PW #235: YA Contemporary Romance: THE LOVE LETTERS OF ABELARD AND LILY

Manuscript Status: Finished

Mentor Name: Marty Mayberry
Mentee Name: Laura Creedle
Title: THE LOVE LETTERS OF ABELARD AND LILY
Category: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Word Count: 62,000

Pitch:

After sixteen-year-old Lily goes off her ADHD meds, she spontaneously kisses Abelard, the brilliant boy with Asperger’s she hit by accident with a Hello Kitty lunchbox in 1st grade.  When they exchange texts, Lily falls for Abelard, but texts may not be enough to bridge their differences when they meet again in person.

Excerpt:

The day Abelard and I broke the wall, we had a four hour English test. Seriously. Every eleventh grade student in the State of Texas had to take a four hour English test. It was hard enough to sit still that long if you were normal.

But I’m a female Frankenstein’s monster trying to blend in, continually embarrassed by the random movements of my arms and legs.

Breaking things. I guess it was only fitting that a colossal act of destruction would bring Abelard back into my life.

After the test, I told my feet to take the stairs to the third floor. Every fiber of my being wanted to run out the front door and into the warm April sunshine. If I didn’t tell myself where to go, if I let my mind drift, I’d find myself in the quiet calm of the art wing where the fluorescent lights flickered an appealingly low cycle of semi-permanent gloom. Or, I’d stand in the empty girl’s room just to be alone. Sometimes, I think I’m not attention deficit but attention abundant. Too much everything.

When I got to Geography, Coach Neuwirth handed out a short, and not particularly interesting, article about the importance of corn as a primary crop in the early Americas, then left the room. He did this a lot. Rogelio muttered something in Spanish and several people laughed.

Over the murmur of voices, I heard a series of metallic clicks followed by a squeaking noise.