, designers, location and status. The all-familiar word: Ledge!

Livin’ and Ledgin’ Before the JC

is available in the Exchange bookshop, Dalkey, The Wise Owl, Dún Laoghaire and Hampton Books, Donnybrook