Back in action!

April seems to be the month when I catch the writing bug. In April 2008, I was on the fourth straight day of standardized testing, my best friend was sequestered at home while she endured chemo, and I couldn't grade papers due to testing rules. Locked in my classroom with kids I didn't know, I started my first book. I watched those teenagers and realized how much I liked telling their stories. I started to make up scenarios about the very students sitting in my room. It wasn't hard. I didn't know too much about them, so my ideas weren't terribly tainted with reality. It was all fiction in my head, and I loved it.

I came home from school that day and started scribbling the ideas on a legal pad. I think I wrote about 5,000 words those first couple of days. The story just came pouring out. My first two "real" characters, Anna and Daniel were born. Not nearly as messy as real babies. And I was hooked.

But eventually the ideas slow down. Eventually my family demands to be fed. All productivity slows or even stops.

Those characters are never far away. They talk to me in the shower. They show up in my dreams. I hear kids at the mall make comments, and I think "Anna would say that."

Last week I got to attend a conference in San Antonio and hear Will Hobbs speak. His stories are fun and adventuresome, very different from my teenage love drama, but he said a few things that really stuck with me.

One: He started writing and eight short years later, he was published. It's great to hear a real publishing story. Not the I-wrote-a-book-in-my-sleep-and-publishers-threw-money-at-me story.

Two: One of his characters is based on a former student, he even named her. I will keep making up stories for those kids I see in my room every day. I love them too much not to!

So, off I go. The ideas are here and I must be a good hostess.