The Case of the Missing Journals

Laundry is done. Cemetery is done. But I don’t think cleaning is going to happen today. I had so wanted to get it over with this weekend, but I’ve kind of run out of time.

My friend Alice-Marie is getting her book published. I’m very happy for her. I wish I had her discipline.

I do have a kids book in my head. Like, a Desmond-ager book. About missing journals at school.

Okay, so in eighth grade, as most of my readers know, I was a super-duper nerd and social outcast. But eighth grade was about the time I started getting good-looking. There was this kid who was in most of my classes and stared at me all the time.

Well, a few months into the school year, I noticed my free-writing journal in English class kept intermittently disappearing. I’m pretty sure it was him, stealing it over nights and weekends, reading it because he seemed to be crushing on me, and must’ve wanted to know more about me without coming right out and asking.

In his defense, I was really hard to talk to because of extreme social anxiety. And I was more or less without a BFF who was willing to fill in the information gaps for him.

So, at the end of the school year, I wrote a short mystery story based very loosely on the vanishing journal. Instead of one journal going missing, though, there were several.

I forget how most of the story went or whether it even made much sense, but I think it is a cute premise, and I want to revive it.

So those of you who are writers, you are on your honor: please don’t steal my idea! I know you won’t. Thanks 😊