Situation Sheep: A Teen's Quest for Greener Pastures
A BACKWARDS FORWARD
I've always had silly (some would say "crazy") ideas, from hopping the fence at the zoo at age 16 to teaching theater games to kids in Uganda at 65. By the way, sneaking into a zoo at night is highly overrated (SPOILER ALERT: the animals are all asleep.)
But the wackiest idea of all is thinking that I could publish my first novel at the age of 65. I mean the grandiosity of Bibleland doesn't share zip codes with Little House On The Prairie. I've even got Laura Ingalls Wilder, that tender, sweet, young 64 year old debut author beat by a year! GO! CRAZY SENIOR POWER! (and I don't mean your high school grade level.)
And if that weren't enough to guarantee failure, I added "crazier" to "already crazy," I choose a genre that doesn't even count as a genre at all (unless you're from that undiscovered aboriginal tribe of quirky YA readers that stir their stone pots with humor and spirituality.)
Can our deep spiritual quests for meaning and significance be funny? Can humor share the same book cover with "The Suffering Servant?"
And if those weren't enough, the "Crazy Pot" gets stirred even more vigorously: a remnant of romance here, a tad of tragedy there. unsavory secrets. Rattlesnake venom. Who in their right mind would write a YA book like that? I'll tell you who (even though you didn't ask.) A 65 year old retired nitroglycerin juggler (AKA high school drama teacher.)*
And why would this teetering old geezer write it? Simple. He wanted to give young Christians a book they love, and teens of other faiths a book they don't... hate. No matter what faith we profess, oftentimes our quest for truth ends in unexpected places, whether zoos, Aboriginal tribes, the wacky mind of a 65 year old debut author or in mixed metaphors.
Enjoy! And if you like it, Snap it, Chat it, Tweet it, Tok it (don't worry, I know that's not a thing.) If nothing else, I suppose, you could always use it as a paperweight (but please don't tell anybody... especially me.)
Wonderful meeting you and sharing this bold new genre-bending adventure together!
Blessings!
Clark
P.S. SPOILER ALERT: At the very end of the book Chat GBT and I have given you Bible verses to match the theme and tone of each chapter. You can use these to deepen your experience skip right past or decorate your walls with.
* I wish that quote was mine. It's not. The great and powerful Stephen King actually said: "Directing teenage actors is like juggling jars of nitroglycerin: exhilarating and dangerous." Perhaps this whole book is the result of a severely impaired nitroglycerin brain.
If God created every sound in the universe, then He must have hired a ghost writer to compose the current symphony erupting from under my Les Miz t-shirt and black leggings waistband. Thankfully, at the moment, everyone's more interested in finding lab partners than in listening to my internal organist.
I pop up from my desk in Mr. Snyder's bio class to join the other sixteen-year- old lemmings headed zombie-like to their next close encounter with frog kidneys and testes.
BAM! I’m staring at Brandon’s belly button.
Well, not exactly. He’s not wearing a halter. He’s tall and lanky with large hands, so you might guess that he’s a basketball player. Nope. He’s this amazing pianist who plays for our Spring musical'sB&B rehearsals.
Yesterday when we were rehearsing “Be Our Guest” he made me miss my entrance. Well… he didn’t force me to miss it.
His face did.
His face doesn't say "basketball" or "piano." His face says: “kiss me.”
At least to me it does.
“Please, God! Strike that last thought from the record, and don’t make me look like an idiot,” I pray silently.
Brandon takes a step back. I do too, crushing my sandwich in the process and squirting strawberry jam all over my clean white Reeboks. I pray he doesn't notice, but, of course, that's exactly where he stares.