Authors Against Bullying

Bullying has always been a topic very close to my heart.  My mom taught me to stand up for myself and tell the teacher if I was bullied.  She also taught me to befriend the children that were bullied so they would feel less alone.  These teachings have followed me into my adult years.  Sadly, bullying isn't something that always stops in the school yard.  I've seen it in the work place as well as in social settings.  Whether you are a child or an adult, you still need to be ready to face a bully.

Recently, I decided to stop letting my biggest bully keep her hold on me.  She was my 11th grade AP English teacher.  Any student in AP English is expected to be very good at the subject, but I wasn't the best at grammar.  I decided to go to her before the class started and make sure I would be able to handle the class.  This was a very big mistake.  This simple act marked me as her target for the rest of the year.  She was very rude and told me that if I had done well in Accelerated English then I should know if I was ready for her class.  I stayed in the class because I like a challenge, however, I should have gone back to Accelerated and found a different teacher.  

She called me out every chance she got, and never missed an opportunity to criticize me in front of the class.  I dealt with it and got a friend in class to tutor me when she could.  Once the teacher found out I was an exceptional math student, she seemed to hate me more.  This confused me because one of her best friends taught Trig, and that lady loved me.  

I spent the year keeping my head down, and trying to avoid eye contact.  Then she pissed me off more than I could have ever imagined.  We were studying Shakespeare and I am great at Shakespeare.  People were coming to me for explanations.  I knew I had horrible grammar, but literature was my thing.  I understood language and characters, and I enjoyed creating worlds in my head.  When we got to Midsummer I was ecstatic.  We were going to do a project where we got to act out a scene.  

I walk in to class on the first day of Midsummer discussions, and she walks straight to my desk and picks up my copy.  She waves it before the class and asks why I had to get the No Fear Shakespeare version.  If you aren't familiar with these books, one side of the page is actual text and the other is a page of translated text.  I told her the truth, they were out of the normal copy at the store.  She laughed and told me that was highly unlikely.  I told her I went to the Shakespeare section and that was all I could find.  Apparently, there was a big pile in the back of the store for school reading.  How was I supposed to know, and who cares?  

That was when a boy I had rarely talked to actually stood up and defended me.  He held up his copy, which was also No Fear, and said he bought it on purpose because he needed it.  You may think oh how sweet, but this was huge for this kid.   He made a 35 Sophomore year on the ACT, and was a genius compared to the rest of us.  He always made straight A's, and never asked for help.  He was also her favorite student, even though he was a bit of a class clown.  

She looked like she had been dunked face first into cold water.  She tossed my copy back at me and started her lesson.  I made sure that guy was in my group for the scenes, and any time he needed help with Shakespeare he came to me.  We didn't become friends, but we shared a moment.  He couldn't stand the way I was being treated and spoke up.  For that I will always be grateful.

Later that year, I found the courage to stand up to her myself.  It was only words, but it felt good.  The best part was that she couldn't do anything about it.  I was about to leave for a big math competition, and she knew I wouldn't be punished for snapping at her.  She wasn't much of a problem the last few weeks of school.  

For years now I have let her keep me from writing.  I love creating characters and sharing stories, but I have stopped myself because I had her view of me stuck in my head.  Over the past few months I have really felt the push to write, and for some reason I thought of Mr. Teacher.  My senior year AP English teacher was always very complimentary of my journal entries and short stories.  I owe my push back into writing to him.  I realized that some people could enjoy my work, even if I have a few grammar problems.  Then again, God did create editors.  

New Author

Hello!

I am writing a book that I hope to have out mid January.  I will be one of those new age authors that starts with epublishing.  It has taken me a long time to get to this, but I'm glad I am making the transition.  I am an actress that's always forming stories in my mind.  Stories that I see on a big screen with me as the lead.  ;)  Recently I realized that those stories will never be told if I don't tell them.  Screen plays are the hardest things in the world to get made, but books are much more realistic.  Especially since we can publish ourselves these days.  So here I am.  I have a whole series planned and another after that.  Every second I'm not acting, I'm writing.  It has become an obsession!  

What kind of books will they be?  I guess you would call them romantic suspense.  Although, I'm not certain the first will fall under that category.  We shall see ;)