Author Erica Cope

I always have good intentions. I always plan on blogging more and sending out my newsletter once a month and then life happens and I forget. But I'm still here! Working and writing and now COACHING too! Yep, in addition to being the new Learn Lab Director, I'm also the head cheerleading coach so I've been busy! And I'm not going to lie, it's been a challenge to try to balance everything (there's my word of the year!). I went from being able to take my time waking up in the mornings, catching up on emails while drinking my coffee and get some writing in sporadically throughout the day as inspiration hit, but now I'm chugging my morning coffee as I get dressed for work and lucky to squeeze in 30 minutes of writing time a day. After work is cheer practice, then dinner, then finally some writing time, then cleaning/tidying up and if I'm lucky I'll squeeze in some reading before bed. It's been exhausting. I keep waiting to get accustomed to this ne

In February I was offered a position at the local high school working with Seniors who are at risk for not graduating on time. It's only a part time job which I thought was perfect because I'd still have time to write during the day. Well, it's true, I still have had time to write but it's been at a much slower pace. Which is fine. I had decided this year to focus on balancing things in my life better, and well, not staying up until 3 in the morning writing every night seemed like a pretty good place to start. And it's been GREAT! I love working with the students. I was kind of surprised that I love it as much as I do. I always figured I'd be more of an early childhood or elementary kind of person but nope, this is the population I was meant to work with. Which I guess sort of makes sense--I do WRITE Young Adult stories after all. :) Here's the thing, most of these students haven't had the best support systems in their lives. Not all of them, but I