Standing at the front of my classroom Wednesday morning, I made eye contact with one of the middle school students seated in a desk. She smiled sweetly and pushed her glasses up higher on her nose.

“Erika?” She asked.

I walked through the center of the room and dropped to my knees near her desk.

“I don’t understand what I am supposed to do right now,” she added, glancing at her assignment.

No, I’m not a teacher.  But I am working really hard to become a Young Adult presenter, and last week I delivered a workshop on Character Development for the Greater Kansas City Middle School Writers Conference. Incredibly honored with the invitation, I faced three classes of 20 middle school students from a mix of schools. I delivered my workshop I wrote on best friend relationships and creating characters that stick. It was really great to feel all that young writing energy, and to see where their minds wandered to solve the scenario with their partners.

“Ok,” I said, glancing over her assigned scene worksheet. “Let’s see, you’re character B. I see you’ve already completed all the questions and created your character. Here’s your assigned scene.” I pointed to the picture of the beach she was supposed to drop her character in and proceeded to read the beginning of the scene. “This is your situation. Now you’ve got a place to start the suspense. Here’s a sample intro sentence to get your mind going if you choose to use it. What else are you confused about?”

“I don’t know. I’m just confused,” she answered.

“Tell me more.”

“Oh, well,” she smiled and I knew her wheels were turning from the sparkle in her eye. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not you. I just get confused about almost everything.”

She chuckled. I chuckled, walking back around the classroom.

I’m sharing this story today as a reflection on our differences and why I love writing Young Adult Urban Fantasy. I love creating characters with common themes we can all relate to. I love showing young people the possible in the impossible. Solutions are so different. It’s that way whether you’re staring at life in general, or a character in a book. And for me, it’s the hope that matters.

So I guess what I’m saying is to enjoy people in general. Let us all be who we are.

And speaking of people, I thought I’d share a selfie I took right before my first class started. Behind my head, you’ll see a big giant nose. That’s the cover of One More Day, with my short story Stage Fright, tucked in to all the awesomely written pages.

Happy Monday, all. Hopefully the week won’t turn out too confusing, but if it does, why not embrace it, and keep moving forward. 😉

Events This Week:

Book Signing.

April 5. 1:00 p.m. I’ll be at Reader’s World with author Tiffany Snow, signing copies of One More Day.

Hugs all!