Introducing Reality Ali

Once upon a time, way too many years ago to admit to, when I was a freshman in high school, I sat down on the orange Colonial-style sofa, in the room with the brown and gold and white shag rug, with re-runs of The Brady Bunch playing on TV, a clipboard with looseleaf paper in my lap and started to write a story about a girl in a boarding school.

Last week, with my daughter now a freshman in high school (and owning all of The Brady Bunch seasons on DVD), I signed a contract to publish REALITY ALI, a story about a girl in a boarding school

Is this the same story?

Well, yes and no.

There are, I think, four elements that have not changed: the boarding school aspect, the girl's last name, the fact that she is rich and the fact that she has at least one older brother. That's about it.

But, I still tend to think of it as a version of the same story. A story that has gone through so many revisions as to be pretty much unrecognizable. But in that time the story has grown and changed and matured. And that's a good thing. After all, I was fourteen when I started the first version - I'd like to think that I've grown and matured over the past years.

What can you take away from this? Keep revising. Keep trying. You never know what might happen.

And in the coming months, I'll let you know more about Ali and her quest to be famous.