Toothy Girl Scouts

"What's the difference between a girl and a boy," I asked the dozen bright eyed Girl Scouts on a Monday evening a couple days ago.

They started giggling.

"I mean," I continued, "besides the fact you go into different restrooms."

More giggling.

"Boy Scouts wouldn't schedule a meeting when Monday Night Football is on," I finished.

But it was cool. Really cool.

I was giving a presentation to a Girl Scout troop.

I lucked into because I just happened to be hanging around in a store they were having an Amazing Race in. A bunch of girls would burst through the doors, one would sit on one side of a small screen and another on the other. Then they had to match two dozen socks by description alone.

While watching, I thought, "hey, I need more coffee."

Oops, wrong thought. I mean, I thought it, but that's not the one relevant to this post. What I actually thought was, "hey, teenaged girls. That's my reading audience!"

Fang Face was still two months from release, but it wasn't too early to start drumming up opportunities.

So I asked the lady manning, er, womaning the sock match race who the kids were. She said they were Girl Scouts.

Huh, didn't recognize them without the cookies.

Anyway, I gave her my card, and asked her to let me know if they might be interested in an author coming out to meet with them. She took it, and said, "Sure, maybe."

A couple weeks later, I received an email, "remember me? I was running the Girl Scout Amazing Race.

Of course I remembered her.

Anyway, she went on to say that 100 Girl Scout leaders were going to have their last meeting of the year, and they would give me five minutes to make a pitch.

Five minutes? Hah, no problem. I talk at the speed of ten minutes per five minutes. In other words, I can fit ten minutes worth of talking into five minutes, with twenty seconds to spare.

So I did, and they liked it. Enough that they invited me to stick around the rest of the night and have some hamburgers with them, so any leaders that want to follow up could ask any more questions they might have.

A month later, I had my first Girl Scout gig. Troop # 418.

Did you know there is a writing badge? Me, neither.

It was cool. I got to listen as they said their pledge, and then I was on. For an hour i talked with them about writing, getting published, my own book and how to make what they write interesting and then I handed out some glow in the dark fangs.

Afterwards, almost all of them lined up to buy Fang Face and get their picture taken with me. They were, of course, wearing their fangs.

Awesome.

Hopefully later I can get my hands on the picture. In the meantime, um ... just try and imagine it.

And I need to look up the Boyscouts. After all, Fang Face is for both girls and boys.

Norm

http://fangface.homestead.com