In which I pull back the curtain...

And reveal that the Wizard is just a guy in a hot air balloon.

I spoke to a group of high school students on Thursday about writing and getting published. They were a great group, engaged, thoughtful, asking great questions. It was very cool as one of my former English teachers was there and came in to tell the kids that even in high school, she and the other English teachers called me "the next Erma Bombeck." (Which was so much nicer than what I suspect they called some of my classmates.)

At the end of the session, we were talking about where I get my ideas for books. I explained that I get most of my ideas from every day life - conversations, the news, funny things I see while out and about. But the kids seemed to think there was some sort of magical formula. Like I sat in front of a crystal ball and a higher power sent these ideas to me. (If only.)

Eventually, one of the girls made a teasing comment about the other wearing the "special jacket" that day. It turns out there's a boy at their school who smells "completely awesome," so the girls all want to wear his hoodie around at school. They apparently take turns and seem very civil about the whole thing.

I said, "OK, there's an idea right there."

"What?"

"Say you've got this guy, who smells fantastic, he's irresistable to all women. They follow him around like he's Justin Bieber with a normal haircut," I aid. "Maybe his family's under a curse or he's an incubus. And while he was pretty happy about this during his teens, now he's lonely, because he can't find someone to love. He never knows whether a woman really loves him, or if it's his evil smell powers. Maybe he meets the girl of his dreams and he's desperate to get her to love him for real. Maybe he meets a girl who's under her own curse, so she's got similar trust issues. That's the beginning of a book idea."

They blinked and frowned, confused. "That's it?"

"Uh-huh. I mean, it's rough, but you could eventually turn it into something."

"You just see or hear something from every day life and you make it into a book?" they asked.

I nodded.

The girls seemed oddly disappointed.

I didn't have the heart to tell them about The Legend of the Million-Dollar Book Deal. It seemed too cruel.