A Shameless Plug (And new blog format)

I'm re-vamping my blog. You may have noticed a different background and soon I will have a different...okay, I will have a format. I want to focus on three things that are important to me and things that are important to teenagers.


1. Themselves

I'm a mother of teenagers, I get it, teenagers like to read about themselves and about other teens. I'm going to be featuring teenagers who do great things, (like my friends from trek) and believe me, there are a lot out there. Anything from being a great athlete to being a great friend to standing up for what you believe in. Sometimes it will be an individual, sometimes it will be a group, sometimes it will be a section of the teenaged population. I'm a firm believer in the power and strength of of youth. Not just to be a leader of tomorrow, but to be a leaders now, this moment. For any teens reading now (esp. my kids) go be a leader. Start by cleaning your room.

2. Books (A sneaky way for me to get to read books and call it work!)

Okay, I'm a writer, so books are important to me. And books should be important to teens. They are your voice, your window to the world, your past, present, and future. I love T.V. and the Internet (broadcasting major), but while these mediums give you a snapshot into the world, a book will take you there. Television and the Internet are limited by technology and special effects. Books are only limited by your imagination. And teens have tons of imagination, (ask any teacher what they hear when they ask for a tardy excuse).

So I will review books on my blog. A few disclaimers on this, I'm a writer, I have a lot of friends who are authors, so I will be reviewing my friends and fellow writers' work. Also I have tendency to like most of what I read so my reviews will be more content-related instead of this is a good book this is a not-so-good book.

One more disclaimer... as a mom my greatest compliment to any book is when I hand the book over to my son or daughter and say, I think you should read this. (As I recently did with Holly Cupala's book TELL ME A SECRET, to be reviewed next week). BUT, I don't think every book I read is appropriate for say my twelve-year-old daughter or my fourteen-year-old son. When I review a book, I will review for age-appropriate content.

And third...

3. ME!!! (And the world of publishing)

This is probably more important to me than it is to the teenaged world, but I promise to keep glimpses into my world and into the world of publishing interesting, entertaining and informative.

So format--(Going in reverse order of how I introduced the topics.)

Monday: Me
Wednesday: Book Reviews

Friday: Teens Doing Great Things

Whew! That's a lot to write about, so I'm going to need your help. If you know of a teenager or group of teens doing something you think is great or if you are a teen doing something great, LET ME KNOW. This could be as simple as doing a play or helping a neighbor. If you read a great Young Adult book LET ME KNOW. The "Me" stuff is all about me, so I get to pick that one.

Now here's the other part of my shameless plug...

My son's skateboard video!!! (Click here to see it.)

Since it's Friday I'm calling this my "Teens Doing Great Things" feature. I'd like to say I taught him everything he knows about video editing, but really he just asked me a couple of questions about the editing program I use and then he ran with it. Pretty impressive. That's what I mean about the power of youth. GO DAVID!