Baby Girl Saga

Within my collection of rough draft stories written throughout the past several years it has been difficult to decide which I want to redraft, edit, and publish next nevertheless I chose Baby Girl. It's about a young girl who is abandoned by her mother and runs away from the only skimpy life she has ever known.  I chose to publish it as my second novel because it's full of adventure as Cleo (Baby Girl) scrambles through life.

I have spent over a decade working with children her age and they are self centered in the fact that they know so little about life. Being a teenager is about discovery, making friendships and learning how large the world really is. At some point children begin to expand their horizons and venture into unnerving situations. Their minds are also developing at a phenomenal pace, at twelve their thinking is very concrete and centered around their families. By fourteen they have developed better problem solving skills and a higher level of thought as they encounter various dilemmas, and life is more about discovering their own limits in the world around them. They are learning who they are and what type of person they want to be.

I remember my own days of being invincible and the many adventures I found. I'm sure my parents would cringe if they knew even half of my teenage enterprises. It was these exploits that developed the story about Baby Girl. No, it's not about me, her incidents were not mine, and I never broke the law. I have great parents and a beautiful family and never could have imagined surviving on my own at twelve but I did have some awesome adventures in my middle class suburbia land and I grew up only miles from one of America's most unique and delightful cities, San Francisco. As teens my friends and I couldn't get enough of the city. Once we had cars we were there a lot, sometimes without our parents knowledge or consent. I had many adventures closer to home as well and yes, I did have a man chase me down with a shot gun. He was dressed in his boxer shorts and a robe and we were in a suburban cul-de-sac. He never fired the gun. My friend and I really hadn't done anything wrong I think we just bothered him too early in the morning. It was these experiences and how I perceived them that brought forward Cleo's adventures which are entirely her own.

This story started as a fifty some thousand word rough draft and a couple summers ago I began a sequel. I decided to take the first saga and separate it into three to four short stories as each segment of her life is an adventure of it's own. When I have completed the entire first novel in short stories I will combine them into an a book. I will then finish the sequel and maybe even make a trilogy. 

Eventually she does find out more about her morbid past. It is even more distraught than she ever could have imagined and skeleton parts are jutting out the closet door, making it impossible for her to close.