Many people never get the chance to leave their mark on the world. Nineteen-year-old Ned Vizzini already has.

While Vizzini was growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., he did not spend his spare time watching television. Instead, he wrote essays, which appeared in the New York Press, a free weekly, and now appear in his recent book, Teen Angst? Naaah . . . . Vizzini has loved to write ever since first grade. "I always got good grades in English," he said in a recent phone interview from his dorm room at Hunter College in Manhattan.

Most kids consider writing just as schoolwork. But what interested Vizzini in writing was humor.

"When you write for school, you're basically just writing something that you think the teacher is going to like so you get a good grade. I was really interested in the challenge of writing something that would make somebody laugh,'' he said. In between homework and chores and social activities, Vizzini had to find time to write. Mostly, he stayed up late. "I would start doing it at 10, and I would get to sleep at like 12 or 1. I had to make time for it, and really the only way to do it was to watch a little bit less TV.''

Vizzini didn't get his start through school clubs or other literary activities. When he was 15, he opened a copy of the New York Press and saw an address for submissions, so he sent a story off.

Not everything he wrote for the Press was published. "If they liked it, they would print it and they would pay me $100. If they didn't like it, they would tell me that it was bad and they would not print it,'' he said.

Vizzini said he didn't have deadlines, which gave him a little more freedom. "I never had a continuous column. I never had to write a story. I waited until something interesting happened to me, and then I would write about it and send it in. And maybe I got one story a month, one story every two months.''

Some of his teachers encouraged his writing, while others had less positive comments.

"I went to history class one day and my history teacher said to me, 'Oh, hey, Ned, I read your thing in the New York Press .

" 'Do they pay you by your use of the word f - - -?' And I thought he wasn't very happy with it.

"But then I had an English teacher who really loved the stuff that I wrote. Sometimes she would let me just read to the class. And that was really cool, 'cause we didn't have to do any work.''

After Vizzini had been submitting stories to the Press for a while, The New York Times approached him about writing a story.

"They came to me and they said, 'We're doing an article on 13-year-olds and we want you to write a column of advice for 13-year-olds.' So I wrote that out and I sent it out to them and they liked it and they printed it,'' he said.

That was the start of something big for Vizzini. "I only wrote one thing for them, but it was good for me 'cause that was what the book company noticed.

"And that was what got them in touch with me to come out with my book.''

Most young writers who hope to have a book published don't know where to start. Ned's advice is to write about your experiences.

"It's very hard to write about being older than you really are, 'cause you don't really know what it's like. It's hard to write about being a different gender. It's hard to write about someone who lives in a foreign country if you haven't been there,'' he said.

"The only thing I knew about was being a kind of stupid kid -- well, smart but weird and growing up in New York. So that's what I wrote about.''

He also advises writers to get some feedback.

"Don't be ashamed. If you write, show it to people you know are gonna give you honest reactions, but also kind reactions,'' he said.

Finally, he recommends sending your stories off to any place that interests you.

"The world of writing is not like the world of music; it's not like the world of movies. You don't need to know anybody to get in,'' he said.

"All you need to do is look in any magazine that you read. Up in the front -- it's usually in very small print, so you have to look very carefully -- there will be an address of the magazine, right? And there may even be a little sign saying, 'Send unsolicited manuscripts to this address.' That address is where you can send your stuff, anything that you write. . . . Magazines call it slush mail.''

Getting a book published is hard work. Vizzini encountered a problem over which compositions to put in the book and which ones to leave out. "I had one essay about me and my friend going down to Coney Island and trying to sell our used electronic equipment to the drug dealers who hang out down there, and that was pretty funny. But (the editors) cut that one out.''

When the book came out, Vizzini was more relieved than anything.

"I was just happy that it was finally done and it was out there. When I got my first article printed in the paper, that was when I went through all those feelings of joy and happiness,'' he said.

"By the time the book came out, I was just like, 'Oh man, thank God it's out. It's done. Now I can go on to other things.' ''

Vizzini's family has always been supportive of his writing, but the book has affected them a little more than his essays in the Press did.

"At first they were very proud and happy and pleased that I was able to find something that I like to do. But I think my parents don't really like it as much as they put on, being characters in a book.''

"It's definitely something that you have to consider when you try and get into the business of writing about your own life. You really have to consider how it's going to affect the people that you live with,'' he said.

Vizzini hopes to continue to make his living by writing. If not, he will get a computer science degree to fall back on.

But he has already attained his life's goal: to be a published author. "My lifelong dream from this point on is to chill.''

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Jama Riley, 17.

REPORTERS: Katie Lootens, 12, and Zach Tuchman, 12.