Hi Me from Author Bekka Black (iDRAKULA)
Hi me,
Here’s the good news. Remember this. Every unhappy teenager should hear this. Life gets better. So far, these teen years are the toughest ones you have to get through. It’s not just you. It’s harder than you think for everyone else too. But it will pass.
Teen Bekka!
You are sixteen now and about to go to Germany as an exchange student. You are terrified. You don’t speak German. You’ve never been away from home for more than a month. Your mom can’t afford to fly you home if you hate it there and the scholarship probably won’t pay for that either. But you have to go because you know that you cannot take life in Talkeetna, Alaska one more day. Don’t worry. It will be hard, and you will be sad sometimes, but it will get better and you will have the best time of your life.
I know you worry about your grades in Germany, and every other time. Don’t. You will go to Carnegie Mellon University where it will rain basically your entire freshman year and your social life will be mostly nonexistent, but that degree will help you to get a good job. Later, you will become a Real Writer. Actually, you are already a real writer, but until you hold that very first hardcover in your hands, you won’t really believe it. After that book there will be others too.
Get on the plane with no regrets. Leaving Talkeetna is the right thing for you. It really isn’t you. It’s them. They’re not bad or anything, but they are all very different from you. It doesn’t make you irredeemably weird. Soon, very soon, you will find people more like you and things will get better.
Germany will change your life. Also, you will finally actually date. That first guy is a disaster, also the second one, but I’m not going to give you names because I’m not sure how much specific information I can give you without causing some kind of time paradox. The good news is that you will eventually start dating nice guys and you will marry a wonderful man and have the most amazing son. He will make you laugh every single day because he is a smartass just like you.
You will always worry more than you should. That’s my biggest advice to you: worry less. Things will work out. Trust me, I’ve been there. And, to be honest with myself, I still worry too much. But, so far, I haven’t needed to. And neither have you, because as, I’ve mentioned three times already: it gets better.
Enjoy the journey!
Bekka
Sourcebooks, October 2010.
After a childhood often spent without electricity and running water, Bekka Black escaped the beautiful wilderness of Talkeetna, Alaska for indoor plumbing and 24/7 electricity in Berlin, Germany. Used to the cushy lifestyle, she discovered the Internet in college and has been wasting time on it ever since (when not frittering away her time on her iPhone). Somehow, she manages to write novels, including the award-winning Hannah Vogel mystery series set, in all places, 1930s Berlin. The series has received numerous starred reviews and the first book, A TRACE OF SMOKE, was chosen as a Writer’s Digest Notable debut.
She lives in Hawaii with her husband, son, two cats, and too many geckoes to count. iDRAKULA is her first cell phone novel.
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Just thinking how amazing it would be if teen us are reading these letters in some parallel universe. Great one, Bekka!
Thanks, Melissa! This was the hardest yet most fun blog post I ever wrote. I’m hoping that it helps out teen Bekka in that alternate universe. She’s got a tough few years ahead of her.
ah, advice I still need. yes. worry less.
That’s some really great advice.
I hope you listen to yourself.
Hi Josh and Elissa!
Sometimes, for very brief moments, I can manage to worry less. Not today, of course, but tomorrow.
Love this letter. I so very much wish I could write one to the kid-me to let her know that it really does all work out, and for an amazing life. Not always an easy life, but an amazing one.
Thanks, Toni! It’s such a cool thought isn’t it–a time capsule to the past. Of course, I probably wouldn’t have believed myself anyway, skeptical teen that I was.
But it was therapeutic to write this one, even from adult me to pretend teen me. I’m recommending it as a writing exercise from now on.
[...] was inspired to write this after reading a blog post by Rebecca Cantrell, author of A Trace of Smoke and A Night of Long Knives. If you could write a [...]