#AMMConnect Bio

I am an “Author Mentor Match” hopeful, and this is a post all about me. For those of you who don’t know about AMM, it’s a little like pitchwars mentorship without the war. So this bio post is going to be a bit like #pimpmybio. If I seem interesting enough, feel free to post a comment and we can be internet buddies!

First and foremost, I am a wife and mommy. I have been with my husband for a wonderful nineteen years. We have 2.5 beautiful children (baby girl due this July) who are my constant joy (and stress. Can’t forget about the stress). We live in a suburban/rural part of West Virginia close to DC. (And yes, the timing works out that I was newly pregnant for all of NaNoWriMo, so you can guess how hard that was.)

For my day job, I’m a high school band director. I spend my summers and falls with my marching band doing the band camp thing and performing under the Friday night lights. My winters and springs are full of taking my jazz band and concert band out to festivals. (Side note: I have way too much snark and sarcasm in my teacher life, which strangely isn't showing up in this post.) Naturally, I write YA contemporary stories, all with some hint of music in them. My current wip has a main character with a crush on a band chick, though some of my other stories have full-blown band geek story lines.

I am a Christ follower, and God is a big part of my life. I live with love for all my fellow humans without judging or being too preachy. God has found His way into all of my books, even when I didn’t intend on Him being there. Sometimes He shows up in small ways (the character goes to church but the story doesn't really get all God-heavy), or in big ways (like the main character finds religion). I hope that my books can put God in a positive light, even to the general market.

I started seriously writing two and a half years ago. I’ve always dabbled in poetry and even dreamed of writing a novel. (My childhood diary talks about a new year’s resolution to start my novel—whoops. That didn’t happen until nearly two and a half decades later. I’m bad at resolutions.) Well, a couple of years ago, I had a dream of a scene that was so vivid, I had to write it down. Three weeks later, I had a completed (very short) draft. Soon after, I discovered NaNoWriMo and wrote my second novel. I entered contests, joined Twitter and writing organizations, and started learning that I had absolutely no idea what the heck I was doing. So here I am, two and a half years later with lots of learning under my belt and a manuscript that has some promise (at least in my novice eyes).

My current manuscript is about two depressed teens, very different from each other, who happen to meet under the stairs while skipping class. They’re both trying to escape their lives for different reasons and form a bond because they can open up to each other in ways they can’t with the people who know them. They continue meeting in secret to put aside their real lives for a while and find some happiness. Things get a bit romantic, but their secret relationship is discovered and things get really messy. Like suicidal, messy. So I guess you can say it’s a bit Romeo and Juliet-esque.

So here’s the big twist and the reason I haven’t shared much about this wip before. I guess I hope my idea is original and I don’t want to give it away. Anyhow, my main character’s gender is ambiguous. I’m not talking like Jeff Garvin’s “Symptoms of Being Human” (which I’m currently reading and is a tremendous book). His mc is gender fluid and the “anatomy” of the character isn’t revealed. No, in my book the character is ambiguous to the reader but it’s not what the story is about. It’s written in first person, and there are no pronouns used to identify his/her gender. The character can be read as male or female or somewhere in between. The story itself does not deal with struggles of gender identity or sexuality.

I know there’s going to be readers out there that I’m going to offend. My mc is optionally LGBTQ+ but I am a cisgendered heterosexual. The story doesn’t reflect the struggles so many LGBTQ+ people face. The possibility of LGBTQ+ romance might not seem to match with my Christianity for some people.

But let me explain.

In my teaching, especially in the last few years, I have had the pleasure of working with teens from nearly the whole spectrum of the LGBTQ+ rainbow. I had never before (knowingly) met someone who is transgendered. I didn’t really know what gender fluid meant. I’d never even heard of aromantic. But my students came to my classroom as people. Wonderful human beings that I love. And eventually I learned that they were unique in more ways than I knew. But they were still people. My band is a safe place for them. They are unquestioningly accepted by their peers (which I am constantly and overwhelmingly proud of). But I cry for them because the rest of the world isn’t like that.

I wrote a book that was put in my heart. A book where gender and sexuality doesn’t matter at all. I hope that someone can read my book and feel for my character without having to wonder if he/she is male or female, heterosexual or something else. It’s a story about a kid. A human kid. I wish we could all look at each other as equal humans.

I hope you like my bio. If you want to check me out more, feel free to browse around my blog or catch me on Twitter @lara_d_writer. (If you're intrigued by my snarky music teacherness, I have a separate Twitter @SmeliottElliott for that side of me!)