Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer author Cecily von Ziegesar’s tips on how to survive high school without killing anyone.

by Cecily von Ziegesar

High school is a freaky time. Even the beautiful and infallible Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen have it rough—so much so that in my new book, Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer, they actually start to murder their classmates. And while their killer behavior is fun to read about, it’s so not recommended in real life. My high school was tiny, so everyone knew everything about everyone. Needless to say, we barely made it out alive. Here are a few tips to ensure you survive four of the most tumultuous years of your life.

Friends are forever…unless you kill the friendship. Look at Blair and Serena—in love with the same guy and constantly plotting each other’s demise. We know they love each other deep down, but it’s the ones you love who can cause the most damage. In high school my best friend’s parents were going through an ugly divorce. She was angry, sad and not much fun. Instead of distracting her by taking her to the movies, inviting her to stay over and spoon-feeding her Haagen-Dazs, I stopped calling her. By graduation we were practically strangers. We still see each other every few years, but I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for ditching her when she needed me the most (or for writing about it later).

Don’t do something just because it looks good on your college applications. Blair can get away with this, but she has inhuman amounts of energy—and doesn’t actually exist. I was elected class president my junior year. I needed a strong extracurricular, something that made me look like the involved leader that I wasn’t, so I asked my friends to nominate and vote for me. Once elected, I went to the early morning meetings half asleep and never said a word. By the end of the year I couldn’t wait to step down and hand over the reins to someone who really wanted the job. Sure it looked good on my record, but I still cringe thinking about what a lame class president I was.

Latin is useful. If you have the chance, take Latin. It was one of my favorite subjects, because it gives you the tools to break down English words you might not normally use—a huge bonus when you want to score big on the SATs or are just trying to impress people. Blair and Serena use Latin all the time. Where do you think words like luxuriate, decapitate, rationalize and celebrate come from?

Enjoy your weekends. Throughout high school, I always went away on the weekends, competing at horse shows up and down the East Coast. I missed everything. Everything! Writing the Gossip Girl novels allowed me to imagine what might have happened—in every romantic and gory detail—but I still wish I’d been there, live and in person, when all the real mayhem, destruction, hook-ups and hilarity happened. That’s what high school is really about: what happens outside of class, and who’s still standing—together—on Monday.

**Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer is a tongue-in-cheek re-imagining of Cecily von Ziegesar’s original novel, in the same vein of spoof books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. If you love the Gossip Girl series, you’ll love this dark dramedy. Be sure to pick up your copy, in bookstores on October 3.

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