Let me be real with you....

I'm going to be releasing the first real teaser from Dark Reflections next week, but before I do, I wanted to share the story behind the teaser.

Maybe you don't realize this, but most life-long authors like me aren't popular in school. We tend to be quiet and thoughtful, observing when our peers are acting. We pour angst onto page after page, leaving ourselves raw and bear with nothing left to give the world around us. Much of our time is spent lingering in world's of fantasy until the real world is too abrasive for us. Or maybe that's just me.

I rarely had many friends. Maybe it's because I was dirt pour and moved twelve times in my thirteen years of schooling. Always the new kid. Never wearing clothes that fit the trend. I never even went on a real vacation until I was seventeen. I was a victim. To my family. To pervy neighbors. To the other kids.

I'm not saying this because I'm looking for sympathy, just setting the stage. Because I was always on the outside, i had no idea I was bullied at the time it was happening. Not when I was shoved so hard my knee swelled to the size of a baseball. Not when I was stabbed with a pencil, leaving the lead that is still under my skin to this day. Not even when another girl told the entire school I had molested her cat.

My story isn't unique.

Kids everywhere have stories like these and worse. I know because so many people have shared their amazing stories with me. I have been blessed and even healed a little, having others share their own pain and vulnerability with me. Because of it, I have the courage to share some of my own experiences in Skin Deep. The teaser I will be releasing is a slightly dramatized experience from my own childhood.

It wasn't long after the girl had told the school I molested her cat. I was thirteen. (Yup, that's me in the picture.) Two girls followed me home, poking me,  calling me "rapist" and "molester" as they threw pebbles and candy at me. I kept walking faster and faster until I was running. When I got home, I locked the door. What happened after that was fairly accurately recreated in the teaser I'm releasing on Wednesday.

When it's ready, I will hotlink the teaser here.

Again, I don't really need sympathy. What I hope to get from sharing my story is maybe - just maybe - I can reach someone else who is struggling with something like this and give them strength. Give them hope. Maybe even give them a shoulder to cry on. Because if I can help just one person then it will all be worth it.