Uh. Hmm. Okay.

from Jody Feldman

 
I’m sitting here, staring blankly at February’s theme words.
Smart.
Sassy.
What should I do with them? What should I write? 
Let’s start by breaking this down.

February. It’s a month with three red-letter calendar days. One to celebrate (mostly) smart national leaders, one to celebrate love (smart? sassy? you choose), and one to celebrate an unwitting rodent (just ridiculous). And I’ve got nothing else here.

Let’s try a different approach.
Smart.
Sassy.

Okay. So I’m smart, but not as smart as I’d like sometimes. Like when I get my characters into a jam, I often don’t think I’m smart enough to get them out in a non-convoluted, change-your-plot-instead-and-fast(!) type of way. But somehow I manage. So, perhaps, I need to give myself more credit in the smarts department.

But sassy? Okay. So, I can be sarcastic. But I’m quietly sarcastic. There’s nothing quiet about sassiness, a quality that tends to come with a heaping side of boldness. I know sassy people. Want to be them some days. And I love it when a streak of sass comes out in my characters. Those characters! Their words! Their actions! Their sass! 

Hmm.
I did that. I gave them that quality.

So maybe, just maybe, there’s a sassy person who’s been hidding within for all these years.
And sitting here, staring not-as-blankly now at February’s theme words, it’s amazing to think that creating characters has, in some small measure, created new sides to me.

Not-sassy-as-she’d-like Jody Feldman, author of The Gollywhopper Games series (middle grade) and the forthcoming YA thriller No Way Home (August 2, 2022) is booking school visits – elementary, middle, high schools – for the 2022-23 school year. She can’t wait to talk to readers in person again!