How Do You Spell Relief?

Do you remember the old Rolaids commercials?  "How do you spell relief?  R-o-l-a-i-d-s." 

I'm facing my 42nd birthday this Tuesday.  No biggie.  Mostly right now I'm jazzed about the beautiful spring we're having wondering how you spell the name of that gorgeous flowering shrub that's just started blooming all over town.  Rhodedendron?  Maybe.  Anyway, they are brilliant and all over the place!  In fact, all the flowering trees and shrubs have put on the most wonderful show this spring.  After a long, cold winter, that's how I spell relief:  s-p-r-i-n-g.  Whew.

Also, I'm really jazzed about young adults.  As I'm sure I've mentioned in the blog before (because I'm mentioning it every time I turn around and see someone standing there lately and because I'm signing off on so many emails these days with "Go Falcons!") I'm going back to high school next year.  So, I've started reading the 2010-2011 Gateway Nominees and I'm having a blast!  Also, I've begun writing a new novel (at last!) and have a writer at the New York Times to thank for the inspiration. 

Reading so much YA (not to mention reading a not so nice blog review of No Penalty in which I was the writer of something like "boring and oh, so chaste dating descriptions") kind of got me thinking that I might like to try my hand at the YA myself.  After all, in writing No Penalty I had a lot of fun creating Able and was particularly proud of that character.  So, why not write more like him?  Turns out it was, if it turns out to be nothing else, a great jolt to the creativity, because I've been finding myself thinking about my characters and my story more than any other project I've started and subsequently quit on in recent months.  Yippee! 

Between reading Gateway Nominees, joining YALSA, ordering The Big Pink Bible of Teen Services, and thinking and thinking and thinking about the high school scene where I'll be next year I'm feeling vibrant and alive again.  Say what you will, but teenagers, while sometimes surly and sometimes downright rude, are full of life and it's refreshing to be around that.  So, yeah, Go Falcons!