Ready for a break?

So, I'm ankle deep in my third book of the 10 Days story arc. I have plans for three more.

I thought I would take a break after the first book. Then I said I would take a break after the second book. Now, I've jumped right in to the third book with plans to take about a week after that one is completed. I'm anticipating it will be done early April. Since that's RT month, I might actually take that break.

I've written three books since August and while I'm giddy, I'm still learning my own process. At least, a process that works. The first book I wrote took me years. YEARS. And I hated it.

I've had so many authors tell me that they feel so drained when they finish a book and me, I'm just excited to start the next one. What about you guys?

Muse Monday--What's in a word?

"Marsha, I love you."

"No, John, you don't!"

"But I do! Really!"

"Oh. Well. Then I guess I love you, too."

"So let's get married."

"Yes, Let's do."

"Kiss, kiss."

The End.

Emotions.

More specifically, writing emotions. Ought to be a piece of cake. After all, who hasn't felt mad, happy, afraid, or in love?

"If you're a romance writer who relies on emotional words carry your character's journey, then chances are you've failed at youre genre." (paraphrased from author/editor Alicia Rasley)

Yeah, I know. She's right. Blows, doesn't it?

Writing realistic depictions of emotion that spring to life on the page is one of most difficult lessons to learn as an author. Yet, there is no more important lesson to learn, particularly for those who want to write moving love stories.

I was fortunate enough to attend a day conference a while back presented by editor/author Alicia Rasley. She's a brilliant teacher, and certainly lives up to her reputation for holding her audience in the palm of her hand.

Much of our discussion was about emotion in writing. I walked way with two "aha" moments, particulary when it comes to building up to those dramatic, emotional moments that define love stories.

1) Trust your reader's intelligence. Never. Ever. Spoon feed.

2) Remove the emotional words from your scene and try again. Once done, you are forced to rely on your character's actions to carry the emotion.

Ah, now we're back to the wisdom we should have learned from our writing 101, but may have forgotten---action is everything, baby. And once again, I'm leaning on a classic movie clip to distract you guys from the fact that this post is woefully short on content because...I'm on deadline. :)

The Un-blog Post

Perhaps 'tis the season to be jolly, but I have to confess, I'm in a funk.

Short of congratulating the five amazing finalists in the Dorchester Next Best Celler contest(two of whom are DIVAS!!!!), I have no blog topic today. So, I'm going to do what hard pressed women have been doing since the dawn of time. I'm going to fake it until I make it. ;)

The holidays are upon us, and I don't know about you, but the more I throw myself into celebrating, the lower my daily wordcount falls. I think my high school math teacher referred to this concept as an "inverse correlation." Or not, considering I probably skipped that day, which means my notes were borrowed from the studly but not so intellectually endowed second-string quarterback. Translation? God only knows how accurate that term really is.

But for the purpose of today's blog, it works. Holidays are play time. This holiday, moreso, as it may be the last one for a while when my entire family is together. So my word count is tanking hard and fast. That makes January payback time.

But this year, I can't afford to spend the month of January oiling my rusty hinges. In spite of my dropping out of the Next Best Celler contest to deal with some epic family struggles, I do still have a manuscript due to my (patient) publisher and a personal goal to get Muse Struck into Dorchester before they forget that they have ever so graciously invited me to send it in to them when it's done. ;)

Muse Struck was the manuscript that autism built, my fun way of pushing awareness into areas of readership that might not have been introduced to autism otherwise. The project simply can't die. Every hope I have for my sons' futures is tied up in that manuscript.

So, with that said, I'm falling to our writer readers to help me figure out how to move through a bittersweet holiday season with enough focus to keep the pages piling up, even if it's just a paragraph at a time.

So dear readers, have at it. How do you pile up the pages when the gun's aimed at your skull?

On an aside, did you ever wish you could say you knew a best seller way back when? Now you can. When you're done putting me on the straight and narrow, check out fellow textnovelist and Next Best Celler semi-finalist, Jennifer Hart's fun, fresh and sassy interview at Wild Child Publishing as she talkes about her new release, River Rats.

What Autism Taught me about Writing.

It's so easy to talk down to a person with autism, in much the same way as one might feel the urge to shout in the presence of a non-hearing person. Even now, thirteen years after my oldest son's diagnosis, he remains mostly nonverbal (except when reading out loud, but that's for another blog, another day).

I sometimes find myself directing David in baby sentences, making the presumption that if he cannot answer me, or show me with eye contact or via gesture that he is attending to my voice, then he does not comprehend.

And it drives him nuts. There is no better way to insure David's non-compliance than talking to him like a baby. And yes, I've kept data charts on this, so I know what I'm talking about here.

I've gotten a lot of flak from fellow behaviorists and special education teachers for the choices I've made to read age appropriate material to David. I feed him these age appropriate works of literature because the truth is, we have no standardized way of verifying his intellect, or his lack thereof.

So, in the measurable absence of intelligence, I have chosen to presume his intelligence, and give my son the benefit of the doubt as far as literacy is concerned. After all, who am I harming?


Nobody.

And if I'm right, and he does understand every word I say? Then failing to do so would amount to outright intellectual neglect.

When my son started reading out loud after a couple of years of this, and becoming able (on his good days) to answer multiple choice tests on information I'd read out to him, I realized that my son had an awful lot more going on inside his head than any of us could ever imagine.


My sons, they teach me. Not just about raising kids, but about writing better books.

I'm beginning to learn that one of the biggest mistakes I've made as a writer has been to risk spoon feeding information to my reader on the assumption they won't follow if I force them to depend on subtleties in character actions and dialogue.

I was watching the movie "UP" with my kids this weekend.

The movie took a lot of risks, and let me tell ya, I like risks. In killing off a beloved character as the inciting incident, the movie gave it's young audience an awful lot of credit for both emotional intelligence, resilience, and empathy.

It was a good gamble. It was also the right choice for that particular story. And it got me to thinking about my own stories.

In the future, I'm going to treat my readers with the same presumption of intellect and emotional depth that I give my children.

Readers are smart.

And so are people with autism.

Failing to presume as much bears far greater consequences than presuming illiteracy.

What about you? How do you feel when you're being spoonfed information? How much is too much--or too little?