Revenge is a dish best served in literature.

Good morning!

It's Monday of RICK WEEK here. I'm headed to Potowatami Bingo and Casino in Milwaukee on Friday with my friend Dawn to rock out to Rick Springfield. I'm hoping to meet some of my virtual Facebook friends there as well, so all in all, it's going to be a fun time...if I can just get to Friday!

Speaking of Facebook, I got an astounding message over the weekend from my high school nemesis. I won't mention this person's name...or even gender, because it's not really important. In three years of high school, this person took GREAT delight in making my life miserable. This person (Okay, I'm starting to sound like someone giving their vote on Biggest Loser, I know.) shoved me down a flight of stairs, wrecking my favorite Bobbi Brooks jeans in the process. This person dragged me down the hallways by my hair more than once (Probably why I tend to favor short hair now.) This person generally spent three years tormenting me physically.

Yet, through the magic of Facebook, this person and I are now friends.

So the message from this person involved a request for a signed copy of "Dream in Color." I told my dad this. (My father was the most hated teacher at my high school...my nemesis especially hated him.) He suggested all sorts of great, evil inscriptions I could write down. We had great time, thinking about how to finally exact some sort of literary revenge. But, ultimately, we decided it would be best to just write something nice in there and be done with it.

And then I realized that I've already exacted my revenge in the book.

Yep, this person is mentioned, almost by name, as a person who tormented Ramona in grade school and high school. It's a small blip in the whole picture of the plot, and I'd actually forgotten about it until this person requested a copy. It never in a billion years occurred to me that anyone from my high school would read it. Mostly because, well, let's just say the idea of reading a whole book wasn't exactly something that was DONE in my high school. (Hence the torment.)

I think we all have that one person that humiliated us during those tender high school years. If you can't bring up your bully's name, then, I'm sorry to say, you were probably the bully. (My guess is, if you're a writer and you're reading this, you were never a bully.)

Writers draw from their own experiences. "Write what you know" is often pounded into our brains. Yet, if that were what writers did, there would be no fantasy books, there would be no dark romances involving vampires, and there would be very few murder mysteries. And the world would be a sad place, indeed. But, no matter how much fiction is in our fiction, there's always a large grain of truth in the stories we tell.

In my case, in "Dream in Color," I hearken back to my bully. Briefly, but it's there. And now my bully wants a copy of the book.

Wonder if my bully will get it?

Hmmmmm.....

Meanwhile, the countdown to Rick continues and I'm looking forward to that!

Have a great Monday all!