i love taking part in the Broke and Bookish Top Ten Tuesdays!  This week is the top ten books that should be required reading for teens.

1.  Harry Potter-We all need a little fantasy and magic in our lives
2.  Bastard Out of Carolina-Yes, there are families worse than yours.
3.  Virgin Suicides-Just a damn good book
4.  Twilight-Love doesn't have to equal sex
5.  To Kill a Mockingbird- A classic that teens can appreciate
6.  Switched-Teen paranormal romance with a twist
7.  Catcher in the Rye-Classic
8.  Gone with the Wind-History mixed in with a great story
9.  Jane Eyre-Another classic
10.  Little Women-One last classic

Tonight, Harry Potter fans will get a midnight screening of the final chapter in the Harry Potter franchise, next Monday the story of JK Rowling will be a movie on the Lifetime Network, and Pottermore is just around the corner.

With so much talk right now about Harry Potter and JK Rowling, I got to thinking about the impact these two have had on my life, my work, and the world that I live in.  So I decided to create a list of the top 10 things Harry Potter and JK Rowling taught me about life.

10.  Be a better housekeeper and clean under the stairs.  You never know when you will be living there.

9.  Chocolate can cure anything.

8.  Camping is always a bad idea.

7.  Trees can be dangerous.

6.  Always buy used text books.

5.  Don't always trust everything you read in the media.

4.  Our choices show who we are far more than our abilities.

3.  Anticipation can be its own thrill (i.e. Pottermore.com)

2.  What is right is not always what is easy.

1.  Literature is the greatest art form.


It may seem strange that a fictional character and his creator can teach us so many life lessons, but it happens everyday.  I'd love to read your own lists and find out how the author and her young wizard have affected you!  And don't forget to check out Pottermore. 

It's been a busy few weeks!  I was able to sneak away and give my support to my biggest fan, my daughter, as she and her dance friends competed at their dance nationals. I'm somewhat getting my home in order after about a year's worth of procrastination.  But most important of all, I finished the first draft of chapter 1 for my new book Spiritus!

As a writer, I have these moments when I'm convinced that I'm a genius.  Of course, I read and edit what I took to be perfection and thanks to my red pen it looks like the victim of a brutal killing.  I have to say that this time it didn't look like that.  Things seem to have flowed a little easier this time.  The bad part?  i always worry that I'm the only one that will see it that way.

I'm tryiing to get the first edits done and to get it up on the site so that I can get some feedback.  I'll post it as soon as I'm done and by that time I'll have some more information about Spiritus as a whole (Finalizing the outline).