I’m embarking on a new challenge this month. It’s called Change Write Now and it’s a habit-changing challenge taking place in the writing community. The basic idea is everyone has been split into teams (Go Team “For Our SAKES”!) and is competing to earn points each day…for eating healthy, exercising, creating one good habit, and breaking one bad habit.

My eating goals revolve around losing some weight I put on over the course of last year (which also goes hand-in-hand with a different weight losing competition I have going with my dad currently). Luckily, many of my teammates have similar weight loss goals, which is going to be great motivation for me!

But the good habit I’m trying to pick up is in posting on this blog more often. I’m aiming for three times a week, at least to start. Hopefully that will work out!

Anyway, this was just a quick post to introduce all of this fun and let you know what’s going to be happening for the next couple of months!

I was fourteen years old, a freshman in high school, and I was just walking into science class. It was a third/fourth period block for BESS 1 (Biology and Earth Science Studies, the science class most of the freshmen were taking), and the first thing that caught my eye was the television. It was on, which was strange in and of itself, but on top of that it was tuned to CNN. Although I had only been a high school student for a couple of weeks, I had learned that the classroom televisions were rarely tuned to anything outside of the school announcement channel and the channel that showed the WKHS News on Fridays. On this particular day, though, the entire class was staring at CNN.

Only minutes before, the first plane had struck the World Trade Center.

Our teacher came in and started class, but she left the TV on. At that time, everyone was just interested to see what would happen. Everyone was assuming it was a tragic accident. There was only one kid in our class that thought otherwise. Every few seconds he would say that it was terrorists. But as this kid had a tendency to think that everything and anything was due to terrorists, no one really gave him a second thought.

I was still sitting in BESS 1 when we watched the second plane hit. After that, the rest of whatever we were learning fell into the background. We were all too mesmerized by what was happening on the television.

The rest of the day is something of a blur to me. I remember no one was talking in the hallways between classes, because everyone was in too much shock. I remember that every single television in the school was showing CNN. I remember that it was during lunch that Osama Bin Laden’s video hit the airwaves, and that everyone was crowded around the four TVs in the middle of the cafeteria. I remember that during my history class at the end of the day, the original lecture was forgotten in favor of talking about terms we would be hearing a lot in the coming weeks, including “Taliban.” Oddly, I also remember that it was that day when I rode the bus home from high school for the first time, because all after-school activities got cancelled, so there was no marching band practice.

That day and the days surrounding it were an emotional roller coaster. My father was in Germany on a business trip and we couldn’t get in contact with him for days. My cousin was in Virginia and his job meant he was sometimes at the Pentagon. Until we found out that he hadn’t been there that day, we were worried about him. The following Friday was a home football game, and our marching band re-worked pre-game to pay tribute to what had happened.

It was a day and a week that I’ll probably never forget, regardless of how many years pass. I don’t think any of us that experienced that day will ever forget it. I’ve heard that each generation has a “where were you when…” moment, that one significant day or event or moment that lives in that generation’s memory forever. September 11, 2001 was our generation’s “where were you when…” moment. It’s the day that our children and our grandchildren will ask us about. It’s the day that future generations will study in history class and write reports about and do projects on. I won’t lie that it will be surreal, some day in the future, when my son or daughter asks me where I was when those planes struck the World Trade Center.

And I’ll tell them…I was fourteen years old, a freshman in high school, and I was just walking into science class…

Pardon the Wicked reference, but it seemed to fit for the title of this post. Hopefully by the end of it, you’ll understand why.

In my true writerly nature, I don’t do well talking about my feelings. In fact, the only way I seem able to process my feelings is by writing them down. The tougher the stuff is to deal with, the more I feel I need to write.

Today I got some sad news. Terrible news. News that took me a while to process, but when it finally hit, I had to hide in the bathroom to cry, because I didn’t want my roommate to ask what was wrong.

I received word that earlier this evening, my wonderful, energetic, amazing Irish dance teacher, Ann Richens, lost her battle with cancer.

I used to dance ballet when I was younger. I danced for several years before quitting. But soon after I quit…I regretted it. I never got to dance pointe. I missed the graceful movements. The regret hit harder in college, when I got the chance to take a couple of dance classes for PE credit. And then I fell in love with watching Irish dance and I knew that was what I wanted to learn next.

Two years ago, I stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to take Irish dance classes downtown. I fell in love with it immediately. I made friends quickly, I loved the movement, it was fun. I was glad I joined Columbus Celtic Dancers…and a lot of that was in part because of Ann.

Ann was, honestly, the most energetic person I’ve ever met. She could easily have kicked any of our butts if she’d wanted to. She was strong and inspirational. She encouraged us to try our best…and for those of us to whom the dance steps came a little easier, she pushed us to jump higher, step lighter, extend more. Those of us who chose to compete, she expected us to, not necessarily BE the best, but to DO our best.

And we did.

Many of us have won medals in competition, many teams from our group have gone on to place. We’re not world champions, but she treated us like we were. It was because of Ann that I felt comfortable enough to go into competition after dancing for only a year. It was because of Ann that this year when I competed, I won five medals.

Ann had more energy than most people her age I’ve met. She would travel an hour and a half each Monday evening to and from downtown to teach our dance class. She traveled to Ireland several times a year. She worked with us adults and she also worked with the Richens-Timm Academy kids. I don’t think she ever sat still for more than a few hours.

It was apparent to anyone who knew her that she loved teaching. She challenged me, she encouraged me, she inspired me. I’ll continue dancing, under however many teachers I end up having throughout the years, but Ann will always have a special place in my heart. She will never be forgotten by anyone whose life she touched, she was just that kind of person.

Ann, you will never be forgotten. You will live on in everyone you taught, in every dance step we learned from you, in every medal we win, and in every performance we put on. Thank you for everything. May you rest in peace.

You’re lucky you’re getting a blog post today. I have been living in a state of constantly refreshing my inbox that is somewhat reminiscent to querying agents. Most of my friends have gotten activated into the beta of Pottermore. I, however, am still waiting. It’s rather like being picked last for the team in gym class.

I don’t wanna talk about it.

So, instead…here you go. Writing Tuesdays. For the next five minutes, my mind will be OFF Pottermore pain.

I went back and forth between two topics. One I might save for later, when I get more involved in the concept. Today, I’ll be talking about casting characters.

To be fair, this is not something I’d ever done before this weekend. I’d always considered my characters to live solely inside my head. I’ve never been good at finding physical representation of any of my characters, because I have very firm ideas of what they look like to me. Occasionally, I’ve run into some random person on the street or in the grocery store that I’m like “woah, she/he is exactly how I picture [insert character here]” but even that’s rather rare for me.

But then this weekend, something spurred me on to cast my characters. I don’t know what this “something” was, but…I came to find out that the project was kind of fun. And I kind of like having pictures of all my characters hanging on my writing board over my desk. It makes them all the more REAL to me (which means, it’s all the more REAL to me when I have to kill them off…oops?). My roommates got a kick out of it too. They seem to get a kick out of most of the weird writerly things I do…”a kick” being that they smile, nod, and back away slowly.

An interesting thing I discovered during this casting characters project, however, was how difficult it is for me to picture my male characters. I always have a ton of trouble in general with male characters–I hate naming them, I hate describing them, and sometimes they’re interchangeable to me. It’s really a problem. So it’s was an absolute nightmare trying to find people I thought best visually represented my male main characters in my novel. But, I did eventually get it done. And I’m pretty happy with the results.

(I was going to post the pictures of my cast here…but…I’m technology stupid today and couldn’t figure it out. Maybe later.)