Who is Geneva Gritz and Why Do I Care About Her?

According to twelve year old me,

Geneva Gritz is a young girl, at the age of ten. She has curly strawberry blonde hair and green eyes. There is a gap between her two front teeth, and freckles dot her beneath the eyes.  She is short for her age at 4’ 3”. She has a pet ram named Tinny (short for Tin Can) and enjoys trying the impossible. She lives by herself in an abandoned warehouse with her best friend Corey (she’s a girl) and Tinny (the Ram). She gets all of her money from her Aunt, who is rich and couldn’t care less about her.

I began the Geneva Gritz chronicles with my mother while we waited in the urgent care center to either fix my broken arm or cure my scarlet fever—neither of us can really remember why we were there. We can remember, however, that it was taking forever, and Candy Crush just wasn’t cutting it. As to avoid death by bureaucracy lethargy, my mother opened the pages application of her iPad and started typing. I instinctively added details, and so Geneva Gritz was born.

The story was about Tinny (the ram) getting his horns stuck in a popcorn bowl. He too was waiting in the urgent care center with annoyance parallel to our. We used Geneva’s orphanhood and Tinny’s pageant career as context. Corey acted as the lax roommate. Geneva became fluent in Japanese.

My mother told me (and continues to tell me to this day—seriously, she said it last week) that my career is in Geneva Gritz. Because of this, I have jumped at any opportunity to write her. In high school, when the creative writing majors were assigned children’s comedies, I wrote of Geneva’s short-lived career in the shrimp and blimp industry. When we were asked for children’s books, I introduced Dame Judith Gritz, the dreadful aunt with too much money. Now, in a college-level children’s literature course, I figure I should flesh out my supporting character, Corey. I mean, what is she even doing?

Throughout the stories, Corey is ditzy or dumb or apathetic. She never knows what’s going on, but it’s always in a different way. In “Geneva Gritz Goes to the Grocery Store,” (the story I will be using for this project), I plan to solidify her character as a foil which demonstrates the brilliance that is Geneva. I also think Corey invited a lot of room for comedy, so I hope that will help.

Anyway, tonight I am writing. I might update after I’m done. I might not. I guess it will be a surprise.

Signed,
The Writer

SLOTH