On Tuesday, I had my very first speaking engagement as a published, well, pre-published author. Yeah, I spoke at Pikes Peak last year, but I didn’t really have a product. I was a writer. But this past Tuesday, I went as an author. Big whoop. The more I live, the more I see, most of life is very very, very undramatic, and very, very plain. Even if you are Paris frakkin’ Hilton, you still wake up, pee, eat, feel the wind on your face, simple, plain, unromantic. The trick is to enjoy the unromantic and relish the plain. The irony is, God made it all very fair. We all have the same challenge, to enjoy the plain.

So, my debut was plain, unromantic, and I am victorious. I loved every second of it. Even the awkward and uncomfortable seconds. But I think next time, I’m going Michael Scott it up. Bring in a boombox, pick an old song (I got the power!), and do some sort of stupid intro and babble a lot more. Make it shiny and sparkly and dramatic as hell.

But first, thanks to Terry Kroenung for giving me the chance. And I didn’t curse. I didn’t talk too much about God, and it went well in his classroom. Yeah, I had about three people listening to me, and I had to fight for stage time with the local toughs. Niwot toughs, yo. Ghetto. But the bad kid said I didn’t suck. So I have that going for me. I tried to get a big, huge, philosophical conversation going, but it didn’t quite work. I think I’m rusty, being back in the classroom. Back in the day, well, they’d still be blowin’ the debris off their quaking minds.

What really saved the day were the five girls who were in the Creative Writing club. They were so full of zip and wit and fire. One had self-published a book already, Infected. Another jammed out 51,000 words for NaNoWriMo. And they loved my opening sentence, but then, yeah, duh, because my opening page rocks.

In the end, what really struck me, is that I’m not so completely old and out of touch. I somtimes feel that the kids are of another generation, and I am an alien visitor writing stories for a people I don’t know. But people are people and kids are kids and teens are teens and it’s all about the same. Completely different, but inside, at the soul level, the same. Hard. Dramatic. Full of longing and wonder and despair and love and lust and hate. And that’s why I write Young Adult novels. Because in my novels, things are never simple, plain or unromantic. And next time, I’m gonna bring watermelon and props and drugs, lots of drugs. Kidding. No drugs. Just pop, pop music.

Okay maybe a few drugs. A little V. For Valkyr. Max Payne reference. Nevermind. Out of touch. That’s me.