Stephanie Van Orman
Bio
I write novels like I am part-printer, part book factory, and a little girl running away with a balloon. I'm here as an experiment and I'm unsure if this is a place where I can fit in. We'll see.
Stories (51/0)
My Quiet Evening
I was having a quiet evening by myself. Sometimes I did that. Sometimes I refused to go on dates or hang out with kids or go to the dance because I needed to have a quiet night. I was going to listen to music—by myself. Write a bit, by myself. Read a bit—by myself. Eat something, by myself. And enjoy the quietness of the silence of lamplight and the love within the pages of a book that never seemed to happen for me in real life. Romance novels were stupid, I told myself, but I could still enjoy reading one at that age.
By Stephanie Van Orman3 days ago in Confessions
Argument Triangle
I was arguing with Careen. So normal. We were standing on my front porch. Her parents were in a truck parked on the grass in front and she and I were very nearly outright screaming at each other. In retrospect, I think it's totally bizarre that they just sat there, watching us yell. But who knows, maybe they were into it, maybe they had made bets, or maybe they had mentally broken out the popcorn?
By Stephanie Van Orman22 days ago in Confessions
The Day Before I Broke Up With Him: Part One
Boyfriend number six: Justin. I had been hanging out with one of my friends, who happened to be a boy, David, and I had been talking to him about what I ought to do with Justin. Something was wrong, but it was like when things had gone wrong with Jason. There was no specific thing to blame it on. I just felt like it wasn't what I wanted and wasn't going to last. Justin was going to go away to university in the fall and I still had a bit of high school to cap off, so it wasn't like our little romance had much of a future anyway. The truth was, I was looking for the lesson I’d learn from dating him. It was already over, but I wanted to learn something from the tilt-a-whirl. I was hashing it over with David to find the lesson. To be overly honest, he was the worst person to play that game with. He had been boyfriend number one and the only thing I learned from him was that getting dumped hurts a lot more than doing the dumping.
By Stephanie Van Orman22 days ago in Confessions
Pictures That Make You Fall Out of Love
Have you ever had a crush on a cruel guy? You know he's cruel. You know he likes to use the fact that you like him to hurt you? Yet somehow you're okay with that. Well, I wasn't exactly okay with it, but I have always found cruelty easier to forgive than stupidity, so it wasn't hard for me to forgive Toby's brand of cruelty.
By Stephanie Van Orman22 days ago in Confessions
When Your Fans Threaten to Kill Themselves
I have been writing online for a few decades. During that time I've had many fans write to me to thank me for writing my books. Sometimes, I get a little rapport going on with them and they become a little more prominent in my mind because they are regular reviewers who post reviews on digital bookstores for me... which I find to be invaluable.
By Stephanie Van Orman27 days ago in Confessions
Endless Madness
Jeremy Andrews was a legend in his own time. Try to imagine a young man with a toasted caramel tan, rippling muscles, dark brown hair, and brown eyes five shades lighter. Try to imagine a young man with an excellent brain who got high grades in school. Now imagine a young man who likes being a lady’s man. That was Jeremy Andrews.
By Stephanie Van Orman2 months ago in Confessions
Ghosting Your Date in the Old Days
When I was a teenager, I had a very strict code for dating that I decided on and implemented myself. There were rules like No Changing Plans. If I made plans with a girlfriend, I could not blow her off because a cute guy suddenly appeared. Don't Go Alone was another one. I couldn't go somewhere alone with a guy I didn't know very well.
By Stephanie Van Orman3 months ago in Journal
Like Wheat
I was in a corner. There were too many of them around me. I didn't even have one girl by my side to help me fend off the wolves that were closing in. By wolves, I mean teenage girls. But even though I was outnumbered, I was cool. I was way cooler than they had any concept and there were reasons why I was not generally bullied by girls. It didn't matter that they were all years older than me, or that there were so many of them, or even that one of them hated me so much it was palpable. I could manage her. She was my cousin.
By Stephanie Van Orman3 months ago in Confessions
When Being Beautiful Isn't So Fun
My first boyfriend, David, broke up with me using the line, “I just don’t want to date anyone right now.” He was lying, but don’t worry, I didn’t believe him. I had a gaggle of girl cousins who did not like me for reasons I was very able to sympathize with. My sister had enchanted one of their boyfriends and earned the spite of the entire group. His loss was to be lamented as he was a complete buck. Even though no one expected it, I did lament with my spurned cousin, if only from a distance. If I'd gotten closer I could have lost a limb simply for being the younger sister of the girl who stole him. As a result, my cousins, who could not get revenge on my older sister, were more than willing to share the details of David’s defection with me. They described the situation sparing no detail: the girl he was with, the songs played at the dance I missed, everything.
By Stephanie Van Orman4 months ago in Confessions
Three Feet From My Head
I was sitting in the library at one of the computer stations at my high school. I was excited because I was expecting an email from my long-distance boyfriend. There were only four computer stations. Three were in a row and one was off a bit by itself. That was everyone's favorite computer, but Emily was already seated at it. So, I had taken one at the end of the row. It took forever to log into a computer, get your browser up, and open your email in those days. I was in the middle of the process when this guy sat down one seat away from me.
By Stephanie Van Orman4 months ago in Confessions
