About G. J. Crespo
Unlike some of my critique group members, I didn’t want to be a writer when I was a child. I wanted to be a lot of things: a cowboy, a doctor, an artist, a pilot, but never a writer. However, I did like to read. Growing up, I read everything, including the daily newspapers, magazines, fiction, non-fiction, cereal boxes, paint cans, pretty
much whatever was in front of me. I liked to draw and I loved the
comics pages of the newspapers. I had a short-lived comic strip
in a small weekly newspaper, but I always had more to say than
would fit in a speech bubble.
When a coworker told me that her writing group was looking for members, I thought it couldn’t be that hard to write a short story. I found out that it wasn’t hard to write, but it was extremely difficult to write well. Over twenty years later and with feedback from many critique group members, I think my writing might be good enough to share.
How to Ruin Your Life in 140 Characters or Less
How to Ruin Your Life in 140 Characters or Less didn’t land me an agent, but I fell in love with the characters and wanted them to live outside a file folder on my computer. When our critique group decided to form Table for 7 Press, the other members convinced me to publish the story of JT and Helen. I hope people enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
How far would you go to protect your friends?
JT Monahan wants nothing more than to get out of small-town Appleton, Massachusetts. Just one more month of high school and then it’s on to California and Stanford University. The road ahead is clear until his girlfriend, Maddie, insults a teacher via JT’s Twitter
account. Social media bully Maddie is one nasty tweet away from getting expelled, so JT takes the fall for her poor choices. It’s just a week of in-school suspension. No big deal.
But JT didn’t count on a vengeful teacher who wants to make an example of him by crushing his dreams of leaving town. Things get worse when JT’s neighbor, Helen, reluctantly agrees to help him make amends and her actions land her in front of a disciplinary board. Feeling guilty, JT hatches a desperate plan to save his future and
absolve a very angry Helen. But desperation usually leads to bad decisions…
How to Ruin Your Life in 140 Characters or Less is about good intentions gone awry and bad choices that bite you in the butt. But mostly, it’s about doing the right thing for the right person when it really matters.
How to Ruin Your Life in 140 Characters or Less is available now as an ebook from Amazon and in paperback from Amazon or your favorite local bookstore.
"Sorry, But You Asked"
For a peek into life in Appleton, Massachusetts from a different perspective, be sure to download my short story "Sorry, But You Asked."
Have you ever had a character stick with you and make you wish for more? The same thing happens to writers when someone they create takes on a life of their own. Helen Hernandez has appeared in my writing multiple times and she plays a key role in How to Ruin Your Life in 140 Characters or Less.
In "Sorry, But You Asked," Helen’s night out with friends takes an unexpected turn when she realizes that a bad day for her was truly awful for somebody else.